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Just came across this book on English for International Business 
by the Goddards over UK way.
Apparently, the sub-varieties of specialty English now being offered are now proliferating at a more rapid rate than that of mushrooms!
To wit, the following excerpt:
You have probably discovered already that the world of EFL teaching is full of acronyms. Before you read further, write down as many of these acronyms as you can think of. How would you categorise them?
The acronym TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. It is a blanket term and refers to situations where English is taught both as a second language and as a foreign language. The acronym EFL (English as a Foreign Language) is adopted in places where English is not generally used as the language of communication or instruction. Such places would include Italy, Argentina and Russia.
In the 1970s, the development of communicative methodology focused attention on English as a tool for communication rather than on English as a system to be studied. Course content was chosen to match the communicative needs of the learner. This shift resulted in the emergence of needs-based courses, which were designed to meet the specific requirements of course participants. Such courses are known as ESP (English for Specific Purposes) courses. Within ESP, many other abbreviations are often used. Although these abbreviations may seem confusing, they will help you classify ESP and to understand how it relates to the term EFL.
Traditionally, ESP has been divided into EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and EOP (English for Occupational Purposes). Both EAP and EOP can be further divided according to discipline or professional area.
EAP may include: EST (English for Academic Science and Technology), EMP (English for Academic Medical Purposes), ELP (English for Academic Legal Purposes) and English for Management, Finance and Economics (no acronym) which is often taught to non-native speakers on, for example, MBA (Master of Business Administration) courses. A distinction can be made between common core English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). EGAP examines the skills and language associated with the study of all academic disciplines, for example: listening to lectures and reading textbooks. ESAP integrates the skills of EGAP with the features that distinguish one discipline from another.
EOP refers to courses that are not for academic purposes. EOP includes: English for professional purposes in administration, law, medicine, business, and vocational courses. A distinction is therefore made between English for Academic Medical, Legal or Scientific Purposes, and English for practising doctors, lawyers and scientists. EOP is therefore divided into English for Professional Purposes and English for Vocational Purposes. English for Professional Purposes can include: EMP (English for Medical Purposes) and EBP (English for Business Purposes). English for Vocational Purposes can be divided into Pre-vocational and Vocational English. Pre-vocational English is concerned with, for example, finding a job and interview skills. Vocational English is concerned with the language of specific trades or occupations. A distinction should also be made between English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) and English for Specific Business Purposes (ESBP). We suggest that EIB is a category within EOP and therefore one of a range of courses that can be taught under the umbrella term ESP.
So what exactly are the differences between General EFL and ESP? It could be argued that all learners of English have their own specific purposes and that, as a consequence, all English courses are ESP courses. For example, if English is on the school curriculum, the learners’ purpose may be to pass exams. Other people may want to study English because they think it will help them in their professional lives. Thus, their specific purpose may be to get a better job.
Furthermore, EFL teachers will always restrict the content of their programmes. For beginners, teachers restrict the language to be taught. Teachers may also wish to restrict the choice of topics and activities based on the kind of students they are going to teach. For science students doing postgraduate work, teachers may also want to focus almost exclusively on reading. On General English courses, restrictions on the four skills are unlikely to be imposed. However, General EFL programmes tend to begin with lists, for example: a list of functions, a list of themes and topics, a list of vocabulary and a list of tasks and activities.
It is here that we can see the difference between EFL and ESP. If General EFL programmes begin with the language, ESP courses start with the learner and the situation. The key defining feature of ESP is that its teaching and its materials spring from the outcome of a needs analysis. The first questions to ask when preparing materials for a course in ESP are almost always: What do the learners want to do with English? Which skills do they need? Which genres do they need to look at? Specific needs can be identified by examining the learning or occupational situation in which English is used, and the written and spoken texts associated with those situations.
A second key feature of ESP is, therefore, concerned with looking at how spoken and written texts work, and how they are used within a particular community. If needs analysis and specific situational texts are two key features of ESP, they are not the only defining characteristics. It is to these characteristics that we now turn.
" In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 BC.
Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock. It turned out to be the most stunning scientific artifact we have from antiquity. For more than a century this 'Antikythera mechanism' puzzled academics. It was ancient clockwork, unmatched in complexity for 1000 years - but who could have made it, and what was it for? Now, more than 2000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings and revealed its secrets."
Interesting that one of the wheels was for a 19-year interval. The is called the Metonic cycle. Wikipedia explains: "The cycle's most significant contemporary use is to help in flight planning (trajectory calculations and launch window analysis) for lunar spacecraft missions as well as serving as the basis for the Hebrew calendar's 19 year cycle. Another use is in computus, the calculation of the date of the Christian feast of Easter."
