Omaira Valencia: A Teacher's Role

Learning as a process of communication requires specific skills of the people who give the knowledge. Recent researches in Australia have identified that qualities of teachers have a dominant effect in student learning. For that reason, despite the other factors, I believe teachers are critical factor in a student success as a consequence of specific teacher skills in cognitive aspects and behaviour aspects.

The cognitive aspects mean that teacher knows how to control the matter. Teacher is who chooses "what" and "how" the message will be sent. In other words teacher needs, not only knowledge about the matter, but also, knowledge about the effective methods of learning process in order to obtain a successful class.

Other important aspect is teacher's behaviour. Behaviour aspects imply a positive relation with the students. Teacher should encourage tolerance and respect, because class environments affect the learning process. Students are very sensitive to nonverbal message and perceive any kind of rejection. Other facet of behaviour aspect is the teacher commitment. However, it is different the commitment to the subject or the commitment to learning process. One teacher can be very interested in his or her subject, but disengagement from the process of learning with all or some pupils.

In conclusion, despite the importance of the roll of students, the success or failure in the learning process has in the teacher a critical factor. Teacher skills in cognitive and behaviour aspects and the kind of commitment are fundamental stones in the construction of knowledge. I believe that teachers are the key to student success. "Teachers make a difference".

Omaira Valencia

Valeriy Demidov: Multilingual School

At the present time, many young people leave their native countries to receive an international education and experience, and many families immigrate to developed countries. Therefore the importance of multilingual schools, colleges and universities increases. As all social institutes, the multilingual schools have both advantages and disadvantages.

Multilingual schools have several important benefits. Students with different backgrounds learn an international language together and help each other to understand its vocabulary and expressions. For example, some words in Russian have the roots in English, and many English words are cognizable in Spanish; it permits to classmates from Russia and Spain to work together usefully. So at cooperative studies all students gain valuable experience in collaboration and socialization. At the some time, they learn about various cultures, traditions and history of nations from their classmates and friends. Sometimes it is difficult to find information about some ethnic cultures and traditions, facts of contemporary history, but it is easy to know about them from people of these cultures.

Of course multilingual schools have some disadvantages too. For instance, the limited skills in an international language put obstacles in rapid and deep assimilation of subjects, especially in natural sciences. After improving their language skills students can learn all subjects effectively. Another problem that may appear in multilingual classes is inter-racial conflicts which may be the result of ignorance or antagonism with other cultures and traditions. Often someone offends other person not purposely, but through ignorance of the culture of the person. The students should have sufficient tolerance to other nations and races.

In conclusion, I would like to note that the advantages of multilingual schools outweigh the disadvantages. During the education in this kind of schools and dealing with problems that appear in international groups, students learn socialization skills and become better prepared for their future lives.

Galina Kazakova: Multilingual School

Usually immigrant children forget their first languages during adaptation
to a new country. They lose the value that was given them from their birth. How to keep it? Multilingual schools were founded to solve this problem. However, like any new method, they have their pros and cons.
Multilingual schools have some advantages. The first pro, I think, is that kids can keep their first language. They interact with other students in their native languages, so they can practice not only at home but also at school. They study reading and writing with professional teachers not just with parents. The second positive point, in my opinion, is that kids feel more self-confident and less intimidated from the first days at school. They are involved in various activities with same-language students at once, so they do not feel isolated. Therefore, they easily make new friends. Language is a basis of culture, so it helps them to learn and keep their traditions.
At the same time I can see some cons of multilingual school. First of all, students are separated in same-language groups, but for quicker assimilation, it is better to blend in with other students. Besides, I suppose such an education method slows down studying English. The more time kids practice in their first language, the less time they practice in their second language.
Despite the fact that the pros outweigh the cons of multilingual school, I would prefer my daughter to go to usual public schools to adapt to the new environment faster. She is fourteen, so she will never forget her first language.
More important for her is English now. However, for younger children, who go to preschool or elementary school, multilingual school is good decision.

Mishel Ajison: The Lotus Eater

“The Lotus Eater” by Somerset Maugham is about Thomas Wilson “who has boldly taken the course of his life into his own hands.” On the one hand, his decision was very brave, but on the other hand, he did not think forward about the consequences. Mr. Wilson decided to live a hedonistic life because he was hopeless, irresponsible and selfish, which resulted in a tragic end.

