|
Published papers and a profile can be seen
at these repositories:
Here - Current list in chronological order at academia.edu
Academia.edu - http://independent.academia.edu/ThorMay
Linkedin.com - http://au.linkedin.com/in/thormay
Mendeley.com - http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/thorold-may/
Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=CwWx1-kAAAAJ
About The Passionate Skeptic Site About
Thor
<< too small
to read? Press Ctrl + keys on your keyboard >>
What The
Passionate Skeptic stands for: I don't care what you believe in, so long
as you don't believe in it too strongly. A belief is a weapon in the armory
of your heart, and its razor edge will murder the innocent. The ice, the fire
of your passion will seduce mundane men and women. Your clarity will excite
respect. And the first demagogue who comes along with a key to your heart's
armory will wrest the weapon from your moral grasp. The first cause which
wears the colours of your belief will enlist you as
a soldier in ravaging crusades. Peace friend. Keep your passion to doubt
with. Our civilization is a simple matter of live and let live, of giving
dreams a go, but stepping back with a wry smile when we get it wrong. Let the
fundamentalists perish in their own pillars of fire. Spare a dollar for the
living, and have a nice day, Doubt well, do what you can, then
let it be. Presidents, priests, wage slaves, hustlers, men and women, kids,
we all live by the grace of those we love to despise... Leidenschaft ist, was Leiden schafft (passion is what makes you suffer - German
Proverb).
-
Thor @1 November 1991
Feature
Super-Culture And
The Ghost In The Machine
Preface: This little essay is a bit
mischievous, and apparently politically incorrect enough to have sparked
outrage in the minds of some sensitive souls from the polite dinner party
set. Although it has no claims to academic decency, I have preserved it online
as a stimulant to fancier research, since I think the metaphor the essay runs
on captures some essential truths.
The essay had its genesis in the startled observations of a fresh expatriate
teaching in foreign surrounds. In this case, it was the PNG University of
Technology, Lae,
Papua New Guinea
in 1987. I found my untried liberal conscience struggling to comprehend the
sheer incompetence of people faced with institutions and technology which
didn't seem to work. Many of the locals were bright and friendly enough, but
somewhere a spark of insight was missing. Much later, surveying Australia
with the naked eyes of a returnee, it was all too clear that the paralysis of
imagination was a universal problem.
keep
reading
The Probable
Language Brain
 Abstract: Let us suppose that you are a research
linguist, tormented by some doubts and questions about the state of your
profession, and not constrained by having to repeat a catechism of
"known truths" to Linguistics 101 students, and not worried about employment
tenure. How would you actually go about tackling "the central problem of
linguistics", namely how we acquire and maintain knowledge of the
probability of systemic relationships in a language?
keep
reading
1. Thor's BRIEF IDEAS (Wordpress
blog) OR
the full list of short
cuts on this site, thormay.net ....
266. Pity your neighbour's cat
Mon 10-Jun-2013
The most certain quality of power is that those who
seek it will misuse it. A second certainty is that an army of zombies will
eagerly imitate their leaders. And so it is with "cyber warfare".
Government leaders routinely spy on you? No problem. (http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/it-pro/security-it/alarm-bells-ring-as-power-of-data-miners-starts-to-compute-20130609-2nxvj.html
). Anyone from the janitor in your local primary school, to the
supermarket checkout girl, to every fool called "manager" will now
feel free to watch you through a crack in the door. They will hasten to be
fashionable spies, and at the first chance snitch on you or your neighbour's cat.
265. The Limits of Education
Mon 20-May-2013
 "Education does not
make us educable. It is our awareness of being unfinished that makes us
educable." ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom. How much time have you
invested in education? How much value has your education given you? How would
you measure the value? I hung around universities and schools in the hope of
growing my ideas. It took me way too long to realize that schools and
universities were not there for that. In fact, most of the people who went to
these places, and most of the people who taught in them, were not interested
in growing ideas. They wanted
dollars and respectability. Their aim was to become
"finished", and sure enough a diploma nearly always finished them.
