VALUES AND BELIEFS Present 6 traditional American values with specific examples In fact, as we know, there are a lot

of traditional American values. However, Id like to mention 6 most typical traditional American values as follows: First, it is personal control over the environment / responsibility. Americans do not believe in the power of fate, and they look at people who do as being backward, primitive, or naive. Everyone should have control over whatever in the environment might potentially affect him or her. The problems of one's life are not seen as having resulted from bad luck as much as having come from one's laziness and unwillingness to take responsibility in pursuing a better life. We can take any American family as a good illustration. In America, children are encouraged to leave independently when they are 18 years old. Parents are just those who give them advices but not financial support. Children have to work to support themselves. The second value of Americans is time and its control. Time is of utmost importance to most Americans. It is something to be on, kept, filled, saved, used, spent, wasted, lost, gained, planned, given, even killed. Americans are more concerned with getting things accomplished on time than they are with developing interpersonal relations. Their lives seem controlled by the little machines they wear on their wrists, cutting their discussions off abruptly to make their next appointment on time. This philosophy has enabled Americans to be extremely productive, and productivity Is highly valued In their country. We also recognize this value during our workplace. In Vietnam, if you work for any USA based companies, you can see that American managers are always on time in work. Individualism/Independence is the 4th values of Americans. Americans view themselves as highly individualistic in their thoughts and actions. They resist being thought of as representatives of any group. When they do join groups, they believe they are special. We can easily recognized these values in movies in Disney Channel. In USA universities, students freely express a variety of opinions anywhere and anytime. Competition may be considered as the most important value of Americans. Americans believe that competition brings out the best in any individual and in any system. This value is reflected in the American economic system of free enterprise, and it is applied in the U.S. in all areas - medicine, the arts, education, sports.

Practicality/Efficiency is the last value Id like to mention. Americans have a reputation for being realistic, practical, and efficient. The practical consideration is likely to be given highest priority in making any important decision. Americans pride themselves in not being very philosophically or theoretically oriented. We can see that whenever Americans do something, they usually ask the following questions such as Will it make money? What is the bottom line? What can I gain from this activity? These questions totally portrait the practicality of Americans.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT What are the responsibilites of each branch in the federal government? The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and their various powers are delineated in the U.S. Constitution; the powers are specified in greater detail in laws enacted by Congress. First, I want to mention the Legislative branches powers. Legislative branches could lay and collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, coin money, declare war, establish post officials, raise and support army and navy, make rules for U.S territories, admit new states to the union and make laws to carry out other powers. Second, Id like to talk about the powers of the Executive branch. It has the power to make treaties with foreign countries, approve laws, nominate Supreme Court Judges , nominates Cabinet Members and Commander-Chief of the US military. Final is the Judicial Branchs powers. This branch could reviews laws and treaties, settles disputes and invite the U.S Presides Over who is in charge of impeachment trials. How do three branches control and check one another? The federal government operatives professionally. They could control and check one another. In reality, the Legislative branch could override a veto or impeach president. Meanwhile, the Executive branch is in charge of the administrative aspect of the government. It supervises the operations of the different departments such as Finance, Social Welfare, Defense and others. It has direct control over the local governments units to ensure that the needs of the people are attended to by the public servants. Finally, the Judicial branch decides if laws are constitutional and uses the powers given by the Constitution to check up on one another. By this, I mean that for example, the Legislative Branch makes the laws. The Executive Branch enforces the laws. These are both the main responsibilities of these branches. If the Legislative Branch makes a law and

then the Executive Branch says that they are not going to enforce it, that is an example of checks and balances. Advantages of the system of checks and balances There are some advantages of the system of checks and balances. However, in my opinion, there are 2 main advantages of this system. First, this system could increase the independence thanks to its limited power. Specifically, checks and balances create independence amongst the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches of the U.S. government. Each branch has its own procedures and rules of conduct, giving them the liberty to legally operate without constraint from another branch. The second advantage of this system is that the system has clear punishment. To make it clear, each part of the U.S. government is limited in their power as designated by the Constitution. This ensures that no single government branch can overtake another when making policy decisions, attempting to create a single government entity. Each branch of the government has procedures to punish or restrict their members from acting in an unethical manner. This type of punishment usually relates to a break in parliamentary procedure on the code of ethics of that particular government branch. Summary of the election of the President The process of electing a President was set up in the United States Constitution. The Constitution requires a candidate for the presidency to be: at least 35 years old, a natural born citizen of the United States and a resident of the United States for 14 years. So how does one become President of the United States? The following steps outline the general process for presidential elections. Step I: Primaries and Caucuses There are many people who would like to become President. Each of these people have their own ideas about how our government should work. Some of these people can belong to the same political party. That's where primaries and caucuses come in. In these elections, party members get to vote for the candidate that will represent their party in the upcoming general election. Step 2: National Conventions At the end of the primaries and caucuses, each party holds a national convention to finalize the selection of one Presidential nominee. During this time, each Presidential candidate chooses a running-mate (or Vice-Presidential candidate). Step 3: The General Election

