Tag Archives: English skills

Taking English for Granted

By David Schroeder

[4 minute read]

Language is not something I really think about on a day-to-day basis. Most of the time, I just go through my day freely communicating with ease and not running into any language-related problems. I feel like this is the way a lot of native English speakers living in America feel, and I’ve found that it is a very ignorant way of thinking. Everyone should acknowledge that being fluent in English is a major privilege that is often overlooked or taken for granted by native speakers.

During my first conversation session at ALI, I was talking with an international student specifically about what our high schools were like. He said that he had a few required classes that he had to take during high school, and that one of them was four years of English. I mentioned that I was also required to take a foreign language and my conversation partner was puzzled by this, and he questioned me on why I would be required to learn any other language besides English. This forced me to step back and think more deeply about English.

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My conversation partner’s statement is sad but true, because in a practical sense, if you know English, there is not a need to know any other language because of English’s dominance in the world. This is unfortunate, because it is not fair to rate languages above each other because it creates a big disadvantage to those who are not native English speakers, and thus they are given the burden of learning another language (usually English) out of necessity.

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The Board Game Makes a Comeback, and College Students Rejoice!

By Jennifer Sung

In the 21st century, there are different forms of entertainment for college students. Whether it be deep late night conversations at 3am on a school night or binge watching a Netflix tv show, the majority of college students spend most of their time bumping up their social life. Once greatly underrated, playing board games became popular recently as another form of entertainment amongst college students. Amongst the many, there are three board games that have been placed at the top of most recommendation lists: Codenames, Settlers of Catan, and Avalon. All of these board games aim to stimulate teamwork, cognition, decision making, logical reasoning, and the ability to work in social contexts.

Photo by MeoplesMagazine on Flickr

Codenames is a word associated game that encourages cleverness and creativity. Codenames was labeled as the 2016 Game of the Year. Everyone is split into 2 teams, and is given a handful of words to describe to the other team. The “spymasters” for each team need to give one word clues that group up meanings or hint at one or more words that the rest of the team need to decode. This game tests the closeness, the teamwork, and the communication skills of the group. There are two versions of this game (uncensored vs censored). The uncensored version utilizes more adult-appropriate words that seem to be more popular amongst college students. The censored version is a more family-orientated game.

Photo by Cheryl Marland on Flickr

Settlers of Catan is a game that gambles luck, strategy, and decision making. The board is different depending on the initial roll, placement of the boards, and the actions of the other players. Fairly different from other games, this game has everyone involved on every turn. Anyone is eligible to receive a resource each time the dice are rolled, no matter who rolls. Additionally, everyone is allowed to trade with the current player rolling the die. This game is about trading sheep, wood, bricks, and wheat to build roads, houses, buildings, and cities. The goal is to monopolize the resources and other players to win the game. This amount of time spent on this game varies from 30 minutes to even 2 hours. This game is all about player interaction, replayability, and a beautiful mix of luck and strategy.

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