I wanted to introduce Cathy Malou, who is a visiting scholar at SOAS, on a full bright. I think most of you know her. She's here for three months and it's actually your last month now. So the time is going very fast. When she's not at SOAS, her normal job is in the US. She's at William Paterson University and is a professor of education in Languages and Literacy. She's worked extensively throughout Africa and most of her work has been in the DRC and also in Rwanda, but also you've worked in South Africa, Guinea, so a range of countries. And I think we're going to hear about some of your experiences from DRC today. So I'll pass over to you. Thank you very much and thank you all for coming and thank you for the invitation to let me present and welcome to my presentation. Yes. So, let us begin. I just want to give a brief overview of what I'm going to be talking about. I'll begin with a brief explanation of my background. I'll discuss the limitations that I believe I bring to the work that I'm doing. I'll also share some of the tentative research topics because this is a work in progress. I'm also going to present a brief historical overview of the DRC. And then I will share a bit about my own classroom when I was in English as a foreign language teacher there in the 1970s. We will fast forward and meet that same classroom as I saw it in 2014. And then I will be talking about English language clubs that really should be English language clubs as opposed to English clubs. I'll share some of the survey data that I've gathered. Again, the limitations of what I believe my survey and other data represent and a list of references. And let me say right now, the audience is very small. So, I would appreciate and encourage you to interrupt and let's have a give and take here. We don't need to have it as formal as it might be were we in a big lecture hall. Okay, a little bit about my background. Let me begin in 1963 in the United States, President Kennedy said to all Americans, Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. And this was the impetus to create the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps is a voluntary organization that usually brings young Americans to developing countries to do all kinds of work. Some of it is teaching, it can be nursing, healthcare, community service. And I decided when I finished college to become a Peace Corps volunteer. I joined and I was sent to at that time, Zaire, one of the other names for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I worked there for two years as an English as a foreign language teacher at an all girls secondary school Catholic. And I'll be telling you a little bit more about that in a few more minutes. I returned to the States, I got a master's degree in education. And five years later I rejoined the Peace Corps and was sent to Rwanda where I became an English language inspector and visited and worked with some of the secondary school teachers. I also developed curriculum materials for teaching English in Rwanda. I came back to the States and I was a foreign language teacher, English and French for about 20 years. And then I decided to get a PhD and I got a PhD in language literacy and learning. I taught, did teacher preparation for about 10 years and then I received my first Fulbright scholarship and I went to, I was sent to Rwanda where I was an English language teacher at the university level. So I prepared teachers in Rwanda just as I had been doing in the United States. After that experience I was offered a few positions, short term positions with the United States Department of State and I was sent back to the Congo. And I think you might be able to imagine what it was like for me having started my career in the Congo and as I approached the twilight of my career I returned to the Congo. So it was quite an exciting experience for me. Part of the work that I did in the Congo was to engage in a fact finding mission to find out what people would like to talk about in English language clubs and I used what I learned to create handbooks that are now being used in the Congo in the English language clubs. Based on that, those three trips, I developed the survey that I administered and gathered other data which is part of the basis of my presentation today. Also, when I was thinking about the work that I was doing with these English club materials I found myself becoming uncomfortable with the work. I found myself asking how many languages can we ask people to learn and are my efforts really giving Congolese access to the international community? Am I really assisting them with their personal professional development or am I engaging in a new form of colonialism, linguistic colonialism? These were questions that troubled me and they continue to provoke lots of thoughts for me. So based on my brief background, let me just talk briefly about the limitations that I bring. First of all, my area is not linguistics. I am a teacher educator. Yes, I teach foreign languages but my area really is teacher education, middle level education, classroom research, that kind of thing. So I acknowledge right from the get go that I'm not a linguist. I also have a lot of data that is personal. It's anecdotal. Yes, I've got survey data but a lot of this comes out of my own personal experiences. I did some fact finding with the people in the Congo and I conducted a survey and interview questions but that is the limit of what I have in terms of my research. So what about some of the topics that I'm pursuing? What I'm really looking at are topics that have to do with the historical and contemporary nature of English language teaching and learning in the DRC. I'm also wondering about the data, the self-reported demographic and linguistic descriptions of the English language for English language learners and I'm struggling with this notion of English language teaching and learning as emancipation or recolonisation. So let me give you just a brief overview of the Congo when I was thinking about even applying to SOAS. At first I thought well maybe SOAS won't be interested because the Congo never came into their point of view. The British had their own colonies and the Congo wasn't one of them and so maybe they won't be interested. But then I thought well maybe they will be because you have not had a lot of contact with the Francophone world of Africa. So as we know the country borders of Rwanda were drawn. They were not determined based on any kind of linguistic or ethnic borders. They were determined by a bunch of men sitting in some place probably in London drawing and making decisions. For example we know that some of the languages in the Congo Lingala for example is spoken on either side of the Congo River. Congo River is a border, a frontier but that language and that ethnic group spans across. So in terms of the original people in the Congo I went to the Congolese Embassy website that's for the UK and I took directly from what they report. And there they said that the first inhabitants they are calling them pygmies and they were the farmers. In 2000 BC to 500 AD more of the Bantus came. The Bantus are considered also farmers and they represented the broad linguistic languages of Lingala, Chiluba and Swahili. In addition in the eastern part of the Congo we have the influence from the East Africans again Bantus and those were predominantly herders bringing with them the language of Ki Swahili. And finally we have the Hamites who are also herders who it is believed it came into the Congo region from Darfur and from Ethiopia also bringing Swahili. As I did some of my preliminary research I thought that it might be useful if I just create a chart with some of the dates and the important information historically that had to do predominantly with language policy. The Congo Free State was created in 1885 based on the Conference of Berlin and what I found most interesting particularly for people in the UK is the fact that in 1904 the Congo Reform Association was created. This was a British based association that was concerned with reporting out letting the world know about the atrocities that were being committed in the Congo by and through the agency of King Leopold II. It was really based and because of this Congo Reform Association in the UK that eventually the Congo was removed from the control of King Leopold II and placed into the control of the Belgian government. There were not big changes that were made with that power shift but there were some and it's because of the Congo Reform Association that in 1908 the colonial charter was created which gave the Congo to the Belgian government and the Belgian government called it the Belgian Congo. Over the years in the early 1900s there were influences from the Flemish side. Some of them were quite nationalistic and they believed that there should be the equal opportunity for the use of Flemish as well as French in the Congo. The minister of the colonies, Louis Frank also felt the same way and that influence was felt in the 1950s when bilingualism became a language policy. Bilingualism did not mean with African languages it meant with Flemish and French. One other item that I found particularly disturbing from my point of view as an American was that in 1920 we saw the influence of the Phelps Stokes Fund. This was an American based fund which focused on racist ethnocentric philosophies and had a tremendous influence on some of the things that were going on in the Belgian Congo. In 1960 we know that the Congo became independent and in 1965 to 1997 was the reign of the dictator Mobutu. Let's look now in a little bit more specific detail about the language policies shortly before independence and through to the time that I came into the Congo. As you can see from this chart there was a huge amount of movement in terms of language policy shifting from medium of instruction which at some points were Congolese languages at other points were French and there was this backwards and forwards kind of movement which gave no kind of consistency to the policies and practices in the Congo in terms of the languages that were used. Fast forward now to 1971 and my time in the Congo which was 1973. So as I told you I can speak now from personal experience about this English language teaching and learning and the practices that went on. These practices depended on in large part the geographical location of the school the school budget access to teaching materials whether or not the schools had access to those the teacher training how well or poorly the teachers were trained and the teachers knowledge of the languages they were expected to speak. In my case I taught at an all girls Catholic boarding school it was on a paved road 90 minutes outside the capital city of Kinshasa. The nuns were extremely conscientious about making sure that we had everything that we needed and that they followed the language policies to the letter because they were always easy targets for the language inspectors. It was always easy for them to hop on the road and come out to inspect the school so the nuns were pretty careful about what they were doing. So here I've got two photographs from my teaching time there. On the left is a photograph of the 11th grade class there were 25 students in that class and on the right is a photograph of the 9th grade classroom there were 35 students in that classroom. The angle of my camera doesn't allow you to see the entire classroom but believe me there were 35 students which felt like a pretty, pretty big classroom. I'm sorry? Are you in the photo? There I am. Photography at that time in the Congo was a very, very tricky thing because Mabutu had a policy that no photographs were allowed to be taken and so when I started looking back I found that I had very, very few photographs so these are quite precious for me.  