"Traditionally (in the ancient Attic and Babylonian calendars, as well as in the Hebrew calendar), the years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 are the long (13-month) years of the Metonic cycle. This cycle can be used to predict eclipses, forms the basis of the Greek and Hebrew calendars, and is used in the computation of the date of Easter each year.
The Chaldean astronomer Kidinnu (4th century BC) knew of the 19-year cycle, but the Babylonians may have learned of it earlier. They measured the moon's motion against the stars, so the 235:19 relation may originally have referred to sidereal years, instead of tropical years as it has been used in various calendars; however, ancient astronomers did not make a clear distinction between sidereal and tropical years before Hipparchus discovered precession of the equinoxes c. 130 BC.
The Bahá'í calendar, established in the middle of the 19th century, is also based on cycles of 19 years."
The book, Decoding the Heavens, by Jo Marchant, tells this amazing story of reverse engineering.
Where did they get recycle metals from? Where and how did they cast gear wheels with such fine precision? The questions arising from this boggle the mind.
Any ideas that would help deboggle this?
These two songs are chosen (from the very limited few that I know of) to help the reader gain insight into the inner promptings of the mind of the current young generation, the millenials. Ideological and ontological precepts and concepts are not usually part of their baggage, and neither is a lot of traditional values, as the first song by The Killers indicates. Postmodernist deconstructionist thinking is the bent of the day.
Follow along with the lyrics to this song, if you will, and note on one hand the skeptical attitude towards something as expressionistic and whole-body as dancing. In the Buddhist tradition, the highest state of consciousness is body/mind, above the lower mind level, and below that the body level. Body and mind become fused in a single consciousness, and, for my part, I find this often expressed while watching dance. Kathakali dance, or bharat natayam, or Irish celtic tap dancing, or ballet, or Filipiono folk dancing — all show the principle of embodiment that is achieved through long practice and concentration. In the highest level of performance, consciousness and action are one ‐ they're blended — and the viewer sense this oneness and can no longer think that the actions are a mentally-driven sequence of actions.
The first song apparently was inspired by a quote from Hunter Thompson, an American writer from the 1960s, who once wrote (in futuristic fear) that American could well become a nation of dancers whose movements perhaps are all pre-choreographed, pre-rehearsed, and there is no spontaneity or individualism in them. As well, traditional values such as grace, good, soul, devotion, and virtue itself are tossed out the window. In this plane of rejection of the past, the individual stands courageously alone, but there is no mat to kneel on, no hook to hang your hat or scarf on, no star to guide your journey., but on the other the individual is afraid to "open the door", and to be open to any "message" or new mindset that could potentially be in vogue.
The last and special third verse, about the new messiah, and then "take it", then "break it", shows the postmodernist desire to not admit any thinking that could be broad or wholistic. There are no big truths, only finite individual, free realities.
Anyway, time to hear the song.
being human = being dancer, or
being dancer and follower of choreographed routine != being human? (!=not)
live at european music awards with extra 3rd verse
The Official Video
The official video, starting with a small "k" (for Killers?) (and nothing is magnified or lifted to higher levels of respect, so thus no capitalization), has some cross-cultural elements: its Arizona setting, the soaring eagle, and the feather shoulder epaulets are minor tributes to Navajo or Hopi or Crow Native American cultures, but seem to fail to give enough tribute to an environmental, communal, and stellar consciousness that far exceeds that of modern society's when compared. Is the desert location indicating the upcoming issue of the scarcity of fresh water? Is the barrenness of the desert representative of the barrenness of feeling in today's society?
Comment from Norbert2
"The chorus is based on something Hunter S. Thompson once wrote.
Thompson stated that America is raising a generation of "dancers", in other words: people who follow a pattern and choreography instead of thinking for themselves.
He was saying that people were only following the steps they were taught, and were also taught not to change them. "
See also http://tr.im/1zkf.
I like to think that the next generation will be imbued with a high sense of respect and dignity towards all humans, and that all will be (in some way or another) able to dance, even if it is the fox trot or macarena or two-step or simple rock'n'roll.
A little training can go a long way.
__________
Jack Johnson and Ben Harper Gone
These acoustic plunkers and debunkers team up on this ode to fragmentation and ensuing existential angst. The is the new Desolation Row, Isolation Grows, Fragmentation Show. This song reiterates the current generation's post-modernist deconstructionist temper: everything is gone — purpose, incentive, reason, intention, will, attitude. Everything may beautifully be its own piece unto itself, just itself, but there is no whole. Wholism or wholistic thinking hints at totalitarianism, since it looks at the big picture.
