The EATE Journal Issue No. 41 August 2012

WORD CHOICE AND AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE ESTONIAN CONTEXTMeghan K. Winchell 2

“READING” NEW YORK: A WAY TO LOOK AT THE CITYJulia Hirsch 5

A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN COUNTRY MUSICMarcus Hildebrandt 9

UTAH – LIFE ELEVATEDKristi Vahenurm 15

MY LANGUAGESRebecca Porwit Läänemägi 17

THE NATIONAL PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION 2012, MARCH 1Zinaida Jevgrafova 22

KEELEAEG – AN INNOVATIVE COMPETITIONMargit Kirss 24

National English Language Competition

Reading Recommendations

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON VISUAL ART DISTRIBUTION IN THE USAJohanna Taiger 35

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON POLITICSMarcus Niin 36

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ: ROOM by EMMA DONAGHUEErika Puusemp 38

READ WHEN YOU NEED NEW IDEASPiret Kärtner 39

Teachers’ Teacher

IATEFL

WITH A TWINKLE IN HER EYESAn interview with Natalja Zagura 32

FÀILTE! 46TH IATEFL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, UKErika Jeret 27

AT THE 46TH IATEFL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW, AS THE EATE REPErika Puusemp 29

A TEACHER OF ESTONIAN AT IATEFLHelle-Mari Märtson 31

EATEEstonian Association of Teachers of

English

ISSN 2228-0847

Estonian Association of Teachers of Englishwww.eate.ee

Chair Editor of OPEN! Current account

Leena Punga Ilmar Anvelt 10152001597007

Phone 5212 347 Phone 7375 218 in SEB

e-mail: leena.punga@gmail.com e-mail: ilmar.anvelt@ut.ee

EATE ANNUAL CONFERENCE 28 October 2011

Before the beginning – Krista Ummik lookingfor her name tag.

Pho

tos

by R

eet N

oorla

id

Leena Punga presenting the annual report.

Reet Noorlaid (right) with EATE’s certificate of gratitudeand Erika Puusemp.

Two generations of teachers – Lehti Kalme (MHG) and Karin Laanes (Elva Gymnasium).

Ene-Reet Soovik preparing for her presentation.

NEW EATE COMMITTEE

Erika Puusemp, Tartu Miina Härma Gymnasium. EATE Chair Leena Punga, Lähte Gymnasium, and Danica Kubi, Tartu Hugo Treffner Gymnasium.

Juta Hennoste, Tartu Karlova Gymnasium.

Katrin Saks, Pärnu College of the University of Tartu;Eva Ojakivi, Elva Gymnasium;

Ilmar Anvelt, University of Tartu.

Photos by Juta Hennoste and Ilmar Anvelt

EATE Committee members working in preparation for Pärnu Summer Seminar.

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Labeling is a tricky business. What people choose to call themselves is sometimes different from how other people categorize them. For example, when I came to Estonia last semester to teach African American History I knew that many Estonians continue to use variations of the word “Negro” to refer to people of color. Students confirmed this on the first day of class in August when I asked them to write down what they knew about African American history. Predictably the answer was “not much.” A few students listed oppression, civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., and to my surprise one student mentioned Malcolm X [many white American students have not heard of Malcolm]. Another wrote something that made me look twice, “N---- is not a bad word in Estonia,” only he spelled it out.

Estonia lacks racial diversity and many people here have not had any direct contact with African Americans or other people of color. As a Fulbright Scholar and historian from Nebraska Wesleyan University, I came to the University of Tartu prepared to teach the usual topics like slavery, emancipation, the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement and Black Power alongside more theoretical ones like “self-naming.” Still, the idea that the n-word is not a bad one gave me pause. Does the absence of black Estonians mean the word is “not bad” here and people are free to use it? Not exactly.

Self-naming and word choice matter, because language is powerful. When British colonists began buying and selling African people on the shores of North America in 1619, they attempted to strip them of their African identity by renaming them. Masters gave enslaved people first names like Cato and Caesar and denied them surnames (unless it was the master’s own surname). In doing so, owners likened themselves to the Roman elite during the days of empire and excess.1 Enslaved people tried to retain their African names within the slave quarters, but they had no legal right to them.2

Africans attempted to maintain their own languages in the Americas, but with the need to communicate with both masters and fellow slaves this became impossible. Within a hundred years African Americans developed a creole culture that merged the remnants of their African languages with English. They also found ways to survive the emotionally and physically devastating effects of slavery, sale and abuse. Many embraced a dynamic Christianity in which Jesus would deliver them from slavery to freedom in the Promised Land. Just as important they relied upon an elaborate oral tradition filled with stories, music and trickster tales.3

The need for enslaved people to claim their freedom, and with it new names, arose during the American

WORD CHOICE AND AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORYIN THE ESTONIAN CONTEXT

Meghan K. Winchell Associate Professor of History, Nebraska Wesleyan UniversityFulbright Scholar, University of Tartu

1 Gad J. Heuman and James Walvin, The Slavery Reader (New York: Routledge, 2003).2 Lupenga Mphande, “Naming and Linguistic Africanisms in African American Culture.” Selected Proceedings of the 35th An-

nual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. John Mugane et al., 104-113 (Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2006) http://lingref.com/cpp/acal/35/paper1301.pdf; Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).

3 Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

Jim Crow sign

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Revolution. George Washington’s Continental Army was in dire need of more soldiers so it began welcoming black men into its ranks. Those newly freed slaves who connected military service with freedom in the names they chose for themselves. In the Connecticut Army, for example, of the 289 black men enlisted “five reported “Liberty” as their last name” and “18 reported “Freedom” or “Freeman” as theirs.”4 This empowering practice continued during the Civil War and after emancipation when black men and women took new first names and created surnames for themselves. Often freedmen and women chose the names of American patriots like Washington and Jefferson, thereby linking them to an American identity.5

Students in my history course read and wrote papers on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.6 In this slave narrative Douglass recounts his harrowing experience as a slave of the Auld family in Baltimore, Maryland. When explaining the paper assignment to the students, I took the opportunity to tell them that while Douglass uses a number of terms to signify black people, they will not use the same words because it is 2011, not 1854. I wrote the three terms on the board that they can use, African American, black and people of color. They giggled and looked at one another with knowing grins when I said, “These are the only terms you will ever use to refer to black people in this class and for the rest of your life. And, you will tell your friends and family that these are the only words they will ever use to describe black people, because black people earned the right to name themselves a long time ago and these are the words they have chosen.”

In the class discussion that followed, the students impressed me with their insights, excitement and knowledge of the text. Together we shared some amazing epiphanies. For example, several students made connections between Douglass’s analysis of singing, the role songs played in slave culture and Estonians who are a “singing people.” Douglass argued that close listeners of slave songs and spirituals would hear in them “a tale of woe.” Those songs “breathed the prayer and complaint of the souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.”7

Another student said that, like slave songs, old Estonian songs are either sad or acted as work songs because Estonians were “serfs, part of the land.” This next comparison still gives me goose bumps.

In “Soviet times” Estonians, just like enslaved African Americans, hid coded messages in their songs and their poetry. Songs meant one thing to the Estonians who sang them, and another to the Soviets who heard them. Similarly, some Estonian poets spelled out the colors of the blue, black and white Estonian flag with the first letter of each line in their poetry.

In the biggest revelation of the evening, students told me that they and their parents grew up listening to Uncle Remus’s trickster tales about Brer Rabbit. Only the Estonian version erases Uncle Remus’s racial identity and emphasizes Brer Rabbit’s message about the weak overpowering the strong with skill and cunning. White southern journalist Joel Chandler Harris collected and published the Uncle Remus tales in 1881.8 He invented the character of Uncle Remus to provide a narrator

4 Nell Irvin Painter, Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

5 Mphande, “Naming and Linguistic Africanisms.”6 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Dover Publications, Inc. 1845) (Elec-

tronic Text Center University of Virginia Library) http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DouNarr.html7 Douglass, 14. 8 Jennifer Ritterhouse, “Reading, Intimacy and the Role of Uncle Remus in White Southern Social Memory,” Journal of

Southern History, Volume LXIX, No. 3: August 2003.

Frederick Douglass

Songs of Uncle Remus

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for the tales. The stories themselves have their origins in African and American slave culture. According to historian Lawrence Levine, animal trickster tales played a central role in African culture in which “African trickster figures were obsessed with manipulating the strong and reversing the normal structure of power and prestige.” African American slaves living within an oppressive “authority system” found these stories “ideally suited to their needs.”9 Enslaved parents told their children stories about weak animals outmaneuvering strong ones to teach them survival skills and to instill in them a sense of pride, that they too have human worth despite the views of their owners.

The students had no idea until taking this course that African American slaves entertained their children with trickster tales for the same reason that Estonians listened to them on LPs – to salvage an identity and build courage in the midst of oppression. Brer Rabbit transcended both time and place by speaking the same language of resistance as antebellum slaves and twentieth-century Estonian dissidents.

After discussing Douglass and the abolition movement, we moved on to the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction. The period of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 saw several advances in the lives of African American people, namely through constitutional amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment freed them from slavery, the Fourteenth granted them citizenship and the Fifteenth guaranteed that the right to vote would not be “denied…on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The wording of this last amendment is significant, because it did not explicitly guarantee the right to vote. Conservative southern state governments quickly put obstacles to voting in place, such as poll taxes and literacy tests designed to disenfranchise African Americans. The 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision reinterpreted the constitution to mean that “separate, but equal” facilities were constitutional. This decision ushered in a period of American history known as Jim Crow. Southern African Americans languished in inferior unequal schools, lacked access to professional employment, and suffered daily indignities like drinking from separate water fountains and riding in the back of segregated busses.

By the mid-1950s, decades of African American opposition culminated in the Civil Rights Movement. It was during this period of protest that African Americans chose as a people to rename themselves. In his letter from the Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr., put the humiliation of racist labels into words when he told white Americans that black people would no longer “wait” for their freedom. He wrote “when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”10

Proponents of the Black Power movement were tired of the pejorative terms and treatment associated with “Negro” so they asserted a new identity – that of African Americans or black people. Malcolm X gave voice to what many black people believed: the “Negro” was a disempowered slave who was unwilling to fight for true freedom and equality. He “loved [his] master more than the master loved himself.” Instead, Malcolm counseled, African Americans should come together in a Black Revolution to demand power, land and autonomy.11 During this tumultuous period in American history, African Americans achieved integration of all public facilities and public schools in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision

9 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 105.10 Martin Luther King Jr. Online, “Letter from Martin Luther King Jr. to Fellow Clergymen,” 16 April 1963.

http://www.mlkonline.net/jail.html11 Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots,” 10 October 1963.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1145

Separate drinking fountains

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and with passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the right to vote in the Civil Rights and Voting Act of 1965. They cultivated new pride in their racial identity: pride in being black. With these outcomes came two new terms, one merged their African and American identities, while the other connected dark skin with the “Black is Beautiful” movement.

Just as African Americans fostered pride in their culture and their identity during generations of oppression, students taught me that Estonians successfully held onto their culture during the “Soviet time.” They did this by continuing to speak and teach the Estonian language and by holding annual song festivals where they sang traditional Estonian songs. When they began a bid for independence in the late 1980s, Estonian leaders maintained that the Soviet period was one of “occupation” rather than voluntary inclusion in the USSR. Estonian use of the term “occupation” over all others to describe a 50-year period of history signifies an important legal and cultural distinction. This terminology carries weight and is best understood by Estonians, but ought to be respected by non-Estonians as well.

Estonia is a vibrant and dynamic country. It joined the European Union in 2004 and the University of Tartu welcomes students from 30 countries to study in its classrooms.12 As a result, more and more students and individuals of color are making their way to Estonia. With such cultural exchanges comes the need for mutual understanding and respect. Surely people who share struggles and triumphs similar to those of black people and who have themselves appropriated parts of African American culture for their own positive ends can learn to call them African Americans, black, or people of color. One thing is certain – these conversations might make us uncomfortable, but they need to happen and the classroom is the ideal place to have them.

12 http://www.studyinestonia.ee/study/institutions/international-degree-programmes/university-of-tartu

Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X

“READING” NEW YORK: A WAY TO LOOK AT THE CITY

Julia Hirsch Professor EmeritaBrooklyn College (City University of New York)

The fable of the city mouse and the country mouse are quite familiar as a lesson in the merits of a modest lifestyle. It offered an entirely different “teachable moment” for my course in New York City Folklore, which I taught at Brooklyn College for about twenty years. It represents a cognitive map, a conceptual presentation of place. And this is where I began the course.