Wilson began his life as a commonplace man who saw and tasted pretty much everything. Horses, high status, love, marriage, and disappointment from losing his wife and daughter were just some of his life experiences. Wilson was thirty - five years old when he fell in unusual love with the nature of Naples. This person lived with the present time and enjoyed himself for fifteen years. When Wilson spent all his economic resources and he became stranded, he decided to commit suicide, but his attempt failed. As a result, bad in all respects, he lost his lucidity and “perhaps he died of the beauty of that sight.”

He became hopeless due to the loss of his family. One day, he made an unexpected decision to change his life completely, and he decided to turn over a new leaf in his life. Job and money lost their values in his outlook on life because he developed his own philosophy. His status as a bank manager did not give him any satisfaction any more because of this; it was very easy to forgo this status. Therefore, Wilson had planned to live in a different way and he did everything to realize his dreams. Moving to a place that he felt in love with gave him the reason to continue life. In Italy, he found different felicity from the one he had known before; as a result, he discovered peace of mind.

Because of his irresponsible personality he was driven to obsess on with his own happiness. Being free from all responsibilities that he had before gave him a push to see and understand the beauty of life in a different way. Having leisure became routine of his life. He was living for today without thinking for tomorrow which caused him to lose another importance of life such as to be loved and to love. He was wasting time from morning to evening, and that is why for some people this kind of life seemed as a bold achievement; however, some people were skeptical about this. Everyday bathing was such a common pleasure for him that he came to believe he could not live without it. Since climbing a mountain Wilson learn the beauty of the nature more closely than had known before.

As a consequence of his selfishness, he got what he deserved. Loneliness became part of his life because people found it difficult to understand his way of life, and therefore kept their distance from him. He did not have a real friend because of his soulless demeanor. Due to his strange perspective on life, he died without any relatives. All these years impacted his personality for the worse in the form of depression. His mental instability caused him to have suicidal thoughts, and it is a fact in psychology that healthy people never think about ending their lives like him. He was always characterized by madness due to a chronic disease, but due to his failure to commit suicide, it only aggravated him more.

It is a fact that sometimes people make strange decisions and change their lives drastically. All of them are searching for happiness in different ways. Happiness is a concept that every individual understands in his own way, and the right decision for one can be wrong for the other.

Nancy Lin: Habits

Bad habits are seen everywhere and they become a practice to many children if the elderly do not educate them when they notice it. There are so many bad habits that it’s quite difficult to list them all but they can be divided into three kinds and they are hygiene, impoliteness and danger.

The first kind, hygiene, includes the day-to-day habit. To name a few examples, they are: not cleaning hands after toileting; coughing and sneezing without using a hand to cover it; putting clothes in the floor; not wearing hat in the kitchen; not flushing water after toileting; not washing hands before having a meal and so on. As you know, germs exist everywhere and so we should try our best to minimize the possibilities of bringing them into our body.

The second kind, rudeness, will affect our outward appearance; it affects others and shows your personality indirectly. To name a few examples, they are yawning without using a hand to cover it; picking nose in public area; eating noisily when rush; not waiting everybody before starting a meal; yell in class and grab others’ stuff without permission and so on.

Risk taking is the third bad habit that should be avoided, as it will cause danger to you and to others. To name a few examples, they are not having lighting indication when turning the car; gas the car on yellow light; throwing rubbish from height; bricking when making a turn especially under snowy days; smoke in gas station; not wearing helmet, safety belt in construction area and so on.

In my opinion, most of the bad habits can be corrected if the parents are well educated and start to educate the children when they are still young. Besides, government involvement in putting advertisements in TV and radio broadcast may help in making the improvement as well. I hope everybody can be considerate to themselves and to others to take away all the bad habits and be nice to everybody.

Anna Lee: Nursing

The pronunciation of Nursing (HuLi) and Physics (WuLi) in Chinese are similar. Therefore, sometimes people would misunderstand my major as Physics rather than Nursing expecting me to have a more “professional’ major, because Nursing is not a profession in many Chinese’s eyes. When I studied in the US, people would mishear the word of Nursing as “Nothing”. They were very surprised why I went to their country for “Nothing”. Another misunderstanding many people would make is that they think a nurse would become a physician after he/she pursues a higher degree in nursing, such as a Master degree or a Doctorate degree. Both the Chinese and Americans have the same thought. Therefore, there is a need to clarify the practice of nursing. Based on the scope of practice, there are three types of nursing practices which are Registered Nurse (RN), Nurse Practitioner (NP), and Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) .