Their curiosity died. As finished people they could get jobs, have babies and
grow fat. Some of them (like doctors) took a long time to get their diplomas,
but somehow this didn't make any difference. In the end, maybe 80% of them
scraped by rather badly in their jobs from day to day, maybe 10% were so
hopeless that they were a menace to everyone in the neighbourhood,
and maybe the top 10% were ace mechanics, lawyers, salesmen, or whatever. Me,
I've successfully remained unfinished, unemployable, curious, poor, and
boring to all of the finished people around me.
more
short cuts (brief ideas)
Thor's Blogs => blog
roll & research repositories
2. Thor's
New China Diary
Anchluss or ANZAC? - A Solution for
Taiwan
What would be the
consequences, to follow a crazy thought experiment, if the Peoples Republic
of China were to formally
renounce all claims to sovereignty over Taiwan? Well, at first there
would be a very confused Chinese public in the PRC and a desperate need for
some inspired domestic persuasion out of Beijing. However, once that contradiction
had been finessed (they've had tougher knots to untie), my guess is that
within a short time Taiwan
would become China's
best friend and ally. They have so much in common. A free Taiwan choosing between America and China? No contest. Of course they
would choose China.
Taiwan
has already shown the world what its enterprise can achieve under conditions
of great handicap. Give its people back their hope and spirit, then Taiwan would be the best little brother that China could
ever wish for. China
would win immense international respect and trust. It truly would be on the
fast track in that new Great Game, the contest for competence.
Continue reading
<>
copies of this posting can be found on this website here,
and on Thor's Wordpress blogs, Thor's
New China Diary and Thor's Unwise Ideas
3. Thor's
Language & Teaching Notes
28. International
Language Testing - Standing the monster on its head (or PDF version)
 At the top of the assessment pyramid are multinational
testing corporations, best known by the names of their standardized tests,
such as IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL, BULATS, TKT, Cambridge ESOL main suite, or
G-TELP (there are many other aspirants). In some ways these testing companies
can be thought of as the Big Pharma corporations
(i.e. drug companies) of the educational world. Like Big Pharma
they are subject to constant challenges to their ethics and reliability from
within and without, and like Big Pharma they are
rather prone to corrupt the issues which they were designed to assist with.
The possible corruption of language learning by the requirements of testing
is known as wash-back. Wash-back is not always malignant. The analysis in
this paper is a tentative attempt to manipulate the wash-back from an
international test in a manner which actually assists genuine language
acquisition.
27. Monolingualism and How to Fix It
(if it needs fixing)
 Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is
that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with
overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian
population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of
skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of
language and cultural skills that Australians need to know
(also on this
site here)
4. Unwise Ideas (most content still remains here at
http://thormay.net. All writings will take quite a while to transfer)
49. Cultural Operating Systems - Thoughts on Designing Cultures
 This (non-academic) article covers a lot of territory,
nothing less than the “cultural operating systems” within which we live, how
they have changed, and how they might be changed. There is a kind of
arrogance in toying with the elements of ‘big picture’ issues like this.
Nevertheless everyone has submerged opinions or prejudices or assumptions on
how it all works. By dragging his own subconscious dregs into the light of
day, this writer neither hopes nor expects to change the world. Rather, this
is an open invitation for any reader to reflect and match their ideas against
those of others.
1. Revolution as catastrophe: When it comes to kingly matters, the distance
between the ruler and the ruled has rarely been doubted by either party,
though in the cold light of day, both are normally loath to change places.
The French revolution, and the Russian revolution to follow, not to mention
communist China’s version of revolution, the Irani
theocratic revolution, America’s ‘shock and awe’ version of democracy in
Iraq, and any number of other pirouettes, have all been awful reminders that
instant changes in the body politic are an open sesame to the most murderous
brutes in the asylum. Revolutions of the swashbuckling variety make nice TV
epics, but for mere humans they are usually a retreat to barbarism...
Continue
reading → [The link above is to my Wordpress blog. The story is also here
on this site, thormay.net]
The
Agnostic's Survival Manual
 Abstract: (This e-book is roughly 20,000 words)
Dear reader, are you really hoping for a book of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’? Do you
want gentle ideas and a comfortable corner in which to rest your half-formed
prejudices? Alas, you have come to the wrong place.