Now that each party is represented by one candidate, the general election process begins. Candidates campaign throughout the country in an attempt to win the support of voters. Finally in November, the people vote for one candidate. When a person casts a vote in the general election, they are not voting directly for an individual Presidential candidate. Instead, voters in each state actually cast their vote for a group of people, known as electors. These electors are part of the Electoral College and are supposed to vote for their states preferred candidate. Step 4: The Electoral College In the Electoral College system, each state gets a certain number of electors, based on each state's total number of representation in Congress. Each elector gets one electoral vote. In December, the electors cast their votes. When the votes are counted on January 6th, the Presidential candidate that gets more than half wins the election. The President-elect and Vice President-elect take the oath of office and are inaugurated two weeks later. LANGUAGES AND IDIOMS Do you think Americans should make English the official language of the United States? Why or why not? There have been a lot of debates on should or shouldnt Americans make English the official language of the United States recent years. However, in my own opinion, I strongly think that Americans should not make English the official language of the United States. Id like to point out my reasons as follows. First, according to me, an official language would accomplish nothing. its not like making English the official language would magically make everyone in the U.S. speak English and it is no doubt that making English the official language wouldnt even stop other languages from making appearances here. As we know, The U.S., at it's inception, was composed of various and diverse communities among the colonies. There were Germans in Pennsylvania, Dutch in New York, French and Spanish scattered throughout. From the very beginning, the U.S. has been culturally diverse and continues to be so. The Founding Fathers apparently recognized this diversity and therefore did not include any "official language" when they drafted the Constitution and other subsequent laws. In addition, a lot of foreign companies have been investing in USA and it is sure that such companies have used different languages in their business activities to make profits not only for their companies but also for Americans. Second, making English the official language is contradicted to the theory of Cultural Relativism which says that all cultures are of equal value and that no one from another culture has a right to make value judgments. Law and Language Policy in the

United States speaks of the "right" to language. Preserving language is necessary in order to preserve culture, preserve the cultural diversity. In other words, different cultures and languages should not be censured, nor should they be subsidized. What is AAVE? AAVE is described as the kind of English spoken in some African American communities. Some linguistics use the term African American Vernacular English. AAVE begins with the transatlantic slave trade. Most slaves spoke many different languages but they had to communicate. Therefore, they used what they learned to speak to one another in a kind of pidgin English. Over generations, it became fixed and a new dialect-AAVE emerged. Should African Americans be discouraged from speaking AAVE? In my own opinion, I think African Americans should be discouraged from speaking AAVE because of the following reasons. First, Id like to mention the pride of a nation. As citizens of the nations, African Americans need to be able to have proficient standard English in order to move forward in America. Other nations easily recognize that USA is not a united nation. Second, speaking AAVE is a contributing factor to lack of advancement in academics in African American students the future of the nation. At American universities, colleges, the formal language is used is standard English. All teachers use them to lecture their lessons. If you speak AAVE, you will hardly contact teachers and friends well. More important, dialects have always been labeled as a poor style of language which brings about negative attitudes. When speaking AAVE or any other form of non standard English in professional arenas, the speaker, many times is received or evaluated as being capable of communicating effectively. Then, if we talk about the individual benefit, speaking AAVE can bring the speaker bad consequence. Take place of work as a good example. It is certain that an AAVE speaker can lost his/her job if he/she communicating with partners or customers. Simply, he/she is offering services as representative of the company, and, as a result, he/she should strive to be a representative voice of the company. The partners not only look down on that person but the company as well. John Rickford says that AAVE. I strongly agree with the idea that people discriminate against each other because of their accent or the way they walk. This happens not only in Asia but in America as well. As we know, there are many immigrants in America, for example, the Indian America, African America, etc. However, the white are the most influent. To dominate others, the white have created discrimination. We can take AAVEs issue in place of work and AVVEs problem in education as good specific examples. In workplace, hirers pursue articulate blacks and other

