Two days ago, I watched Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University live on Al Jazeera television. I am happy I did not miss the live program, because from then on, it has been carefully edited on televisions worlwide. The Iranian press and media reflect the event as a very successful one and go so far as to call the president a "hero". At the other end of the spectrum, are televisions like CNN which particularly focus on Ahamdinejad's response on the homosexuality issue. I was not at all happy with the way Ahmadinejad performed at the event, however, I think one thing people in the west are not considering is the "culture gap". The language we speak in Iran sounds disorganized, provocative and too religious to the western ear. Therefore, some of Ahamdinejad's words, specially what he said about homosexuals, were not taken for what they really meant.

When he was asked about homosexuals in Iran, he said "اولا در ايران ما هم جنس باز مثل كشور شما نداريم" which was translated into "first of all, we do not have homosexuals in iran like in your country". There is a lingual mismatch here. What the Persian sentence means to an Iranian is: "We don't have as many homosexuals in our country as you do in yours" which is what he truly meant and is probably accepted by many. To an English speaker however, the translation states that there are absolutely no homosexuals in Iran and so, he was booed for what he said. You can see that although the translation is literally correct, the message it carries is different. Apart from that, there is a cultural mismatch in between. In Iran, homosexuality is still regarded as a taboo. It is considered inappropriate to speak about it and people, specially in formal gatherings, shy away from the topic. For the same reason, government officials tend to ignore the issue and deny its existance. I think when Ahmadinejad said there weren't any homosexuals in Iran, he was not speaking scientifically and in terms of numbers, he was rather denying the existance of a phenomenon that sounded "extremely embarassing" to him. If our president was more aware of current issues and more literate in western culture and English language, he would not possibly have humiliated himself the way he did.

Please post your comments.

Sasan, a student I have been working with for months now, seems so ready to take the IELTS. He’s a very smart and open-minded person and our classes together have always been filled with long debates. We were having a class yesterday evening when the subject of “government corruption” came up and got him started on a very interesting theory he holds. Sasan thinks that in our country, values have always been attributed to religion. He gave me an example on this: “If fifty years ago, you asked a westerner why it was wrong to lie, he would explain to you the harm it would do to the individual and to the society; if you asked an Iranian, he would say: It’s a big sin. It leads you to hell.” The problem is, Sasan thinks, religion is fading in our society and with it, fade social values. He thinks this has led to growing Nihilism among people and therefore, lack of morality. Please post your comments.

The picture on today’s entry, I took a week ago. The building on the right is the newly-constructed “International Tower of Tehran” and the one on the left is one of the three ASP towers.

Me and Sara have had a great time over the last couple of days watching Friends Season 6 on a DVD we got from our friend, Safaneh and we already regret the fact that we rushed to watch all the episodes and have no more new ones! :( But well, who cares, the real friends are out there! :) Hamed, my private student and really cool friend, was so sad today because he missed our friend Ehsan who left for Canada only this morning. He could NOT concentrate on the lesson and seemed to be wondering the whole time which country Ehsan was flying over! In the end, he figured it must be Cyprus! Safaneh seems to be missing her uncle who also left for canada two days ago. Her latest blog entry was like the saddest I've ever seen! I guess people are leaving to start the fall semester there. Good luck guys! ;)
I have figured a new way of giving assignments in my general English classes. What I would do before was to ask my students to do the exercises in their workbooks plus perhaps a few chapters from a story book. Later, I learned it would be very effective if I also assigned them to give a short talk which would require them to use the new grammar point or the new vocabulary. Lately however, I've come up with a whole new idea. Instead of telling them to prepare for a "talk", I tell them to prepare for possible question and answers. Here's an example. Suppose I'm teaching my students Greetings and Introductions. This would be their homework: "I will ask you next session about you and your friends' names, ages, jobs, etc. You have learned how to answer those questions. You should be FULLY PREPARED to answer whatever question comes up. I want you to be TOTALLY FLUENT at this. You can prepare yourselves by making sentences in your heads, creating possible questions and then answering them, or practicing questions and answers with a friend." By doing so, I am giving them the responsibility of reviewing and practicing in their own time and in their own way. So, next time I'm working on the past tense, I'm not going to ask them to give a "talk" explaining what they did last weekend (which would be too limited and therefore quite easy), but I would ask them to prepare for all sort of questions ranging from their immediate past to early childhood to past events in history. Please post your comments on this idea and/or take this poll. Thanks! :)

It's been a while I've been thinking of getting an ADSL connection. Yesterday, I went to the local telecommunications center and inquired about it. I learned that a 128kbps connection would cost me just below 30,000 toomans per month. I thought I might wanna put it off for later. Interstingly enough, last night, I came across a blog entry on Ham's page which was entitled: "A Simple Trick to Boost Your Dial-up Speed by 100%!". I followed the instructions and got a much faster connection. I wonder how it works! :D Thanks Ham!
Yesterday, I left home earlier than usual to buy a new IELTS sample tests book for my student, Sasan. I thought it would be a good chance to take pictures for my friend, Norm and so, I took the camera with me. I didn't have the time to get off the car, take a shot and get back in; so, I took most of the pictures while driving! I must've scared the hell out of those pedestrians! :D Norm was so grateful about the pictures and has put one of them on his today's blog entry. He says he thinks Tehran looks very much like many of the big cities scattered throughout the United States. Norm is so lucky to live in a quiet neighbourhood rather than Tehran or Washington!

Last night, I was cyber-chatting my ameican e-pal, Norm, about the songs we liked and I thought he might like to hear an Iranian song. So I started looking through the folders on my computer hoping to find a good song. But because I almost never listen to Iranian songs, I saw that I only had a few crappy ones including a Kamran & Hooman album. I recluctantly sent "dooset daram, kheili ziad" over to Norm and told him what the words meant. After he listened to the song, he wondered: Are they practicing different ways of saying "I love you"?!
:D

Today, I got the shock of my life when I saw my private student's old pictures on his laptop. He's a really cool boy called Hamed and he's undeniably in good shape. He had told me before that he had put on a lot of weight; but I had no idea what he'd meant by "a lot" until I saw the pictures he'd taken five years ago. I could not believe it was the same person. The difference was amazing! When I asked him how he'd managed to gain so much weight, I was shocked even more. He said he used to fill up the fridge every afternoon and then empty it the very next day!
:o