MSI Press Blog

  What is a  book jewel ? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Each month, we share near-daily, or as often as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Understanding the People around You , a classic by Ekaterina Filatova. Description: This book is a translation and update by the author of her popular Russian-language book on people types. The field of socionics (personality type along the lines of Jung's theories) is fully covered in this book for American readers; the author is one of the leading socionists in Russia/Europe. The examples and discussions are written at a lay level and are meant for ...

  Excerpt from Understanding the Analyst (Quinelle) -  WHO IS THE ANALYST The Analyst is an Intuitive Thinking Introvert (TII), who is also Rational. As such, he or she is a combination of the three expressed traits and the unexpressed trait, Rationality (emphasis on the Jungian definition, not the English language lay definition).  Some might say that he reminds one of Mr. Spock, of the television and movie series Star Trek . (The resemblance is clear enough that when my 10-year-old Analyst son was through-hiking the Appalachian Trail with his father, he was referred to by other through-hikers as “Spock,” though his official AT moniker was “Puff.”) Certainly, too, one would find many an Analyst in Silicon Valley; if one were to stereotype the geek world, it would contain mostly Analyst features.  Filatova describes the Analyst in the following way: The most notable attributes of Analysts are a lanky body and a hollow cheeked face, often with an elon...

  Carl and Murjan sharing a Thanksgiving dinner Gaudete Sunday is coming up--an oasis in Lent, and, like other Sundays, a time we can eat a full meal! If our beloved Murjan were still with us, he would be perching on his chair next to Carl (wish he, too, were still with us, 2021 stole two beloved members of our family), savoring the smells of the fat of the land (well, maybe, of pancakes -- he at those, too), and patiently (yes, he was a patient cat, almost humanly patient) for his share of the feast to be chopped up and presented for his enjoyment. Each of our cats had quite different personalities, but the two that stand in stark contrast to each other are Murjan and Intrepid . They were both born in Jordan, lived with us there, and came to California with us 15 years ago. Both are now on the other side of the rainbow bridge, ravaged by the same kind of cancer, feline lymphoma. Intrepid is interred with his devoted human to whom he was equally devoted, Carl, and Murjan's ashes ...

  Introduction Ever wonder why you just could not get along with Sally Jo in high school?   Why you, as a teacher, cannot reach a particular student no matter how much one-on-one time you provide them?   Why two learners in your classroom squabble all the time and seem to delight in challenging you? Why some classes seem so harmonious, and others are clearly dysfunctional? The answer to these questions and many others lies in understanding intragroup dynamics.   These dynamics, exposed, show us an invisible, or hidden, classroom, that can differ quite remarkably from the classroom we think we are seeing, whether we are a student in it or a teacher of it (Ehrman & Dornyei, 1998). In this book, we will be using examples from and demonstrating the dysfunction that occurs in foreign language classrooms, including English as a Second/Foreign Language. Although we address the language classroom specifically in this book, the core causes of dysfunction can occur i...