I am an epicurean.  I love great food.  I have found great food in critically acclaimed restaurants, ethnic enclaves like China Town in Houston, food stalls on the streets of South Korea, food trucks, and dives in cities scattered across the globe.  You just never know where you might find a great chef or cook.  This got me thinking about what one associates with a great meal.  When we think of great dining or food experiences, I would venture to say that we don’t associate them with menus or recipes.  Rather, they are almost invariably associated with a person.  ....continue reading article

In part two of this series regarding my argument for why e-learning language instruction models are inferior to traditional teacher-based models of language instruction, I discussed how e-learning language instruction models contradict the very way language was intended to be used and learned.  In part three, I’ll discuss how e-learning removes a very critical, beneficial element of the language learning process, fear.  Fear in the language learning process serves a function that I liken to the function that good bacteria serves in our digestive tract.  Good bacteria actually forms one of our first lines of defense against bad bacteria.  These days, people are starting to become aware of the fact that all of our excessive use of antibiotics is actually starting to weaken our immune response because we are killing our good bacteria along with the bad bacteria.  Why do we keep abusing the use of antibiotics then?  We abuse the use of antibiotics because it’s simple.  We don’t have the patience to wait for our own body’s immune response to work so we decide to take antibiotics to “get better” more quickly.  Of course I recognize that there are some circumstances in which it’s ill advised not to take antibiotics but what I’m referring to is their abuse. ....continue reading article

In part one of this series regarding my argument for why e-learning language instruction models can never replace traditional teacher-based models of language instruction, I discussed the severe limitations of technology and their abuses.  I also posited my fundamental belief that e-learning models fail to create anything approaching what real experience with language is actually like.  Communication between two people is incredibly unpredictable and random and e-learning models can never replicate that.  In part two, I will go into further detail about why e-learning language instruction models are ineffective. ....continue reading article