Newsletter # 1 • Daytona, Florida, USA • July/09/2015
Carta do Phil
Hi folks!
Eu e o Magdal gostaríamos de dar as boas-vindas ao curso Phil Young’s English School
Daytona 2015.
Este é o primeiro Phil News do nosso curso de 2015, onde passaremos informações sobre
tudo que os alunos estão fazendo e aproveitando nestas 3 semanas.
Após sentirem o peso das malas, acrescido de compras no Wal-Mart, nossos alunos
conheceram o nosso edifício residencial, o "Apollo Hall", que tem as melhores instalações
do campus, as salas de aulas e todas as demais instalações que vamos usar no nosso
programa.
Os alunos participaram da reunião de orientação. Além de conhecerem todo o grupo que trabalha no programa.
I'll be writing little things to you students, parents and colleagues during this course. Speaking of writing, this little
school newsletter will be much better if most of it is written by you students. Write something, anything, and get
your teachers to help you correct it. Then send it to us, with, or without, a photo taken by you, and of you, and we
will be proud to publish it. You yourself will feel good seeing something written by you being published, and it
will give great pleasure to your parents and friends, and make them proud. Plus, you'll learn something getting it
corrected. It doesn't have to be long - make it short if you'd like. Make it easy. I think it might be fun for some of
you. Also, if any of your teachers, administrators and "pais" would like to contribute something to Phil News,
please do. It will be a pleasure for us to publish it. Just send it to: [email protected]
Esperamos que todos aproveitem muito essa chance de estar juntos - alunos, professores e "office staff". Esperem
ver as lágrimas que provavelmente irão cair no jantar de despedida e novamente na chegada de volta no Brasil. O
grupo já esta começando a ser uma "família".
Boa sorte e um grande “abrasso”,
Phil
Do You Know Where You Are?
There have been all kinds of research projects done, to see how much general, basic knowledge many students
these days do not have…studies about the so-called educational crisis. It’s interesting to note that o grandíssimo
Darcy Ribeiro said, “It’s not the educational crisis…It’s
the plan!” Claro, neh, it’s easier to control people who
don’t know much. One of the studies revealed that 55
percent of American college students tested could not
identify, among ten dots on a map of the United States ,
New York City . Fazer o que, neh?
Anyhow, here is a map of the United States , with
Florida augmented. By the way, Alaska is not “under”
California !!! And Florida goes from Georgia to Key
West , which, by the way, is only 90 miles from Cuba .
Here’s a little task for y’all…find out what latitude
Daytona Beach is on and what major city in Brazil is
on (or near) a similar latitude South of the Equator, and tell your teachers.
Carta do Magdal
Se eu soubesse...
Não lembro exatamente quando começou, sei apenas que tem quase minha própria idade, é um dom natural. Falo
de planejamento. Planejamento assim mesmo, de uma forma genérica. Algumas pessoas de meu convívio se
acostumaram a me ouvir falar “vamos fazer assim ou assado, porque daqui a 10 ou 20 anos acontecerá isto ou
aquilo na nossa empresa ou nas nossas vidas" . Até uma certa idade, planejei coisas de uma forma instintiva. Se eu
soubesse na época o quanto planejar aumenta a chance de acontecer, como tem acontecido na minha vida pessoal e
na vida profissional, teria sido ainda mais incisivo e criterioso no planejamento de muitas coisas. Quando aliei
conhecimento teórico ao que já praticava, tive a certeza que não dá para deixar as coisas acontecerem. É preciso
fazer com que aconteçam.
Os jovens que hoje freqüentam nossas escolas e obtém resultados cada vez mais expressivos nos
testes de inglês de terceiros que usamos podem ficar tranqüilos com o quanto estão acertando no
planejamento do futuro.
Certamente serão eles que estarão conduzindo os mais importantes setores da economia do país,
certamente serão eles que estarão consumindo uma qualidade de vida cada vez melhor e
certamente serão eles que conceberão uma mobilidade social cada vez mais abrangente e nesse
contexto, ter inglês de alto nível é imprescindível.
