7 Quick Takes: English Only Edition

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Working with non-English speakers. When I walked into the classroom for my drop-in session on Monday, I had to calm down one of the students who was taking a test for one of her classes. Her English is limited and she had been sitting there for two hours trying to figure out how to start her test. Once I got clarification from her instructor on what she was supposed to be doing, we were able to get her working. I’m thankful to a couple of my other Spanish-speaking students for translating because I needed to give her very specific instructions and Google Translate can only do so much.

— 2 —

“English only” people. My experience on Monday got me thinking about the misguided people who make nasty comments about how “this is America and people need to speak English!” Most of these people do not speak any language but English and many of them cannot write English well. For my Spanish-speaking students, it’s the equivalent of learning two languages because you have the words that come from French and the words that come from German. Add in grammar that is complex and you have something that confounds a lot of people learning the language. Other languages are hard for us to learn, especially those with different alphabets, but I see a lot of my ELL students struggling with verb tenses and the number of verbs that have prepositions attached that change the meaning. On the other hand, you don’t have to think about the gender of nouns in English as you do in Romance languages.

— 3 —

It’s about time, Washington! Washington took away personal and philosophical exemptions for the MMR vaccine last week. I’d prefer if they had taken away religious exemptions too, but I’m thinking that most of those people either homeschool or only attend schools of their religious tradition. With the number of measles cases in the state and the fact that it had been eradicated 20 years ago and is now back, I’m glad my state is taking a stand!

— 4 —

Hematology update. I saw my hematologist on Tuesday morning and he is OK with my blood work the way it is. My ferritin is the low end of normal and my red cells are still funky, but there is nothing that is concerning him. He is sending me back to my regular doctor and adding to the recommendation of every medical professional I’ve seen since February that a hysterectomy is a good idea for me, given that my body is depleting red blood cells faster than it can make them. With any luck, I’ll be getting spayed this summer.

— 5 —

For handwriting enthusiasts… This Reddit is fabulous.

— 6 —

Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day was lovely. I got a rose at church, a carnation at Starbucks, and my mom and Daniel surprised me with flowers when they came home from the grocery store. I was honestly just happy to get a craft thing from Daniel that he made in school — I have pretty simple tastes and I don’t expect people to make a big to-do over me. The flowers were definitely a nice surprise though.

— 7 —

Funny… Did y’all know that Green Bay Packers player Aaron Rodgers was the soldier who got immolated on GOT last Sunday? It was interesting to watch.

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