Some of them were teaching in situations where they didn't even have blackboards. So, while I was there in 1973 to 1975 there took place a quite famous world event which was the heavyweight boxing champion about between George Foreman and Mohammed Ali and for some reason even to this day I can recite for you the chant that people would say which was Ali Bumaye, Ali Bumaye in Lingala meant, kill him Ali just to kill him. So, I took this photograph in 2014 when I returned and it is a photograph that is stating that they are going to pay, have a commemoration for 40 years after the fight with Mohammed Ali. So, my, as I said before my return to the Congo was something that I really couldn't imagine it seemed like it brought my professional experiences kind of full circle and the other thing that I was able to do was to return to the school where I had been working and I was able to see what was going on there. I found that the classrooms had different colored paint on the walls and that there were very few students in the classroom. On the left is a photograph of the 11th grade classroom and there were enough seats for just 16 students. On the right is the 12th grade classroom an English language classroom and not much different from when I was a teacher except that there were only enough desks for 10 students which meant that the classes had become much, much smaller. You can't see through, on the PowerPoint but you might be able to make out that here we've got a verb conjugation. The verb to eat is conjugated in the simple present tense and over here we have the rule for the use of the simple present, simple present continuous tense. So the form of instruction was the old kind of grammar translation instruction that continues to be used. I asked about the low number of students in the classroom and I was told that now families have many more choices for where they can send their young girls and so that's one of the reasons why the enrollment is now so low. I want to turn my attention now to focus on my tentative research project. These English language clubs and this was done through my work in 2014 and 2015. I found that there's a grassroots movement that seems to be sweeping across the Congo. There's an effort by the local population who want to practice English, the English that they have been learning in schools and secondary schools. They study English for four years at the secondary level and depending on their major they study it also at the university. This practice however is sporadic, irregular and erratic and it depends on the geographical location of the school, the availability of materials, the school budget and the teacher training and conscientiousness of the school to access whatever it is that they need. The reasons for people, the general public wanting to learn English are similar to many of the reasons given in the language policy decisions that I've been reading about. They want to join the international community and they don't believe that French is going to give them access to that. So what goes on in English language clubs? On my visit to the Congo I stopped at 15 clubs and I attended a meeting at each one of the club. In this photograph we have one English language club where two presenters are talking and telling the club members how to prevent the spread of Ebola. The presentation is being given in English and afterwards there was a discussion. On the right this is an English club that is taking place in the English language classroom run by the US Embassy. You can see that we have gender balance. We have co-presidents, a man and a woman and they are talking with the members of the English language club. There are about 50 members in the English language club that's based at the embassy and in this club there are more than 100 members. So one of the most favorite events in the club are the participation by the audience and the skits, dramas, music that's sung that are presented to the group. Afterwards the club members usually talk about what they've seen. The skits are usually focused on romantic problems and have to do with how they are and have to do with husband-wife relations or young men and young women relations. What I want to share for you is a video clip from one of the clubs. It's a neighborhood club. It meets twice a month in one of the classrooms in one of the local elementary schools. There are at least 15 members in this club, the African Academy. The clip that I'm going to show you is about a wife, a young woman who comes to see her pastor and she is telling him that she's there because her husband doesn't want her to work at her job anymore. He's jealous. Yes, come in please. I have a little problem with my husband. He said that I have to choose between him and my job. Yes. You have to choose between your job and him. I don't know why. I feel that it's a problem of the job. It was my most problem. I don't know why. So is that problem right now with your husband? Okay, it's ready. Okay, so problem of jealousy, problems between the husband and wife, jealousy about the wife working outside the home. Okay, I have another clip that I'd like to show you and it's from the White House English Club. And I think that I don't need to say too much more about the clip. Let me just tell you that this club meets every week after their Sunday religious service. There are more than 100 members in the club. And I think you'll figure out for yourselves what this clip is about. Something. The kids and kids that school is so hot running around in my needs. I think, oh! That's good too. Yes, I'll have some, I'll say it now. I'm going to put it off for some more. And then at the time, I want to make a show for the people. But I want to put it off. I see it, I see it. Ew! I'm going to put it off. I just want to write because I have some guitar and some things that I want to do. Blackboard people. Ew! Ow! Ew! Ew! Ew! My scores. I say I want to sing some of my guitar. Let me get to sing. Those are just two examples of the many different things that go on in the English clubs. One other thing that I wanted to share with you was something that I found a little bit surprising. And I'd be curious to hear any ideas that you might have about this. As I told you, I visited the websites for the Congolese Embassy in the United States and also in London. Here is a screenshot of the Congolese Embassy website in the United States. And this is the one in the UK. I was a bit puzzled because as you can see, the first lines are translated and then everything else is in English. French. I'm sorry, French. Yeah, thanks. Two English-speaking countries, but one country has an English website and the other country has the website in French. I don't have any way to explain it. I wonder if anybody does. Why does it list a list of passports? Yes. What happens when you click? When you click, then I think that it lists all the passports that have received the visas. And so if you need to pick up your passport, you just look for your name and you've got your visa there. That's two websites for London. This one's London and the other one's the US. But I'm wondering whether there's... That's the US website? I've got you. I'm just re-Israelian. European for the missions in the European countries. What language is it in? I'm not answering your question. It's a puzzle. Is it in Oslo? Is it in Norwegian? I don't know. That's a good question. I should look to see. Why? I don't know. I just kind of throw that out there. Was it the ambassador's decision? But you've also got this information in the black box. It says, read more in English. It doesn't actually say, Lizzie. That could be a function of having access to it through an English language portal. Okay. It's not bilingual in the English one, is it? I couldn't find anything bilingual on that site. But when I scrolled down and I had history, people, culture, and then business, and when I clicked on business it took me two articles that were written in English. But everything else, culture, language, the information I shared at the beginning in the overview, that was all in French. But these are now to collect your passports if you're requesting a visa. So is British people wanting to go? I think British or Congolese. But it's not that it's serving only the Congolese. It's for everything. We do learn French as a second language in schools. It doesn't mean that we would speak French for everybody. Okay. So what I want to share with you now is information about the survey that I conducted. Perhaps you can give me some of your ideas about what I might be able to do with it. So based on my three recent trips to the Congo I designed and administered a survey and I conducted open-ended interviews with individuals and with focus groups. I am a qualitative researcher and I feel like a fish out of water with some of this. I have 41 participants who completed paper copies of my survey in the Eastern Congo. I have 92 participants who completed paper copies of the survey in Kinshasa, the capital. I have 22 participants who completed paper copies of the survey in the rural part of the Congo and central Congo. And then I have 134 participants who completed online copies of the survey. I think I have a lot of descriptive statistical data. So the categories of data that I have include demographic information, age, gender, education, career profession, formal English language education and a number of years that people have studied where they studied in school or university. Informal English language learning experiences whether they are in English clubs or elsewhere. I have self-reports about their knowledge of English, the African languages they speak, and French. And I also have data that gives me information about their opinions, about the importance of English, the roles and skills of their English teachers, the role of English in their lives, and English club activities. I also conducted open-ended interviews and there were open-ended questions for the participants to answer at the end of the survey and the topics included the benefits to participation in the clubs, the problems with participation, whether they attended the clubs, what was enjoyable or not, suggested activities that they wanted to have done, and then I had a other space where they could add more information. Based on what I've shared so far, I wonder if there's anything here that strikes you, if there's any ideas that you have about what I might be able to do with this data. Are you going to show someone else? This is about all that I have. I haven't started analyzing the data now. Is that the slide you wanted? Yes, it is. I was just trying to get my head around the net. Just exactly what it is. So the open-ended questions were just the ones on the second slide? Yes. These were basically how old are you? Tick-off boxes, put circles around my knowledge of English, I think very well, poor, that kind of thing. So why did you do this research? I did the research. It grew out of my assignment to go and identify topics and then write up materials for English language clubs. And while I was there, I said to myself, my goodness, I have this huge number of participants. Maybe I should create a survey and give it to them, which is what I did, which also becomes part of the limitations of this. I didn't go specifically to administer a survey and to gather this data, but it came up as I was in the process of doing this other work. It seems to me like there could be some useful information here, but I'm not quite sure. Can we draw out of it how people knew that they had this opportunity to join the clubs? That wasn't one of the questions that I asked. It isn't? It was not. Can we draw out of it? I believe that we can, based on their opinions about the importance of English and the role of English. I'm curious to know what it is that motivates people to join the English language clubs. Why they took it at school, because they had the option not to. Why they continued with it? Yes, yes. Why? Why give it time and effort? Right, exactly. I was puzzled too. It's a lot of time and effort, but every club that I visited, they were really enthusiastic. The US Embassy had a workshop for the English language club leaders, and that was where I got the 292 participants, because they had 200 come to that one-day workshop. It's extremely popular in Keto, in Ecuador too, by the US Embassy, and I don't know why there. From anecdotal evidence, not yet having looked in this data, people would tell me that they just feel like French is no longer useful. You go look on the internet, and you don't find a lot of websites that are in French. Everything is in English. Yes. Also perhaps the formal learning opportunities are not adequate, but they need extra