Many people think of folklore as tales, songs, dances, and remedies. And this is a good place to start thinking about it. Anything beginning with “folk” reaches back into the memory of a community and presents itself in variant forms. (The city and country mouse are no exception: sometimes the rodents are presented as male, sometimes as female, sometimes as kin, sometimes as friends.) Folklore embraces rituals, customs, behaviors and practices which are passed on as an oral tradition. Nowadays there are plenty of books or websites which teach how to make Jamaican rum cake or sew a patchwork quilt, both representing folk traditions. Publications, whether online or in book form, circumvent the oral tradition, but for many people (including my students) the folklore they practice comes from their family and their community. Most of my students were immigrants or the children of immigrants who live within an ethnic or religious community, so they were already aware that there are aspects of their daily lives that fit the definition of folklore to which I was introducing them.

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And since they lead very busy lives which include not only study but jobs and family obligations, they have little opportunity to explore the city at large and hardly venture out of their familiar “turf,“ another folkloric concept which refers to the territory we regard as our own, and feel protective about.

In order to prepare my class for my goal of broadening their awareness of the city and the many cultures that live here, I started the course with what I told them was a sly little game. I asked them to write down three places in the city which they considered safe and three which they considered dangerous. When I listed their responses on the board, the meaning of my game became immediately apparent. Their responses inscribed a cognitive map. Each place which someone considered safe another considered dangerous. To some Central Park and Prospect Park were safe, to others they were dangerous. To some Harlem was safe, to others Howard Beach was safe. What quickly surfaced was that we feel safe in the city when we see people like “us” around us, people whose facial expressions, language, and gestures we can recognize, and we feel in jeopardy when that identification is not available. Inscribed into my students’ cognitive map was their own ethnicity or race.

Enlightened with these insights, we explored Eric Homberger’s Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City’s History (Second Edition, Holt Paperback, 2005). Students who generally knew little about urban history became aware that New York is made up of a jigsaw puzzle of historical layers, and that at different times different parts of the city engaged in activities and behaviors which have long since vanished. They need to know for instance, that today’s city grew in bits and pieces, and that the Battery and its environs were the original Dutch settlement of which the only survival today are some names, such as Nassau Street, near the Stock Exchange, and Coney Island; many were surprised to look that the very name Brooklyn derives from the Dutch, “Breukeken,” or “little wood.”1 Reading a selection from Tim Gilfoyle’s The City of Eros2 they were surprised to learn that various parts of the Financial District were red light districts more than a century ago. Today the Bowery has become largely gentrified with upscale renovations and the wonderful New Museum, but even two generations ago it was a haven for those down and out and also a center of clubs and theaters that tolerated both sexual and social transgressive behaviors, a subject covered in George Chauncey’s Gay New York.3 Our reading list also included The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends by Jan Brunvand4, a prolific collector of and writer about American folklore, who, in this particular book presents a well-known belief about New York that alligators live in its sewer, and selections from Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau, Yi-Fu Tuan, Jane Jacobs, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Luc Sante, writers who explore urban culture from the perspective of architecture, street configurations, and the interaction of different populations upon each other. Amanda Dargan’s and Steve Zeitlin’s City Play5 was an important text. Zeitlin uses photographs of New York City children and many of my students knew the games he describes. What his book also contributed to our study was ample illustration of “incorporation,” and “transformation,” two important principles which show the adaptiveness and resilience of folkloric practice.6

At times I also introduced some literary texts, such as parts of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (1996) whose early chapters take place in Brooklyn, Betty Smith’s popular novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), and Henry James’s Washington Square (1881) which features a number of neighborhoods, but these works generally required more time for close reading than I had as I had not yet reached what I considered the liveliest part of the semester.

1 A few years ago I visited a charming village in central Holland by that name. A large sign indicated that this particular village dated from Roman times, and that a somewhat larger village by the same name existed in the United States.

2 New York and London: W.W.Norton and Company, 1992.3 New York: Basic Books, 1994.4 New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2003. (Reissued from 1989 edition.)5 New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1989.6 The first term refers to the way children will integrate a street fixture into their game, so that, for instance, a car becomes a

base in a game of stickball, or a lamppost becomes a goal. The second term refers to the way an item is changed entirely in its function, so that an empty crate with a roller skate stuck to the bottom becomes a scooter, or a large empty cardboard box, such as the sort used to pack a refrigerator, becomes a playhouse. The city is filled with examples of transformation, including vacant lots that have become community gardens, and used tires used as playthings of different kinds.

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Up to now I had been doing most of the talking; now it was time for the students to do their share. They had to present a folklore item with which they were familiar. They had to talk about its turf, its behaviors, and identify the community which practiced it. Most of the students who took my course were not history or literature students; they were often students for whom doing research and writing a paper were excessively challenging. But they were reasonably good talkers. So I accommodated them by letting them speak informally. Nonetheless many of them created sophisticated presentations that included posters, videos, photographs and actual physical displays. One student, for instance, did a stunning demonstration of capoeira7, coming to class in his trim white outfit, while another, a woman who was always silent in class and looked a bit bored, startled us with her belly dancing. Some students brought in samples of food (rum-soaked Christmas cake which I had to get permission for the students to taste as it contained rum and alcoholic products of any kind were forbidden on campus; and goat curry) while others brought in crafts (a carved ship inside a glass bottle, an elaborately crocheted shawl). I stressed that the study of folklore is morally neutral: we study behaviors without passing judgment on them, which means that some folklore that we meet may offend our ethics or aesthetics – or both. So, too, some folklore may violate the law of the land. So when a student described the practices of Santoria, a religious practice familiar in the Caribbean, the class had to refrain from groaning. Dismay, however, could not be stilled when two students talked about body piercing and tattooing. This was in the 1990s when these practices, especially body piercing, were still fairly uncommon among the mainstream and I had to threaten one protesting student, a senior citizen, with summoning campus security if she didn’t stop screaming at the students that their “body art” was a disgrace. A student was similarly berated (for better reason, I think) when he explained in great detail where one could get fraudulent medical reports in order to cheat an automobile insurance. A student who described meticulously how to loosen anti-theft devises attached to clothing sold in a popular Brooklyn department store, and then sell the stolen items at nearby but hidden site was greeted with stony silence. (After class a few students asked whether I thought the student who had given the report had herself committed the crime. I had to demur since I insisted on a moral-free environment. But secretly I did think the report had the authenticity of truth.) The most typical reports were far less charged but no less gripping. One student reported on Turkish courtship rituals practiced in her community. A year later I passed her on campus and greeted her. I noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring. “Did you go through the courtship you told us about?” “Yes,” was her smiling answer. Another student reported on a Jamaican birth ritual practiced in her family. When a boy is born, he is circumcised, and the removed membrane is buried under a particular tree on her family’s ancestral property: since most of the kin she knew had been born and lived in Brooklyn, someone had to transport the essential item back to Jamaica, safely secured in a protective package. The tree is enormous, and, she assured us, it has grown to its majestic size because of what is buried beneath it. We all wondered how many male births have “enriched” the tree, but the student’s knowledge of her family history only went as far back as her great grandfather. She knew, however, of seven boys who had contributed to the site.

Over the twenty years that I taught the course, there were many stories (such as the ones I‘ve reported here) that I only heard once. Other topics became familiar, as students reported on street games, festivals, parades, turf wars between different ethnic groups in our college cafeteria, and how to obtain a fake drivers license, a necessity for any underage barfly. The reports generated surprise, curiosity, amazement, disgust and outrage, but the students soon learned that if they wanted to have their folklore received with respect they had to extend the same grace to their classmates, even if they didn’t approve or weren’t interested. Many students commented on how grateful they were to learn that something they had seen but couldn’t understand, or had witnessed and found disturbing “belonged” to a classmate: that brought the unfamiliar and suspicious one step closer to familiarity and respect.

7 A Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance and music.

Capoeira

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To broaden their experience of the city even more, I showed a film that showed some folkways, even though it might not be classified as a documentary. A film the students really enjoyed was the 1976 film, Hester Street, based on a novella by Abraham Cahan, the illustrious founder of New York’s Yiddish newspaper. The film, now hard to get, and bought for me by a student, tells the story of Jake, an East European immigrant who comes to New York on his own, leaving wife and little son behind. He manages, superficially, to adapt to his new setting, but picks up the worst of its habits. He succumbs to the allurements of another immigrant, a stylish but conniving woman, and thinks he’s on his way to being a “real American.” An unexpected family crisis brings his wife and son to the New World, and the movie takes on a bitter turn, as man and wife no longer recognize each other and disapprove of each other’s ways. The story has an ironic ending which supports the notion that the New World is tolerant of folkways, and no one needs to give up his/her identity in order to be a “real American.” Another film they enjoyed is a documentary by Jonathan Berman called The Shvitz (1993) about Russian steam baths. More recently I was able to add a new film to my roster, The Bungalows of Rockaway (2008) about a now obsolete beach community in a part of Brooklyn most of the students know. I devised simple questions about the films and used these questions as the basis of an exam. My intention was to test whether the students had absorbed some of the concepts of folklore which I had introduced at the beginning of the course, and I learned that on the whole they had done so quite well.

Since most of the students balked at leaving their known turf to explore others, I always found some place for them to visit, and sent them off with questions that they had answer in writing. One year I sent them to Jackson Heights, a Queens neighborhood that is home to a large Indian as well as Central American community, another time I sent them to Ridgewood, which now has a large Polish community. When The Gates, the enormous installation created by Christo and Jeanne Claude spanned Central Park in 2005, they were sent there.

Many of the themes of my course have now become the standard fare of Cultural Studies, but I tried to make my course as free of labels and jargon as possible. The word “postmodernism” never appeared, nor did anyone think that they were “interrogating” anything in particular. The only contemporary critical term which might have described my course was “conversation.” The students were eager to ask questions and eager to talk to each other. On the whole, I think the main achievement of the course was to break down the barriers which often estrange students from each other in a large urban university where, because of the size of the population, and the particularly harried lives that the students lead, they rarely socialize outside their own cultural or social group. Instead of having an opportunity to run away from what they perceived as “other,” they had to sit with it, and often were able to discover that the distance between “other” and “similar” was not as large as they thought.

The challenge of teaching the course inspired me to explore the city myself. I haven’t kept up with my goal as much as I had intended, but I continue to walk the city as much as the weather will permit. As Spring approaches, I’m planning some new explorations. Staten Island and the Bronx are still unknown territories to me, and like Huck Finn I shall set out for the territories when the temperatures are milder and the days longer.

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In 2000, the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? (starring, amongst others, George Clooney) hit the US movie theaters. Whereas the film itself was relatively successful, it was the soundtrack that caught the public’s eye. Featuring traditional country songs written between 1880s and 1935, it didn’t sell to country music listeners only but to millions of Americans across the country. The famous music historian Colin Escott in his widely acclaimed book Lost Highway: The True Story of Country Music, which was published in conjunction with the 4-part BBC series of the same name, claims that the soundtrack helped “the United States [in] rediscovering itself through old, quintessentially American music at a time when its values and its soil were under attack” (Escott 2003: 173).

The fact that country music, be it traditional or modern, appeals to the masses had actually become even more obvious already some ten years before the film mentioned above. In 1991, Billboard magazine – with the assistance of the company SoundScan – began analyzing barcode data from the registers to compile the weekly music charts. This new method, which provided more accurate data than previous methods, together with the advent of country superstar Garth Brooks made “country music […] the most popular music and the most popular radio format in the United States” (Escott 2003: 166). Stemming from the hills and valleys of the Appalachians as well as the western plains, country music had finally conquered the whole nation. 2012 marks the 85th anniversary of what is traditionally called the “big bang” in country music – enough reason to give a short overview of the history of American country music, which is the focus of this paper. In addition, it will be made obvious why American music, especially country music may be a useful tool in the Estonian classroom. Finally, some current examples will be provided to show how American culture and opinion are reflected in specific songs.

Although country music had been recorded since 1922, it wasn’t until 1927 that records of a considerable amount of promising artists were released. In the hope of discovering new artists, record companies started sending producers to the South. Among them there was Ralph Peer, who in 1923 went to Atlanta, Georgia. Peer didn’t expect much from the records produced there, but to his astonishment, the demand was unexpectedly high. In 1927, after switching to the Victor Talking Machine Company (Victor), Peer went south again, this time to the city of Bristol, which is located on the Tennessee–Virginia state line and is now considered to be the “Birthplace of Country Music”. On July 24, 1927, the Bristol Herald-Courier published the following announcement: “The Victor Co. will have a recording machine in Bristol for 10 days beginning Monday to record records – Inquire at our Store” (Tribe 1993: 58). In the same issue, Peer told the newspaper of the royalties that the acts he had recorded had received. As people got word of this, they made their way from the mountains to Bristol. The list of the acts recorded is too long to be cited here, but among those who were recorded on the second floor of a hat factory, where Peer had set up

A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN COUNTRY MUSIC

Marcus Hildebrandt Hugo Treffner Gymnasium, Tartu

Garth Brooks

Carter Family

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his equipment, are the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, who would become the first stars of country music.

