According to a report on ESPN.com this morning, the LPGA will require players to be “effective in English starting in 2009.”
I don’t follow golf, so I’m not sure what exactly the LPGA is thinking on this one (are English speakers losing too often to their international counterparts?) but it seems ridiculous. Other sports leagues which draw large numbers of international players (hello, MLB) seem to do just fine. Does anybody know more about the politics behind this, or about other sports leagues that have instituted similar rules?
[UPDATE]This AP article has more information. Apparently current Tour players have two years to pass an oral evaluation, or they will be suspended; new players must pass the evaluation immediately. Also, in case you were wondering: Tiger has no comment. Ah, the smell of xenophobia in the morning!
Over the past ten days, I’ve spent a half-dozen hours on the phone with my ISP’s customer service line, trying to figure out why my intarwebs aren’t working. I politely described my issue to several different reps, answered the same Level 1 troubleshooting questions multiple times over (yes, in fact, I -have- checked to make sure the cables are plugged in properly), and patiently awaited line test results that would tell me what I already knew: I had no internet connection. (ORLY? YA RLY.) Each time, after the battery of diagnostic tools had been run, I was told “oh, you need to speak with Department X. We don’t handle these types of issues. Please wait while I transfer your call.” Moments later, instead of reaching a different customer respresentative in the appropriate department, I was dumped back out to square one: the initial help menu.
This wasn’t a mistake, however; it happened several times in a row. Apparently this is how the support system at this company was designed. Everyone at this ISP shares one main phone number, and even the second-line reps don’t have any internal switching system. I listened in horror as one particularly kind gentleman, in an attempt to track down the root of my problem, was forced to navigate the exact same voice menu I used to get to him. WTF?!? When organizations don’t provide proper support and resources to employees, how can those employees possibly provide proper support to anyone else?
We as consumers aren’t helping the issue, either. We expect businesses to provide us with more, better, faster, and cheaper. We measure success in terms of financial growth from quarter to quarter, not customer satisfaction or retention. We’re always on the go, and we don’t have much patience when things go wrong. We are rude to waitresses, bus drivers, and checkout clerks, and they are rude right back.
In short: we as a society devalue human interaction. It is a necessary evil to get what we want, when and how we want it. The problem is, human interaction is at the core of true service. True service isn’t about money or fame. It’s not even about fixing, or helping:
When you fix, you assume something is broken. When you help, you see the person as weak. But when you serve, you see the person as intrinsically whole.
Serving is about investing your time, your energy, and your whole self into something. It’s about listening, it’s about caring, it’s about giving and keeping your word. It takes strength, passion, humility, vulnerability, and a healthy dose of respect for yourself and for others. It’s not easy to do, but service, as the essay above explains far more eloquently than I ever could, is its own reward. Whether it comes from a philanthropist, an educator, a geeky mom, or a b-movie enthusiast, individual service provides the foundation upon which community can be built.
So, on this Labor Day, with the beginning of the semester, a presidential election, and oh yeah, a couple of thunderstorms rapidly approaching, I’m curious: what does service mean to you? How can we improve the service we give, and the service we receive, as technologists but also as people? I look forward to hearing your thoughts …
31 August 2008 · 11:43 am · Barbara · 2 Comments ·
A colleague of ours, Joe Dale, from the Isle of Wight, posted this video clip to his blog, and it has been making its rounds throughout the language-learning related blogosphere.
As we here in the US savor what for some is the last weekend of summer and calm before the fall semester frenzy begins (*sigh*), please sit back, and enjoy.
For much of the last three weeks, this comic has been my life: mooching free wireless (thank you, jrodie, whoever you are) from a neighbor while living out of boxes in my new apartment here in San Francisco. Earlier this summer I accepted a position at UC San Francisco, working in the Center for Instructional Technology as a Learning Technologies Specialist. For the 2008 - 2009 academic year, I’ll be primarily responsible for developing and delivering training on our new Collaborative Learning Environment; our campus is migrating from WebCT 4.1 to Moodle as of this Fall. Our space, and our organization, are undergoing a lot of changes this year, though, and so what my day-to-day work life entails beyond this year is not set in stone. But that’s another post, or a series thereof …
While my heart leapt at the chance to move to the city of my dreams, it sank when I realized what I’d be leaving behind. No, I’m not talking about the Ohio cornfields, or the stench of cow manure on a damp spring morning, as lovely as those things might be. However, anyone who has worked with Barbara knows how talented, kind, and generous a person she is. I could not have asked for a better or more caring supervisor, and I left her employ with a heavy heart. Anyone who has not worked with Barbara: well, now is your chance. My old position at the CILC is currently open and applications are being accepted; feel free to contact me at ryan [dot] brazell [at] gmail [dot] com with questions.
While many, many things are changing and moving and shifting in my life, my participation here on LLU is staying put. I will no longer be working with language faculty or students on a daily basis; UCSF is a graduate school solely focused on the health sciences. But solid teaching and learning practices are universal, and when it comes down to it, a Dentistry professor at a large state university and a Russian professor at a small liberal arts college are both just trying to educate the next generation. I believe they can learn a lot from each other despite (and, perhaps, because of) their different needs, wants, and perspectives. Helping folks look past disciplinary silos will be challenging, indeed, but I’m all about a good challenge.
Speaking of which, we are looking for a better name for our new Moodle implementation. We don’t want to call it Moodle, because we don’t want to put the focus on the software, but “Collaborative Learning Environment” is a mouthful. Anybody have suggestions?
Summers are great because I have more time to try out new software. With the work on the upcoming language technology boot camp manual (released next Friday! more on that soon), I learned a lot more about inDesign CS3.
But that program is a behemoth, sometimes overly complicated. So I am also a big fan of little apps that get the job done. For language learners (and Mac users), this free little app might be useful:
It’s very simple: you speak into the microphone and then hear yourself - with a (customizable) delay. That’s it. Definitely plug in a ear buds or a headset before starting the software. Enjoy.