practice. Yes, I think that they want to expand their knowledge of English. They also said that it felt like it would give them access to a more global world, a more global community. There were groups, hospitals had English language clubs. Churches, as I showed you, the Michael Jackson clip was done at a church, had English language clubs. Professional lawyers and people like that would create clubs. Taxi drivers had English clubs. The idea being particularly in Kinshasa, Bukavu in the East, where there might be reasons for tourists to come, they felt like they'd be better able to engage and help tourists. Hotels would have English language clubs, so it's really, really interesting for me. When did it all start with the English language clubs? So it wasn't there in the 70s when you were there? No, I didn't hear about anything like that. How did it, because it's obviously grown and spread, how did it all begin? I don't know. I might guess that maybe there were some schools that had English language clubs after schools. Well, it's been, I think most of the Peace Corps left in 1995, so it's been what, 20 years since any of that influence is there. But maybe, maybe, if any of the Peace Corps volunteers had clubs that they wanted to do that. Could you move to the next slide again? Thanks. Do you look at what the British Council does? I'm aware that the British Council is quite active in some of this, but I haven't done any kind of systematic examination of what the British Council does. But I know they're quite active. I don't really know what they do either. Except that they offer people traineeships, they offer some versions of bursaries or scholarships for people to become good teachers of English as a second language, for people who intend to live in a non-English-speaking country. Now, still, go on the website, you'll find options to apply for such things. And people from South Asia that I've known gravitated to the British Council to improve their English. To be around people that spoke English well. And to hear the radio programs. And it was, I don't know exactly clubs, but they were clubby. I read one study that developed, I think it's in Malawi, English-language teaching materials using British Council materials. And when I was in Rwanda in 2014, the British Council was extremely active. And they were bringing in English-language teachers into the country to teach at the schools and also to do what I was doing, help with teacher preparation in the area of English. I think it's interesting how you said that lawyers and so-on professionals so that's interesting to be done. It's not just, poor Africans were wanting to kind of better their English servants. Like she said, what's behind it? Is it more to do with the cultural aspirations of the English way of life or seeing English as the sort of global, you know, super... As some of the conversations that I had, it was the idea that English is going to get us some place. Forget French now, the French are... It's not meaning the people, the British people, but the English language. If we know the English language, we're going to have many more opportunities. So it's not just the Britishness element. It's the English language. Right. Yeah, it's the English language. I'm quite sure that the adults are teaching English in a place called Asylum Access Equal Law, where everybody refuge you of some sort. According to the South American definition of that, which is different to the New England definition, but that's teasing up the law a little bit. Anyway, people seeking refuge. And they saw English as the language of commerce. So if they needed their intention to learn English, was associated with their intention to start their business. But it doesn't mean it's the only reason. That's what I'm thinking. And anecdotal, that's what I know, motivated some of them.  It was an opportunity for children to learn something useful. Yeah, I think, as with everything, individual people have their different reasons and motivations. But, you know, if there can be a way to identify what some of those principle ones are, that might be useful. Okay. Let me just reiterate some of the limitations that I believe exist in this kind of survey, data interviews and focus groups. From my perspective, obviously my ethnicity, my age, my gender, I think may impact on the data that I gathered. My knowledge, I have knowledge there, but I should say my lack of knowledge of any of the languages spoken in the Congo, except for very brief phrases of greetings and things like that. My lack of a kind of in-depth or a deep understanding of the various cultures there. I wonder about the role that my last name plays. It's an ethnic name that is easily recognized, belonging to one particular group. The survey design, the fact that I kind of did this after the fact, the fact that it was hard copy, had its own parameters of limitations, as did the online. The timing of my work, there was very little time to kind of really pilot the survey and test it out. The planning of the whole study was kind of haphazard after the fact. For my point of view, I'm mindful of these as limitations. One of the other questions that I have for all of you is, as I said, I'm not a linguist. This is not my area of expertise. So part of my time here at SOAS has been to do as much reading as I can. I have a list of references that I have read, but I wonder if there are references that you think I need to read that need to be included. Are there names of classic people, people who you'd say are classic thinkers in the field that I don't have here? The name of a person who gave a lecture, she was employed by SOAS, and she was doing an in-house professional development class for teachers here recently. It was pretty missed ability. Anyway, it's all on video. So you can hear what she said, which is really if she is a linguist. Let me get my hand. If I can take your... Sure, sure. I'll send you the link for the video. I don't even know it. She's checked. Alina. I was able to attend her. Yes, yes. So what's the inspiring? Very, very interesting. You don't need to. Thank you. I had my kind of information here. I don't. What is your morning? I was also sitting here. No. Why did you ask her at Catherine Wallis? Don't you think she would know someone? Yes, I can also ask her. That's a good suggestion. Catherine Wallis, she's the Institute of Education across the road. Catherine Wallis? She's here. She's the second, third last person. Oh, yes, yes. She's actually here. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Okay, good. Well, maybe I'm not across the road. Where are we going to fix? Who was the other person you said was the conglist? Sally Coco Mofwene. Sally Coco Mofwene. Sally? Sally. Mofwene is the same. Yes, Chicago. Yes. Okay. There's nothing to do with education or whatever. There are some things like linguistic ecology. Okay. Interesting person anyway. Okay, thank you, thank you. That's, it's, you know, a totally new field for me. So I'm kind of trying to find my way. So. There's another lady who taught me philosophy last year, Bernadette La Frenchie. Franchie, franchie. And she may have left Sowers and be some more girls, but she's studying African philosophies and also Hanna, bringing it together with Hanna Arland. She's young and extraordinary. And who's the man about the Italian man? I don't know if he teaches philosophy. Does anybody know? But she was kind of his protege. His. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. I'm more than the audience are now. Another question I'll ask you is, if you can think of a publication venue that might be interested in something like this. Do you know the British Association of Proud university, language and African Specialized Interest Group? I think that that was the theme. You're involved in that, obviously. Obviously. I don't know what they publish, I'm only perfectly involved. So, mae'r byw yn ddim yn lŵnig, ychydig i'w ddweud y gallwn i ddim ymddir iawn. Rydych chi'n ddiddorol. Mae'r ddwylo'r rydyn ni, a gydwch chi'n gwybod yw bethau, maen nhw'n meddwl i'r llaw i'r gwneud yn ymddir i wneud. Mae'r ddiddorol i'r Llyfriddor Cysylltu i'r Llyfriddor i'r Llyfriddor i'w ddiddorol i'r Llyfriddor i'r Llyfriddor. They've also done what Pakistan would do, basically, both of them were interesting and similar in a way, but she was saying, don't go for English. OK, great! That would be great. This might be slightly wrong. I'm not sure. Anyway, I've got a paper copy because we had a talk by Gwlythweid. They've published in that book of chapters some time ago now. The Bagey Council has printed a whole load of copies that were misprinted that didn't have anything on the spine. So they just don't have a box or anything. So I think I might still have a few if you want one. Oh I'd love one. Okay, okay, great. Well, I do want to thank you for your attendance, and I'm open to any further questions, discussion, conversation, chatting. There are also drinks and dinner options at many places around. I have a question about the textbooks. Where are they developed? Are they from the UK, US, or are they locally developed? Which textbooks are you on? The ones that they use in the schools. OK, so the ones that we used in 1973 were published by, we called them Cartledge. I believe it was Longman, and they were, the title went something like English for Sprangophone Africa, or English for French-speaking Africa. And, you know, I remember very distinctly in year two I was supposed to teach about the locks along the St. Lawrence Seaway, and I was supposed to teach about hot and cold running water faucets, and all of these things that just had no connection to the environment and where I was. Today, there were no books in the classrooms that I visited, so I don't know what's being used in the government-run classrooms. But that's interesting, that in the 70s, even though these textbooks were specifically for Francophone countries, that still the topics were... Yes, now some of the topics were interesting and relevant, particularly in the last two years of education. They had a couple of folktales, they had some short stories. There was the mountains of the moon, a story about King Solomon's mines, things like that, but still they were mixed in with, you know, other things that I just had a hard time figuring out how to make them relevant for the learners in my classroom. How are you perceived as a white American woman? How are the students interrupted and how are they perceived? For example, the traditional African disciplinary system whipping the child, I don't know how you manage to... Well, I have two different stories to tell. So in the 1970s, first of all, I was a new teacher. I had any experience in teaching in the United States anywhere, so there I was in the Congo trying to be a teacher, and confronting cultural differences. The nuns had very tight control on what was going on. And so if I had any disciplinary problems, I would tell them and they would speak with the students. I never saw anybody being hit or reprimanded in that way. There was always the conversation or the discussion. But I remember speaking with someone and I said, expressing my frustration, you know, I don't know why they're not listening to me.   So when I returned and I was teaching in Rwanda, now granted a different country, different ethnic group, I expressed to someone how things were going so well at the university. Students were listening to me and I was so pleased. And then I repeated this story of what happened to me. And I said, and so now I have gray hair, I have children, and this must be really working. And the professor said back to me, the Rwandan professor, oh no, Madame, that doesn't work anymore. Nobody cares about the old people. All we care about now is the younger generations. So I felt like I was, you know, missing the boat every moment wherever I went. But yes, the problems that I had with discipline in the Congo, I, you know, I would have had similar problems in the United States. I'm pretty much convinced it was my problems with teaching and not necessarily my language. One other thing that you might find interesting is that with my work in Rwanda, the students would joke at me whenever I started talking about literature. And we're going to be talking about British literature now. And they would all start laughing. And if I wanted to wake them up, I would say, well now we're going to talk about British literature.  