Early de la Mañana

Well, this is it!

Early tomorrow morning I´m off to México!  Still got to put a few more things in the pack and then to catch a few winks before I get up ridiculously early to catch my flight.

You know that feeling you get when your about to embark on a grand adventure that will change your life? Yeah, it´s pretty awesome :)

Well, to work, to bed, to Mexico!

See you, on the other side!

Benjamin

Cultural Activities

Because I am taking a Cultural Proofs class while in the field I will have the opportunity to visit, see, and participate in many cultural activities and places.  Some of the suggested activities that seem particularly interesting include: 

"Learning from someone how to cook a traditional meal," "Making a language log of 30–50 local, commonly-used expressions or phrases such as metaphors, idioms, analogies, proverbs, and clichés" "Interview 3–4 elderly people of the community on what life was like when they were growing up (represent each gender)" "Creating a vocabulary log and build your own dictionary with examples, illustrations, or photos." "Reading literature important to the local identity in the target language." and "Keeping a grammar and vocabulary field notebook."

This got me thinking more about the local culture and the experiences that I will have there.  I found this really interesting blog (in English) that is kept up to date by a local high school in Irapuato: Technológica de Monterrey.  Here is the site:

 http://irapuato.wordpress.com/

I also wanted to look into what holidays I will be celebrating while in Irapuato, and I found this neat list on mexonline.com

May 1: Primero de Mayo is the Mexican national holiday that is equivalent to the U.S. Labor Day.

May 3: Holy Cross Day Dia de la Santa Cruz, when construction workers decorate and mount crosses on unfinished buildings, followed by fireworks and picnics at the construction site.

May 5: Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican national holiday that honors the Mexican victory over the French army at Puebla de los Angeles in 1862.

May 10: Mother's Day, Due to the importance of the mother in Mexican culture, Mother's Day is an especially significant holiday.

June 1: Navy Day is an official Mexican holiday.

June 24: Saint John the Baptist Day is celebrated with religious festivities, fairs, and popular jokes connected to getting dunked in water.

June 29: Fiesta of Saint Peter and Saint Paul notable celebrations in Mexcaltitan, Nayarit and Zaachila, Oaxaca.


Basically, I´m pretty excited for this trip.

Tener Asistente?

I have been pondering a little bit about the transcribing process that I will have to go through in the field and all of the work that is required for it.  The article about transcription that I had found early did more than just re-assure me that I can live in Mexico for three months (though thank goodness it did that).  It also got me thinking more about the actual methods and process that I will undergo while I transcribe these interviews, and the idea has arisen- should I ask for help? Should I look for a part-time assistant to help me with the transcriptions?

As I have spoken with other students going on a Field Study this summer many of them have told me about how they will be requesting the use of, and recruiting the help of translators.  I don't need a translator, but it would be very useful to have someone, a local speaker, familiar with the accent and the language, to whom I could go to help me interpret the audio recordings of my interviews.

Of course, this brings up several questions, like, how much of this wonderful learning experience and opportunity for growth do I want to delegate to others?  How will I make sure that I don't become reliant upon a transcriber and do not take up too much of his or her time?  Where will I find such a person who is willing and capable to help?  How can I show reciprocity for the extra help?  How ethical would it be to incorporate another researcher into this project?  What parameters would I need to go through in order to approve a transcribing assistant.

I will attempt to answer the questions, though I will reserve the right to change my answers for the better in the future and the field.  I do not want to put off experiences that will help me grow and learn the Spanish language, entonces, I definitely don't want to delegate all my transcribing to another; perhaps I can have help with just difficult sections.  This would also be beneficial in making sure that I don't take up too much time from anyone that I ask help from; possibly I can find someone who is willing to help me once a week for an hour or two and I can just reserve the difficult passages for them to help me understand what has been said.  I could then pay for their dinner or something to show reciprocity for their help.  This shorter time commitment also opens up doors as to how many people might be able to help.  I'll probably first ask my host family if they know of anyone.  Ideally I could find someone who is an informant, who has an actual interest in the work that could help me listen to and transcribe my interviews.  As for registering my "assistant" or helper with the IRB to make sure that they can view the "raw data" (if this is even necessary) I can ask my mentor, Mark, if he knows anything about that, or at least who I could ask.