Whereas the origin of the Carter Family’s music on the one hand might be attributed to the ballads that settlers had brought to the new continent from their homes in the British Isles and, on the other hand, can also be traced back to “gospel songs, blues, topical ballads, and vaudeville numbers” (Escott 2003: 22) that were of American origin, Jimmie Rodgers’ music was quite different from that of the Carter Family. As a group, the latter produced heavenly harmonies that would have their impact on future vocal groups. Jimmie Rodgers, who was the first successful country music solo-singer that achieved stardom was heavily influenced by black music, such as jazz and blues, and paved the road for future solo country singers.

As radios became more widespread and affordable, they helped to popularize singers from the South across the nation. Radio, however, needed the presence of electricity, which was not available in poorer and more rural homes. In the beginning, therefore, wind-up phonographs and records did even more for country music than radio (Escott 2003: 21). With the arrival of the Great Depression, however, record sales plummeted and radio became the most favorite form of entertainment. After all, the availability of electricity in rural areas of Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and other states from the mid-1930s onwards was one of the results of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was passed in 1933. Soon so-called “barn dance” shows introduced country music through much of the South and as far away as Chicago and California. The most important one of them all was the Grand Ole Opry, which was first broadcast from Nashville on November 28, 1925. By the 1930s the show could be heard in almost 30 states and from 1939, it was broadcast nationally on NBC Radio (Radio Hall of Fame & Museum 2008).

Whereas the 1920s had seen songs from the hills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains, such as those of the Carter Family, whose show posters promised “The Show is Morally Good” (Escott 2003: 24), the 1930s and 1940s were dominated by cowboy songs, aka western music. While the Carter Family played in churches, schools, and other “tame” environments, western music could be heard “in dancehalls and beer joints” (Escott 2003: 28), making it obvious that this style of music was much rougher and meant “for dancing” (Escott 2003: 28). Most notable artists of that era were Tommy Duncan, Gene Autry (“The Singing Cowboy”), Roy Rogers, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, who are regarded as the fathers

of western swing, a style that incorporated elements of the swing and big band era. The mid-1940s saw the arrival of yet a rougher country music style – honky tonk music. Though, according to the OED, the origin of the word “honky tonk” is not clear, its first usage can be traced back to the Texas area of the late 1880s, and it was used for rough establishments that served alcoholic beverages (and sometimes other forms of entertainment, i.e. gambling and prostitution). Honky tonk music made heavy use of electrified instruments and amplifiers without which bands would probably not have been audible in the rough and rowdy jukejoints or beerjoints (or just joints), as these establishments were also called. Mentioning the fact that honky tonk songs were also called “drinking songs” or “cheatin’ songs” makes clear what the lyrics were all about. Defining honky tonk artists were Floyd Tillman, Ernest Tubb, and Ray Price.

The end of the 1940s also witnessed the rise of the first superstar of country music – singer-songwriter Hank Williams. Despite his short career (Williams died in the wee hours of January 1, 1953 in the back of a car that was taking him a to New Year’s

Jimmie Rogers

Hank Williams

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Day concert, the reason of death being heart failure which was probably caused by alcohol and drug abuse.), he managed to become a legend and is commonly regarded as one of the most important country music artists – if not the most important artist – of all time. From 1949 with “Lovesick Blues” up to 1953 with “Take these Chains from My Heart”, Hank Williams scored 11 number one hits as well as 25 top ten hits (three of them posthumously). Ask any country music artist and he will name Williams as one of his influences; rock ‘n’ roll singers of the 1950s such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Ricky Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his songs at the beginning of their careers (Koda & Unterberger). Williams’ songs have been recorded by other artists uncountable times and have become part of American culture.

The mid-1950s saw the arrival of rockabilly, the raw forerunner of the more refined rock ‘n’ roll, on the pop music scene. The style had such a tremendous impact on the music industry in general that in 1956, several rockabilly / rock ‘n’ roll songs topped the country charts for many weeks (e.g. Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel”, Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes”, Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”). Traditional country artists felt the change of times and tried to adjust to the new situation, which in the end shifted country music towards pop music and resulted in the elaborate Nashville sound. As a matter of fact, in his essay “The ‘Nashville Sound’ Begins”, David Cantwell claims: “A two-sided single with ‘Hound Dog,’ ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ [sung by Elvis Presley in 1956] topped the country charts for over two months, heralding the arrival of what would soon be called the Nashville Sound” (Cantwell 2006). This sound was very much different from the raw honky tonk style that had dominated country music before. “Soft” elements from 1950s pop music were introduced, among them string sections, background vocals and structures similar to those in pop music. All of these records were produced in Nashville, Tennessee, which by the 1960s was the center of country music recording studios. A small group of studio musicians called the Nashville A-Team was used at the recording sessions (Cusic 2011). The result were highly crafted and artistic records that appealed to listeners of pop music but, in the eyes of hardcore country fans, had increasingly less in common with traditional country music. Throughout the 1960s, country music meant – in most cases – the Nashville Sound. Good examples are Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline, and Ray Price.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a continuation of the tendencies described above, which resulted in country pop, a fusion of country music and soft rock that tried to appeal to the masses but put off many country fans. Artists like Glen Campbell, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John and Anne Murray often sounded more pop than country as did Kenny Rogers, Charlie Rich and Dolly Parton. Fans that called themselves “true country” lovers were appalled and feared that a tradition had come to an end. The 1980 motion picture Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta as Bud Davis, who moves from a Texas small town to Houston to work in an oil refinery, starts embracing the nightlife of the city and spends most of his nights at honky tonks, gave country pop even more momentum with its best-selling soundtrack. After a short while, however, sales in country music declined and it seemed as if pop had eaten up country music. Alan Jackson

Patsy Cline

Glen Campell

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In the mid-1980s, however, a group of musicians called the “Neotraditionalists” was fed up with the latest developments and favored traditional, back-to-the roots productions. Artists like Ricky Skaggs were inspired by Bluegrass (a sub style of country music that relies on the banjo and fiddles) pioneers like Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, and artists like Randy Travis, George Strait or Alan Jackson were very much oriented towards earlier styles of country music. Two artists in this so-called New Country movement stand out: Clint Black, whose 1989 debut album “Killin’ Time” had an unprecedented five number one singles (Hodges 2000) and who was one of the most successful artists of the 1990s, and Garth Brooks, who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. Brooks incorporated elements of rock into country music, his concerts filled huge stadiums, and he has sold over 200 million records worldwide. If it hadn’t been for Brooks, many people in Europe in the 1990s wouldn’t have known about country music.

Since the arrival of the New Traditionalists and their increasing love affair with rock and pop elements, traditional country music fans have again feared that what they regard as “true” country music is being washed down by the attempt to appeal to the masses across musical genres. It is artists like Canadian Shania Twain, who enjoyed worldwide success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and Taylor Swift, whose country pop (or should we say pop country) has made her known to European teenagers as well, that have shifted country music into the pop and rock spectrum once more. However, latest developments can also shed a positive light on the latest trends in country music. Darius Rucker, the singer of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, released his country debut album in 2010. Three singles of that album made it to number one, making him the first African American with a number one country hit since 1983 (Guerra 2009).

So much for a short overview of the history of American country music. Where does this leave us in the Estonian classroom, though? There is no doubt that one goal of language instruction should be the understanding of the relevant culture. You cannot understand a nation if you don’t know their language, but you cannot completely embrace their language if you don’t know their culture. Dry, and not so dry, textbook texts may help us understand some other culture, but they cannot replace direct contact with it. Listening to a nation’s songs and their lyrics is one of the best things we can do in absence of direct contact with native speakers. Although American music does make it over to Europe and, in fact, dominates our charts, we tend to overlook the kind of music that the “average” American listens to. We might approach this topic the following way: If someone wanted to find out about what is really going on in Estonia, who should this person talk to, some government official, a university professor, or to the man on the street? Those of us who have spent time in Britain via Comenius usually treasure the everyday contact with locals and living under the same roof with Britons the most. Thus, dealing with the songs that a considerable part of a nation listens to should give us some insight into their thinking.

American country music also offers a link to historical events. In 1949, Floyd Tillman sang about “This Cold War with You”. Used as a metaphor, Tillman sings about the “cold war” between two lovers:

The sun goes down and leaves me sad and blue. The iron curtain falls on this cold war with you. Though you won’t speak and I won’t speak that’s true. Two stubborn people with a cold war to go through.

[…]

In 1969, against the background of the anti-war movement, country singer Merle Haggard co-wrote and sang “Okie from Muskogee” (Okie denoting a resident of Oklahoma):

We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee; We don’t take our trips on LSD;

George Strait

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We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street; We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.

[…]

As these two examples show, usually these songs are quite patriotic and support the mainstream. More recent examples are a song by Alan Jackson and one by Darryl Worley. Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” was written shortly after the 9/11 attacks and expresses the deep sorrow people felt:

Where were you when the world stopped turning That September day? Out in the yard With your wife and children Workin’ on some stage in LA? Did you stand there in shock At the sight of that black smoke Rising against that blue sky? Did you shout out in anger And fear for your neighbor Or did you just sit down and cry?

[…]

I’m just a singer of simple songs, I’m not a real political man. I watch CNN but I’m not sure I could Tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran. But I know Jesus and I talk to God And I remember this from when I was young, Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us And the greatest is love

[…]

In March 2003, Darryl Worley published “Have You Forgotten”, an even more patriotic song that was full of thoughts of revenge for 9/11. Despite negative criticism, the song reached number one on Billboard’s Country Songs charts and number 22 on Billboard’s Top 100:

I hear people saying we don’t need this war. But, I say there’s some things worth fighting for. What about our freedom and this piece of ground, We didn’t get to keep ‘em by backing down. They say we don’t realize the mess we’re getting in. Before you start your preaching, let me ask you this my friend.

Have you forgotten how it felt that day? To see your homeland under fire, And her people blown away. Have you forgotten when those towers fell? We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell. And you say we shouldn’t worry ‘bout bin Laden. Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V. Said it’s too disturbing for you and me It’ll just breed anger, that’s what the experts say. If it was up to me, I’d show it every day. Some say this country’s just out looking for a fight. Well, after 9/11, man, I’d have to say that’s right.

[…]

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People have actually noticed that if a song is not pro-war, you won’t hear it on country radio (Associated Press 2004). The successful female band the Dixie Chicks learned a bitter lesson in this regard in 2003. At their concert in London, the lead singer Natalie Maines said: “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States [George W. Bush] is from Texas” (Clarke 2003). As a result, country radio stations across the nation deleted the Dixie Chicks from their playlists. By that time, however, the group had already reached the number one spot with their album “Home” and also held the number one position on the country singles charts with their song “Travelin’ Soldier” about a US soldier in Vietnam (Reuters 2003).

It is safe to say that country music reflects the social and political developments of its time and therefore can, at times, provide a useful source for discussing those developments. Of course, reading this extra-short overview of American country music or any of the vast number of books written on the subject will probably bring you only half an inch closer to this musical style. Those who want to research its history are invited to listen to the 5-CD series Columbia Country Classics, which was issued by Sony in 1990. An audio-visual presentation of its history – by means of an introductory lecture – might provide the chance to get acquainted with country music and, through it, with the thinking of the “average” American. For a start, the interested reader may also be referred to YouTube, which should provide the songs mentioned in this paper.

SOURCES

Associated Press. 2004, June 9. If it ain’t pro-war, it ain’t on country radio: While Toby Keith gets airtime, Emmylou Harris gets ignored. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from MSNBC Today – Music: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/5174757/ns/today-entertainment/t/if-it-aint-pro-war-it-aint-country-radio/#.TzlcvrRs2qF

Cantwell, D. 2006, September 19. Living In Stereo – Blog Archive – The “Nashville Sound” Begins. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from Living In Stereo: http://livinginstereo.com/?p=252

Clarke, B. 2003, March 12. The Dixie Chicks. The Guardian.Cusic, D. 2011, February 24. Nashville Recording Industry. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from The

Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1113

Escott, C. 2003. Lost Highway: The True Story of Country Music. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books.

Guerra, J. 2009, March 14. Darius Rucker thrilled to be living his dream. Houston Chronicle.Hodges, A. 2000, June 6. Every Life a Story: ‘Biography’ to Profile Clint Black, 26 others. Houston

Chronicle, pp. Section Houston, p. 8.Koda, C., & Unterberger, R. n.d.. AllMusic. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from AllMusic: http://allmusic.

com/Radio Hall of Fame & Museum. 2008, November 7. Radio Hall of Fame – The Grand Ole Opry, Music.