Is that American English or British English? Is that one that they prefer? My sense was that they really preferred the British English because they could understand it better. It was clearer for them. Many told me that they loved my accent. But, you know, I was the teacher and I was giving grades. So I'm realistic about what students tell me sometimes. Your diction was beautifully clear in spite of being American English actually. Just frankly. Why don't you play your handicap? Yes, in spite of the fact that English is my second language, right? I was going to ask just one more question. I don't know what he's written much. I know it is late. When you said mountains of the moon, she's worked in the mountains of the moon. She made me behind some of those materials. ISLEI, she is gaining the British Association of the Specialized Language in Africa group. But she's also had a lot of experience teaching English, I think, anyway. So she might be an interesting person for you to talk to. Where she is at the moment, I have no idea. No, Catherine Wallace, that would be lovely if I could meet her. She may be retired, I'm not sure. But she was based across the road in the history of education. That would be great. She may well be other people there. Now she's specialist in education. They do a lot of things like development education. So just go and chat with her. Sure, sure, sure. Thank you. And your name is? Julius Halibank. So I'll tell them you sent me. Lovely. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. I'll be using my so-asked email address as long as I can. I need to check to see if I can extend my use of that email address. I don't know if that will be possible or not. I wanted to ask you one thing to know. I wanted to ask you one about the business about, is it culture and imperialism or are we helping people? Yes, I think that's more of an interesting topic. And also can you tell us more about what we've been doing here with so-as? Okay. Do you mind if I sit and make this a little more chatty and informal? I hope this doesn't disturb the videography. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first question was? The issue you mentioned that the community... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't have an answer for that. I don't know. The number of council reports I mentioned is trying to address as well. Are they obviously going to give to you about it? You know, I met people who, for example, had moved from one province to another. And so they learned Swahili in the street playing with their friends. But they would go home and they would speak Chiluba to their parents. And eventually they couldn't speak Chiluba, but they could understand it. So the parents would speak Chiluba, the children would speak to the parents in Swahili. And then with Mabutu's impact, Lingala was quite prominent. And then people moved to Kinshasa, where Lingala was spoken. And then they had to learn French. And then they were learning English. And I mean, how many languages can you ask someone to learn? Infinity. Hadn't you talked to our colleague Friedrich Ulupaker? No. She is running a project on multidigorism in Senegal, particularly looking at this issue and people speaking lots of languages, which are doing language language just as needed, et cetera. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's just mind-boggling to me. Really. So what I'm doing at SOAS is I'm basically doing research. I've got a library card and then access to the internet, SOAS library database online. And I've been doing a lot of reading and writing and thinking. And the first opportunity I had to meet anyone was at the department meeting last week. Sheena has been very helpful in checking in with me to be sure I don't need anything. But other than that, I've been feeling a little bit... It's really a pity that we didn't really know about that, because when we looked around this thing and introduced you, I thought it was the beginning of your stuff. And I've been on Spotify anyway. Oh. Well, the other thing is that it is a very short time. Three months. I'm grateful for every day of it. But three months really goes quite fast. Maybe what I needed to do was set things up before I came, rather than wait until I got here to be in touch. You talked to our colleagues who teach world English as well. I met somebody at the reception in the Brunei Gallery when they were showing the new exhibit for the centenary, but nothing formal. So Anne Cowles would be someone. She's in linguistics, but yet of global English. She would be at excellent content, because she's also been on research of online language and internet. Okay. So if you come down and see the other one that teaches online, come down to this area. Okay. Well, you're certainly welcome to email me if you have any ideas. If anyone wants to email Kathy, we can give you the email address at the end. So if you have any more... Julia has it, but maybe the two of you don't. Well, I also have it on my hand out at the bottom. Okay. So if you have any suggestions, it would be great if you could email. I think we'll end here, but thank you, Kathy, very much for this informative talk. Thank you very much. Really interesting. So maybe you can just give a round of applause. Thank you guys.


I'm my my hands are free. Well, we're about to start Hello everyone. I'm here with a very special guest Alyssa and I have known Alyssa for many many years and she is a top student her English is excellent and you're gonna hear it today and I'm gonna get Alyssa to introduce herself in a moment, but Today if you have a question for Alyssa Please start typing your questions. I'm not gonna do any English questions today. Today's topic is only Alyssa and English of course so Before I Get into the questions, I'll just ask Alyssa to quickly introduce Introduce yourself Alyssa Hello everybody I'm Alyssa. I'm from the Philippines and I'm an English learner And I'm blind You're a busy blind Complete 100% blind Yes, okay And from the Philippines right which city in the Philippines which city Oh How do you spell that Okay All right, I'm just gonna see who's in the chat now and I'm reading off the chat here Lollie Lollie is here. Oh France. Of course Layla's here and Layla Says hello Everyone says hello. I see sleepwalkers here And Here Drinking some tea Frida is here Eunice Taleb from Morocco is here and Hello, welcome everyone if you have any questions for Alyssa Let her know Abraham Fulm is here Hey Hey blazer Person name a person's name who said what? And other people are here All right, so welcome everyone. This is the first time I'm doing a live Zoom chat of course with my most special student Alyssa and I'm gonna ask you Alyssa I'm gonna ask you some questions Alyssa about your your life Your blindness is that okay? Okay, that's okay So you are blind as you as everyone knows and you speak English very well So let's start off with that. How did you learn English? Where you always blind or did you learn English before going blind or did you learn English after? You became blind Tell us what happened slowly Okay, so I wasn't born blind. I went completely blind in 2018 and As for my English learning journey, I started when I was a kid hold on Sorry, you became blind in what year? 2018 2018 Yes, I didn't know it was Okay, I thought it was longer. Okay, so sorry continue And I started learning English when I was three and our school Our schools like subjects are mostly in English We were taught from the basics all the way to the advanced and Although I did well in my studies. I I Honestly still struggle as I lack practice. Well, hold on for a moment, you know I talked to a lot of Filipinos and yeah people from the Philippines speak fantastic English But you seem to be at another level you seem to be at a higher level with your pronunciation and comprehension of English Why I Don't think I think you've studied beyond just the school Yeah, I did. I mean I learned this I learned slang in the American culture through movies and TV shows and music Everything I everything So you Are you are you like you say movies music and all that from a young age? Actually when I was a kid I I started hearing English through cartoon shows All right. Do you have any siblings? Yes, I do I have siblings Do they speak English as good as you? Yes Yes, are you sure? I don't know. All right, if anyone has a question Lay last how did you become a flu fluent in English? I think we already talked about that and Frida says, how is your day? Alyssa?  Going well, thank you What is it? What is a typical day for you? What's your usual routine? well Listening to audiobooks. Well the first thing I I do when I wake up this Make the bed and then I Went immediately to the table and look for food Make the bed look for food And then after that I wash the dishes and then Go on a clubhouse. I mean if you don't get if you guys don't know what clubhouse is. It's another social media app That's focused more on like voice chat and rather than okay enough promotion of clubhouse And the rest of the system is the same looking for food and washing the dishes Washing the dishes you say looking for food. Do you cook any food? I used to before before when I went flying but now well, there was one time that Everyone was out of out and then I was only left alone and No one cooked food for no one even left food for me So I must have the courage and you know, I know I was like, you know cooking It's just a piece of cake, but no not I Cooked up. I managed to cook scrambled eggs. I know not sunny side up but sunny side up eggs, okay It was a struggle because at first I was looking for the egg like where did I land the egg and Actually, it's just in the corner of the pan and it's crispy That sounds like the same way I eat cupcakes Layla has a question here. Do you face any difficult? Well, I have to read it. Do you face any difficulties? While keeping studying English after you went blind So do you feel? Oh, yeah, definitely Definitely I I still do Have uncertainties whether my grammar is on point or not and especially spelling Spelling is my number one and enemy. I always ask Google for the spelling if I'm not sure My visual memory when it comes to spelling is fading away. I Think that is a is a problem with everyone when we Depend on our devices including me From all my students spelling seems to be a problem and even sometimes my spelling is terrible I don't think that's a big problem Sleepwalker asks Alyssa Do you do you teach someone English? Do you ever teach English to people? well, I teach not like as a as a profession, but Just casually teaching or coaching When well in terms of pronunciation. Yeah, but grammar. No, I do have a friend who teaches grammar and I Help him with that too Because pronunciation I consider that as my strong suit Yes, your progress your pronunciation is Excellent, I consider you fluent Alyssa. I consider you fluent in English. Are you do you consider yourself fluent? perfect in English I Perfect nah, when you listen when you listen to audiobooks or listen to movies. Do you understand everything? Probably 95% 95 okay, that's pretty high Yeah, depending on the subject. All right If it's more on philosophy But the topic is the problem not necessarily English There are also terms and words that I am not familiar with but then again I have to Based it on Usually when you come to my live stream, you're asking very high level questions about words and terms Very often. I don't know. I Have to check see you don't know but when you're asking me questions. I'm on my other monitor checking What is she talking about? Oh Laila asks have you ever been to any English countries? All right, English speaking countries Well, Laila, let me tell you now. I've never said put in Any country ever outside of the Philippines If you could go to a country, which country would you like to visit any country? Japan mainly because of their talking toilet seats I've been to Japan. I've never seen a talking toilet seat Maybe I didn't I didn't speak to it next time I go to Japan. I'll look at the toilet seat. I'll say hello Or This is learn