Does language influence thought?
March 22, 2014
There is a TED video where a second generation Vietnamese immigrant suggests that his view of life is different to his parents because Vietnamese doesn’t have a subjunctive, and English does. This allows him the luxury of speculating and imagining, as well as adding layers of subtlety to his language, whereas his parents speak directly …
Gender in the Classroom
March 18, 2014
A few students had recently brought up the topic of boys’ underachievement in education, particularly the role of feminism in contributing to the issue. Many studies have found that other factors, such as ethnicity and social class, have a more significant impact on educational attainment than gender, and while the debate about this is very …
Can studying in a second language be an advantage?
March 10, 2014
The most recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast was about language learning, and featured an interview with Chicago psychology Professor, Boaz Keysar. He recently published a paper with some surprising results. Keysar and his team tested students for decision making bias, in the students’ first and second language, and found that when students are using …
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