Retrieved February 12, 2012, from National Radio Hall of Fame & Museum: http://www.radiohof.org/music/grandoleopry.html

Reuters. 2003, March 15. Dixie Chicks pulled from air after bashing Bush. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from CNN.com: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/14/dixie.chicks.reut/

Tribe, I. M. 1993. The Stonemans: An Appalachian Family and the Music That Shaped Their Lives. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

PICTURES

Pictures courtesy of Bear Family Records Ltd. and Grand Ole Opry Archives Copyright: www.bear-family.com

Dixie Chicks

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Kristi Vahenurm spent six weeks in Utah taking part in the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program in autumn, 2011. [For more information about the program visit http://estonia.usembassy.gov/tea_program.html]

In addition you can read: Urmas Tokko and Kristi Vahenurm. Tea ja tii! Eesti õpetajad Ameerikat avastamas. http://koolielu.ee/info/readnews/150118/tea-ja-tii-eesti-petajad-ameerikat-avastamas

A very superficial glance at Utah may leave an impression that nothing is to be found there – vast grasslands, not much greenery, and mostly mountains, mountains and more mountains. This seeming emptiness is actually deceptive for Utah hides scenery that some well-travelled people have dubbed probably the most beautiful places on Earth. It is the arches, Bryce Canyon and Great Salt Lake I have in mind.

Beautiful as the land may be, it is the people I am going to discuss here. For a place remains only a place without people, and it is the latter that mean real life and emotions. The first settlers of Utah were probably the Native Americans. Different tribes settled in the area. Hunting for bison was their main source of living. Beautiful dresses they wore too. Some can be seen displayed at the Smithsonian museum in New York. One of the tribes was called the Utes, and hence the name – Utah. What has remained of those early inhabitants? The honest answer would be – nothing much. Some people say that the native population is very much evident in the US and their culture is going through a continuous revival – nothing of the kind could be spotted in Utah. Perhaps they have learned to hide better.

The white man inhabited the area quite late – around the middle of the 19th century. One can imagine the faces of the first Mormon settlers, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, arriving in Utah – the sight of yellow land and reddish brown infertile rocks is enough to scare anyone. But not the Mormons. Imagine the hardships they had to go through and the strength of their faith to stand against all the challenges. Utah was the Promised Land and, with their minds set on staying, Mormons were very inventive. First of all, the family framework – plural marriages – guaranteed a strong, homogenous and fast-growing community. The second problem inherently raising here was the question of food because nothing much grows in Utah without artificial irrigation. In order to cultivate this dusty terrain, a lot of engineering and ingenuity was needed. It was soon figured out that the water melting from mountain tops in spring could be held in reservoirs and used little by little so that there would be enough water throughout the whole green season. A lot of dams and canals were built and the place soon earned the name ‘beehive state’ symbolising their perseverance and ingenuity.

It is probably interesting to know that Utah became a state as it is today as late as in 1894 and in order to do that it needed to discard the system of polygamy. It is difficult to say how much turmoil it caused, but as a result, some extremist groups parted with the Church and started communities of their own. The best known today is probably the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints (FDLS). The members of this sect still honour polygamy, their women have no rights on property or personal income, and they are quite often treated as the property of their husbands who need to live in harmony with their masters. They wear modest old-fashioned clothes and their outlook on education is limited. Living in closed communities, they do not often visit the outer world. Their being so different is hard to understand

UTAH – LIFE ELEVATED

Kristi Vahenurm Tallinn Kristiine Secondary School

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for the outsiders and, therefore, they are often looked down upon. At least this is how Carolyn Jessop (2007), a former FDLS member describes it in her book Escape.

Today Utah is claimed to be one of the most homogenous religious settlements in the whole world. Not being an expert in Mormon questions or religion in general, it is difficult to say what it is exactly that makes them so different. Mormons themselves point out two main doctrinal points that distinguish them from a mainstream Christian. The first being the belief that God the father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate distinct personages, and the second that God continues to speak to living earthly prophets and the twelve apostles as he did in the Bible. Today the sitting prophet is Thomas Monson and when a courageous friend of mine dared to ask how one recognises a prophet, he was given a profound answer ‘You know the tree by its fruit.’ One thing is sure – Mormon relationships are never formed in frantic slumber parties as it often happens among the youth in Europe. Instead, sober alliances are made at dances, universities and probably family reunions. In Salt Lake City, the capital, things are more relaxed, but in smaller places, one can hardly find any alcohol stores. Big supermarkets only sell very light beer and even that does not happen on every day of the week. There may be some pubs in the town but most of the locals are unaware of these places, only taxi drivers are informed well enough to let you in on those secret hideaways. Even proper black tea or coffee is rare to be found. Local students say that the Church is firm in its beliefs. No drugs, no alcohol, and the family always comes first. The world, the Mormons say, is viewing family in a different way and therefore the Church is doing the opposite by becoming more firm in its stance.

Mormons are encouraged to get married at a young age and this may seem problematic to outsiders – according to some well-rounded non-Mormon or atheist people the number one crime in Utah is domestic violence, allegedly caused by forming marital alliances too early. Local Mormons, on the other hand, claim that there are no legitimate statistical reviews that could back the statement and they feel that domestic violence has no relation to pressure to marry young. Mormon families are usually big; fourteen children in a family is not as rare as it would be here in Estonia. Four and five seems to be more or less the norm. Contrary to the modern belief that Mormons do not use contraceptives, it is not true. But they do believe in having sexual relations only between husband and wife who are legally and lawfully married; the rest is up to them. Instead of doing military service, the Mormon tradition is to go on a two-year mission the aims of which would be to invite others to come unto Christ, to become better people, to expand one’s horizon and to mature. For according to an old Mormon conception, a young man hardly ever comes to his senses before the age of 20. “Going on a mission certainly worked for me,” one man said and it is difficult not to believe him. Depending on the target region, a missionary would spend 3, 9 or 12 weeks training for it. The missionary does not choose the target country; it is the Church leaders who receive inspiration where to send them. It does not necessarily have to be a foreign country but usually it is not their home town. Eventually it is a person’s individual choice to go on a mission and with the recent economic developments, the number of missionaries has gone down. Yet, it is somewhat expected of young men, and sometimes it happens that women serve it too.

Many of us have probably been approached by Mormon missionaries here Estonia speaking fairly good Estonian. Would it not be interesting to find out how they have acquired it? Their secret may be more down to earth than we could think. It takes a lot of motivation, of course, for learning a completely new language in approximately two months can be a daunting task. All one needs is a text in the mother tongue that is known really well. For Mormons it is the Mormon Bible. Knowing it almost by heart it is easy to deduce the meaning from the context and to memorise new expressions. Another good tip is to talk to native people who know the language the best and try to perfect grammar until it becomes flawless. Missionaries are usually accompanied by somebody who has been in the particular environment for a longer period of time and therefore help is always at hand.

Has there been any criticism addressed to Mormons? Sure. Some non-Mormon people in Utah point

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out that, being a non-Mormon, it is difficult to raise children in a mostly Mormon neighbourhood because they will not be mixed with. No-one described feeling the pressure to join the Mormon Church, but they could sense the feeling of being left out on something. This can really be the case, some young Mormons explain. They have made their religion their lifestyle, and it is natural to spend time with the members of the faith. Excluding anyone is not a purpose but sometimes it can just happen. Another critical note heard is targeted on going against Mormon traditions. Violation of certain laws could lead to excommunication so that a member of the community will not be allowed to attend their sister’s wedding or their mother’s funeral. This can be explained by really high standards of the Church. A non-member of the Church is not allowed to enter Mormon sanctuaries called Temples, neither are they accessible to the people who are considered unworthy by the Church. But this restriction is imposed only on sacral rituals; other festivities taking place outside the Temple can be attended by all.

It is difficult to talk about Mormons without asking anything about the new presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The Mormons assure that he certainly is a qualified man to be a president and with his business background, the US has a lot to win. The Church maintains a neutral position when it comes to politics and does not endorse Romney as he aspires to become President.

Is there anything we could learn from Utah? Absolutely. We could pay more attention to the people around us. We could place our families first, be less selfish and when it really comes to choosing between the basic human instincts and the institution of marriage and having kids, we could certainly give more attention to the latter ones. Nowhere have I seen so many snug old couples talking and smiling to each other and holding hands in the streets as I have in Utah.

REFERENCE

Jessop, Carolyn and Laura Palmer. 2007. Escape. New York: Broadway Books.

As I come from a multicultural background, it has always been difficult for me to determine which language exactly I can consider my mother tongue. Therefore, I think it is important that before exploring my own personal situation that I lay out a foundation to offer a more precise account.

The Oxford English dictionary provides us with a broad definition of the term: “the language which a person has grown up speaking from early childhood.” The Cambridge Dictionary offers the following definition: “the first language that you learn when you are a baby, rather than a language learned at school or as an adult”.

I believe that these definitions do not offer sufficient insight to what the concept of ‘mother tongue’ can mean for every individual. In most cases it is, of course, easy to determine a person’s mother tongue, as most people grow up in a coherent cultural context: they grow up exposed, firstly, to the language their parents speak to them, and then go on to learn that language and improve upon it not only in their household but also outside – interacting at school with the teachers and classmates, with friends, at the shop, at the cinema, and so on.

MY LANGUAGES

Rebecca Porwit Läänemägi University of GranadaExchange student at the University of Tartu

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But there are situations where determining a person’s mother tongue is not so easy, especially when taking the broad and general parameters given by the earlier definitions of the term. Why is this? Because, in reality, there are several dimensions that could be adhered to the very nature of the concept that these definitions do not even try to cover.

To Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, there is not only one perspective from which one can study the concept of mother tongue. Whereas the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries define it from the “origin” viewpoint, as in the language one learns first for being the language that is learned in the household context, the Emerita offers a broader and categorized view on the subject.

One may argue that her system takes on too many dimensions for the concept; that is, that it encapsulates perspectives that should not be enclosed in the concept of mother tongue in the first place. However, I think that, as long as we take this into account, it is a useful categorization that successfully clears up the confusion that could arise from taking into account only the Oxford and Cambridge dictionary definitions.

Dr. Skutnabb-Kangas (http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/en/concept_definitions_for_downloading.html) prefers to study the concept of mother tongue from the following perspectives: Origin – the fist language one learned; Internal identification – the language one feels more identified with, a purely subjective point of view; External identification – the language others would identify the subject with, an outside opinion; Competence – the language one is most proficient at; Function – the language one uses most.

And now I will go on to tell my story. I was born in the Canary Islands and have lived there practically all my life. However, I cannot consider myself either legally or culturally a Spanish citizen. It is true that I am most familiar with Spanish culture since I was constantly in contact with it, but I did not actually grow up in a Spanish household. I did not even grow up in a household with one other single culture.

My father is American and my mother, Estonian. My parents took the decision to raise a multilingual child and always spoke to me in their own language. I think that one of the key points of their success in doing this is that they always kept the linguistic limits very clear to me – with my father I was to speak English and only English, and with my mother, I would try to speak exclusively in Estonian. So, from a very young age I had always identified one parent with one of the languages, even though my mother could speak perfect English. Daycare, school, friends, babysitters and generally the world outside of home would be the source of Spanish for me.

Now, if we take into account the Oxford and Cambridge dictionary definitions, I am presented with the obvious problem: Which of these languages can I consider my mother tongue? We can discard Spanish as, even though I was in contact from as a baby being taken care of by a Spanish babysitter, and later in daycare, it is not the language that was constantly spoken in the household.

And this brings us to a trickier conflict – English or Estonian? I was being spoken to as much as by my mother as by my father, and in their respective languages. In this case, it basically depends on what criteria we want to use to determine my mother tongue. The origin perspective is not enough, because basing on the Cambridge and Oxford definitions, I can consider either Estonian or English being equally my mother tongue languages. If we change the criteria slightly, we may reach a different conclusion.

We can take the term “mother tongue”, and lexically, it evidently makes reference to the mother. Does this mean that I should consider Estonian my mother tongue? This is where the proficiency perspective can slightly change the term. Even though my parents spoke to me both in approximately equal amounts, I undoubtedly had more exposure to English, especially when I became older. This is due to exposure

Rebecca on Toome Hill in Tartu

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to different kinds of media in English: mainly films, and when I became old enough to read, I started reading in English and never touched an Estonian book. This was the decisive factor to determine my proficiency in each language today.

If we continue along the proficiency perspective, we have to take into account that my Spanish has evolved to become the better of my languages, for the simple fact that all my academic work was always done in this language. From learning the alphabet and the timetables to studying for exams and writing essays, the Spanish language was always used for these. Forgetting the origin factor completely and taking in only the proficiency perspective, I would have to consider Spanish my mother tongue.

So, as much as Estonian is my “mother” tongue, it could well be considered as such. It all depends, however, on the criteria one uses to make that call. I, personally, do not feel comfortable calling Estonian my mother tongue, for the simple fact that I am not as skilful or comfortable using it as my other two languages. When you tell someone what your mother tongue is, they expect that language to be your best. This is not the case with me, and I feel that if I say Estonian is my mother tongue, it could be misleading. It may be correct, but still misleading in practice.

