About Thor May
[The language in this summary is slightly simplified to help readers whose first language is not English]
- Contact: Thor May
+ The Plain & Fancy Language Co.
International Office
Zhengzhou Railway Vocational & Technical College
14 Kangfu Street, Zhengzhou
Henan Province 450052
China
e-mail: thormay AT yahoo.com
homepage: http://thormay.net
Business: The Plain & Fancy Language Company is an electronic editing company owned by Thor and registered in Australia. It specializes in making perfect English writing from material created by people whose first language is not English.
- Origin: Thor was born in Australia in 1945. His ancestors came to Australia from England in about 1845. Since he left home at 17 years of age, he has lived outside Australia for a total of about 23 years (as of 2007). He likes the shadow-lands where cultures meet. Thor therefore sees himself as a 'citizen of the world'.
- Teaching: He has been teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language since 1976. For twelve years (1978-1990) he also lectured linguistics in universities. In 2003-2004 he lectured linguistics to Korean postgraduates in a TESOL program.
- Background Experience: Thor has taught in these countries: Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Indonesia, China, South Korea; (he came to Korea in September 2000). He has also visited perhaps twenty other countries. In Australia he taught thousands of immigrants from every country in the world. Before he became a teacher in 1976 Thor had many other jobs (about forty!), including aircraft dispatch officer, shipyard ironworker, office worker, commercial cleaner, newspaper copy boy, truck driver, taxi driver ... and so on. Nowadays Thor doesn't care how rich or important people are. He respects anyone if they try to do a good job, and doesn't respect them if they are lazy or dishonest!
- Wealth: Thor has pretty simple tastes, moneywise, but probably spends too much on computers !! He is usually frugal (women hate this ^_^ ), but not mean. That's a necessity. He started poor, has never been rich (by Australian standards), and seems likely to retire and die without a lot of money. However, he has never been in debt. Many people have security + a career + a boring life. Some folk have the lucky option of wealth + an interesting life. Thor has usually chosen interesting work + interesting personal activities like writing stories + rather little money + very little security. No regrets, but donations gratefully received (smile)!.
- Interests: Thor is an active person who stays fit with exercises every day. He likes running and walking a long way. He has never married, though he values women, men and children as good friends! Thor is rarely lonely or bored because life is so fascinating. He is very interested in computers, and has a huge "homepage" site at http://thormay.net. Some of the files on this site are of book length. His other big interest is writing stories, essays and articles. You can see many things he has written on the homepage.
- Big questions: Everyone has at least one important question in their life. For Thor, the important question is "how does it work?". That is, he always wants to find out how everything works: a watch, a car engine, the human brain, China, Korean culture, you ... Learning about new things, and creating new things is facinating enough to fill up a human life. Thor noticed long ago that many people ask and worry about "why am I here?" Thor knows no answer to that, and believes there is no answer. Therefore, it is a waste of time worrying about "why am I here?". The important thing is to have an interesting life while you are here on earth.
Thor understands that religion is important to many people for many reasons. He respects that, but has no religion himself. Looking at both history and the world today, he sees that bad people use religion as an excuse for what they do, and good people use religion as a reason for what they do. Many people use religion as either an excuse or a reason to hate other people. Thor doesn't need excuses like that, and he doesn't need reasons like that. He has lived a good and decent life for 61 years, has clear values and helps other people to grow (which is why he is a teacher).
- Qualifications : Click here to see Thor's Résumé, and click here to see a List of Thor's Publications . Thor's main qualifications are :
1. PhD candidate (Doctor of Philosophy degree) 2006-2007 : At the moment Thor is enrolled for a PhD at Newcastle University, Australia (though he is working in Korea). The thesis topic is " Language Tangle - Predicting and Facilitating Outcomes in Language Education". He has finished the draft dissertation (538 pages). The thesis is now with the examiners (2007). An Introduction (with chapter summaries) and Conclusion for the thesis can be seen here.
2. ABD : Thor has worked on two other PhDs :
a) The first one, in the early 1980s was not finished, but later turned into an M.A. That was about Generative Grammar (topic: Grammatical Agency).
b) He has written about 50,000 words, and done a lot of research on his second PhD in Cognitive Linguistics (about Formulaism and Collocation in Language) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He also stopped doing this formally, but has now begun working on it again when time allows. See his material on Generative Oscillation, and also the article "Postsupposition and Pastiche Talk". All this work probably amounts to something like the American concept of ABD ("All But Dissertation").
3. Master of Applied Linguistics - 2005; the University of Newcastle, Australia; => transcript.
4. Master of Arts in Formal and Applied Linguistics, Hawaii, 1994. It is based on PhD work from the University of Newcastle, and the examiner was the head of Linguistics at Newcastle. The university which awarded the qualification, Greenwich University in Hawaii, went out of business in 2004, so the degree is now difficult to use officially (transcripts are available however). What a waste. I decided that it was best to do a second Masters degree (above).
5. Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching , Auckland, New Zealand, 1975. This one year postgraduate program would be called a coursework Masters in many places today.
6. RSA/Cambridge CTEFLA (certificate in teaching English as a foreign language to adults; a syndicated course from Cambridge, done in Melbourne, Australia, 1996).
7. Bachelor of Arts degree, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 1974. Majors in linguistics and social anthropology.
A video autobiography of Thor in five parts called "The Ages of Man" can be seen on the Video Page. These are Youtube.com videos.