Abraço,
Magdal
More from Phil
Here are a few quotes that I thought you might like to read, about diplomacy and democracy:
• "Diplomacy is the patriotic art of lying for one's country." [Ambrose Bierce]
• "The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten."
[Mark Twain]
• "Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant." [John
Simon]
• "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of
the other forty-nine." [Thomas Jefferson]
Here are some ideas on intercultural communication, things that go beyond, way beyond, verbal language.
As you know, many people who spend time in another country do not make a successful adaptation, even if they
know the language quite well. This is evidenced by the fact that most foreigners who live in another country
restrict their social activities to small groups of people from their home country. As Wayne Terryberry, McMaster
University, aptly pointed out in a conversation with me a few years ago, they form what is called an
"environmental bubble".
Most people who limit their social lives to environmental bubbles reject other cultures outside the bubble. They are
ethnocentric. In other words, they, at least unconsciously, have a strong desire for the other cultures to be just like
the home culture. When the second culture is different, it is a source of frustration and irritation (sometimes
extreme), and it frequently stimulates rejection of the second country. When this occurs on an individual basis, it is
called culture shock. When the environmental bubble forms, it becomes a phenomenon called group culture shock.
To help us understand this phenomenon better, we can call culture shock a form of cultural egocentricity or cultural
self-centeredness. Indeed, ethnocentricity is a kind of cultural egocentricity. Since, in many ways, the second
culture is not like the first, the "bubble people" reinforce each other in "not seeing" and therefore rejecting the
country being visited. By rejecting it, they place themselves outside of it. In other words, they themselves, by their
very act of rejecting the second culture, indeed produce their own rejection by the second culture. So, the vicious
cycle is formed.
Some schools of English as a Second Language work only with verbal language. Others, on the contrary, also
work with their students on customs and cultural values of the country being visited. In other words, besides
teaching English, they also teach their students about the people of the new country:
• How they are and how they act.
• How to understand and accept the way they are and how they act.
• How to feel comfortable with them and act like them, at least in some ways… "When in Rome, do as the Romans
do."
Our school is one of the few that work with the above.
In working with English, you students say things. We teachers must reinforce that which you have said right, and
we must show you the right way to say things that you have not said well. It is our role to do the same relative to
cultural perceptions and behavior. When you have done something correctly, we must reinforce it. When you have
misunderstood something in the new culture and/or used behavior inappropriate to the new culture, we must show
you the new angle and a better way to approach it, even though the way you perceived it and the way you reacted
to it would have been appropriate in your home country.
This kind of feedback is sometimes harder to accept than a correction of pronunciation or grammar, but it is
necessary and, above all, it is not said in the spirit of putting anyone down. All of our staff members made a lot of
silly mistakes when we first went to another country. Indeed, you would all die laughing at all the "gaffes" I
myself committed when I was in culture shock at the beginning of my thirty-three-year stay in Brazil.
In the beginning of a stay in another country, it is natural to make cultural mistakes, just like it is natural to make
grammar and pronunciation mistakes.
Boa sorte e um grande “abrasso”,
Phil
Activity of the day
SHOPPING SPREE!
This afternoon we are going on a shopping spree around Daytona Beach, visiting some main stores such as the
biggest Harley-Davidson store in the world.
Pictures
Sempre que possível, publicaremos fotos dos nossos alunos em Daytona. São fotos da viagem e das primeiras
atividades na universidade.
Students having a break between classes
Students having fun at Downtown Disney and Cirque du Soleil
Upper Advanced 2 Students reading Ray Bradbury`s Fahrenheit 451
Students at the Cafeteria and Lower Advanced 2 Students with Teacher Jeise
Students learning how to play Baseball with Teacher Dafny
Students watching the film “Into the Wild” and hanging out with Teacher Brian
We are having so much FUN!