I must say that it is difficult to label oneself using a concept that can be so ambiguous. It is one of those notions that everyone thinks they have clearly defined but, in reality, it gives much food for thought and has to be treated with care. Everyone has their own slightly different conception about what a word might mean, even though the meaning for that word originates from a common base (which is what enables communication). Thus, even within a common language, we can find it tricky to express ourselves completely accurately to one another.

I have written about how I acquired my natural linguistic skills – those languages that I was taught from childhood, and had little choice but to learn. Now I will write about the conscious efforts I have made to work on my personal linguistic skills – those I that have studied and acquired academically. Languages are important to me, as not only do I come from a multilingual background, but I also intend my further studies of languages to pave out a solid career path for me in the future. I am fluent in three languages – Spanish, English and Estonian, in order of proficiency. I have been in contact with these languages from very early in my life, and they each constitute an important aspect of it.

As far as the linguistic knowledge I have acquired through academic means, I learned French throughout high school, and have often considered retaking it to prevent it becoming lost. The last two years of high school, I was able to take a route more focused on Humanities, and studied ancient Greek and Latin for two years. I decided around that time that it would be important for me to take on a modern language as well, and so I studied Chinese for a year with the intention of getting into a Translation-Interpretation course with Chinese as my second foreign language after English (on the basis of Spanish). However, when it came to registering, I did not have much luck, as, due to a technical error with the registration website, I was unable to take the Chinese classes I had been planning to study for over a year.

This meant that I had to come up quickly with a new plan. It would mean that the academic future I had planned would be completely different from what I had imagined. I would have to go out on a limb and choose something else, and this new plan for me would be the Russian language. I had no previous knowledge of the language whatsoever, but my University offered beginners’ courses.

Many times I wonder what would have happened if I had been able to take Chinese. I had enjoyed my year of studying it very much, in spite of the difficulty of studying a language with such a completely different logic from one’s own. After a year of studying Russian, however, I realised that I had enjoyed learning this language. Would I truly one day like to end up working in China? I think the answer to that is negative, though it is true that I would probably not want to end up working in Russia either. That being said, many of the previously Soviet occupied territories still have a high percentage of Russian and Russian-speaking or at least Russian-understanding population. Furthermore, my Estonian heritage and the fact that I have an extended family living in Estonia make the Russian language a more attractive option for me than Chinese. It means that perhaps someday I can go back to my roots and move to the country my grandmother left and to which she never returned – the country where my Estonian mother never lived in.

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Of course it is frustrating when one's plans change suddenly like this, and it is only natural that that would make one feel that time has been wasted, in my case, with Chinese. All in all, therefore, I feel that the revised plans have not worked out too badly for me. Perhaps it was meant to be like this.

Thinking about what is meant to be, today, I am presented with the opportunity to experience first hand the culture that has been at the same time such a great part of my life and yet so intangible. When my university (the University of Granada) offered the chance to go on exchange with the Erasmus program, my choice was really quite easy. While everyone was thinking hard about what destinations would suit them best, continually thinking out and rethinking their destinations list, I had only written down two destinations. These were the University of Tartu; and secondly, the University of Tallinn.

No other country had especially caught my attention, and I knew that living in Estonia would be a special experience for me. Therefore, with no backup plan, my choices would be to either stay in Spain for another year or be accepted in one of the universities in the nation of my ancestors.

I must admit that I had not really thought my decision through. It came to me naturally – I did not spend any time worrying about it. At the time it simply seemed like the logical, even obvious, next step to take. It was not until I got the results and knew that I was accepted at the University of Tartu that it really dawned on me that this land of my family’s past, this abstract entity that has shaped the lives of my family even after two generations spent away from it, would suddenly cease to be a myth for me. It would be a reality.

To understand what this would mean for me, I must tell the story of my family – it is worth telling. My grandmother had been forced to flee from her parents’ home when she was eight years old. However, the most extraordinary thing happened when she left for Western Europe as she brought her home with her. That small piece of Estonia that belonged to her and that she still cherishes so much travelled with her and settled in her new house. Her nation may have been two thousand kilometres away, but she has always been loyal to it. She may have been forced to do her studies in another country, but she always grew up in an Estonian household, and when the time came to make her own family, it was still in an Estonian household.

However, in the beginning, it was not particularly easy – it was not a simple matter of getting a new house and living happily ever after. Granted, the alternative would have been worse, but it is still something I would not like to experience. When the family wandered around Europe, my grandmother was placed in Displaced Persons’ Camps with her parents, where they lived among many other Estonians. She lived with the women and the children, who were only allowed to see the men once a week. They wandered from camp to camp for four years until they settled in England, living in an English camp for six years before they managed to save up enough money to buy a house.

All this was meant to be temporary. Everyone awaited the fall of communism, so they could go back – go back to the lives they had and go back to their homes, their friends and families. But, as we all know, it was not to be so. Suddenly, the hopes and dreams of every refugee were shattered. Suddenly, everything changed. The devastated Estonians had to make a new plan, and the only thing left was to actually settle in this new, strange, alien country. Many of them banded together and formed small Estonian communities and worked to save enough money to buy houses. In my family’s case, there were nine people squeezed together in the same house working hard to make ends meet. My family, in the town of Melksham, formed part of a tight-knit community of Estonians who essentially kept to themselves.

My mother grew up in that household, where my grandmother worked so hard to pass on the Estonian heritage. She would sing traditional Estonian songs to them, read Estonian stories (and even if the book were written in English – she would translate it automatically into Estonian!). She gave them Estonian books to read and cooked Estonian meals. My mother and her sisters grew up attending an English school; but at home, they would sing Estonian songs, eat Estonian meals, read Estonian books. They had Estonian names and Estonian character traits. Probably none of the parents from the other Estonian families worked so hard to maintain the Estonian way of life in their household.

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It takes dedication on the parents’ behalf to provide such a complete cultural environment for their children – and when it is passed down directly from one generation to another, it is quite possible to do. However, when it comes to the second generation, things get more complicated, because each parent will have their own interpretation on what is important to pass on. Now you are not working with a pure Estonian environment, because the other parent, generally, will not be Estonian.

My grandmother had four daughters, and I can confidently say that, being handed down from second generation, and the children being raised now in a multicultural household (because in all four cases, the father figure was not Estonian), the Estonian presence in that new household will be diluted – but, of course this happens in a variety of ways. One of my aunts, for example, took the more radical decision of cutting Estonian completely by refusing to teach her children any of the Estonian language. This is an understandable decision, not only because being the sole source of a particular language for your children is a great effort and a great responsibility, but because there are other factors involved. One of the reasons, for instance, was to allow a more complete social integration of her children into the external cultural environment in which they live (school, friends, the world outside of the house in general). People would be quick to dismiss this particular reason, but that is unfair. The experience of my mother and aunts growing up in such a closed family environment was not always pleasant; but my grandparents rejected the outside culture so strongly that their children were not able to bring English friends to their house without them feeling out of place and uncomfortable.

Another reason, is to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that springs from communicating to your child in this particular language, knowing that you will probably have to translate everything again so that other people understand what is going on – namely, in these situations, the father can often feel excluded from family life, and it can create tension or just more awkward inter-family relations. And I understand all about that, because my mother decided to make that big decision of sacrificing certain things in order to give her children something more. Not only a skill that will, somehow, affect our future and open who knows what kind of opportunities. But also it is the value inherent in passing a cultural legacy that is, in some way, the heart of the family. Generally, it is much easier to have one common language in the family household because it brings the family together and makes the familiar environment much more comfortable. But one cannot simply deny the value of being enriched as a child with another language. Because, at that point, it is not only just another skill, it becomes a part of who you are.

So what about my experience in Estonia so far? This has been a mixture of both good and bad. I was pleasantly surprised by how warmly and openly my family here has treated me. In practice, these are people whom I barely knew, and yet they have welcomed me with open arms, helping me, advising me, feeding me and offering me their houses. On the other hand, it has not been so easy to socialise with the Estonian people in general. I have met many kind and pleasant Estonians, but they still keep their distance. Having Estonian blood, I can understand this. If one is content, one does not need to make new friends. Having lived in Spain all my life, however, where openness is a general thing, I also think it is a pity. One can gain much from sometimes being open with strangers.

On a personal level, it has been a little disappointing not to be able to practice as much of the Estonian language as I had wished. At the same time, however, it has been an enriching experience to meet not only Estonians but also people from different ethnic groups that are not so commonly found in Spain, such as Latvians, Finns or Lithuanians. In this sense, I have experienced some things that I had not expected, and I now have a much more balanced sense of, not only what Estonia is, but how it is perceived by its peer nations.

The experience has brought me closer to my extended family. It is a sad thing to have lived your whole life with most of your On the Hüpassaare bog

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family still being strangers to you. As time goes by, I appreciate more and more the cultural heritage that my grandparents and parents worked so hard to pass on. I would not be who I am today if my mother had not decided to make that sacrifice. And I certainly would not be living this year in Tartu, in contact every day with the much-changed nation that my ancestors belonged to. Much-changed, but still Estonia. A nation cannot have suffered for so long without coming out of the experience unchanged, and yet, the spirit of Estonia remains: proud, private, honest, pragmatic, realist, singing, hard-working and sacrificing Estonia.

The City Council at 12 Vana-Viru Street was very crowded on March 1 – about 100 people gathered in the Big Hall to listen to the best young public speakers of Estonia. The fourth National Public Speaking Competition was held in the City Council premises. The Competition was organized and run by the English-Speaking Union of Estonia. HM Ambassador Mr. Holtby welcomed the audience and wished every success to the participants. He was impressed by the number of the contestants and guests. He said, ‘I much enjoyed witnessing the first heat, including the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants from across Estonia.’

The competition is an annual event run by the English-Speaking Union International in London in May, where the winner of he National Competition represents their country.

This year we had 37 bright young people aged 16–20 from all over Estonia: Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu, Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi, Viljandi. Senior students from 24 schools competed in five heats delivering their 5-min speeches on the theme “The Wisdom of Youth” and answing some questions from the audience. The choice of topics was varied, from beauty and relationship to philosophy and IT. The winners of the heats progressed to the semi-final where they had 15 minutes to prepare their 3-minute speeches. The six best speakers competed in the final with the same 5-minute speeches and the judges had a very hard time making their decision as all the finalists were very good. The judges for the final were:

1. Robert Gilchrist, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy2. Professor Suliko Liiv, Director of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Languages and Cultures, Tallinn University, 3. Andrus Alber, President of American Chamber of Commerce, Estonia 4. Ian Watts, Defence Attaché, British Embassy 5. Gustaf Hertsius, ESU Estonia

The best young public speakers and their winning speeches this year were:

winner: Vahur Hansen – Gustav Adolf Grammar School, ’The Three States of Mind’ runner-up: Kelly Toode – Viimsi School, ’Whose Life Is It?’ second runner-up: Kristin Parts – Pärnu Ühisgümnaasium, ’Irrationality of Our Day’

THE NATIONAL PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION 2012, MARCH 1

Zinaida Jevgrafova Tallinn Jewish School

Winner Vahur Hansen

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audience’s favourite: Pavel Volynkin – Kohtla-Järve Ühisgümnaasium, ’We won’t reach great destinations in the couch of the past’

The English Speaking Union would like to thank all the institutions and people who supported the Competition in any way. Special thanks go to:

American Embassy British Embassy British CouncilTallinn City CouncilTallinn City Education DepartmentTallinn City Government Member of the European Parliament Kristina OjulandInternational Language Services Bookshop AllectoRestaurant Kuluaar

Vahur Hansen will represent Estonia at the International Public Speaking Competition in London in May.

Winners and judges

The British AmbassadorMr Christopher Holtby

Robert Gilchrist, Deputy Chief inMission, the US Embassy Tallinn

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A few years ago English teachers in Viljandi County Gymnasium came up with the idea that, since there were no English competitions for basic school in Estonia, we should arrange one. As we did not want it to be something like a national examination or a grammar test, we saw it as a creative experience and we wished to link it to other subjects. And “KeeleAeg” was born thanks to this idea and desire. In the competition we connected English with History, Music and the Estonian language. The first “KeeleAeg” was held in February 2010. The competition consists of three different tasks. The first part has been a singable translation of a popular Estonian song that has not appeared in English yet. In 2010, for example, form 6 translated “Rahalaul” (Money Song) by Olav Ehala; in 2011 form 7 wrote their English version of “Oma laulu ei leia ma üles” (I Can’t Find My Song) by Valter Ojakäär. This year the students translated “Pesapuu” (Nest Tree) by Külli Murand (form 6), “Maa tuleb täita lastega” (The Country Should Be Filled with Chidren) by Hando Runnel (form 7) and “Ärkamise aeg” (Awakening Time) by René Eespere. Hereby, I’d like to present one of the translations by Anu Rumm from Tallinn English College (Supervisor Mare Kallas):

The competition “KeeleAeg“ (Language Time) has already become a tradition since this year it’s the third time for this integrated event. In the following article I’d like to give a brief overview of the competition – where the idea came from, a little history, the leaders and, of course, the current results.