English live not learn Japanese Laila asks do you feel nervous while talking to people in public? Well in terms of like public speaking when Given this topic to discuss or explain. Yeah, I mean until now I've been Going I've been joining like rooms on clubhouse to practice public speaking and it really helped a lot The first time I talked to a native English speaker, of course I Freaking out like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do and I always ask Google like Google is this a correct grammar? Well, yeah, right now is public right now is public speaking. Are you nervous now? A bit I mean This this channel is not that popular, but maybe two to three hundred people Well, we'll see this video at least So I don't mean I don't mean to make you nervous now. You're doing great Sleep sleep. What? Sorry I'm just gonna pretend that they're all teddy bears. Yeah, you know when you Public speaking like you have to imagine that they're all either teddy bears or they're just a blob of black, you know Blackboard, you know, yeah, everything is Well, it's easy speaking on a live stream because you cannot hear their Their bones and groans if you make a mistake, it's just quiet A sleepwalker asks Alyssa or it doesn't ask just makes a comment you speak very fast Yes No, sorry sleepwalker Yeah, I also have a native English Speaking friend. He's from New York and he teaches students as well as English learners and he always tells me that Alyssa, please Speak slowly and oh, I was like, okay So sorry sleepwalker. Thank you for reminding me sleepwalker Layla says Alyssa my eyes are big and I can see well, but I make big spelling mistakes not only you It's alright, it's just a matter of practice And when is here? She says hello Hello all and Patchou Yadav I think came late. He says how she learned English So how in one sentence, how did you learn English? Immersion I mean that's one word Immersion one one word. I wanted one sentence. You did you did it better immersion. So you just grew up Surrounded by English Yeah, 24-7 24-7 Freedia Frida says I understand almost everything in English Good Good good and Layla asks Alyssa Do you prefer to chat to people who have an advanced level at English for entertainment or you don't care?  I entertain All sorts of people all walks of life Why if you join a WhatsApp group for example, and there's some people that cannot speak English very well You do you really want to talk with them? Yeah Yeah, I do. Okay. I've been talking to many people who are No, absolute beginner Okay I will just Try my very best Speak slowly and explain stuff very in simple words Easy to understand words Okay, you nest her labs is that's great. I'm so surprised. I'm not sure what that comment was about Win Wow, is she Alyssa? I remember her voice notes great live stream All right And Frida says it's so funny when a toilet speaks like a ghost Like a ghost how like That's I don't know Frida Frida's comment All right, Eunice to lab that's great. I'm so excited to know more about Alyssa and Her experience with English as a second language I'm gonna ask you a question here Do you have many offline friends this we're getting into this is serious question. Do you have many offline friends? Not not including family. Yeah, yeah, I that person caught me off guard Actually playing with my hair and then when you ask that question I was like froze so I have a handful of Well, I'm getting to this Are most of your friends in Philippines or are more most of your friends international? Most of my friends are international So you're speaking when you're speaking to friends. You're usually speaking English every day Yes, all right, that's that's what I'm hunt. That's the answer I'm hunting for that actually most your friends are international. You're speaking English Who is your best international friend? Not including me? Why are you torturing you? It's my show deal with it. I'm not gonna name. Okay. I'm teasing. All right Ah Lolly Lolly asks are you living with your family, Alyssa? Yes, Lolly. I live with my family. I Don't have parents. They both passed away So I live with my uncle. He's two sons My brother and my sister and my two dogs Okay, so your parents, let me just review your parents are passed away Yeah, you live with your uncle and his family. So how many people in the house? six in total six in total and And two dogs and Three friends Layla asks Alyssa, how did you find Robin's channel and then his group in WhatsApp? Do you remember? Good good question. Yeah, I got out, you know, given memory of that So there was a time that I Had a minor grammatical mistake and that Made me they changed my you know, I should review English once again Because it was very embarrassing My niece asked me No, I was the one who asked her I asked my niece so boss Lee did you eat dinner? So My niece is also very fluent in English And she speaks English a lot too on a regular regular basis So every day she speaks English She doesn't know how to speak Tagalog our native Langu, yeah, so she asked what did you say? Auntie I Said did you ate dinner? Oh You mean did you eat dinner and I was like, oh That's it I'm gonna review English again And so I went to YouTube Search Learn now search English live stream English class And but I've been better room. I I found Robin's life Yeah Yeah, I remember that at that time you were busy typing and I think Laila asked a lot of questions at that time, too That would that would have been years ago, right? Three years ago No around 2020 no, no, it was for 2020 Around mark 2020 when did you know it would have been at least 2019 2020 that's That's just beginning of COVID. We knew each other long before COVID All right. Anyway, I gotta move on Sleepwalker says I meant it's like a compliment to speak fast on for language. That's great So sleepwalkers comp complimenting you that you speak fast and Alyssa, do you have a do you have a pet and Yeah, well You have two two dogs Do you love though? Do you love those dogs? Of course. All right. Why not? I can give reasons why not but let's move on Abraham foam Amazing amazing stream so far. Thank you. I wanted to ask Alyssa. Do you have a favorite writer? Because I noticed you said something about loving to read a lot of books and she listens to audiobooks now, too So do you have a favorite writer, Alyssa? Yes, I do and Her name is Agatha Christie She's well known to be the queen of Suspense and thriller and crime. Yeah She has written More than hundred books actually her number one Novel was and then there were none It was said that this novel was comparable to the Bible in terms of numbers of sales So there you go. Okay, Agatha Christie Win asks, how do you practice speaking skills, right? How do you practice speaking skills? That's a question for you. You just talk Yeah, and if I caught like a mistake Either I can start again Google or ask someone else like is this correct or not? But that's like after the conversation I feel My memory is not right, but if I do make the mistake, I just continue talking All right Farida says Honestly, despite the fact that Alyssa is speaking fast I still understand very well and catch every single word she pronounces because she's a very good speaking One speaking person So you have a lot of fans Covino is here. Welcome Covino And we Amazing and she says how how are you beautiful? How beautiful? I'm not sure what she's trying to say Layla asks if someone who has lower a lower level of English says Okay, don't understand you because you're high level Okay, so if someone If someone from a lower level says to you, I don't understand. Can you please explain?  Slow down or explain more Yeah, does that irritate you?  You know For Eda says Alyssa, I'd love to talk to you and know more about you. This is in the special WhatsApp group so you can talk to her in the WhatsApp group anytime Eunice to lab. Thanks a lot. Alyssa. Sorry Eunice to lab says thanks a lot. Alyssa your story motivates us to keep going practice and live English Hmm Yes, you are Very impressive Alyssa So when I first met you I knew I found someone very very special Immediately immediately. That's why I tried to Include you as much as possible in WhatsApp group and now the live stream Okay, Layla asks Who is your role model in life? Oh Layla you these questions Now you know my feeling I'd say My uncle the uncle you're living with now Yes, okay, why is he a role model? I mean You may be like hot tempered but The thing I most admired him is this hard It's his hard work and his persistence to raise this family.  You know like his own yes, yes Yes, he's like a second father to me. All right, that's good to hear.   Okay sleepwalker says Alyssa, do you listen to American or British teachers more I Find American pronunciation easier by myself. I Think for myself. You should say sleepwalker for myself. So do you listen to American or British teachers more? Alyssa Good question Yeah, most of the time I listen to American teachers Uh Oftentimes too. I listen to British British even Australian teachers.   Yeah, all right. Uh, yeah, so Anne says you are beautiful Thank you And Kavinu our youngest member Says Alyssa Alyssa, I need to know how did you join this kind of live stream with Robin? You're blind how can you navigate your zoom and How do you get how do you get by in the world? well, uh Believe it or not Kovino go his name is Kovino, right? Kavinu Robin Kavinu Robin, can you hear me Kavinu? His name is Kavinu Kavinu, okay. Well, believe it or not Kavinu my phone can talk Your phone can talk. Well, can you just explain explain a little bit? Uh, how you're using your mobile phone so my phone has uh built-in software that makes my phone that Enables my phone to talk. So it's called talk back It's not only available in my phone, but it's available In all phones all android devices including yours. That's a free free program, right? Yes, it's already inside the phone already built-in So that that enables you to do anything you want on the phone? Yes, so whenever I tap on the screen My phone will read aloud whatever item I select Okay Uh, is it easy to use or is a little frustrating to use? Well, the software Is or the app is not perfect. There are times I get frustrated Um, but it gets the job done too It gets the job done That's that's it. It helps you connect to the world Yes, it's as long as I can you know Tap or as long as my phone can read whatever it is. I'm good to go All right, uh, we're gonna move along here Pachu Yadav asks why did did she learn english or why do you learn english? Yeah Well, it's like It's It's like a necessity here in the in my country the Philippines Like whenever we're we're young we were taught english So it's it's like uh, it's a must It's like I said majority of the subjects here are in english Uh and not only that I also love english the moment I Hear the the first word like mama and papa and the rest like Like the abc's Yeah, I fell in love with this language All right Layla is going to ask a serious question Did you try to find treatment for your blindness? And she says you are free to answer I guess If you don't want to answer you don't have to did you try to find treatment for your blindness Is it possible to get treatment for your blindness? Yes, I I did go to an eye doctor for a checkup in 2018 We went to another city It's far away from where uh, I live and We were scheduled to have a procedure or surgery but then something happened and I wasn't able to Do do it you weren't able to do the surgery Uh, is the surgery still possible? Um, there is a chance that this This disease Is Is reversible or treated or go back to normal And there is also a chance that it will go back. So go back being blind So is this is the problem financial? Yes, this is a money problem. How much is the treatment? Um convert filipino pesos to american dollars When 2000 $2,000 Yeah Hold on a second. Let me uh Your numeric literacy. I'm not I don't trust it. So I I'm going to change From filipino pesos pesos us dollars So 2000 us dollars is 105,000 filipino pesos is that right? Yes, yes, yes And that's just That's just what One procedure How many procedures do you need? Well, it depends on the doctor Okay Maybe we can help you with that in a future Fund we'll I'll see what I can do if that's if that's what you want to try Do you want to try something like that in the future? Yes I'm not prepared This is no my gosh now i'm speechless. Let's move. I we're just talking here. Nothing's happening Just uh, we want to figure out your life Uh Sleepwalker asks do you continue to draw? Do you draw? Ah How'd you know I draw? I don't know That's sleepwalkers asking Okay, um No, I don't draw anymore. Uh, I tried uh Drawing using glue and I mixed it with black paint So when the glue dries I can feel the ridges or the raised lines It's like that's called tactile designs tactile anything that's raised Yeah, everything that's Raised or I can feel the lines with my hands because my hands they're in my eyes now so Uh, I yeah, if I feel those raised lines then Yeah, that's what I did before but now I mean No, I I don't draw anymore Layla asks do you contact with people online by only your phone or do you have other devices? Ah, I only use my phone Layla Everything um, I I don't use any other tools or Technology I only have my handy dandy phone my handy dandy phone Uh kelly lucina. Hello kelly lucina Asks, how do you find international friends? When I tried some app to talk Usually people they're interested in hot chat What does hot chat mean? It's difficult to find someone I know It's difficult to find someone who just wants to practice English in a friendly chat So how do you find the the good international friends not the perverts?  