minorities for their management trainee positions, which ultimately means that they have a negative judgment about AAVE and other nonstandard English. AAVE, especially is considered to be unintelligible, incoherent, non-fluent and illogical speech. If an AAVE speaker is confronted in a situation where the employer thinks negatively about their vernacular. Even in education, AAVE is considered as an impediment. Take Oakland, where 53 % of its school district population was African American and they represented 80 % of all suspended students and had the lowest grade point average, as an illustration. Rickford (1999) states, the fact of the matter is that the status quo with respect to the teaching of African American children in American elementary, middle, and high schools is far from satisfactory. More important, the teachers usually have inexcusably negative attitudes towards AAVE and students who speak it. When teachers present negative attitudes, sometimes it can lead them to hold low expectations already in mind for these students. As result, they may have the students put in learning disability and special education classes and this restrains the students academic performance. When the teacher gives off a negative attitude toward an AAVE speaking student, the student often becomes offended and refuses to cooperate and continue in the participation of their own education. AMERICAN NATURAL ENVIRONMENT Present some ways in which Americans try to control/protect the environment with specific examples As we know, the territory occupied by the United States is vast, diverse, and productive and Americans have made use of their resources remarkably causing a lot of natural environment problems. In order to save their lives, Americans have carried out some solutions to protect natural environment. First, in the sector of education, many American universities offer courses on ecology and the environment. These courses center on the scientific, political, and social issues governing the use of and care for the planet. Americans believe that their people can protect natural environment more effectively and intelligently through education. Second, the US Congress also established national parks throughout the USA with the aim of protecting lands of great scenic beauty and biological diversity in an unimpaired condition for present and future generations. In addition, the National Park System have taken advantage of natural walks and guided tours of its parks to teach people about the natural environment, management of natural resources, and history of a site. Furthermore, the US government also issued the Wilderness Act of 1964 so that the wilderness protection could be applied to contains federally owned lands where forests are

recovering from logging. US government have restricted the number of people allowed into each wilderness area at one time in order that the wilderness is not seriously affected by human use. Take the large tracts of wilderness in Alaska as a good example. It has been added to National Wilderness Preservation System and since then it has been protected better. EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Summarize some important reforms of the American educational system in the late 19th century and the early 20th century Throughout the history of American educational system, there have been lots of big reforms. However, the reforms of the American educational system in the late 19th century and the early 20th century may be the most important because these reforms have changed the Americans thoughts in education. The first reform, reform in curriculum, came from the psychologist Hall and the philosopher Dewey. They generated the idea that education must relate directly to experience, that the children should discover knowledge by themselves and that learning related to students lives should be replaced rote memorization and outdated subjects. The second important reform is practicality in the higher education in America. Instead of providing only narrow, unvarying curriculum focused on classical languages, lots of famous universities, colleges began offering courses in a wide variety of subjects areas which are more appealing, vital to students growth and to keep up with technological and social changes. Thanks to this reform new concept of higher education, it laid the foundation for the central role that Americans universities would play in the intellectual, cultural, and scientific life of the 20th century. Expanding enrollments is the third important reform of American educational system. Thanks to the policy of separate but equal, in addition to the public institution for the whites, schools for African American men and women were set up and these students found intellectual stimulation in all-black colleges and hoped to use their educations to promote better race relations, which helped fill the gap between the whites and the others in America. The fourth reform is the reform in education of medicine, architecture, engineering and law by using the experimental method from German scientists. Another important reform is the service learning the combination of classroom study and hands-on practical experience and civic responsibility with the purpose of offering learners more opportunities for real-world learning and career preparation. This is really a big change in education not only in American but all over the world.

Why did US government set up Indian boarding schools? The key reason why US government set up Indian boarding schools originated from the political reason. As we know, the whites in America conquered the American Indians and the whites always want to impose their power, culture into the bloods of the American Indians. The best solution to make it come true is education which is believed to play a major role in civilizing the American Indians. US government wanted to shift from military suppression to forced acculturation by coercing American Indians to adapt to the mainstream American culture and by forcing American Indians children to remove from their families and deliberately separated from their native culture. Besides, we have another reason which sounds hypocritical. Let me explain this idea. In America, historically, the poor, minorities, immigrants, and women have suffered from unequal access to educational system. In order to show that America is a democratic nation where people can enjoy best things, especially in health care and education, US government issued the hypocritical policy of separate but equal schools for every one, especially for American Indians and black students. How did Indian students suffer from these schools? In order to turn American Indians into real Americans, the boarding schools were very strict. The American Indians children were not allowed to speak their native language. In addition, they had to wear the same type of clothes and shoes that the whites wore. Their hair had to be cut short. They had to change their habits and appearance completely as schools requirements. At some schools, boys had to wear military uniforms, marched to and from their classes and learnt to drill like soldiers. Boys also had to study trade skills such as carpentry or blacksmithing, while girls learned cooking, sewing and laundering. More terribly, Children were beaten, malnourished and forced to do heavy labor. In the 1960s, a congressional report found that many teachers still saw their role as civilizing American Indian students, not educating them. Especially through investigations of the later twentieth century, there have been many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse occurring at such schools.