Wow, that seemed like a good thought-discussion with myself.  I certainly am getting more and more exited for this trip!

Benjamin 

Horario... 2!

So I think it was last week that I wrote my first post concerning horario, or schedule.  I've been meaning to flesh it out a little bit and so I guess today's the day.  Here is what I had so far...

Week #

1- Get to know my host family, the people, and the area, building rapport the whole time.

2- Cultural proofs and language practice, networking and rapport building.

3- Language practice, networking and rapport building, slowly begin interviews.

4- Language practice, networking, rapport, interviews, and transcribing.

5- Language practice, networking, rapport, interviews, and transcribing.

6- Language practice, group retreat (tentative), transcribing, and planning for final product.

7- Language practice, networking, rapport, interviews, transcribing, and planning.

8- Language practice, networking, rapport, interviews, transcribing, and planning.

9- Language practice, networking, rapport, interviews, transcribing, planning, and writing.

10- Language practice, rapport, interviews, transcribing, writing, and translation.

11- Language practice, rapport, transcribing, writing, translation, and thank you's.

12- Language practice, rapport, writing, translation, goodbyes and thank you's.

(13)- Language practice, writing, translation, see Mexico City

First off, let me explain a little bit about each of the activities that I have planned and why they are important.

Getting to know my host family, the people, and area - This is possibly the most important thing that I will do while on my trip.  All of my research, as well as my level of enjoyment in the experience, will hinge entirely on how well I understand the culture and the people and how well I get along with my host family.  That is why this will be done first, and why for every subsequent week I will be continuing to build rapport.

Building rapport - How can I expect to make friends, much less get any good information, if I don't build a relationship of trust with everyone that I can.  I should always be meeting new people, new informants or possible interviewees, and so I will consistently be working on building rapport.

Language practice - This was the primary reason why I originally wanted to go on a field study.  I have since grown to love my project greatly, but even so my ability to successfully complete my project is contingent upon my ability to communicate and understand the Irapuatenses.  This also ties into everything I am doing in my Cultural Proofs class.


Networking - Preach My Gospel says "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find somebody to teach.."  This is also true with field studies; until I find people to work with I will not be able to get any good data complete, as such I will be consistently seeking to find.


Interviews - Now, I do want to make sure that I spend enough time in the field to solidify my language skills and to build good relationships with those with whom I will be interviewing.  However, I believe that the most time consuming activity will be transcribing these interviews.  Because of this, when I do start to interview people I will want to get as many accomplished as soon as I can so that I can get to work on transcribing these interviews.  If I were to make any adjustment to my previous schedule it would be, not to start interviewing sooner, but to try to complete the bulk of my interviews before my mid-semester retreat.


Planning - This process of planning the final work will take place gradually throughout the entire program.


Transcribing - This should be the most time consuming of my activities, but fortunately it will also be very beneficial to my language acquisition.  This is the last step that is absolutely essential to get finished while in the field.  More on the practicalities of transcribing later.


Translating - After the paper is written in Spanish I will be translating it into English.  This section could move into later August, after returning from Mexico, though it will definitely be started and completed as much as possible while in the field.


Thank yous - I will always be trying to show gratitude and reciprocity, but most especially during my final week or so in the field.

Teaching and Transcribing

I discovered an amazing source today about the use of transcribing techniques to teach English to non-native speakers.  The article, entitled "Learning from the Transcripts of an Oral Communication Task" by T. Lynch,  talked about the practicality and effectiveness of using transcribing activities in classrooms.  The reason I am dedicating a whole post to this article is because of how it answers so many questions I have recently asked (and should have asked) about my project.

The article analyzes a study completed concerning the effectiveness of using recorded oral practice in classrooms and having the students later transcribe the recorded conversations.  This is exciting for me because the study showed that having students transcribe their own conversations greatly increased the attention that they gave to the language and how it works.  In other words, transcribing is a wonderfully effective strategy for language acquisition.