KEELEAEG – AN INNOVATIVE COMPETITION

Margit Kirss Viljandi County Gymnasium

Competition participants

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Earth Must Be Filled With Our Kids

Earth must be filled with our kidsThereafter with their own dear kidsTo make our great-grandchildren seeOnce Earth was filled with our kidsWith melodies and many kidsTo fight against that’s really mean.That strange or hostile bring alongThat’s hostile or that`s really wrong.And fight wherever possibleWhere useful and still possibleOur lives are here in present timeOur kids remain with coming time

Earth must be filled with lovely kidsThereafter with their own dear kidsWhen being wants to be with usAnd coming comes to stay with us.Earth must be filled with our kidsThe Earth-born bred, thus dearest kidsAnd singing and these lovely kidsFill world with many other kidsEarth must be filled with our kidsThereafter with their own dear kidsTo make our great-grandchildren seeOnce Earth was filled with all these kids

There has been a great number of participants in translating the songs – 50 to 60 students in each age group. This clearly indicates that such an event is very necessary and children look forward to participating in it. The quality of the translations varies greatly. Those who reach the top ten can manage quite well Sadly, often the children have not cooperated with their Music teachers and have even used Google translation, but fortunately in most cases the students use all their knowledge to translate the song the best way they can.

The first round takes place on the Internet, and the translations are sent to the jury. The assessors always include people who are knowledgeable in both music and English. For example, the first year Olav Ehala, Marek Sadam and several others evaluated the songs; in 2011 Anu Röömel belonged to the jury, and in 2012 Helin-Mari Arder was one of its members. The jury chooses ten best translations in each category, and the winners are invited to participate in the last round in Viljandi County Gymnasium.

The second task was the following in 2010 and 2011: the students read a text about Estonian history in Estonian and compiled a summary of the text in English. In 2010 the texts were about the people whose portraits were on Estonian kroons, and in 2011 they were about our presidents. The task itself was quite challenging and many students actually started translating the text. Therefore, it did not seem to be quite a suitable task for such an age group. The students tended to forget that the task was writing only a summary. Correcting the task was also very time-consuming, although it clearly showed the best knowledge of the language. Still, all things considered, we decided to change it. This year the students learned about Estonian history (events about regaining independence) for 20 minutes, and then they were asked ten questions about the text. At first, we had thought that the task was not demanding enough since the topic for the presentations was the same, but it appeared that the questions were not the easiest ones and the task worked very well.

The third task was a presentation about events in Estonian history. In 2010, the topic was “My Home – Estonia”, in 2011 it changed to “An Interesting Person in My Family”, and this year the students talked about “The Memories of Regaining Independence”. Students prepared the presentations beforehand, and on the spot they had five to seven minutes to talk and show the slides. Their ability to forward the

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Form 6 Supervisor School

1. Markus Aksli Eldin Kuuse Käina Gymnasium

2. Indrek Anissimov Ave Abroi C. R. Jakobson Gymnasium

3. Maru-Mehis Kore Mare Lapp Kilingi-Nõmme Gymnasium

Form 7

1. Anu Rumm Mare Kallas Tallinn English College

2. Maria Reinaas Mare Kallas Tallinn English College

3. Jan Margen Vau Tiina Kivimäe Paide Ühisgümnaasium

Form 8

1. Helo Liis Soodla Ave Soodla Pärnu Oldtown Basic School

2. Jaanus Arukask Mare Kallas Tallinn English College

3. Anne-Liise Ziugov Viive Saar Tartu Kivilinna Gymnasium

message and language skills were evaluated as well the general impression of the presentation.We have to say that the students took this task very seriously. They had done a lot of research and interviewed many people; therefore, the result was magnificent. The presentations were highly interesting and informative, and the command of the language has been getting better and better every year. The presentations were judged by the staff of the History Museum and English teachers, and they have always been truly amazed by the astounding workload and desire to present important issues.

Although all the students did a great job, we needed to select the best among the best. Here are the names of the winners and their supervisors:

We are happy that children do want to participate in such a competition and are willing to come from literally every corner of Estonia to Viljandi and share their knowledge and experience. We believe that the event is a clear example of integration of different subjects and values. Everybody gains something from it – schools, students, teachers, parents and organisers. We would like to thank all the participants and supporters and hope to meet the next year. The organisers of the competition were Margit Kirss – Viljandi County Gymnasium, Riina Kangro – Viljandi County Gymnasium, Gea Gutmann – Viljandi County Gymnasium, Heli Rahnu – Kildu Basic School

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The 46th annual IATEFL conference and exhibition took place in Glasgow from 19 to 23 March 2012. The venue was the Scottish Exhibition Conference Centre, commonly referred to as SECC or Exhibition Centre, on the river Clyde. Part of the SECC is the Clyde Auditorium with its distinctive shape (and a loving nickname of Armadillo), which is a superb purpose-built 3,000 seat conference and concert venue.

For me it was the first time at an IATEFL meeting and an umpteenth time to visit Glasgow for professional or personal reasons. I am grateful to EATE and Erasmus programme coordinator at the University of Tartu for their funding and thus making this trip possible. I gather it is rather common now to have at least five or so Estonians attending an annual event and this year proved no exception.

IATEFL has currently around 100 Associates, about 4,000 members and fourteen special interest groups (SIGs). The Glasgow conference attracted about 2,300 delegates, 500 presentations and 650 presenters. There were 14 evening events, possibly even more than that, which included product launch parties, publishers’ events and some entertainment such as Pecha Kucha, Scottish tales or voices of spring in a concert.

As in 2011, the conference was broadcast online and every morning it was possible to wave hello to online attendees while sitting in a plenary session at the Clyde Auditorium. The Glasgow conference target which stood at 100,000 online attendees was well achieved.

A major innovation was the mobile app for smart phones where the entire conference programme was included in one app and free to download instead of carrying around 220 pages or a kilo of a paper programme. The primary aim of this app, as anyone could guess, was the reduction in the number of trees that need to be chopped down for printing the programme. For less equipped people (read: without a smart phone or similar) the programmes included pull-out daily programmes and maps for orienteering which relieved you from carrying the heavy lot. Since the programme was made available on the IATEFL homepage well before the conference, delegates could do their homework well in advance and choose the presentations best suited to their interests. A new feature introduced this year was self-service for printing out your participation certificate; you only had to scan the bar code on your participant’s card. Again, the reason was cutting down organising costs as well as reducing the footprint.

It was interesting to hear Eric Baber (the current IATEFL president) reporting one morning that SECC had planted an acre of trees on behalf of the conference to help offset the carbon footprint left by delegates. Thus somewhere in the north of Scotland there is an acre of IATEFL trees where we might make a field trip to one day. There were quizzes at the exhibition every day with the prize of attending the next year’s conference free of charge. It was rather funny to hear on Thursday morning that the winners for the Wednesday quiz had been a mother and daughter who had actually won their free attendance to the Glasgow conference in the first place. Some are just so lucky, aren’t they?

On Monday I attended the ESP day which preceded the conference. It was a day densely packed with

IATEFLFÀILTE! 46TH IATEFL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, UK

Erika Jeret Pärnu CollegeUniversity of Tartu

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presentations on EAP and ESP issues. Elena Yastrebova from Moscow talked about her experience at a university where students have an A2 or higher level at enrolment, while employers would expect graduates have at least C1+ in general English and, on top of that, ESP, EAP, and possibly some translation skills as well. Most of the other presentations focused one way or another on materials and their design, the need for bilingual additional supplements for monolingual course books, and involving students in both class and online modes.

Monday evening saw the opening ceremony at the Glasgow Science Centre (much like similar centres of Heureka in Helsinki or Ahhaa in Tartu) with Eric Baber giving the welcome address.

The following days were more than packed with the conference programme as it ran from 9 am to about 18.30 pm, and one could actually start the day at 8.15 by attending one of the many How to ... track presentations (how to present at an international conference, how to write an article, etc) and wind it off at an evening event as pointed out above.

Plenary speakers ranged from Adrian Underhill to Derek “Fish” Dick, a singer and songwriter, mostly associated with the progressive rock band Marillion in the 1980s. Videos of the plenary sessions are available at: iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/sessions, and I strongly recommend watching them.

Milada Krajewska had a very engaging practical workshop on drill thrills where she shared her experience and ideas for grammar drills with adults

and used pictures, stories, disposable paper plates, paper clips, elastic strings, balls, noisemakers (a toy piggy) for her lively and attractive ideas.

Jill Hadfield was talking about the L2 Motivational Self System (Dornyei 2005), an important new theory, backed by considerable research, but which as yet lacks any direct practical applications which could be used by L2 teachers. What she pointed out among other concepts regarding motivation was an identity tree. The tree has roots, which are influences on you as a teacher; a trunk, which is your main strengths; branches, these are your teaching abilities, things you know and your special talents; and finally you can add leaves, which are your possible new skills in the future, and your ways of development. Thereafter you could number the leaves by grading them from 1 – easily achievable to 5 – fantasy. More on the topic can also be read in her articles in the English Teaching Professional magazine; her presentation slides are available online as well.

The conference also included a publishers’ fair, teaching institutions, language journals, a job market and so on. Several companies are looking for prospective materials writers for lesson plans, worksheets, etc which will be published online. Contributions are also welcome for teachers’ magazines. In brief – let’s do research, let’s write it up, let’s share our valuable experience and disseminate it, present it and speak about it as much as we can.

Erika Puusemp, Erika Jeret and EnePeterson at the conference opening at the

Glasgow Science Centre

Happy winners of the latest ´Blue Book´ with the author. Erika Jeret, Raymond Murphy and Tatiana Ivanova

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In a digital-era nutshell: www.tartu.ee www.estravel.ee www.edel.ee www.tallinn.ee www.tallinn-airport.ee (Estonian Air / KLM ) www.glasgowairport.com (Service 500, airport's official Glasgow Shuttle ) www.glasgow.com www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/GLAARG/glasgow-city-centre-argyle-street www.secc.co.uk (= Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) www.iatefl.org (and all the way back in reverse), with some entertainment thrown in, e.g. http://www.glasgowguide.co.uk/maps-full.html, http://www.loch-lomond.net/theloch/luss.aspx, and http://www.glengoyne.com/.

A couple of comments:

Actually, the only relevant website that is of vital importance to you is the following, because it allows the visitors to access many materials of the conference: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/sessions/index.

The Associates’ Day that I had to attend as a rep is a day meant to make participants ponder upon the ways and practises of both IATEFL and their local organisation, which left me with a lot of questions that I would like to get an answer to from each and every one of you (at least in your minds, but preferably via email):

What can you give your organisation (i.e. EATE)?• Do you regularly attend Summer Seminars and Annual Conferences?• Have you ever volunteered to write for OPEN!, or speak at any of the events, or conduct a • workshop?Have you ever told your non-member colleagues about EATE and encouraged them to join?• Do you regularly visit the EATE webpage (• www.eate.ee)?Do you follow EATE on facebook?• Have you already registered for the next event?• Are you among the 20% of people who make 80% of things happen? • Are you proud to be a teacher?•

One presenter suggested that, at a busy conference, people usually tend to only notice things that somehow reflect their frame of mind at the moment, so this is some of what I heard (in alphabetic order):

A lovely thing to say to your students: It’s an intelligent mistake, you can learn from it. • Aim for clarity above accuracy, and, above all, learn (and teach your students) to be likable in English.

As a teacher, model the behaviour of an enthusiastic reader, and position yourself as a mem-• ber of a reading community.Discover the peculiar genius of each child. They (and we!) are meant to shine • Do not apologise for who you are.• Even if you say you have no influence, you are influencing your surroundings by saying this; • you cannot do anything about it but take responsibility.How much learning happens depends on the emotional impact.• Leadership is a person’s ability to get things done by other people.• Learn to read, read to learn... / Read to enjoy and enjoy to read...•

AT THE 46TH IATEFL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW, AS THE EATE REP

Erika Puusemp MHG / EATE / DKG

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Four Estonians at IATEFL: Helle-Mari Märtson, Erika Puusemp, Erika Jeret and Ene Peterson

Lessons that do not demand that students think are a disservice to them.• Quality feedback from above, below, sideways...• Reach out and connect instead of trying to be interesting – this is more interesting.• Solutions create unexpected problems somewhere else.• Teaching is not rocket science; it is much more difficult than rocket science.• Thinking out of a box might not be anything but thinking in a bigger box.• We all like to think that we’ve got a personal life, too.• When you chance upon a new (digital) tool, be critical: does the tool enhance the task or dis-• tract the learner from it?Why am I doing this right now and how is it going to help them in their future life?•

To my knowledge, there were five Estonians at the IATEFL Conference this spring: Helena Metslang making a presentation; Erika Jeret making a poster presentation; Ene Peterson; Helle-Mari Märtson getting her first feel of an English teachers’ international conference; and me, representing EATE (the last four also in the picture below). I still feel this is a wonderful experience, especially for first-timers. So, would you like to pluck up your courage and apply for a chance to present at one of the upcoming events?

