Art

I really like art, I like coloring, drawing, painting, photography, listening to music, and many more.

The music that I like is popular music or pop music, ballad music, classical music, and several other genres of music. I like Korean pop music, I like K-Pop because the music is good and easy listening. I really like several K-Pop boy groups, the names are ASTRO and Neo Culture Technology (NCT). Liking K-Pop can inspire me, there are many lessons to be learned.

ASTRO

Neo Culture Technology (NCT)

The benefits of listening to music for me are: music can make me more excited, music can relieve my boredom, and music can change my mood. I listen to music when I'm in a bad mood, and my mood will gradually improve. I often listen to music while singing.

Several years ago I visited the National Gallery of Indonesia. There are some photos I've taken there:

Survival

Survival experience, I have experienced it when there was a flood outside my house, and there was also a power outage in my home area due to continuous rain for a whole day.

At that time I could not leave the house to buy food, all shops were closed due to flooding and power outages. I ate rice with modest side dishes using what was still available, I saved water for bathing using the water I had stored in a bucket.

After a day, the flood began to recede, but still there was a power outage. I started to be able to go out of the house to buy food, and buy water to wash dishes and take a shower. What I need in this survival condition is food and water, flashlights and candles for lighting, and money. That's the story from my experience, thank you.

Money

Everything needs money, to survive. Money is very useful for everyone to buy food, buy necessities, buy things we want. money does not guarantee happiness, because happiness lies in the people we care about and our achievement of something. Money is only a means of temporary happiness.

I keep my money in my wallet and in bank accounts. I sometimes waste money in shopping for goods on online sites or online stores. I buy the items I need on online sites because they are cheaper than offline stores and often have free shipping. I also sometimes buy or order food online through an app, but I keep pushing myself to save.

We must save money for what we need in the future, don't waste money on something we don't need.

Some quotes about money:

"Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end." -Bob Marley

"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.” -Benjamin Franklin

Changing Planet

Global Warming

Global warming is one example of changing the planet. Global warming is a process of increasing the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land. Global warming can cause climate change.

Without us knowing it, we have caused global warming through some use of something from our daily activities. Some of the causes of global warming are the use of gasoline in the use of vehicles such as cars and motorcycles, air pollution caused by excessive factory fumes from industrial gases, increasingly narrow forests, the effect of the greenhouse, excessive use of plastics can cause environmental pollution and flood, wasteful use of electricity, excessive use of tissue, rising earth's temperature and extreme weather.

Efforts to reduce global warming are:

1. Plant trees or do reforestation

2. Reduce the use of electricity, turn off electronic devices when not in use

3. Reduce the use of CFCs (Cloro Four Carbon) found in air conditioners and refrigerators.

4. Use bicycles or public transportation to travel.

5. Save water usage.

The impact of global warming can affect the Earth or the environment in which we live such as the occurrence of smog, lack of clean water, forest fires, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and food crises.

Global warming is very dangerous for the Earth and the environment, therefore we must protect and preserve the environment, make efforts to reduce global warming, and invite others to reduce global warming.

Cross Cultural Understanding - STEREOTYPE

EXERCISE 1:

What do you think is happening here?

Debbie : You’re more than just brother and sister, aren’t you?

Maria : Yes, we’re twins. I was born first, my brother came few minutes later. My mom says it’s because I’m a girl, and girls should go first.

Mario : I let her go first. Italian boys are always polite.

Debbie : Ok.. now I have a riddle for you both to solve.

Mario : I love riddles!

Debbie : A boy and his father were badly injured in an accident. The child needed an immediate operation. He was wheeled into the operating room. The surgeon entered and said, “ Sorry, I cant operate this child. He is my son”. So, who is the surgeon?

Maria : How can that be? Didn’t you say that the father also badly injured?

Debbie : Yes. Badly injured.

Mario : Maybe the surgeon was his step father.

Debbie : Nice try, but that’s not it.

Mario : Well, I give up.

Debbie : What are you both assuming that is keeping you from solving this riddle?

Discuss it!

1. What are the examples of stereotype in the dialogue?

The examples of stereotype in the dialogue are "girls should go first" and "Italian boys are always polite"

2. What is Mario and Maria assuming related to the story?

Maria and Mario assume that the surgeon is the stepfather. but their assumptions are wrong.

3. What is the answer of the riddle?

The answer is the surgeon is the boy's mother.

EXERCISE 2:

In a group of 4, choose a novel or a movie. Enlist and explain the samples of stereotype in it. It can be gender, race, nationality, and other kinds of stereotypes!

Through a film called "Brave" there are gender stereotypes in the film. Merida is the daughter of the king and queen of Scotland. Merida is very good at archery and horse riding. Merida has a brave, agile, and rebellious nature. In this film, Merida is a woman who is different from other women who have a gentle and obedient nature.

