Instead of sending Christmas cards (virtual or real) this year, I decided to send my friends and business partners a video message instead. In this video, I talk about what Euroasia has been up to this year, reflections on 2008 and plans for 2009. Check it out when you have a spare couple of minutes.
I was on Radio NZ’s Morning Report this morning! Great publicity for our language school…
Sadly I missed it, but luckily a friend emailed me about it.
You can check out the story here.
Check out the audio feed here:
For those who haven’t heard, I’ve been nominated for one of the “Ponsonby Top 10 Entrepreneurs” awards under the Business Services category.
I received over a hundred messages from friends, family, colleagues, clients, suppliers etc expressing support, and right now we’re in the final leg of the 2-month voting process. So for good measure, I figured I should get all my friends who haven’t voted for me to do so. The closing date is Friday, 6 June.
So here I am shamelessly asking for votes again 
Feel free to vote online here:
http://www.ponsonbynews.co.nz/voting_form.php
It wouldn’t hurt if you ask your friends to vote as well 
Will let you all know how it goes when I find out.
A recent article in Scientific American outlined results from a study showing that girls completing a linguistic abilities task showed greater activity in brain areas implicated specifically in language encoding, which decipher information abstractly. Boys, on the other hand, showed a lot of activity in regions tied to visual and auditory functions.
The implications are numerous. It appears that boys need to be taught language both visually (with a textbook) and orally (through a lecture) to get a full grasp of the subject, whereas a girl may be able to pick up the concepts by either method.
At Euroasia, I’ve observed over the years that we consistently have more girls (OK, women) than boys in our classes. On average, women make up about 60%-70% of our client base, and it’s not surprising to see all-female classes at times. I think there are a number of reasons why this is the case. Perhaps language learning is simply more appealing to women. Others would say that girls like the romance associated with learning a second language. It seems like now we have some more compelling biological reasons behind this phenomenon.
However, it has also been interesting to observe the guys who come along for language classes. I’m unsure if it’s PC to say so, but it also appears that the guys who tend to want to learn a second language (in spite of being supposedly biologically inferior in this respect) are more sophisticated, confident, urbane and adventurous. If guys are indeed behind the proverbial eight-ball, perhaps those who choose to learn a language need these qualities in order to succeed. Either that or simply because they wish to be in the presence of beautiful, intelligent women. And I would add that there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!
I’m amazed to find out that China has nearly 50 million people who are currently learning foreign languages. According to a Chinese Ministry of Education official, 900 colleges offer an English major, and of those, more than 600 can confer a bachelor’s degree and more than 200 can confer master’s degrees.
There are more than 800,000 students majoring in English in China annually!
By contrast, New Zealand produces approximately 21,000 graduates per year across all disciplines, of which approximately 2,000 were classed as “humanities” graduates. I imagine languages, history, geography etc would all fall under this category. As it stands, New Zealand is one of the most monolingual countries in the world. I don’t see this changing any time soon. Perhaps some people reading this article would be thinking why bother with learning a language if everyone is learning English as a second language. Here are some reasons:
1. It seems a little unfair that we expect other people to devote so much time, money and energy to learning English so that they can communicate with us if we’re not prepared to make any effort at all.
After all, it’s just a matter of luck that we were born to speak English and not one of the 6,000 or so other languages in the world.
2. We in New Zealand are reliant upon links with other countries for our prosperity, and the majority of our trade now is with non-English speaking countries. Why should our international partners be keen
to trade with us if we make no serious attempt to understand their languages and their cultures?
3. When you travel in a country without a knowledge of the language, in some ways you only scratch the surface; only when you know the language do you realise how much you would otherwise be missing.
4. If you have never learnt another language, you have missed out on a key experience which millions of other people have had: understanding the ways in which languages can differ, realising that the way your language conveys meaning is not necessarily the “right” way, just one way among dozens of possible ways.
5. If you have never looked at another language, it is doubtful that you can ever really understand your own.
Well, if you’ve always wanted to learn a language, it’s not to late to join Euroasia for the April 08 intake.
We have been thinking about sharing some of our thoughts for a while. It recently dawned on me that we have access to a community of over 2000 New Zealanders, who have completed a course with us sometime over the past 5 years. Our team members have unique perspectives as migrants and educators in New Zealand. Unfortunately, often our perspectives are not heard, so why not share some of our thoughts here? And maybe provoke some debate along the way?
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