Craig Dodge Taiwan

Founded in 1966, RIF (Reading is Fundamental) is the oldest and largest children's and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. RIF's highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provided 4.4 million children with 15 million new, free books and literacy resources last year. All RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children's literacy: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.

It seems that the only time I was reading for pleasure, until recently, was on my flights back and forth between Taiwan and the US. After all, what else can you do when you are stuck on an airplane for 12-15 hours? How relaxing and enjoyable that was, though.

Reading is more than just an enjoyable, relaxing way to pass some time, though. The better your reading and writing skills are, the more you will learn in school, which might allow you to get better jobs. Reading will broaden not only your vocabulary, but also your horizons. You will learn so much about different ideas, different places and different cultures.  Reading is fundamental!

What got me thinking about reading was not just my recently renewed joy of spending time with a good book or about the importance of literacy, but also my concern with how my EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students can enhance their English ability. Spending an hour or 2 a week in an English class is not going to result in much improvement. Additionally,  text books can only take you so far and may not really be interesting to you. I'm often asked by students for advice on other ways besides our classes to improve their English ability, and there is not a much better way than to read.

As I wrote in a previous post, I believe that seeing and hearing a language in action is the natural, most effective way to learn it. It's how we learned our native language,  and in my own foreign language learning experience I've found it to be essential. When I first started learning French, just studying grammar rules and vocabulary lists made it seem more like learning a secret code than an actual living language. It never really stuck with me.  Only after participating in a summer study program in France, where I heard it, read it and used it every day did the language really become real to me and my learning increased dramatically.

Language learners can't always spend a summer in another country, however, so we have to consider the next best alternative. It is not always possible to spend time every day with a native speaker, either. How can we get the most language input possible, therefore, without being immersed in an environment where it is spoken?

READ! Find a book or magazine or a news article on a subject that interests you, and at a level where you can reasonably understand around 80% of it (the rest you can usually figure out from context) and READ! This kind of language input can help you learn English naturally, rather than by trying to memorize it's rules and vocabulary lists. It's probably a lot more fun, too.

In general, for most learners of English as a foreign language, spending a lot of energy on pronunciation does not need to be a high priority. After all, which accent would you choose?  There are so many English speaking countries and so many different accents within each of those countries, who could say which is "correct"? In English, even though you may use a non-standard, non-native pronunciation , the listener will often know what you mean by context, so minor pronunciation differences do not interfere with communication.

There are times, however, when pronunciation differences can interfere with communication. This happens to me all the time in Chinese. Because I often use the wrong "tone" (there are 4 in Mandarin Chinese) , people have a hard time understanding me since the wrong tone changes the meaning of the word, and if I've used the wrong tone on several words in the same sentence, then it's a mess. In English, even "native" speakers from different English speaking countries, or different regions in the same country, might have a hard time understanding each other. On a summer study program I went on to France, I had a classmate from rural England whose accent was so different and so heavy, it took me nearly 2 weeks to be able to fully understand her.

There are other reasons why you may want to focus some effort on pronunciation. You may be far enough along in your language learning that choosing a target "native" pronunciation and more closely reproducing it is your goal. You might have some significant pronunciation differences that make it difficult for other people to understand you. Or, you have some obvious non-native pronunciation differences that you'd like to get rid of.

It's this last issue that has been on my mind recently, specifically the /th/ sound.  There is no /th/ sound in Chinese, so it seems to be a particular challenge for Chinese speaking learners of English.  Many Chinese speakers don't stick the tip of their tongue between their teeth to correctly make the /th/ sound, so it sounds like /s/; 'I think' becomes 'I sink'.

Come on guys, I know you can do it. It is not physically impossible to stick your tongue out. In fact, it's pretty easy but you just need to break the habit. If it helps, look in a mirror and make sure you can see your tongue when you make the /th/ sound. Generally, we will understand you when you say 'I sink' or 'San-Q' (3Q), but this would be an easy thing to fix.

I am fortunate to currently  have one of the sweetest, most affectionate dogs that I've ever known. WeiWei is a real blessing.

My aunt recently forwarded to me an e-mail called "A Pet's 10 Commandments".  I don't really have anything to add to it, but I was really touched by it and felt like sharing it here. It will serve as a constant reminder to me to treat my WeiWei right!

A PET'S TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Any separation from you is likely to be painful.

2. Give me time to understand what you want of me.

3. Place your trust in me. It is crucial for my well-being.

4. Don't be angry with me for long, and don't lock me up as punishment. You have your work, your friends, your entertainment, but I have only you.

5. Talk to me. Even if I don't understand your words, I do understand your voice when speaking to me.

6. Be aware that however you treat me, I will never forget it.

7. Before you hit me, before you strike me, remember that I could hurt you, and yet, I choose not to bite you.

8. Before you scold me for being lazy or uncooperative, ask yourself if something might be bothering me. Perhaps I'm not getting the right food, I have been in the sun too long, or my heart might be getting old or weak.

9. Please take care of me when I grow old. You too, will grow old.

10. On the ultimate difficult journey, go with me please. Never say you can't bear to watch. Don't make me face this alone. Everything is easier for me if you are there, because I love you so.

Now please pass this on to other pet owners. We do not have to wait for Heaven, to be surrounded by hope, love, and joyfulness. It is here on earth and has four legs!

The place I've traveled to most by bike is WuLai. It's relatively close to where I live, the scenery is beautiful and the ride through the mountains provides a pretty decent workout.

The typical ride has always been to meet up with friends, either at Nanshijiao MRT station or Sunshine Sports Park, ride along Guanxin bicycle route to "downtown" WuLai, take a break at the 7-11 and then ride back. Occasionally, when time and energy permitted, some of us would continue along the river into Neidong Forest park, past some stunning waterfalls and more spectacular scenery. The road is smooth with only slightly challenging inclines and automobile traffic is restricted, so the ride us much more pleasant.

Today, we did something different.  I rode by myself to WuLai and met up with Josh, my friend Jeffrey and some of his friends who drove there. From WuLai, we continued along TongHo River and Route 9 into what I guess is called TongHo Park. We had to pass through one police check point where they checked ID's and we had to write in a sign-in sheet, then we passed another check point a couple kilometers later where they were restricting the number of cars and scooters that could pass through.  The road is more narrow than the one through Neidong, the scenery was as spectacular and the ride was just a little more challenging. There were several spots along the river where people were camping, having BBQ's or just enjoying a swim.

Naturally, we took a few pictures and I've uploaded them to the Bike Picture Album in my Photo Gallery. I invite you to take a look.

Looking at pictures always brings back such fond memories, which I  like to share with my friends. That  is why I have the Photo Gallery as part of this web site. I'm still organizing my photos and uploading them into albums, so please visit the gallery often for updates. There are currently albums with pictures from ChuLin, various bike trips, some vacations I've taken around Taiwan and Japan, my home in Xindian and of my family back in the US.

I was going through my pictures recently and I came across a bunch of old family photos that my aunt had scanned to prepare a memory book for my grandma's 90th birthday. WOW, there were some old pictures there and some very special memories of my family. I invite you to take a look at my family photo album.