For this task I am going to be talking about a recipe that my mom shared with me I am not a great cook learning how to cook was one of the hardest things I had to do when I moved out I often had to call back home and ask my mom to do or do a lot of Google searching so it’s funny because this recipe was shared with me by my mom through WhatsApp voice messaging she is not a great typer English is not her first language and using the keyboards really difficult for her so she uses WhatsApp voice messaging When she hast to tell me things that are longer in length.
So the recipe that I’m going to talk about is curry I’ve made curry before I am often just out of a jar I’ve tried once very ambitiously tried to do it from scratch but I none of it tastes as good as what my mom makes so what you do is you take a small onion diced it a small red onion and then you also dice it why in red chilli pepper chopped into small bits five got five clothes of garlic and also dice it or mints it and then lastly some ginger and you grade it after you’ve prepped all those things throw it onto a walk and fry it for about four minutes until it starts smelling really good and then I like to push all of it to the side so it doesn’t burn prior to this you need to marinate your chicken
I marinate my chicken with salt or teriyaki soy sauce and some garlic powder and I leave that in the fridge while I prep all the other ingredients so everything‘s on the pan I push the garlic and onions to the side I put the chicken on the pan and I maybe let each side cook for about three minutes and then I put some water into the pan and put two cubes of the Japanese curry let it melts up it’s kind a like a sludge add a bit more water so it’s not as salty and then I add in 3 tablespoons of butter chicken sauce I get the canned stuff from the store and also 1 tablespoon of curry powder I let all of that cook all that mix out a bit more water if it’s looking too thick and I let it simmer for about 20 minutes after that I remove it from the heat and let it sit in the pan for a little bit Longer and then I just put it on top of rice or pasta or whatever I want to eat that week and that is it for the recipe it was my first time making it this week and it was surprisingly super easy so I think this recipe will be added into my meal prep rotation for the next while until I get tired of it
Conventions of Written English
This was such an interesting activity because when I re-read it, it reminded me of some of my students’ work! Just streams of consciousness, put into visible words. There are quite a few “and so…” and other placeholder words that would’ve otherwise been edited out in written work. There is no punctuation at the end of my sentences, no matter how long I paused after each thought (although an extra long pause will create a new paragraph). Usually, paragraphs contain one central idea with a beginning and an end but there’s no organization here. The tenses are also all over the place (though I must admit, tenses are only marginally better in written work. I attribute this to English being my second language as conversational Chinese does not have tenses).
“Right” and “Wrong”
What this text gets right is the overall idea of how to cook this recipe. It also conveys tone well, as it reads exactly as I sound. I created this text for the purposes of completing this task, so for that, it got it “right,” errors and all! However, in addition to the grammatical errors mentioned, this text itself, in my opinion, isn’t particularly useful. If I’ve never made curry before and tried to cook using this, I would be frustrated at the out of order steps and imprecise measurements. The recipe is quite confusing to follow because I jump around, filling in gaps I forgot previously (e.g., marinating the chicken should come first, but I only remembered after sautéing the onions). I would also repeat myself, forgetting that I’ve already gone over a part. I wouldn’t send this to anyone asking me for a curry recipe!
Common Mistakes
The most common mistakes are punctuation errors, and the speech-to-text not picking what I’m trying to say and replacing words with ones that sound close (e.g., instead of cloves of garlic, it became clothes). This sometimes changes the overall meaning of the sentence. I can only imagine how difficult this would be for someone who has a thick accented English to use this technology. I consider them mistakes as the lack of punctuation makes it difficult to understand what I am trying to say (my brain overcompensates and works double time trying to figure out where the punctuation should’ve been). Seeing all of these mistakes also makes me a little self-conscious about how I sound day-to-day! Are there really that many mistakes?!
Scripted?
If I had jotted down a list of what I plan to say, or even transcribed the recipe my mom told me down on paper, reading it out loud would’ve resulted in a much more coherent story. I tend to get distracted when I talk (my students can attest) because my mind makes all these connections to memories or related stories, and I often chase these tangents. Furthermore, a script will enable me to include more content in my five-minute story. I found myself pausing, running out of things to say, or trying to figure out what to say next. This ‘dead space’ in turn, took up some time in my five minutes.