Image sources:

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/stereotype-word-cloud-concept-vector-illustration-723397222

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(2012_film)

Cross Cultural Understanding - GENERAL AMERICAN VALUES

EXERCISE 1

Chintya Phelly, an African exchange student, is visiting a radio station in Minneapolis.

Erica : Welcome to America Chintya. How‘s it going? I‘m Erica Kay.

Chintya : How do you do, madam Erica. Thank you for showing me your station. Im studying radio broadcasting at the University of Minnesota. I look forward to meet your staff.

Erica : Just call me Erica…

(A man enters a room)

Erica : Hi Fred! How‘s it going! Glad you‘re back from vacation. We missed you here.

Fred : Hi Erica. How are you doing girl?

(He slaps Erica’s open palm with his palm)

Erica : Bad boy! You‘ve been late for 15 minutes in your first day!

Fred : Terribly sorry for that. I had a very bad jet lag.

Erica : oh Fred… meet Chintya… she‘s from Senegal.

Fred : What‘s happening girl?

Chintya : I‘m visiting your station, Sir.

The American value contained in the above conversation is "punctuality" it was evident that when Fred came late to visit the radio station, Fred was reprimanded by Erica for arriving late and Americans usually really value time. The value of "equality" was also in the conversation, which was evident when Erica and Chintya greeted him. Erica greets Chintya by saying Chintya's name directly, and Chintya greets Erica by using the nickname "Madam Erica", In America, everyone is treated equally.

EXERCISE 2

Discuss a Western movie you’ve watched before and find the American values, belief, and norms on it!

I've watched a western movie called "After". American values, beliefs, and norms that exist in the film After, namely equality, Tessa treats her friends, her mother, and other players equally. informality, Tessa treats her mother informally. freedom, freedom when Tessa moved to the campus dormitory, and her association became free, because she was influenced by her friends.

Thank You

Image sources:

https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/10236793-L.jpg  https://vintageamericanways.com/american-values/ 

Cross Cultural Understanding - Culture and Foreign Language Teaching

Relation between language and culture when studying a foreign language.

 

Dwyer (1996) states about the incorporation of culture into the Foreign Language Curriculum.

Language teachers have been at the business of incorporating cultural information into their foreign language classes, long before it became popular to do so. While these teachers may not have used the term culture, they are certainly aware of the fact that one does not communicate in a foreign language by grammar and vocabulary alone. Yet now that experts are suggesting that teachers add “culture” to their language classrooms the situation becomes problematic because it is not really clear what this means in practice. (Dwyer, 1996).

Language and culture have different meanings. Teachers combine language and culture into foreign language teaching to facilitate teaching foreign languages to their students. By teaching language and culture, it can make it easier for students to talk to foreigners, and it can also add knowledge of language and culture to students.

The teacher teaches foreign languages and culture, when there is a word or sentence that shows a cultural understanding in foreign language lessons. For example, in the reading text there is the phrase "Happy Valentine's Day" which means a day of love which is usually celebrated in western countries.

References

Riyanti, Rahayu Dwi and Darminah, and Chandrawati, Titi and Arifin, Tajul (2013) Cross Cultural Understanding. In: What Is Culture. Universitas Terbuka, Jakarta, pp. 1-34. ISBN 979011057X

Austen, Jane, 1987, Pride and Prejudice, Galley Press, Leicester.

Adams, Penny, Brian Heaton and Peter Howarth, 1989, Socio-Cultural issues in English for Academic Purposes, MacMillan Pub, London

Byram, Michael, 1997, Cultural Studies and Foreign Language Teaching, in Susan Bassnett (ed), Studying British Cultures, Routledge, London.

Dwyer, Davis, Antonia Schleicher and Lioba Moshi, 1996, The role of culture: In the language classroom, __

Goddard, Cliff, 1996, The “Social Emotions” of Malay (Bahasa Melayu. Ethos 24 (3): 426-464.

____________, 1997, Congtrastive Semantics and Cultural Psychology: „Surprise‟ in Malay and English. Culture and Psychology Vol 3 (2):153-181.

Gurito, A, 2003, Culture, unpublished paper.

Mingkid, Hermanus Karel dan Sudradjat S, 1995, English for the SLTP, M2S, Bandung

Suyitno, Imam, 2000, Pemahaman Aspek Budaya dalam Tindak Berbahasa, Bahasa dan Seni 28 (2): 147-159.

Wardhaugh, Ronald, 1998, An introduction to sociolinguistics, Blackwell, Massachusetts.

Wierzbicka, Anna, 1992, Emotion, Language , and Cultural Script, in Shinobu Kitayama and Hazel Rose Markus, Emotion and Culture: empirical studies of mutual influence, American Psychological Association, Washington.

______________, 1997, Understanding cultures through their key words, Oxford University Press, New York.

https://www.minews.id/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Survey-CupoNation-Soal-Valentine-Day-Sulawesi-Utara-Daerah-Teromantis-di-Indonesia-696x464.jpg