HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy New Year everybody!!! I wish you all 10 times the 2010 as I had 2009, which was a very good year for me!!! DO have a happy and safe start to the new year! Study smart, not excessively!!!
I will see some of you next week, but ALL of you MUST have a good break and get ready for the new semester!!!

Happy happies again!
Pete Cullen

End of the Semester as We Know It!

Hi guys!

It’s the end of the semester as we know it, and I feel fine!  I have had a good time with you this semester, although I must note that class presence has been low this semester.  I know there are lots of other pressures on you, but do try to come to class when you can! Particularly for language learning, it is important to keep up the practice!

At any rate, you seem quite responsive to the material we’re covering – which is good!  Now you are all going to head home to eat, drink and be merry with your friends and family – which is also good!  DO have a great Christmas Holiday. DO study intelligently for your exams (see my earlier post on studying), but DO NOT create extra stress for yourselves!!! Stress management is an important part of study and work!!! You must manage your time AND energy to do the best job you can do – whatever mark that may bring!!!

SO, DO have an excellent holiday! Have fun!

(If you like, I’ve added some polls/questionnaires to the feedback page of this blog, if you care to comment about the ups and downs of your first semester in a.y. 2009/2010.)

All the best!

Pete Cullen

Studying for Exams

Hi guys,

many of you have exams in a couple of weeks – here are some hints on how to study for them.
1) don’t start out by reading books in great detail – first look at the overall logic of the material. Concentrate a bit on the table of contents and look at how the text is structured. That will help you understand how the information in each chapter relates to the other chapters and will reinforce your memory.
2) After getting an impression of the logic of the text, look more deeply at how the topics are structured in each chapter. This means looking at paragraph structure and pulling out the big ideas. What are the authors actually saying (“actually” = in reality, not “currently”). So – read each chapter for big ideas and high-impact information. What does the author want you to understand from this chapter? If you don’t understand it, why? Sometimes the problem is the author – so you have to work at understanding the overall picture first.
3) look for details or specific information in the chapters that will help you remember the overall message of the chapter, and then the overall message of the book! This means making a selection of information that YOU can relate to the purpose of the chapter. Not everyone will focus on exactly the same points – that’s ok. The important thing is that you are able to talk about the material, or answer written questions about the material that reflect the logic of the information in the texts/class material/slides etc.

This takes time!!! While the energy that comes out by procrastinating has some positive effect on short-term memory, overall you will learn the material better if you set yourself a schedule that logically connects the parts of the material you have to study. At the beginning of each study session, review what you studied last session for a few minutes. Don’t look at each chapter as something disconnected, creating too many “mental frames” to keep track of. When you read, take some notes, according to the structure laid out above. I’ve seen so many used textbooks that are covered in highlighter or pencil markings. DO NOT UNDERLINE OR HIGHLIGHT EVERYTHING – that is counter productive. Take the time to make notes about main ideas, and then some schematic “detail markers” to support the main ideas. This will help you remember the major points when you go back and review them.

Go back and review!!! Picture it: you’ve got 12 days to study for Rossi’s written exam. The material is divided into two 40 page booklets. That means about 1 week each. If you separate the ideas totally, you’re cramming too much material into 1 week. As you read and take notes, you are creating a data base that allows you go back and relate main ideas. That means that while you read the first book the first week, when you start reading the second book, you begin reviewing the main ideas of the first book. This has the function of combining the study periods of both books, allowing you a) make better sense out of the information and b) remember it better.

Finally (although I could go on!) – DON’T GET TOO NERVOUS ABOUT IT!!! A bit of worry is a good thing, it gives an emotional energy to the study process that actually strengthens the memory. Excessive worry on exam day can block your memory, however, because you’re mind and body aren’t thinking about the information and questions in front of you, but rather are working only to get the experience over with.
Do whatever you can legally to come to the exam in a calm, well rested and digested mood!!!! You’ll have a better time!!!

All the best to you!!!
Pete Cullen

FCLingue friendly match

Good evening everyone! I’d just like to announce that FC Lingue will play its first friendly match of the academic year tomorrow evening (Thursday evening, Dec. 3 2009) at 8:00 pm at the football pitch next to the school in Trasanni. We don’t have all of our players, since some already have other matches and practices they can’t get out of, but we do have a core group that are coming out to REPRESENT!!!! We’re going to get the ball rolling and get to know each other as FCLingue 2010. A new year and new hopes for a tournament final in May. Come on down to the pitch in Trasanni at 20:00 on Dec. 3 2009 to watch this first match. It should be fun.