Hey, baby So how do you meet the good good people? Where's a good place to find good people international friends? online That's a tough one I mean you can oh my gosh. Here we go again. I'm gonna promote clubhouse But you have to be mindful of the rooms that you're in Wait, wait, wait.  Are you making friends friendships? We're like quaintances. Okay. Who cares about acquaintances? Where do you meet the friends? Um on clubhouse too, okay Also what groups I Your group. Oh my what's that? Okay, yeah Uh Kelly lucina I'm gonna make a comment to Kelly lucina in my whatsapp groups. I try to clean out all the those Those people interested in hot chat So like my groups are very boring There's no there's no hot chat All right. I'm okay. Uh, we have to move along. Uh Layla asks Alyssa, what kind of people do you love to make real friendships with? Where to get all of these questions? Layla is the question queen Yeah, and we we love Layla for that because she keeps she keeps my live streams busy Um, so what do I look for for a friend? Um, what do you love? Of course Love of course, uh, what kind of people do you love to make real friendships? Was her question? Hmm well I have Of course, they're good humor and they're Uh affable nature Friendliness of course Uh, they're they must be approachable and of course trustworthy Okay And then they should accept for who I am All right, moving along. Uh, thank you for your answer. Eunice Taleb says English is required in most jobs So do you use it at work? Alyssa? Yes, of course, um, it's used in every business transactions Including work So I do I doubt I I have dealt with native English clients Well, Alyssa, do you work now? Well, Robin, I don't have a job now. That's I am still with my dog All right, you're looking for a job Yes, all right. You're looking for a So what kind of skills do you have Alyssa? I What can you do? Okay I have good command in English. So I have good communication skills. Oh, you're marketing. You're marketing yourself wrong You don't have good command of English I have excellent command of English I have excellent command in English as well as communication skills. All right. Um, skills also excellent um In terms of like, um, what else? Problem solving I can safely say I'm good at it too as well as organizing Did you did you go to university? Alyssa? Yes, I do You do or you did? Okay. What did you study in university? Uh, I studied information technology information it okay Yes now What would you say to an employer who says I'm worried about your blindness interfering in your work I mean, you know, honestly, they're not going to say that probably but they might think that right So how what would you say to them to to To convince them that your blindness is not our obstacle is just not a problem Yes, I would definitely say to the employer that We live in a very technological era And so with the guidance of assistive tools, I can manage whatever task it is at hand Uh Aside from that, like I can organize items as well because blind people we We prioritize some information are organizing Because we We don't want items just You know this place Very organized Yeah Okay, um, I got to move along here because there's other questions Joanne D is here. Hello Joanne D Laila says asks Alyssa, do you think someone as me with a lot of diligence? As do you think someone as diligent as me? Could be great at English and could speak well in the future. I'm I'm I'm gonna just ignore that question. She already speaks well. She's already diligent Sleepwalkers we're gonna pass that Laila is trying to make the live stream about her English Hey, I love Laila. We love Laila. We're focused on Alyssa right now You're you have to do your live stream soon We'll talk about your English Uh, okay sleepwalkers says Alyssa congrats on your first interview. You are doing great Well, it's your first interview with me, but you did do Some other interview, right? yes, um before when I went blind I Did undergo an interview uh because I applied for um A call center job a customary representative job. I was able Not not a job Not a job interview. I mean like uh Do you speak English? Like an interview like I'm doing this is not a job interview Alyssa. I think you're confused. You thought you were trying to get a job Now that was my very first interview. Have you done interview About your life before Ah, yes, yes with my friend from texas Who's into paranormal stuff paranormal? Okay um Win says I do like your group because of not hot chat groups. I feel I'm safe. Well, thank you win I try to keep out the perverts Uh, layla says Alyssa, I believe you're one of my precious things online I think I wouldn't find a great person such as you And layla continues Thanks robin for your compliment about my million questions. Did I say million? I meant billion Gazillion uh, Alyssa, you are a good person to ask special questions All right, we have roheet tinku Hello roheet He says sir. I really appreciate you taking Alyssa's interview here on your channel. Yes. She's very special Uh, please ask her how difficult it is for her to be motivated to learn english What does she do to be motivated? Are you highly motivated to learn english Yes, uh, like I said english has become like Close to my native song so I I cherish this language very much and Reasons for that is I always think that there is So many benefits when using if you use this language All right roheet tinku. I think uh, you need to I I feel roheet doesn't is not very motivated to learn english. So roheet I please uh You know never give up on english roheet. I want you to succeed uh Farida says when I started learning english As the teachers recommended the students to talk to native speakers for improvement I also started looking for native speakers in order to be friends with them So, uh, how many native speaker friends do you have? Hmm You me I I'm gonna tell them a little secret. I I taught these days. I talk with elissa almost every day We chat we're we're good buddies So me and you I I that english teacher english that I told you from new york Um cool Like I also Considered my them as friends the the ones the rooms that I am in I am always I always join on clubhouse. So I interact with them like almost daily you but You know, there's there's groups And you can have friends in those groups, but I think the true friend is the friend that You could talk to outside of the group Okay, so with you That's my definition. Uh, you might have a different definition of a friend, but to me Uh You know, I have co-workers, but if I only talk to them at work Then they're just co-workers. But if I talk to them on the weekend, okay, they're my friend Hmm only a handful probably less than six I guess I should say yeah Alyssa's my friend But I'm her Practice speaking practice partner Is that how you view me? No, okay It's just uh the usual bad joke from robin All right, okay, we're gonna finish up in about Uh Three or four minutes. So any last comments for Alyssa, please get them in And I will Move along here Uh frida continued, but the journey of looking for native speakers. It really becomes frustrating Almost all the websites I visited I came across too many dirty minded people I just gave up on looking for natives for rita. You found me. I'm a native speaker Layla asks sorry I Talked to robin talk to me. Well, that's not always easy right because I'm sometimes busy Uh, but yeah, frida just try to talk to me more. You you know, I'm very happy to talk to you.  Oh These questions they're all good Uh This is bad, uh, so I stress eat stress eat.  Besides two barking dogs um This is a tough one It's getting to the end. We can pass this one if it's It's a personal If it's a trigger Uh Rohit tinku. Thank you robin for your advice. By the way, could you please tell me how I can also become a member of your group? Uh Look around the channel. You can find a whatsapp link Join the whatsapp say hey robin. I saw your live stream and then I'll help you out All right sleepwalker says robin. Thank you for inviting alissa And lolly lolly says alissa. Thanks. You're amazing See you How do you feel when people say see you? Ah, you know I always say no pun intended Yeah, no pun intended See you.  Yeah, it means goodbye Uh ferita says alissa.  Layla says alissa Thanks a lot for answering all the questions. You made my day. You are really special And win win says I want to chat with you and layla on zoom one day Do you like to chat on zoom? Yeah, why not? All right, and ferita. Thank you alissa and robin And alissa. Thank you sleepwalkers says alissa. Thank you for your honest answers. Well, okay So we'll wrap this up. Thank you very much alissa. You are a very special person And uh, we all love you and we all hope to help you in some way in the future. So Please consider us friends Dear friends, okay And uh, are are you comfortable to come back on the zoom again for a live stream? I'm down. This is okay. All right. Well, we have some more messages Uh Lolly lolly says sorry for saying see you Uh I alissa doesn't care We're just teasing you lolly lolly. I'm just teasing you lolly lo Uh win says I got motivated to study english Robin I do like live streams like this. Thanks for you. Thanks for you both Eunice to lab says thank you alissa for the interview. You you taught us a lot of things and Eunice to lab gives two flower two roses Thank you for the road emoticons Layla, thanks a lot robin for inviting alissa. It's an amazing special life Abraham foam. Thank you alissa for taking my question. You are amazing And a new person just joined our tuto aguilar hi from honduras Well, hello, we're gonna end it now. So Alissa do you have any last words? Yes, I would like to thank each and everyone for your questions and they are very very Nice questions very thought provoking too and also to you robin. Thanks for having me here. It's always a pleasure talking with you as well as Just goofing off And remember whatever Level you are right now. Don't ever give up learning Because language learning is not A sprint it's a marathon It's a lifelong journey So don't ever divorce this language Marry it till death do you part strong powerful words All right, alissa. Thank you and thank you to everyone. I'm gonna end the stream So see you next week. Goodbye everyone


It might be cheaper to actually take a throwback taxi home after a night out than using rideshare. Yeah, if you want to save a little bit on cash, no one to use which. Traveling during rush hour? Taxi. Going to the airport? Definitely take rideshare. If you want to go and take a ride with me, better roll down your windows to stay cool. Turns out your mom was right. Unless you're driving on a highway, windows down saves you on gas versus AC. Drive the speed limit. Increasing your speed 20 miles over the speed limit in a compact car can be like driving an SUV as far as how much gas you're using.