Oral Storytelling vs. Written Storytelling
Gnanadesikan (2009) posits that the written word’s worth is elevated as it is more deliberate and precise, surpassing the worth of speech (p. 5). This activity has made me reflect on my own classroom and the value I put in written output. My students carefully researched a person of colour to write a biography on. This essay project spanned over two months, resulting in a five paragraph essay that had been tirelessly edited by both themselves and their peers. They were so proud of their work as they handed in their typed essays, neatly stapled at the top. After this essay, I assigned an oral presentation on their person where they had to curate ten important facts to tell a story about them. This task was met with much less enthusiasm. Whereas the written essay gave them the chance to edit their work so that they sound intelligent and thoughtful, an oral presentation did not afford the same opportunities. Even my most confident public speakers were afraid of “messing up.” And this is with ample time to prepare the speech plus given the option to use a cue card (which many of them opted not to use!).
In my curry recipe above, I spoke with the expectation of having someone reply back. That is generally the expectation when one speaks! Thus, to have my speech dictated back into text, it reads awkwardly because I know there are parts where I am gesturing with my hand (body language) or parts where normally, I would pause and the other person would ask me a question that would help fill in these gaps. There also isn’t the expectation for my story to be perfect as it is normal in everyday speech to correct oneself!
Lastly, I think back to my ability to communicate in Chinese. When I came to Canada in kindergarten, my parents wanted me to focus on mastering English so they did not enrol me in Chinese school. Thus, I can only speak it (sometimes awkwardly and always informally) but cannot read or write it. However, I have vivid memories of my mom reading stories to me in Chinese when I was young. I would often ask her what it meant, because written Chinese is so different from conversational Chinese. It is much more formal, with characters that I wouldn’t use in my speech. And so, when my mom reads out loud what is written, there is a disconnect for me and it impedes my understanding.
Hi Jennifer,
Your connection between this exercise and your students’ work and second language speakers is so insightful. Whereas my own analysis of this exercised is entirely focused on myself, yours extends to those around you. I must say I am really impressed by your empathetic nature and disappointed in my own selfish nature! I especially love that you thought about this exercise as how second language speakers must feel. In that analogy, we are the voice-to-text program, they are dictating to us, and we are mis-transcribing their words. So clever!
I love how you ended your analysis and it made me really happy to read it because you and I share the same immigration experience! My parents also did not make me go to Chinese school like so many of my friends’ parents at the time. They were so worried that I would fall behind in school because I arrived without any English ability. Just like you, I am now in a situation where I speak like a toddler. Not only do I lack knowledge of sophisticated sentence structure, but the sheer vocabulary to communicate my thoughts. This is an extremely isolating experience as no one in my family knows who I am. I may as well be trapped in my own body! At big dinner tables, I am pretty much silent. My family think I am super introverted, have no ideas of my own, and am overall pretty boring. However, I think I am witty and have a great sense of humour. Do you feel the same way at your family gatherings?
Your comment on your mother reading stories to you is so nostalgic! I used to ask my mother to read me bed time stories all the time. That is pretty much my level of Chinese. Have you ever turned on the Chinese news channel and be just absolutely shocked that you understand nothing? All the individual words sound familiar, but none of it makes sense?? It is so shocking how far apart social and academic language is in Chinese. A first grader here would be able to understand the news, but a first grader in China would most definitely not.
Thank you for sharing your experiences! I definitely identify with everything you’ve said, especially the part about not really understanding what’s being said on the news. Aside from the more formal nature of news reporting, there’s also the names and places in Chinese that I do not know, which makes the overall listening experience that much more difficult. This helps me understand my students better, especially those that struggle academically due to reading and writing below grade level. Aside from all the things we take for granted, like decoding and fluency, if we are missing context and vocabulary, just the task of figuring out these *other* words makes the overall task of story-telling even more challenging!
(My aunties and uncles think I’m pretty quiet too. A huge part of it is me being introverted, but another part is definitely not being able to contribute to ongoing conversation!)