47th Annual Conference and Exhibition in Liverpool, UK (8–12 April 2013)

48th Annual Conference and Exhibition in Harrogate, UK (1–5 April 2014)

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I attended the 46th IATEFL Conference in Glasgow as a non-English teacher. I am a teacher of Estonian and literature but as I have just begun teaching a selective course of creative writing, I thought I might get some useful information on that and other topics as well. Overall it was a very informative and well-organized event and I am glad I decided to take part in the conference.

I was well prepared and already before arriving had an almost clear idea which topics I would listen to. The best and most useful course, as I already anticipated, was “Creative Writing and Process and Product” by Alan Maley. It was a hands-on course and all participants were expected to take part in trying out different writing prompts. Volunteers read their examples and Alan Maley gave instructions when and how to use these prompts in a classroom. He also gave us reasons and theoretic background why we should do creative writing. I was extremely pleased that I was able to buy a book giving further ideas on creative writing and yesterday in my first creative writing lesson I tried out some of the tricks I learned.

Besides creative writing I was interested in courses that did not require teaching English as a prerequisite and could be applied to all subjects. These were “Teaching Young Learners to Think” by Marion Williams and “Memory – It’s on the Tip of My Tongue” by Andrew Howitt. The first one was quite interesting but concentrated too much on very young students, basically elementary school. That said, I have to mention I got several good tips that can be applied to older students as well. The memory lecture was not the best one. On the one hand, it was unnecessarily complex and, on the other, at the same time it talked about things that everybody already knows about.

As I am a literature teacher I was very much interested in all courses dealing with reading and talking skills and discussing books. I was a bit disappointed when I did not find that much on literature, but there were some things about reading, for example “Ways In, Ways Out. Before- and After-Reading Activities” by Robert Hill and “Zooming into the Reading Class” by Hakan Sentürk. The former was very much to the point and gave very specific ideas on what to do before, during or after reading a book or even a fragment of a longer text. The latter introduced a fun programme called Prezi. I was actually already familiar with the programme, but he did give good suggestions on how to use Prezi with texts and in literature courses.

I would definitely consider visiting the IATEFL Conference again, but I have also started thinking about finding other associations more suitable for my preferred subjects. This will be hard because world conferences in (and on) Estonian are an elusive dream. I think the time and money I invested in this trip was worth every penny and, besides the conference, I got to enjoy lovely Glasgow, visit some museums, do some shopping and stroll around the university campus.

A TEACHER OF ESTONIAN AT IATEFL

Helle-Mari Märtson Miina Härma Gymnasium

The conference venue – the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre

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Teachers’ Teacher

When and how did you discover the English language for yourself?

I have always been a keen mathematician. Mathematics was my favourite subject at school; I regularly took part in all kinds of competitions in maths and achieved quite good results. At the same time, I have always enjoyed studying languages and this interest is related to my passion for mathematics: it was exciting to learn the rules how different language structures can be formed, how words can be combined and how the message can change due to that. So my primary interest in languages was related to linguistics, and at school I was a diligent student of the Estonian, English and German language. English was my favourite, probably because we had an enthusiastic teacher who tried to make the process of studying the language as varied and exciting as possible.

Having graduated from the secondary school, I had a hard time deciding whether to study mathematics or English at the university. I wanted to study both at the same time. Eventually, I decided that there is more of a mathematical logic in a language than there is a language

in mathematics. Having started to study the English language and literature at the University of Tartu, I discovered that there is much more behind this major than just a language and I have never regretted my choice.

How would you compare university life from the viewpoint of a student and a teacher?

Having entered the university, I was very excited because for me, it was a dream come true. It would probably sound naïve, but it was amazing for me how intelligent the university lecturers are and how much one can learn from them. I must admit that it was not easy for me to study at the university at first, especially in English. I even used to record the most difficult lectures, then listened to these Dictaphone recordings at home and completed the numerous gaps in my notes. I even listened to these recordings when cleaning my room at the dorm or when cooking! (Who knows, maybe this is when my interest in recording people’s talk started – later, I used recorded conversations as the data in my MA thesis and I also study oral communication in my doctoral thesis. So, it is even good that I had difficulties in my studies at first.) Certainly my life as a student did not mean just studying. I made several really good friends here and we still meet and have a good time together. We all have plenty of positive and funny memories about our university life. So, from the viewpoint of me as a student, and I still am a (PhD) student, university life is the exciting one.

As a teacher, I enjoy working together with my colleagues, most of whom used to be my teachers. And confirming my first impressions as a university student, I am still certain that they are highly intelligent and charismatic people. It is a pleasure to be part of this “family”. I also enjoy teaching at the university

WITH A TWINKLE IN HER EYESAN INTERVIEW WITH NATALJA ZAGURA

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because most of the students are motivated to learn and when teaching them I myself learn a lot. I must say that from the perspective of a teacher, the university life is also far from boring. While my friends and I have numerous funny stories to remember about our experience as university students, my life as a university instructor also involves a lot of fun… I believe that because of being young, still remembering my own studies and having studied at the same department where I teach these days, I can understand my students, their interests and difficulties slightly better. And so, I can cater for their needs more effectively. At the same time, because of my background, I think that I can also see through them a bit better, and it is more difficult for them to outwit me when they decide to do so.

Who makes a good teacher?

Having been a lucky student of several really good teachers, I would say that a good teacher is the person who is passionate about their work and who sincerely wants to share their knowledge and their passion with the students. At the lessons, lectures or seminars of such teachers the student does not look at the watch with the hope that the class is over soon, but rather, hoping that there is still plenty of time left to enjoy the class.

Some people are born excellent teachers, they intuitively know how to present the material in an exciting and motivating way, how to support and encourage their students in the process of learning. Still, I believe that it is essential for a teacher to know what the recent developments in didactics are, to be interested in enriching and varying one’s teaching techniques. So, in order to be a good teacher, one has to be an avid learner too.

What inspires you?

As a teacher, I am always inspired by the eyes of my students shining with interest. Then I see that I am on the right way and I get even more energy to continue my work. It is also a great pleasure to see how the students progress, how they gain more knowledge and self-confidence. I believe that at times every teacher needs this kind of proof that her efforts bring positive results. Students’ progress inspires the teacher to progress.

Do you find it easier to teach adults or teenagers?

Well, when teaching teenagers, I tend to think that it is considerably easier to teach adults. When teaching adults, I feel that teenagers are not that bad either. The fact is, there are certain positive features and certain difficulties related to each age group and, after all, it also depends on the particular individuals who compose a group. If I want to be a really good teacher, I just have to work hard, no matter what age group I am teaching. I hope that the more experience I get, the easier it will be to teach a particular group in the way most appropriate for these language learners... Still, coming back to the question, I would say that the older I become, the better I understand my adult students and the easier it seems to assist them in their learning.

What are you best at?

I would like to be good at teaching. My main strength used to be my ability to work hard in any circumstances, to keep all my promises and to complete all the work on time – I used to be proud of that. Having become a full-time mother I find it extremely difficult to find enough time for my work as a teacher and it seems a “mission impossible” to be punctual. So, I hope that nowadays I am at least good at being a caring mother… But I still enjoy teaching and I hope that now, having myself experienced all the possible difficulties with time planning and prioritising, I have become more flexible and understanding as a teacher. It does not mean that I am now ready to allow my students get away with doing nothing, but I am more open for compromise, which is also an important quality. I hope that as a teacher I am not bad at understanding my students and taking their interests and preferences into account; at least I am willing to be like that.

Taking the question more broadly, I am also good at cooking, needlework and organising/filing documents. So, who knows, maybe someday I will make a good cook, designer or secretary!

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What have the following added to your experience of English as a language and to teaching of English?* teaching at the university, secondary school and elsewhere* your PhD studies * translation, e.g. of Our Estonia* combining being a mother with a career in teaching

Having taught at a secondary school, at the university, at a language school and also having tutored individual students, I have certainly gained a lot of valuable experience and made some steps further towards becoming a better teacher of English. I have understood how much there is for me to learn yet. Actually, this is good, because I enjoy learning, especially when it is something practical, something that I can immediately try out in the course of my work. Moreover, my English has certainly improved considerably – it is well known that the best way to learn something is to start teaching it. It is so, indeed; and as there is still a lot for me to learn about the English language and about teaching English, it is highly unlikely that I will switch over from the job of a teacher to that of a cook, designer or secretary in the near future.

Having tried to do some translation, I understood it once again, that in order to translate a text adequately, one needs to have a lot of background and cultural knowledge; it is not enough just to know a language well. It also demonstrated that regular contact with a language and practice are essential, otherwise one ends up looking for the right words when translating – they are somewhere out there but you just cannot remember them… That is why translation activities are useful for language learners and teachers should not abandon them – such activities would motivate the students to learn more and this would prevent their English from so-called fossilisation.

Having started my PhD studies, I have an opportunity to research in more detail the area of teaching that seems challenging to me – developing the oral communication skills of the learners of English. Hopefully, as a result of this work, I will get some useful insights that I can use in the future when teaching English, and I will also have some findings and techniques to share with my colleagues.

Combining the role of a full-time mother with the career in teaching English is the greatest challenge for me. I am still learning how to prioritise different tasks and how to get many things done in practically no time. There is still a lot for me to learn, but at least I have become more flexible and more realistic about my abilities: I have reached a valuable understanding that a teacher is just a human being, not a superwoman, and there is a limit to the work that can be normally completed within a certain period. One just has to accept it... But I made the most surprising discovery when I started teaching some courses after having been just a housewife and a mother for some time – I would have never believed that I can enjoy teaching that much and that I can get so much positive energy from sharing my knowledge with others. It is a hard work to be a teacher, but I love this job and I cannot imagine myself doing something different.

What language do you dream in?

This is a good question! I guess it depends on the dream… I use three languages (Russian, Estonian and English) almost every day and all of them have become a natural part of my life; they are just associated with different contexts. These days I do not think in a particular language all the time and when speaking Estonian or English I certainly do not translate the sentences from my mother tongue, Russian. In different situations my thoughts are in different languages, the ones that I am expected to speak in that particular context. I guess it is a sign that a certain level of language proficiency has been reached and I like the fact. I am sure that the more languages you can speak and the more cultures you can associate yourself with, the more interesting your life is. I am absolutely happy with mine!

Natalja Zagura was interviewed by EATE Committee members

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National English Language Competition

The Internet and the rise of computer technology undoubtedly affect the lives of modern people more than we actually acknowledge. We all know the importance of the digital gadgets we use daily and most of us cannot even picture life without computers. Therefore, in my opinion, this year’s competition topic connected with the promise and problems of the virtual world was very fitting and probably did not pose any real difficulties to anybody who participated. I believe that the general topic was very good in the way that it left room for me to find a side of the subject that would be connected with my personal interests.

Without long and difficult deliberations, I knew almost instantly that I would write about art. I have been a very creative person since childhood and I use the Internet for exhibiting my work as most contemporary artists do. Therefore, the question about the positive and negative effects of distributing art on the Internet sounded like a logical choice for me, since this topic is connected with my own habits and would provide great new information that I could take into account in the future. I chose to limit my research to the USA, because most available sites on the Internet that deal with art distribution are of American origin; additionally, the English-speaking user base is biggest in the USA due to their enormous population.

I decided to conduct my research in different parts, both acquiring information myself and asking the opinion of other people. Luckily, I know several American artists who I have met online, so conducting a survey was not difficult. I got many very insightful and well thought-through answers that made compiling the paper much easier. The next portion of information I gathered from an e-mail interview with a famous American digital artist, Claudia McKinney. Finally, I took a closer look at the biggest art distribution site, deviantART, that I also use to exhibit my digital artworks. I additionally searched for information from other sources, about deviantART, online copyright infringement and art blogging.

Starting with the positive impact of the Internet on art distribution, I first concentrated on finding out why deviantART actually is so popular and regarded among artists as one of the best places to exhibit art online. Both the online survey and the interview led me to believe that the main reasons for deviantART’s success are its huge viewer-base that encourages artists, because they believe that they will reach a big audience, the fact that it is free of charge and that it has limitless gallery space. All of them are reasons why I also chose the site as the place for my online gallery.

Next, I turned my attention to the widespread custom of writing blogs, trying to find out how they benefit art distribution. From the information I gathered, I understood that most people regard blogs as a great way to feel closer to their favourite artists or idols in general. Compared to art distribution sites, blogs are much more personal. The artists might share some personal information or photos when writing a blog, maybe provide some useful tips about their working methods for people curious to know more about their style. Both Claudia and the people in the survey insisted that reading the blog of an artist you like helps to establish a more personal relationship, although often one-sided. Yet, for many people it is very important that they can glimpse a bit further into their idol’s life and feel more connected with them.