CLB!!!!! See you there!

Pete Cullen – manager

Orges Delaj – captain

The Band

Hi guys,
we have a few people interested in the band. Excellent! I see two major directions: rock and folk – with some international content. Very cool. If you are interested in playing or singing with us, and you are from the Faculty of Languages – don’t hesitate to contact me at peter.cullen@uniurb.it. I’ll add you to the organisational mailing list.
Keep on Rockin’!
Pete Cullen

Conference on the Arctic at the Canadian Embassy

http://www.domain-b.com/environment/20091118_us_china.html

 

 

Hi guys, check out this link on agreements between the US and China regarding climate change.

In other news, I just came back from a meeting at the Canadian Embassy on the cultures, economies, climate change questions and policy/security issues of the high Arctic.  It was vvveeeeerrry interesting!  Of particular interest to you as business students was the panel discussion on energy resource development in the high Arctic.  Prof. Dag Harald Claes, energy/geopolitical analyst at the University of Oslo, pointed out two interesting questions:  the melting of the Arctic ice opens up short sea-ways between Asia, Europe and North America – cutting out the long route through the Mediterranean.  What might this do to Mediterranean logistics service industries?  As well, he stated in no uncertain terms that Arctic oil has little commercial potential – most of the development interest is political.  My question to you is this: do the Arctic basin economies complement or compete with Mediterranean basin economies, particularly given the political motives for creating more unity in both these areas?

Think about it – I expect your report on my desk tomorrow morning! (just joking!)

Have a great day!

Pete

Climate and Economy – the new business environment

Hi guys.  Here are just a few things I’d like you to think about.

The large majority of scientists are aware that the earth is getting warmer quickly.

Scientists, business and government (see ICCP, British Gov. on Energy, most web-pages for large energy companies) are aware that this will have negative effects on human societies abilities to live the way we do currently.

We must do 2 things: MITIGATE (moderate)  the effects of climate change and ADAPT to them.  This means reducing the things we do that harm the climate (the environmental-atmospheric system that supports life on our planet: think plant life and forests, plant life and oceans, air and weather, glacial/ice covering and desertification + + +).  Mitigation (moderation) of carbon-based forms of pollution (gas emissions from factories, vehicles, and energy production) should help slow the process.  This will be necessary for survival of our cost-effective living.  Adaptation means learning to live with a warmer climate – and the different effects that this will have in the different areas of the world.

It is useful to remember that: the environment is a complex, non-linear system in which change may occur gradually and then hit a critical point and change rapidly.  As well, the interconnected nature of the environment and its relationship to human societies creates an extensive plurality of co-existing cause-effect structures such that change in one area may produce different very different effects across a number of other areas.  This is the key to understanding WHY CLIMATE CHANGE IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU AND ME!!!

If, for example, the ice sheets in the Arctic melt completely (and they are well on their way), the results are not only a bunch of drowning polar bears – a disaster in itself.  We are already seeing increased political/economic interest in this area in terms of resource exploitation and opening of trade routes.  In multi-variable systems, this could mean many things from higher average sea-levels around the world (increase cost to protect Italian infra-structure that lies along the coast) to decreased transport cost between northern trade partners, perhaps competing more significantly with Mediterranean trade routes and Mediterranean energy supplies – making these factors of economy more expensive and shifting the logistical pattern of current energy supply much further north.

In other terms, as outlined by the WISE study at the Energy Studies Institute Enrico Mattei, Mediterranean areas (southern Italy) could become constantly hot at Saharan temperatures – creating the need for serious adaptation in methods of living and doing business.  In the short term, this will put incredible stress on water and electrical resources as people combat the heat through fluid intake and air-conditioning.  Excessive use of these will not solve the problem, however – and we will be forced to change the way we use energy in southern Italy while making water reserves increasingly scarce and raising the overall cost of living.  Not only will more Sicilians spend more time at the beach, as the WISE study suggests, but they will spend more time at the beach with higher basic costs.