The truly employable in this world are harmless blobs of not-quite-anything,
or heroic knights of flaming conviction (best employed by others after safe
removal to a site of sacrifice), or good old fashioned hypocrites with
opinions for hire. This particular writer is entirely unsafe to hire or to
know, being addicted to a deadly combination of moderation and candour. Luckily few people ever understand what he is
talking about.
keep reading A PDF
version is also available. A third copy (PDF) may be found at my Academia.edu
site.
5. Thor's
Australian Spaces
 Australia
is a spacious place. Take an evening flight from the scurrying ant heap of
some city in East Asia, settle down for a
fitful sleep in cattle class, then lift the porthole shutter at dawn and gaze
from 10,000 meters upon a continent in blazing creation. You are an avatar, a
messenger come for strange messages from other gods in a strange land. The
sun rises like a meteor, the night chill upon the land below shrinks like
plastic wrap on an oven plate, and in a trice you are hovering above a
terrifying, trackless waste of shimmering browns and reds and yellows, bony
ridges of old rocks, sometimes a scar where a river might have been a million
years ago. It goes on and on for hours. It is Australia, and it isn’t home.... more
Domestic Bliss and an Australian Dream
 In spite of waddling locals with voices like swamp
frogs and the tattooed pub denizens, Australia is not such a bad
place. Life is almost too easy, and the facilities are wonderful. It is a
pity that it is so damned expensive. I could almost, but not quite, break
even on the money front. By living frugally, I could gently sink into
Australian poverty for a little time, while dreaming of heading off, perhaps,
to live like a king on my pension in some low-cost corner of the world.
Stranded at yet another celestial bus stop on life's journey, I pondered on
how to save cash. The solution was familiar: split the rent in a share house
with some characters allotted by fate. This time it was three women and an
apprentice upholsterer. When I moved in, the lady owner had messages to her
god stuck all over the walls, so I had to decontaminate my room of holy spirits
immediately. She was not a bad old stick, and one day suddenly fell head over
heels in love with a plumber, who decided to take her around the world...
continue
reading
6. Thor's Videos &
Recordings
This is a small collection of
short biographical videos, a teaching demonstration, and some recitations of
my own verse, together with several well-known verse ballads (for the benefit
of learners of English). The blog duplicates material already on thormay.net
at http://thormay.net/video/videondx.html
Research (Academia.edu)
and [Applied Linguistics] [Formal Linguistics] on
this site
Language
Tangle - Predicting and facilitating outcomes in language education [PhD dissertation]
Doctoral dissertation in
knowledge worker productivity (specifically, language teacher productivity),
from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, 2010. The thesis is on
this website,
and is also online in the University
of Newcastle research
depository at http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804346
.
 This thesis argues that foreign and second language
teaching productivity can only reach its proper potential when it is accorded
priority, second only to language learner productivity, amongst the many
competing productivities which are always asserted by stakeholders in
educational institutions.
A theoretical foundation for the research is established by examining the
historical concept of productivity, and its more recent manifestation as
knowledge worker productivity, especially as applied to teachers.
The empirical basis of the thesis is sourced from a chronological series of
twenty biographical case studies in language teaching venues in Australia, New
Zealand, Oceania and East Asia.
The biographical case study methodology, although rare in applied
linguistics, is justified by reference to its wide and growing application in
other fields of qualitative research. The case studies are analysed for common patterns of productivity, as well as
teaching productivity inhibition or failure.
19. Stress,
Rhythm and Intonation
Abstract: These are notes on
English stress, rhythm and intonation. Part A is for students and Part B is
for teachers. The  treatment here is “technical”, as by a linguist, but in
very plain language. Even with poor formal English, L2 speakers who “sound
right” will gain social acceptance, and this in turn will greatly accelerate
their learning. Firstly the concept of “the music of a language” is
introduced. It is noted that languages are on a scale of “syllable timed” to
“stress timed” (though this is not a simple matter). English is a
stress-timed language. Both word stress and sentence stress are essential in
English. However, proper word liaison and elision marks native speakers from
non-native speakers. Some advice is given on how to practice privately and in
a classroom. The importance of teacher talk as a model is noted.
Continue
reading →
Other
articles on language teaching here
China Readings etc.
