austraLasia #2057

London taxi drivers, and ESL for Salesian students in Australia

MELBOURNE: 11th February 2008 --  A study by the University College London (Eleanor Maguire et al, 1999), claims that London Taxi drivers have enlarged posterior hippocampuses - or is it hippocampi? - and that doesn't mean that they have backsides like a hippopotamus from sitting down all day! The study suggests that this is an area of the brain which helps taxi-drivers remember the complex maze of London streets, and that it expands with use, to the benefit of that occupation of course, or at least to the benefit of those who catch taxis in London!
    Fr Marc Barry sdb, who runs a professional ESL unit in Melbourne on behalf of Salesian students coming from around the EAO region, subscribes to the notion.  Recently, in preparing a few notes for austraLasia on his ESL programme (a week ago we ran a similar news item on the ESL unit at Parañaque in the Philippines), Marc commented that he believes strongly in 'training the brain', especially when it comes to pronunciation. If the London study is accurate, and it would seem to be, then he is correct.
    Currently, Salesian students from Thailand, Samoa and Vietnam, who come to the Australia-Pacific Province to improve their English skills, attend the Australian Catholic University (ACU) for English courses. Fr Marc, with many years of experience in ESL teaching behind him, 5 of them specifically in teaching ESL at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, prepares the Salesian students for IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, a certification recognised across a large part of the English speaking world for tertiary entrance, and is used by some countries for immigration purposes as well.  He has installed Eyespeak (www.eyespeakenglish.com), speech recognition software which improves the quality of spoken English.
    This year 3 Thai, 5 Samoan and 2 Vietnamese Salesian students are expected to benefit from this ESL unit.  No London taxi drivers as far as we know.
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 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2008 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2057
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces AUL EAO General ESL
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2057