Gone - Ben Harper & Jack Johnson
At this time in history, this time of transition, from Post-Modern to Integral, fragmentation must give way to holistic integration, bleak barrenness must give way to bountiful abundance, individualism must give way to new holistic patterns and products and creations, the tide of skepticism must give way to the ocean of utterance, the bellows of time, the extolling bells of the past, the specific and pacific rim of the present, the unfolding, human-directed future. Surely, it is time to rise above the postmodernist attitude, and to transcend and include, to aspire towards a a new unity, a greater realization of human oneness, a blending of cultures and music and dance and word.
This computerized pen from livescribe packs a lot of wallopit can pick up sound and scribbles, translate (ie Spanish, Mandarin) and calculate, and let you store your handwritten notes and scribbles on your computer or online.
video 1
video 2
other videos 1 2 3
I remember an American friend in China called the hills in the Guilin/Yangshuo area in China as gumdrop hills. Gumdrops are a kind of jellied candy. The particular shaped candy my friend was referring to look like this:
How they are made: "A mixture of sugar, water, agar, pectin, and colorings are cooked until they come to a boil. the mixture is placed in upside sown molds and allowed to set up firm. Then the molds are emptied and the finished pieces are "sanded" by rolling them in a sugar mixture. That is how Jumbo Jelly candies are made."
Here are the hills of Guilin:
Now, Korea enters the scenery with this project: The Gwanggyo Power Centre. This town center will have building in the shape of rounded gumdrops, with greenery and shrubbery overhanging from balcony planters rimming full round on every floor:
The project is designed with some help from MVRDV, a Dutch design firm.
Much more (with splendid graphics, such as the one below) here.
Check out Spain's eco-city here.
We close with one additional form that bears resemblance: the pillars of creation and the Eagle Nebula. Just in case, we had covered all instances of the inverted paper cup form (à la gumdrop), we catch wind of the photos of the Eagle Nebula, thanks to the Hubble snap-eye.
flatrock goes into more detail:
Undersea coral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud-like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the "Eagle Nebula" (also called M16 - the 16th object in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog of "fuzzy" objects that aren't comets), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.
The pillars are in some ways akin to buttes in the desert, where basalt and other dense rock have protected a region from erosion, while the surrounding landscape has been worn away over millennia. In this celestial case, it is especially dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that have survived longer than their surroundings in the face of a flood of ultraviolet light from hot, massive newborn stars (off the top edge of the picture). This process is called "photoevaporation. "This ultraviolet light is also responsible for illuminating the convoluted surfaces of the columns and the ghostly streamers of gas boiling away from their surfaces, producing the dramatic visual effects that highlight the three-dimensional nature of the clouds. The tallest pillar (left) is about a light-year long from base to tip.
Didn't know this "genre" of music existed: filk music.
"Well, it's sort of like folk music. It is a mixture of song parodies and original music, humorous and serious, about subjects like science fiction, fantasy, computers, cats, politics, the space program, books, movies, TV shows, love, war, death. . .
Filk music started off forty or fifty years ago, at science fiction conventions, where people got together late at night to have good old-fashioned folk music song circles. Well, late night circles being what they are, some folks got a little silly and started singing song parodies about their favorite SF books and authors. Fans started writing song parodies about themselves or each other. Some started composing serious songs about favorite topics. Some authors started composing original songs for their books. If the author didn't list a tune, fans made up one. Sometimes two. Sometimes several.
Eventually, Filk songs wre written for just about every major science fiction or fantasy work. Some of them were actually good enough that people wanted to learn them, or just listen to them more than just at conventions. At that point, song books and recordings started being made.
Over the last decade, Filk Music has reached the point where there are entire Filk Music gatherings, conventions, recording companies, and publications. Filk Music includes song parodies, original songs, and slightly musical poetry. It's a fun way to indulge in a little musical creativity, especially if you are a science fiction or fantasy fan as well as musically inclined. If you are only a fan, but not musical, you can still listen. Filk circles aren't pushy about requiring you to play or sing. If you are only musical, but not a fan, no one will hold it against you. Remember, we're in this thing for fun!
[Written for flyer for distribution at California Traditional Music Society Annual Summer Solstice Dulcimer Festival and other local Los Angeles folk music events and stores.]"
Read more at answers.com.
Steve Denning believes that stories have a place even in the business world. He also "consults and gives workshops and keynote presentations on topics that include: leadership, innovation, organizational storytelling, business storytelling, springboard storytelling, knowledge management, branding, marketing, values, communication, communities of practice, business performance, collective intelligence, tacit knowledge, business collaboration, knowledge, learning, community, performance improvement, visionary leadership, social potential, institutional community building, and internal communications."
Check out all his stuff here and his books here.
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