Comments on: Supermarket language learning

By: Azadeh

Azadeh — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:48:39 +0000

Your post is a nice food for thought! However important thought i,s I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel in terms of action which is, indeed, more important. As far as colonization decides for countries, we will get nowhere!

By: آموزش سوپرمارکتی زبان های خارجی | Language on the Move

آموزش سوپرمارکتی زبان های خارجی | Language on the Move — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 04:11:02 +0000

[…] version of Vahid Parvaresh, “Supermarket Language Learning”; translated by Behnam Keimasi (بهنام […]

By: Ramin

Ramin — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:26:23 +0000

Dear Vahid, many thanks for sharing this post with us. The conclusion has given me food for thought.

By: Alex F.

Alex F. — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 10:57:27 +0000

Giving the its own people new ways to learn languages is one of the best investments that the Iranian government can make. As Warren Buffet once said, the best investment you can make is to invest in yourself. For all others who want to know the true benefits of language learning see http://bit.ly/RawoxD

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:24:16 +0000

In reply to khan.

Thanks, Khan! The gap between rhetoric and practice is one thing, and you are quite right to point it out, but what I find really depressing about all this is that our collective linguistic imagination seems to have been reduced to the state and the market. The very idea that language is (also) about social and cultural life, about community and aesthetics seems to be disappearing fast from a collective imagination that sees everything in terms of state or market. That’s why I find Esperanto so fascinating – it’s a “real linguistic utopia” if you will (see http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/RealUtopias.htm for the “real utopias” project) as those who use it neither do so because it’s mandated by a state nor because it has much market value …

By: Mohammadreza

Mohammadreza — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:17:35 +0000

Many thnx for introducing these topics to us. Both the topic and the conclusion are thought-provoking.

By: Banafsheh

Banafsheh — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:07:36 +0000

Dear Dr.Parvaresh,

Thanks so much for your nice post.
You have a creative mind and pay attention to special points in you posts and lectures.
thanks.I benefited from the share-out of your post.

Best

By: vahid

vahid — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:13:24 +0000

In reply to Elham. Thank you for the feedback! It is a bit too early to make any value judgement, though.

By: vahid

vahid — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:11:15 +0000

In reply to khan. Dear Khan, Many thanks for your really constructive feedback on my post.

By: Elham

Elham — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:18:50 +0000

Dear Professor,

Nice to hear we’re finally getting somewhere at least in the field of language learning.

By: khan

khan — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:27:04 +0000

Very interesting post, thanks Vahid. As you know very well that many governments in the world and also the early strand of research in language-in-education policy (LIEP) construed policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’. And they seem to earn quick approval of community by changing policy text and by showing themselves as promoters of linguistic diversity/multilingual education policy. But the shift of LIEP to get engaged with practices has given a new conceptualization of LIEP i.e. it is now the actual practices (Spolsky 2007). This strand of research reveals that most of the public sector school language policies remain essentially rhetoric. My study also shows that the practices have such a great great mismatch with the purported claims of multilingual and multicultural Pakistan. For me the litmus test of such claims is to see which section of the population has an access to the type of schools. The nationalists elites of the country do not get their children educated in schools which they claim to have improved to the international level. I think Heller’s commodification perspective on languages is very relevant in fast changing globalised world.

By: mohammad bahrami

mohammad bahrami — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:02:07 +0000

so glad to be informed,
needless to say that what is of utmost importance is to start SLA in the critical period,
which is fortunately paid attention to in this new policy.

By: babak

babak — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:06:59 +0000

Many tnx. interesting. I will have my students read this post and report back. I really liked the conclusion.