Questões de Inglês

Tame Your Inner Tiger

Controlling parents tend to have children who are academically above average but depressed

By Charles Q. Choi

April 15, 2011

 

All parents struggle to find the right balance between encouragement and discipline when it comes to raising their kids. This past winter Yale University law professor Amy Chua, who is Chinese-American, drew roars of protest when she asserted in her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, that successful parenting entails controlling most aspects of a child's life, from prohibiting playdates and sleepovers to screaming at children for getting grades lower than an A. What does research say about this style of childrearing?

"There's no evidence that intrusiveness is appropriate in any culture we've been to before, including China," says psychologist Brian K. Barber of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To learn more about how psychological control might vary across the world, Barber and his colleagues interviewed 120 adolescents from five different cultures, including Costa Rica, Thailand and South Africa, and then surveyed another 2,100. Their findings, which they recently submitted to the Journal of Adolescence, suggest that some of the behavior described in Chua's book, such as insulting kids (she once called her daughter "garbage"), invalidating their feelings and violating their privacy, correlated with children's depression and antisocial behavior, a finding that matches past research.

Barber distinguishes "authoritarian" households — those that are overly coercive — from "authoritative" households, where strictness is accompanied by warmth and encouragement of self-direction. In a prior study of more than 20,000 U.S. high schoolers, Laurence Steinberg of Temple University and his colleagues found that children raised in authoritative households were typically psychologically healthy, whereas those raised in authoritarian ones had elevated anxiety and depression. Notably kids from both households got comparably good grades, suggesting tiger mothering isn't necessary for excellence after all.

. Adaptado.

No trecho do segundo parágrafo do texto – some of the behavior described in Chua's book, such as insulting kids (she once called her daughter "garbage") – a expressão such as introduz

Tame Your Inner Tiger

Controlling parents tend to have children who are academically above average but depressed

By Charles Q. Choi

April 15, 2011

 

All parents struggle to find the right balance between encouragement and discipline when it comes to raising their kids. This past winter Yale University law professor Amy Chua, who is Chinese-American, drew roars of protest when she asserted in her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, that successful parenting entails controlling most aspects of a child's life, from prohibiting playdates and sleepovers to screaming at children for getting grades lower than an A. What does research say about this style of childrearing?

"There's no evidence that intrusiveness is appropriate in any culture we've been to before, including China," says psychologist Brian K. Barber of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To learn more about how psychological control might vary across the world, Barber and his colleagues interviewed 120 adolescents from five different cultures, including Costa Rica, Thailand and South Africa, and then surveyed another 2,100. Their findings, which they recently submitted to the Journal of Adolescence, suggest that some of the behavior described in Chua's book, such as insulting kids (she once called her daughter "garbage"), invalidating their feelings and violating their privacy, correlated with children's depression and antisocial behavior, a finding that matches past research.

Barber distinguishes "authoritarian" households — those that are overly coercive — from "authoritative" households, where strictness is accompanied by warmth and encouragement of self-direction. In a prior study of more than 20,000 U.S. high schoolers, Laurence Steinberg of Temple University and his colleagues found that children raised in authoritative households were typically psychologically healthy, whereas those raised in authoritarian ones had elevated anxiety and depression. Notably kids from both households got comparably good grades, suggesting tiger mothering isn't necessary for excellence after all.

. Adaptado.

An “authoritative” household

‘I have always made it __( I )__

every woman feels… special.’

SILVIO BERLUSCONI,

Italy’s prime minister, dismissing protests against

him shortly before a judge ordered him to stand trial on

charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute.

Newsweek

The blank I, in the text, must be correctly completed with

  Why is it that most of our students whine that they are able to almost fully understand what we say in the classroom but when faced with English in a real-life situation, the level of comprehension falls to near bottom, leading to their puzzlement, frustration and despair (in that order)?

  Some reasons for the phenomenon: teachers use a special language called teacherese. It is tailored form of the English language, which allows students to follow and obtain at least a global comprehension of what is being uttered. The speed is toned down somewhat, the lexis is full of Portuguese-like cognates so as to help students make necessary associations and/or simultaneous translations. Its linguistic variation is limited, especially at lower proficiency levels. 

  __( I )__ what is most noteworthy of teacherese is that its inability to stretch students’ listening skills may lie more in the fact that teachers, non-native in particular, barely use the rich idiomatic language that is used in magazines, newspapers, TV shows, movies, songs – in short, in real life situations that they usually face. The lexis may not necessarily be second nature to ELT professionals, __( II )__ its absence in everyday use in the classroom.

  Another reason: apart from using teacherese, most teachers don’t have any legitimate speaking opportunities outside of the classroom, __( III )__ reducing their oral skills to instructional and explanatory phrases or typical fixed expressions prescribed in the course book. Giving these educators opportunities to use the language naturally – be it in conversational settings arranged by the institutions or with native speakers in loco or online – may be crucial to whittle away at the problem.

  A third and final reason: familiarity breeds ease, which in turn breeds comprehension. The more time students stay with a said teacher, the easier it might be for them to understand them and get used to their accent, intonation, lexical choice and pace. This is a point that cannot be ignored and is worth looking into.

  __( IV )__ the question we need to ask ourselves is: how effective is the language we use in the classroom and to what extent this effectiveness plays a vital role in helping our students understand the world around them in English? __( V )__, in a communicative context, the teacher is but should not be the ultimate language model for the students, so students should not gauge their listening competence by the teacher. The catch is exposing students to more and more real language in the classroom and fostering effective listening strategies.

Braz-Tesol Newsletter

 

The words that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV and V, in the text, are

“…The apartment was in the wildest disorder - the furniture broken and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three smaller of métal d’Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood in one corner, were open, and had been, apparently, rifled, although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe was discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

  Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance. The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been throttled to death.

  After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the head, was fearfully mutilated - the former so much so as scarcely to retain any semblance of humanity.

  To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the slightest clew…”

Edgar Allan Poe – The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 

The bodies found in the Rue Morgue,

The verb that properly fills in blank I in the advertisement is