Archived news and articles
about China:
I read a large number each year
 a) General Readings on China from 2007 to October 2011;
b) Readings on Education in China;
c) Readings on Finance, Banking and Business in China
note: Readings for all the
world up to 2009 are indexed => here
TESL/TEFL
 Thor's Big Links
List to ESL Resources & Jobs
General Index
to Thor's stuff on language learning & teaching
FOR TEACHERS
Lectures on
Second Language Acquisition
Lectures
on Grammar in SLA
EFLLinks to Online Resources for Teachers
Articles by Thor on Language
Teaching
FOR STUDENTS
Thor's ESL
Everything Index
The Barebones Index -
stuff from Korea & China
Bus to
Heaven (a story for learning
English)
 Every morning Helen put her left shoe on before her
right shoe. She combed her hair before she put on any mascara. And she made
her bed before she ironed her dress. There wasn't any special reason for
doing things in that order. It was just a habit, and she never thought about
it...
(continued ...)
Mr Dog Looks for Breakfast (a children's story for learning
English)
 Mr. Dog woke up one Spring morning and yawned. He
stretched his legs and wrinkled his nose. Then he sniffed the breeze. There
were many interesting smells in the air. He could smell the jaoze steaming in Mrs. Li's kitchen. That made his to
tongue hang out, and he panted a little with pleasure. Presently he caught
another scent. It was that damned Tabby cat. He frowned, and growled deep in
his throat. The silly thing was watching him for sure, hiding behind a fence
or something. He looked around suspiciously, but Tabby was not to be seen...
(... continued)
WRITINGS
38. The
Doctor's Dilemma - Reading versus Active Experience
Long ago (1967) in a freshman
literature class, in response to one of my jabs the tutor asked  sarcastically if I thought I was an educated person.
For her that meant quoting a canon of classic English literature. Even then I
thought that like the rest of us, she was an 'uneducated person'. I was damn
sure she wouldn't have a clue how to start her car with a wet distributor. I
remain irredeemably uneducated in vast areas of human interest ...
(continued
...)
Stumpy and the
Decision Tree [ a daggy epic of the unexpected growing day by day]
I've
gotta' admit, the gunner blinked, it's neat -
That
tear-down screen, the instant con of command ...
Meg
grabbed his ear and he flinched.
You
tinfoil hoon, she hissed, you wouldn't know
A
sacred sign from the flash of an arcade strip.
Now
hit back a signal wrapped in respect
Before we get zapped to a
crisp...
Poetry [ also see Thor's Poems at http://thormay.net/literature/poems.html
]
The Cool Generation
Though light came after
darkness
And life came after pain,
We never knew the making
Nor felt the weight of
years.
We were born in high rise
boxes
And warmed in coddled
air,
All information found us,
We have never fought to
know.
Our certainties are gift
wrapped
And sealed at the school
room door,
No questions will torment
us
If we die in someone's
war.
We expect the replay
button
Will cancel all bad
dreams,
And bring the music
thumping
For a party without
tears.
Hey! What the fuck was
that?
Jack, some witch is at
the door.
Hey! She spat me in the eye ..
What'dya
mean you bitch It's Monday?
What'dya
mean We have
to pay
For the pizzas and the
parties,
What'dya
mean The cops are coming
And the Earth will bleach
our bones?
What'dya
mean?
Thor
April 2013
Photos
photo index
A photo essay from students in Zhengzhou, China
Thor's Videos
Index of
videos & recitations here
[ All of my videos are also now on a blog, Thor's Videos & Recordings, at
http://thorsvideo.byeways.net/
]
The following
three short, and very amateur videos were made in China in 2010
for the purpose of giving me a current professional and personal identity. At
least from that perspective it was a wasted exercise: the Chinese Public
Security Bureau threw me out of China a little later for the
crime of turning 65. Ce la vie. An
earlier, further small collection of personal "identity" videos can
be seen here.
see the video, "The Journey of a
Passionate Skeptic " (4 minutes) here
see the video, "Born 1945 - Still
Running Strong" (2.5 minutes) here
see the video, "Teaching English
is Fun " (4.5 minutes) here
|