The point of it all, the point of it is to experience the grief of losing Matt and other people like him honoring that, recognizing that there's a special kind of righteous anger in that, and that we can channel that in positive ways to enact change.


but you know they're out there and these people actually choose to disable themselves. I can only imagine how insulting that is to people who are actually disabled. Let's sip some tea today guys. Hello my beautiful internet friends and welcome back. I am very excited and also just a tiny bit nervous for today's video. I don't generally respond to other youtubers but this was a video I felt was just necessary to say something about. You may or may not know who Blair White is. Oh hi welcome back to my channel. She is a conservative outspoken transgender youtuber. I've seen a number of her videos. We disagree a lot. We agree on a few things and I saw this video pop up and I was like oh goodness this is one that I need to say something about because she spoke about the trans-abled community. We will be talking about the trans-abled community. Oh god I just my soul. It's decaying. So basically these people disable themselves. They will cut off their own limbs. They will blind themselves. They will disable themselves because they feel as though that is the life they should be living. If you don't know what the trans-abled community is it also relates to BIID which I will talk about in a moment but essentially if someone identifies as trans-abled they have a physically perfectly functional body but they identify as disabled. So for instance someone may have eyes that can see perfectly well but believes that they should be blind and that is how they choose to live. Going blind would be a nightmare but for dual-shooping it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. She suffers from a rare condition called body integrity identity disorder which led her to deliberately take her own sight. Or maybe they have perfectly functioning limbs but believe those limbs should not work below the waist and so they live in a wheelchair and they do not use their legs because that's how they believe they are meant to live life. In terms of pretending I try to do it at least once a day if not longer I feel a lot better and I get to see myself as I would be or should be. If you are new to my channel I just want to give you a quick little bit of context. I am an amputee. I lost my leg below the knee about a year a year and a half ago year and a few months ago. There's the receipts guys. The whole journey of how it happened and what's going on with it is documented on this channel so I won't bore you with it right now but suffice it to say I fell off a horse when I was 13, shattered my ankle, so many surgeries later eventually we made the call that it wasn't worth it to keep my very painful and messed up ankle around anymore and we had to remove it. Not a great experience not one that I would choose in a perfect world ever however this is where we are now and I'm making the best of it. With that being said Blair White made a video like I said about Transabled Community and BIID and she mentioned in a couple times how she feels like people who are actually disabled such as myself should be really offended or are going to be really offended by people who identify this way or dealing with this disorder and I wanted to add a little bit of insight add a little bit context as someone who is actually who is actually disabled right here are a few of the things that she had to say in her video. You know I can only imagine how terrible it is to either be born with or develop any sort of physical or mental disability and then you have this segment of the population which is very small we're not acting like this is a voting block people but you know they are out there and these people actually choose to disable themselves. I can only imagine how insulting that is to people who are actually disabled not by choice and some of them still have their legs but they choose to not use them because apparently being able-bodied makes you privileged and they don't want to you know I just you know I welcome the apocalypse at this point I feel like you know this little thing called humanity has definitely run its course so this woman's name is actually Chloe White um we're gonna hope she's not related to me I don't really want to be from that particular gene pool uh she actually wears leg raises to give herself a paraplegic feel how insulting if you're really a paraplegic like I kind of want to fight her. Now let me start at the beginning of this story first of all I have done a video about this before that I will link up above here and also down below but I'm not gonna lie and tell you that I was not initially offended when I heard about this I will go ahead and use the big O offended I was absolutely like what the hell are you are you kidding me people do this people want this people choose this life like what that is it is seemingly offensive it seems to make light of the genuine struggles that myself and people who are similar to me are going through it almost seems to make a joke out of it right on the surface and I think that's why it's so easy to be outraged about it and so when I first heard about this through like BuzzFeed articles on Facebook uh my honest reaction was WTF so Blair you and I had a similar initial reaction but let's dive a little bit further into this this whole topic stuck in my head understandably it's something that I would care about because it's my life and it was so perplexing to me that people would be choosing this I'm gonna put that in quotes so I looked into it further and as I was looking into it further I get messages from people as I started this channel who had b i i d and they'd reach out to me and want to have a conversation with me because they believe that they should be amputees as well and I am an amputee so they wanted to talk to me and it was confusing and different but I wanted to hear their story I wanted to kind of keep an open mind and then as I continued my research I discovered just as Blair did that b i i d which is body identity integrity disorder is an actual disorder the more I thought about this the less offended I got because I can't imagine how much someone must be mentally hurting to like completely optionally want to hurt themselves so badly as to disable a part of their body for the rest of their life I injecting medical grade alcohol into the limb but there was intense pain there was a sense of feeling of success you couldn't move but after eight hours it was fine I was in a very dark place and it culminated in me trying to jump in front of a train and the more stories I heard and the more videos I watched and the more that I read the more I felt like my heart was breaking for people dealing with this I went blind on purpose but I don't feel it was a choice and when I made that video about b i i d you know commenting from an actual amputee's perspective so many people reached out to me who are dealing with this disorder and thanked me for talking about it um in at least a compassionate way because no one has done that to them before and has just treated them like complete weirdos and outcasts and like they're totally fucked up the feel was the sense of isolation and alienation it's not being able to talk to anyone they're constantly having to put on a mask and I'm not an expert on b i i d but all I can say is from the people I have spoken to they don't want to be dealing with this they don't want to feel this way they are hurting they want a solution they want a fix they are often looking for treatment but this is how they legitimately feel for whatever reason and I really think that more research needs to be supported when it comes to this kind of disorder and that better support needs to be offered when it comes to this the next thing that Blair addresses in her video is the idea of you know is being transabled similar to being transgender now let's talk about is this similar to being a transgender if you're new to this channel hi i'm a tranny so my initial reaction to this would be that being transgender and transitioning and changing my body was actually to improve the functionality of my life improve my quality of life for which it did not take away functionality or disable myself this is something I cannot provide a lot of commentary on because I am neither transgender nor transabled however again from the conversations I've had with people they do want to transition to transabled or disabled themselves in whatever way they feel like they need to to improve their quality of life much the same way that someone who is transgender transitions to physically appear as the gender that they truly are you know inside from the feelings that these people have expressed to me it is somewhat similar again I am not speaking as an expert on that at all however I think that maybe our mindsets could shift a little bit from what the fuck is wrong with these people to something is obviously going on maybe this deserves a little bit of compassion and how can we help and Blair actually does touch on that in her video so it's interesting at this according to this it actually occurs in childhood similar to gender dysphoria I had never even heard of this I thought these people were just flat out crazy I didn't I didn't know that there was like a you know a condition associated with this and actually is a bit of a sad thing to think about if you're born with this it is really sad I have personally had the privilege of never feeling like something physically in me was so wrong or shouldn't be there for most of my life for any reason but unfortunately a lot of people have I don't know what that feels like but it sounds kind of heartbreaking but there was one thing that I wanted to point out that I think is incorrect in her video the way that she presented it she puts up a tumblr post which I think we all know tumblr is like the bane of the world the bane of existence itself and it reads like this this person says my experience as a trans abled people have always been very rude to me about being trans abled it's not that hard to understand I just think able-bodied people are privileged and I've decided that I was way too privileged so I decided to stop using my legs to remove ableism yeah that sounds absolutely ridiculous to me as well and I think that is very different from what people are expressing who are dealing with body identity integrity disorder that is different that is not simply wanting to identify a certain way because you feel like other people are too privileged