One of the types of nursing practice is the Registered Nurse (RN) who is a health care professional responsible for implementing the practice of nursing through the use of nursing process. RNs use the nursing process to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate nursing care of the sick and injured. RNs can be employed not only in a hospital setting but also in non-hospital environments, such as a physician’s clinic and insurance companies. Research RNs conduct or assist in conduct of research in many areas such as biology, psychology, or pharmacy. The scope of practice is monitored by a set of laws. Different countries have different laws. In the USA, the set of the laws is called “The Nurse Practice Act”, and in Taiwan, it is called the Bylaws of Nursing Practice. There are three routes to initial licensure as a registered nurse, namely a two-year Associate of Science in Nursing, a three-year Diploma program in Nursing, and a four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Completion of any one of these three routes allows graduate nurses to take the National Nurse Examination held twice per year in Taiwan and also allows them to be admitted to the advanced education in Nursing program. Currently, there are more than 40 Master-prepared Nursing programs and 10 Doctorate-prepared Nursing Programs in Taiwan.

Another type of nursing practice is the Nurse Practitioner. In the USA, a Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse who has completed specific advanced nursing education (generally a master’s degree) and has trained in the diagnosis and management of common medical conditions. Nurse practitioners provide a broader range of health care services than those of RNs. Nurse practitioners provide care in family practice offices, urgent care centers, and rural health clinics, and maintain collaborative working relationships with physicians. Nurse practitioners treat both acute and chronic conditions through prescribing medications, physical therapy, ordering tests and therapies for patients. In the US, NPs are licensed by the state in which they practice, and have a board certification in their area of practice. In Taiwan, four hundred registered nurses were trained and certified as Nurses Practitioners two years ago. Those nurses were not master-prepared and received only one to two years of training. There was a debate concerning the safety of patient care, but a compromise was made due to shortage of resident doctors in regional hospitals. Unlike their counterpart in the US, NPs in Taiwan cannot practice independently. They have to be supervised by a physician.

The last type of nursing practice is the Clinical Nurse Specialist. A clinical nurse specialist (CNS) is an advanced practice nurse with graduate preparation (earned master's or doctorate) from a program that prepares CNSs. CNSs are clinical experts in the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, and the delivery of evidence-based nursing interventions. CNSs work with other nurses to advance their nursing practices, improve outcomes and provide clinical expertise to effect system-wide changes to improve programs of care. In the U.S., there is a nationally recognized CNS certification sponsored by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)that can be taken once the master's degree is completed. In Taiwan, the CNS has not developed yet. Most of the CNSs earned their doctorate degree from a university located in the US and became an instructor in a university in Taiwan, and they have never practiced as a CNS.

In conclusion, none of the three types of nursing practice can function as a physician. The scope of NP’s practice has little differences with that of physicians, but the NPs are not physicians. There are graduate programs provided for the RNs and the CNSs. The scope of their practice is focused on nursing services.

Maryam Rouyanipour: Housing in Canada

What are the different types of housing in Canada (for newcomer)?

You’ve arrived in Canada. One of the most important tasks ahead of you is finding a place to live. In Canada, there are many different types of housing and a wide range of prices. Finding the right place for you and your family to live will take some effort. Different kinds of housing in Canada can be divided into tow main groups: house and apartment.

The first group of housing is house that can be divided into three different types: detached, semi-detached and townhouse. A detached house is not attached to any other house and is usually one or two storeys high. A detached house is also called single-detached. A one-storey is called bungalow. A bungalow can be large or small too. Sometimes, there is some problem to keep this kind of house warm. Because they don’t have any common wall with another house, and they can waste a lot of energy and heat. A detached house is the most expensive kind of house. A semi-detached house (“semi”) is attached to another similar house. The common wall is thick enough to prevent sound passing between the units. Semis can be either one or two storeys and usually have a back yard. Townhouses or row houses are several house with common wall between each house. They are usually tow storeys. Semi-detached and townhouse are easier to keep warm.

As for the next group of housing, apartments, they can be classified into: high rise apartment building, walk-up or low rise apartment building and basement apartment. A high rise apartment is an apartment in a building that can be from six to thirty-or more-storeys high. They have elevators and security system to monitor entry and exit. They are usually newer buildings, so they often have laundry facilities, gym saloon, in door pool, recreation facilities and other services. They are also well built and have efficient heating systems. A walk-ups are usually older buildings less than five storeys high. They usually have fewer conveniences, such as laundry room or lockers. A basement apartment is a basement that has a separate entrance. It has its own bathroom, kitchen, or it may have its own laundry room and heating system, or share with the rest of the house.

Once you have decided on renting or buying, you have to decide what type of home you can afford. Looking for a home and making decision to choose one require patience and deliberate work, but the effort is clearly worth it when you consider how much time you will be spending in your home, and how much money you spend to rent or buy a home.