In central Italy,  a small increase of temperature will lead to a serious increase in forest fires. No problem for those who live on the coast – right? Well, burning trees makes the greenhouse gas emissions problem worse, in the short-term making overall air less-breathable at the territorial level and putting the PUBLICLY FUNDED fire-fighting staff under incredible strain – adding to taxes and the cost of living in the more densely populated and industrial areas.  In 2005 Italy was one of the few countries in the world where the forest was actually increasing – as people moved from the mountain villages to seek work and study in the towns and cities of the coast and plains.  This dynamic will be upset by losing that forest since it will both detract from low-level air quality and increase taxes.

Anyway – I just wanted to illustrate some of the relationships between humans and environment that contribute to making the planet warmer, and suggest that the complexity does not let us ignore these relationships – no matter where we are on the planet.  It is IMPORTANT to understand HOW OUR LOCAL AND TERRITORIAL SOCIETIES interact with the wider global environment.  It’s a bit ironic that the economic and business systems that drove the increase of greenhouse gas emissions (don’t think just factories – also think mechanised agriculture to feed us all!) have also given us the communications networks that allow us to understand each other better.  This means we do have a “blue-eyed hope in hell” (ok – “reasonable”) chance of working together to MITIGATE and ADAPT to climate change in logically coordinated among regions and states.  Let’s hope the meeting at Copenhagen this December (2009) to discuss the updating of the Kyoto protocol is productive.

In this context, it is FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT that regional societies (local, territorial, national and internationally regional) understand truly how their social systems function.  This requires a great deal of appropriate COMMUNICATION  at the cultural level.  Here, it is important to understand that CULTURE is the system of learning that generates patterns of thought and behaviour that are shared among members of a group.  It is both a learning and a network question.  It is at the very foundation of successful communication and therefore at the base of any successful agreement.  The fact that both MITIGATION and ADAPTATION are require cultural COOPERATION AND COORDINATION is a great advantage, not a threat.  Humans are social animals (literally or metaphorically – it’s not important) and are fundamentally capable of understanding each other – IF THE MESSAGES ARE PRESENTED CLEARLY AND MEANINGFULLY.  Being clear is relatively simple, and global English is a functional medium for this (freeing up mental space for learning other languages!).  Constructing meaning across cultures BEGINS with constructing meaning about climate change across different internal cultures: business, politics, community, science, education etc.  SO FAR THERE IS LITTLE COORDINATION IN THIS RESPECT.

I’m going to stop here, for now.  I invite comments on this! Students, colleagues and anyone who reads this.  Often, we take on the technical and scientific information and stop, confused perhaps about the data and methodology – and their applicability to our lives.  It is time to change the way we think of this question.  It is primarily NOT a technical question that WE cannot understand.  It is a cultural question that WE LIVE EVERYDAY.  We simply have to take some time to think about it!

All the best to everyone!

Pete Cullen

THE BAND

Ok – it has been brought to my attention that I posted a meeting on Nov. 5th. This was wrong. The meeting for the Band of the Faculty of Languages will meet during the week of Nov. 19th, although I think that the 19th I have to go to Rome for a meeting. (this is new – sorry again!!!) We could meet on Friday 20th at the same time? Let me know what you think! Sorry for the schedule mix-up/change!

Check up!

Good morning everyone! How are you all doing with the first module almost over? Next week we have make-up lessons, and then we’re into module two!
The feedback book is working quite well. Many of you note that you find me difficult to understand. That’s not unusual after only 4 weeks of classes! You seem to be having a good time, and participation is going well. I’m pleased.
I would like to see more B2’s come to class, but I realise that you’ve got an incredible schedule right now. We can hope for the best in the future!
In terms of business and culture. I’m quite pleased with the way you’re all reacting to the historical content of my classes. Even late in the evening you’re not totally falling asleep, and I think I’ve been able to make my principal points. Many of you seem to understand the connections between historical contextualisation of cultures and cultural systems (like business) and the forms and processes that we develop for our business/economic behaviour. Good! We’ll finish up with this subject this week and then get on with the Anglo-American content for the B1s and the ICT’s for the B2s.
Anyway – so far, so good!
DO have a fantastic day!
Pete Cullen

“Language Techniques” – New Link Category

Hi guys,

I’ve added a new category to the links on the right hand side of the page, called “Language Techniques”.  Here I will add links to sites that have a specific business language training function.  This should add a great deal to the resources available to you for studying business English.

Have fun!

Pete