This is splendid news!  That means that the thing that I was dreading as taking up the most time (transcribing) will actually help me to achieve the thing that I wanted most out of my trip to Mexico (that is, bettering my Spanish skills).  Not only that, but the two methods that were tested gave me some great ideas about how I can be more accurate, and get the most language learning, out of my transcribing time.

The study was conducted to measure (in part) the difference in effectiveness between two methods of transcribing.  For both of the methods the students will complete a first-time transcript of the oral practice, but for the first method the students will come back to their transcript and edit it along with their peers, paying special attention to words and sections that were problematic during the first attempt.  This methods is intended to greatly increase the attention that the students will give to the language and require them to look more closely at words at familiar to them.  The second methods requires more teacher involvement, meaning that the teachers would provide their version of the transcripts for the students to learn from.

The study showed that the first, peer-review method, provided more long-term learning for the students.  Which is great, because it gave me the great idea to find a friend that I can have help work with me through the tricky sections of the audio recordings.  This article has taught me things that will help me to not only improve my Spanish, but the methods therein will provide assistance during my transcribing periods, granting relief during some of the most challenging portions of my project.

Las Cosas Demas

It's hard for me to believe that in just over a month I will be living in rural Mexico. Wow. So for this journal entry I just want to ponder a little bit about the things that I still need to do before I leave on my trip.

First off I need to focus on my research.  There are a few things that I need to get done before I go.  I need to talk to Fernando Gomez at the Mexican Mormon History Museum to get a better idea of how the church first got to Central Mexico, and then to the city of Irapuato.  I also have been talking with my mentor, Mark, about taking a trip up to Salt Lake to look into the official LDS Church archives to get some names and dates of the original members of the church in Irapuato and the time of their conversion.

I also need to work with Mark and with whoever my new contract mentor will be for the cultural proofs class.  I need to discuss with them more about the actual course work that I will be doing in the field.  I also need to set a firmer reading agenda for the classes.  Right now I have three books that I think will work for my Academic Internship class reading, one is about Church History in Mexico, another is Octavio Paz's "Labyrinth of Solitude" about what it means to be Mexican, and a third is about translation between Spanish and English. I will need to verify these texts with Mark, and find probably 1 or 2 more books in order to fill the classes page requirement.

I will also need to prepare for the international travel part of the trip.  This will include completing the Kennedy Center Proposal for my prep course, as well as doing the routine pre-trip preparation such as doctor's visits and shopping for supplies.  I will need to be sure that I am prepared for daily life in the field, for all things necessary for completing my project, and for any medical emergencies or preparation/prevention strategies and materials that I may need.

Overall, it should be a great trip!

Benjamin

Field Studies y Agradecimiento

I found out recently that the Field Studies program will be shutting down later this year, in fact, I am going to be part of the last group that gets to experience the miracle that we call a Field Study.  It's hard for me to describe my feelings when it comes to this one; it's an interesting mezcla of potent sadness and extreme gratitude.  But I want to enfocarme on the positive and all of the wonderful things that I have learned so far and that I look forward to learn because of this great experience.

So far in the prep-course I have learned so many things about research, ethics, and preparing to get the most out of a foreign experience.  I am so grateful for the teachers (Ashley and Malcolm are amazing!) and for the Field Facilitators who have provided me with an idea of what I'm getting into in Mexico; after all, "where there is no vision, the people perish..." (Proverbs 29:18). From the head teachers I have learned aspects of culture assimilation and of ethical research.  From Natalie, my Field Facilitator, I have learned about Mexican culture and of research methods that will be invaluable to me while in the field.

For me, the Field Studies program was perfect; I wanted an opportunity to really get to know the people and take part in their culture.  I wanted to be able to talk with them, improve my Spanish, make friends and get to know and love a people.  I wanted autonomy in my research, and encouragement to become a scholar rather than a student, to push forward pro-actively in my career and stretch myself to accomplish something challenging and worth while.  I wanted the Field Studies Program.

I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have had to be a Field Studies student, an opportunity of a life time that not many students are able to receive; a program that makes a scholar out of a student by placing him or her into the world and telling them not just to learn, but to work and to achieve.

Benjamin