which by the way privilege is not a bad thing if you have privilege use it to help other people because apparently being able-bodied makes you privileged for the record being able-bodied does make you privileged but that is not a bad thing that's a great thing if you are an able-bodied person use that privilege to help people who are not if you are a person who is privileged because of the color of your skin use that privilege to help people who do not look the same as you who may be disadvantaged in certain ways which is not right privilege is not bad and yet we demonize it in this society like it's this curse word it's not it's a good thing to have but it should be shared like we should use the good power that we have to help other people so yeah I think that this post is absolutely ridiculous and I don't think it's a good representation of being trans-abled and I'm not even really sure that a lot of people struggling with BIAID identify as trans-abled I haven't done all the research but again from the people I've talked to no one has ever self-identified that way like I said I am an amputee before that I lived a restricted life where I was in physical pain all the time I could never really do the things I wanted to do my ankle was really screwed up on top of that I have other medical conditions I'm dealing with all of those would be really great if they just disappeared and went away I don't enjoy any of it and yes my initial feeling was a fence when I heard about these people but the more I looked into it the more I realized that they are hurting people struggling I deal with depression and anxiety and PTSD those are mental conditions that I would love to wish away I've tried I've really tried I've tried many a time but they don't just disappear they don't just go away they take time and compassion and treatment and I believe that the same is true for people who are dealing with BIAID we already established that's a whole other level of like however you find yourself reacting to this that's a okay but how you treat people who are dealing with this I personally think could use more compassion us humans were programmed with survival instincts right and part of that is wanting to keep a hold of all of our body parts as a way to survive you know so to have something in your brain that makes you go so far against that as to be like no I don't want any part of this eludes to the idea that something is really not okay whatever that not okay is and I really hope that if you are watching this and you are dealing with the IID that you find support that you find compassionate people who are willing to listen and help you find a way to work through it or live with it or whatever whatever the answer is I certainly don't have an answer I hope that more research is thrown into this to help people struggling with this I hope that we can all express more understanding and less judgment I get why Blair made the video that she made I totally understand that is her flavor of YouTube I get it but also I noticed that more people were visiting my first the IID video that I made nine months ago probably because her video is huge she's a really really big person on this platform and a lot of people listen to her and so I wanted to throw in my two cents as a person who is disabled as a person who is an amputee and say that I am not the least but offended anymore by this disorder I think it's absolutely natural to have a hard time understanding this I have a hard time understanding this it was hard to wrap my head around if that is the position you're in I think that's entirely understandable and normal however as I often say I think our world could use a lot more compassion and so maybe reconsider your initial reaction examine it and see if there's more that you could learn and Blair if you're ever watching this which I you know sincerely doubt but hey I appreciate you covering this topic and if you ever get a chance maybe spend some time talking to people who have the IID to better understand where they're coming from that's the only recommendation that I would have it's something that is personally help me try to better understand what someone is experiencing that I have no experience in yeah so there you go those are my thoughts thank you guys for listening a huge thank you to all of my patrons who make these videos sincerely possible you help me more than you know and to you watching this video right at this moment I appreciate you thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me you could be anywhere in the world doing anything but you chose to whoops I just knocked the camera okay you chose to spend it here with me and I am grateful thank you I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys


Welcome to All Hands Update. I'm Petty Officer Jen Blake. These are your headlines from around the fleet. McPon Mike Stevens visited Stuttgart, Germany last week to host an All Hands call with sailors. McPon talked about the eSailor initiative, leadership development, and took questions from the audience. When asked about changes in deployment schedules, McPon said USS Carl Vincent's nine-month deployment preparation will help implement the Optimized Fleet Response Plan. The Fleet Response Plan will give sailors a better idea of deployment lengths than schedules. If you're looking to advance this cycle, you should already be studying. If you're a sailor who likes to cram, you can still find your most current bibliography on Navy Knowledge Online or NKO. For tools and tips on exam preparation, visit the Navy Advancement Center page on NKO.


What's up everybody, it's Jason here from jaspyscasebrakes.com. We're going to give away eight football mixture spots away with this 2021 rookies and stars football cereal box break number 11. And I've added bonus, instead of selling 32 spots, we took out five spots and we're going to give them away to customers that buy into this break to get extra entries into potentially winning a spot in the mixture. So we only sold 27 spots, all right, there's a 27 customer names. So what we're going to do is we're going to use the dice roll here for the giveaway and the list of names and teams for the break. We're randomized to 27 names, top five get an extra spot in the break. We'll paste your guys' names here and then it'll be full 32 and then we use the same dice roller for the names and teams. Then at the end we'll have a dice roller and list ready for the 32 names to be randomized and top eight get into the football mixer. So let's roll it and it is a three out of five, eight times, top five get extra spots. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Boom, eight times, five, three, eight, Sean, Joshua, Stephen, Wilkerson, Stephen Flat and David Oh, there you go. Congratulations. Top five got an extra spot for a little extra entry here to potentially win. So let me put a little character sign at the end of your guys' names and boom. That's one, two, three, four, five. Perfect. So that makes 32. I'm going to copy and paste this original list for later when it's already ready to roll as is. Now eight times now on the list of names and teams for the cereal box break. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Kev, down to Joshua. All right. Eight times here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Washington commanders out of the Cincinnati Bengals. And again, guys, this is just a quick little cereal box filler break. So no trades. It's just a little one pack box, too, as well. So stick to what you got there. There's your teams there. Devonte Smith Crusade. Take one, Barkley.  Now let's switch scenes and do the main giveaway. So remember, top eight, get in. Good luck, guys. Roll it. Three, three, three, six times. Good luck. One, two, three, four, five, and six. Boom. It's the top eight. Steven Kendrick's close. The no cigar there, man. So nine down to 32. Unfortunately, you guys are not in. But let's see who is in. Steven Wilkerson. Last one, Moja. Last one right there. Ben. Gregory. Sean, what are your free spot? Steven, your free spot. Tanner, you're in. Steven Flatt, you're in. And Ryan H, you're in. Boom. So top eight right there are in. Paste your names there. And again, this was Rookies and Stars, I believe. 11, right? I think it was 11. So there you go, guys. Remember, the next filler is on the website at 25 left. That would unlock the mix. And we can break that tonight. Jasper'scasebrace.com.


Why do people abuse others? Statistically, what do we know? We know that abusers statistically will abuse others. So if your mom and dad was abused, and I always ask that in every counseling session, was your mother abused, was your dad abused? What about grandpa? What about grandma? It runs downhill. Water flows downhill. Abuse flows down the family tree. So if your parents were abusers, there's a pretty strong statistical probability they were abused. They were probably, not always, I said probably. Okay, this is the kind of abuse that really causes deep, painful scars on the soul.


Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Aquary Local Government Area of River State, Samuel Omanosike, has said there is no hiding place for illegal oil refiners within the local government area. He said this during the inauguration of the Committee on the Prohibition of Illegal Refining and Parking of Heavy Duty Trucks at Isiopo, headquarters of the Aquary Local Government Area. The Chairman of the Council, preceded in inaugurating the 19 members' committee in the fight against illegal bunkering. He listed the devastating effects of illegal refining of crude to the health of citizens and the ecosystem. He also warned members of the committee not to see this as an opportunity to enrich themselves but as a service to humanity and the state. If you woke up in Omanosike, you can't be treated in fresh air. If you woke up in the committees in Omanosike, you can't be treated in fresh air. Our kids are dying unwontedly. People, life expectancy has been cut short. Cancer is killing people because of nothing. All those who are doing the oil bucketing activities in Omanosike, Isiopo, in Omanwai, wherever they have been involved doing it, they can't point out to us what meaningful and different they have gotten from this oil bucket.  Debt has come to our doorpost through their actions. That the member of the tax force does not make up of the law.  I had an opportunity to stop money from oil bonkers. So you have the right to resign now if you have the impression that you are here to come and make money because the member of this committee. So, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.