When I moved on to the negative impact the Internet has on art distribution, I concentrated on the issues related to copyright infringement and loss of original thinking. Copyright infringement has become almost

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON VISUAL ART DISTRIBUTIONIN THE USA

Johanna Taiger Tallinn English College

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effortlessly easy with the development of the virtual world. Now, even on most art distribution sites with obviously original and privately owned material, the option of just right-clicking on the image and saving it to your computer is enabled. This provides countless opportunities for potential art thieves, although, fortunately, the greater part of people saving artworks to their computers do not do it with evil intentions of profiting from the action. They mainly want to save the artwork because they appreciate it. When I asked the people taking part in the survey whether they too sometimes save a work of art they like to their computers, 76% actually said yes. This shows that even other artists, people who should be most concerned about copyright violation, are not immune to the habit very common in today’s society. The problem is not so easy to solve, though. Many possible solutions are not applicable because they would limit users’ rights. Moreover, some of them are very easily bypassed and therefore rendered useless in the longer perspective, for example watermarks can easily be removed with certain computer programs.

Many people do not probably think about the loss of originality as a severe problem the Internet has caused. Yet, when asking people’s opinion and looking around on deviantART, it became clear to me that it is, in fact, an important issue. It seems that with the amount of possible references increasing daily, artists are becoming lazier. Originality does not necessarily mean inventing a completely new way or topic, but everything should still be delivered using one’s individual style. What I saw with my own eyes and what the respondents to the survey said shows that many people are using the easier way: they copy somebody else’s style or ideas. I gathered from the answers that aspiration to become more popular through using appreciated methods used by a famous artist seems to be the main reason for copying, at least that is what other artists seem to think. Certainly, there is logic to the idea that what has worked well for someone might work as well for somebody else. Therefore, it is obvious that some less known or completely amateur artists might believe that using a popular theme or method could help them get more viewers. In the end, though, it is the talent that should determine the popularity of an artist.

In conclusion, I must say that writing this research paper and taking part in this competition was a very good experience. It became clear that the Internet has a great impact on art distribution and both the positive and negative sides are very important, even impossible to ignore. Hopefully, we can overcome the bad effects in time, but I would like to think that even now, my research helped everybody who read it to think a bit more about how they treat pictures they find on the Internet. I also hope that I gave them encouragement to explore the countless online art galleries or blogs, because magnificently beautiful art can be found online.

Social media has many outlets and many roles. Among them, political campaigning is something that has gained importance in the recent years. My paper assessed the impact of social media on contemporary political campaigning, and also the manifold options how social media is being used. It can be said that in a democratic society the heterogeneity of public discourse is of paramount importance because the more open people have been to a variety of information, the more calculated their decisions will be. Since social media can be accessed by everyone and from everywhere without any cost, it has substantially contributed to

the evolvement of eclectic public discourse. However, social media has contributed to creating the means for a divergent deliberation, in practice, it has not had any significant impact on a more heterogeneous public discourse. However, it is argued that having a variety of people’s opinions on social media does

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON POLITICS

Marcus Niin Tallinn School No. 21

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not mean greater and improved democracy, since opinions matter as long as they are constructive and not intended to simply discredit a politician without proof. According to a survey, the majority of posts – 75% – on Facebook were informative and constructive (Kushin & Kitchener, 2008). The other 25% is a natural part of a democratic society. Because of the existence of freedom of speech in a democratic society, the citizens are allowed to voice their opinions, whether the opinions are pertinent or impertinent to a certain discourse. Naturally, there are people who simply discredit politicians without any proof, but among the large number of social media users, there are also people who are interested and care about the campaign and politics. The question is rather how politicians are using it in order to draw voters and whether it has had any genuine results. In the paper I also introduced three main requirements for inducing citizens to vote: sharing ideals, goals and accomplishments (Fitzpatrick, 2011). These requirements can easily be fulfilled thanks to the variety of options social media provides. The paper demonstrated that even if the percentage of people who turn up eventually on the voting day may be low, the actual number, however, is quite consequential. Social networking increased the number of voters in the Obama campaign in 2008 by only 2.1% of people aged 18-29. However, this percentage represents 3.4 million people. Therefore, even if the percentage may seem inconspicuous, the result in numbers is definitely not. When social media can improve the results of the voters’ turnout even by a little, it is already an improvement. But that improvement is not very substantial compared to the overall voter turnout percentage. There was a significant decrease in the overall numbers – from among everybody who is eligible to vote – of people who voted between the years of 2004 and 2008. Moreover, it is compounded by the fact that 2008 marked the beginning of the extensive use of social media for political campaigns. Therefore, social media has not been the solution for the voters’ apathy. Moreover, the use of social media for political campaigns has not come without costs. Barack Obama allocated $26,555,479 to Internet media – a slightly high price to pay for an increase of 2.1%.

Furthermore, social media has proven itself as being extremely useful for fundraising. Because of its ubiquity, every person who wants to contribute to the success of a politician can easily acquire the information from social media. Barack Obama, for instance, raised 87% of his funds through social media. The advantage of social media is that the information can easily be dispersed among people. By simply pressing the “like” button on Facebook, the information will be distributed among hundreds and thousands of people, if not even more. Therefore, everybody can reach the necessary information – or the information rather reaches him. This has also proved to be advantageous to politicians in terms of actuating people to participate in and organizing volunteer work. For example, if Barack Obama “tweets”, then 11.8 million people will receive the tweet. Compared to the situation even a decade ago, when politicians and their staff had to move about from town to town, handing out leaflets and paying for expensive TV commercials to inform the public of their actions, nowadays it can be done without much effort on social media. However, advocating volunteerism has raised concern over the privacy of people. More precisely, geo-targeting has been the cause of it, which amalgamates the information that a citizen allows on social media and then makes an opinion of his political stance, which can further be used by politicians. People have started to receive mails from political parties and there is nothing particular they can do about it. It is and will be, however, within the discretion of an individual of how much personal information he will distribute on social media that may eventually be used against him. Social media is a public venue and available for everybody after all.

In my paper, I also found that social media can be considered as another medium for politicians to manipulate with the public. Since the information they share cannot be restricted, politicians have used it and will use it to disseminate fallacious information about another candidate. Moreover, this will make it problematic for the public to discern the correct information from the incorrect one. Eventually, it is the volition of the public to make the choice whom to believe. Even before the era of social media, politicians used falsified statements to discredit other politicians, and with the development of social media, this will definitely not disappear.

As social networking continues to develop at an immense rate, there will always be problems concerning privacy or manipulation. Furthermore, it is yet to be seen whether social media will turn out to be conducive to a more heterogeneous public discourse. Until now, it has not had any significant impact. However, the public has embraced social media, because it empowers every person and everyone has the possibility to access information on social media. Social media will continue to alter the methods for political campaigns and also make the lives of people more comfortable and information more accessible.

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Reading Recommendations

What would you do if you had to live your whole life in a confined space, with limited resources and only one other person to share it with? What kind of person would you develop into? Not your dream, is it?

It would probably be a lot safer to read about somebody else’s similar experience. So, meet Jack. Jack is five. He lives in a single, locked room with his Ma.

He has never been anywhere except in ROOM, and he cannot even imagine anything else as real. To him, only things in ROOM are a reality, and even when he starts asking questions, and his Ma tells him about life outside, he has a hard time believing everything else is not just on television. He is very different from the five-year-olds you might know. Sunlight is bound to hurt him, and ordinary

everyday speech sounds like screaming to him. On the other hand, he can do wonders with numbers and knows words too sophisticated for many college students. And now that he is five, his Ma believes he is strong enough and brave enough to make one of her years-long dreams to come true...

This is the predicament in the life of the main character and narrator of ROOM, one of the best books I have read recently, written by the Canadian Irish writer Emma Donoghue, which explores such themes as parent-child relationships, personal freedom, and what people would do for survival. I would definitely recommend this to any avid reader, especially fans of psychological fiction. Enjoy

But don’t take my word for it, consult specialists. Besides having a wonderful trailer by HarperCollins Canada (http://community.indigo.ca/posts/Fiction-Editor/user-300763/593813.html), it has also been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2010) and for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2011), etc, etc. (For the full list, go to Emma Donaghue’s official website, http://www.emmadonoghue.com.)

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ:ROOM by EMMA DONAGHUE

Erika Puusemp Miina Härma Gymnasium, Tartu

ROOM. Photo by Ingrid Puusemp

Emma Donoghue

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I would like to introduce and recommend two of my Top 10 resource books. No matter whether you have been in the teaching business for quite a long time already or are a newly qualified teacher, you can find numerous ideas and ready-made activities from these two books. Experienced teachers might start looking for new ideas not only to support the textbook materials but also to carry out small- scale experiments in their classroom to keep themselves inspired and motivated. Inexperienced teachers might run out of ideas just because of lack of experience. The first book is addressed to primary teachers, but the majority of activities could be upgraded for higher levels as well. The second book is for secondary teachers mostly, but activities could be downgraded for lower levels, too.

Carol Read 2007. 500 Activities of the Primary Classroom. MacMillan Publishers.

The author dedicates the book to every teacher who tries to bring out the best in every child.

It is a more than a 300-page resource book that is divided into 10 sections. There is an introduction at the beginning of the book that provides the reader with an overview about working with children and gives general guidelines on how to use the activities. All the activities are outlined so that the user gets to know the language level of the activity, organisation pattern (e.g. pair work, whole class, etc), recommended age, aims, language focus, materials, procedure, comments and suggestions. The procedure provides a step-by-step description of how to carry out the activity in the classroom. Comments and suggestions give extra tips and warnings, and ideas on upgrading the activity.

Every section is led in by a short introduction to the theme of the chapter.

The first section provides ideas and tasks for developing listening and speaking skills. Listening is combined with colouring, drawing, miming, acting out, etc. Speaking activities help the students to say things about themselves and their surrounding world.

The second section focuses on reading and writing activities. Reading activities often include some sort of a puzzle in them. Writing activities support creativity and imagination as well as develop process-writing skills. Writing activities also help the students to learn or get used to the English alphabet.

The third section expands teachers’ repertoire of teaching grammar and vocabulary. Fresh ideas are provided for introducing new language, for consolidation and recycling.

Sections 4 (Storytelling and drama), 5 (Games), 6 (Rhymes, chants and songs), 7 (Art and craft) bring variety into the classroom, complement regular textbook work and feed students’ creativity and imagination.

Section 8 with the title Content-based learning reinforces the idea that it is important to teach

READ WHEN YOU NEED NEW IDEAS

Piret Kärtner Department of EnglishUniversity of Tartu

other subjects through English as well because students might need English words related to other subjects taught at school. It is a good way to integrate language and other subjects. In this section, students learn about materials, plants, substances, colours and shapes. Section 9 brings ICT and multimedia resources and ideas into the classroom and the last section, section 10 Learning to learn emphasises the need to develop study skills in the language lessons on top of developing language skills. This section provides ideas for developing organisational skills, developing self-esteem, responsibility and self-reflection and supporting memorisation. It is a highly commended book that received Duke of Edinburgh ESU English language Book Award in 2007. David Seymour, Maria Popova 2003. 700 Classroom Activities. Macmillan Publishers

This resource provides more than 700 activities for practising, consolidating and recycling speaking, grammar, vocabulary and language functions. Teachers appreciate this resource because the activities described do not require extra preparation or making copies. Models and necessary information are just written on the board. The authors mark what language level is necessary for carrying out the activity (e.g. elementary, intermediate, etc) and the exclamation mark in the triangle warns that the activity might be a sensitive one and teachers should decide whether to use the activity or not. Some activities and projects require Internet resources and are marked with the sign ’www’. Conversation activities offer multiple ideas for specific topics such as accommodation, education, health, food, history, leisure etc. The same or similar topics are also a part of the English language syllabus and most of the textbooks used at schools. Grammar activities are divided into topics such as adverbs, tenses, relative clauses, conditionals, etc. The topics within the chapters are in the alphabetical order and that makes it easier to navigate in the book.

It is a valuable easy-to-use resource for any teacher who wants to bring new and motivating ideas into the classroom and offer his/her students stimulating language practice.

EATEEstonian Association of Teachers of

English

Have you told your colleagues about EATE?

Share your impressions with them; direct them to our website www.eate.ee

EATE ANNUAL CONFERENCE28 October 2011

Photos by Reet Noorlaid

Time for lunch.

Charles Goodger spoke about teaching languagethrough action songs.

Katri Sirkel’s presentation was about articles – minor wordsof major importance.

Leelo Kaskmann’s topic was creative writing.

Katriin Visamaa and Sten Rinne fromDream Foundation.