Busy times

Today, I have finally returned to this blog - at least for long enough to sit down and write this post.

Busy times!!

http://forum.belmont.edu/eleader/2012/04/05/message-from-the-associate-dean-busy-times-a-month-in-the-life/

Right now, my roles of Speaking Examiner for Cambridge ESOL and Supervisor and Coordinator for the YLE Tests in my area for centre ES027 are taking up most of my waking hours!

Yesterday, during the Advanced Speaking Tests, candidates gave lots of different reasons for why they are studying English:  students in their last year of high school who will be heading off to university want and need a qualification to help them along their path towards a career; engineers and businessmen and women for their current or future work; more than one candidate who had lost their job recently and need to prove that they have an advanced level of English on their CV.  I hope they find a job soon.  I have never come across so many people in one examining session who had lost their job at this point in their lives.

Lets hope the situation here in Spain (and other countries) picks up soon.

A week ago, I travelled along the north coast again to San Sebastian, but this time, not for work, but to watch Bruce Springsteen in concert.  Fantastic experience!  Best concert I've ever been to I think.

Bruce sang lots of songs from his latest album, including Jack of All Trades, which he dedicated to all the people in Spain who are affected by the current economic situation:  http://youtu.be/_uoAd36koX8?t=30s


You can listen to a better recording of the song here:

Jack of all trades is a term that we could apply to us teachers.  I could add more roles to this poster, and I'm sure you could too!

Well, that's my post written for today - now I'll turn to something else on my 'to do list'! ................

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Face Britain

What do you think of this self-portrait?  Who do you think painted it?

If you like the singer, Adele's self-portait, unfortunately, you missed the chance to buy it for   £5,000.00!


Adele painted this picture as part of the FaceBritain project:

Children aged 4- 16 were invited to create their own special self portraits in aid of the project, entitled Face Britain, in the hope that they would be able to explore their creativity and cement their place in history as the 2012 generation. Portraits at all levels of skill, and in any medium were acceptable, including drawing, textiles, 3D, painting, graphics, and photography.

Over 200,000 of the portraits were then used to form a giant portrait of the Queen which was then projected onto Buckingham Palace.

www.telegraph.co.uk

You can watch a video of the projection here.

And what do you think of these two portraits of the Queen?  What do you think they are made of?

Find out! (and see more portraits of the Queen) here.

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Using news with younger learners

When you watch the news on television, although some of the stories shown might be suitable to use with children and young teenagers, others are definitely NOT.

One great source of news items for students of these age groups is CBBC (BBC Children)'s Newsround. 

 

The home of news and fun facts for kids.

I remember watching this programme myself when I was growing up (so it's been around for a long time!)

The start-up page for the website is divided into 5 sections: home, news, sport, entertainment and animals.


I clicked on two news stories that I had watched yesterday morning on Sky News.  I chose them because they were thematically related (both talking about sport).

The first showed the actor Will Smith trying out some sports with athletes, boxers and basketball players from the GB Olympic team.

In class, you could show your students these pictures and then they could be asked to find them within the video clip.


The second story is to do with swimming.

Too many children can't swim properly, says news report

I thought this would be great to use in class when talking about 'can' and 'can't'.  

After the news report, CBBC have published comments from kids on the subject, like this one from 

Lilion, London, England

"I want to be a Olympic swimmer... but our school doesn't teach us!"

Your students could be asked to write their own comment on the subject.
And then, they could take the Olympic Games Quiz.

And don't forget to use materials from the Olympics sports page I wrote about last month!

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404

What does the number 'four 0 four' mean to you?  Four minutes past four?  Four hundred and four?  A room?

If you're on the computer, 404 is bad news!  It's an error page, where you get to when your search is unsuccessful, if you've mistyped an address or the webpage has a broken link.

I'm subscribed to TED talks (I've mentioned these before in my post about listening sites for Advanced students) and when I have time, I try and watch one or two (obviously depending on how long they last).  This morning, I clicked on the link in the email with the weekly update, and watched a short, amusing video (4.08 minutes!) of a talk by Renny Gleeson.

Renny Gleeson: 404, the story of a page not found

This led me to run a quick search on google images for some 404 pages.  Here is a small selection of the results. (Most taken from stunningmesh.com)

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Olympic sports

If like me, you like interesting facts that you can share with your students, then I think you will also like the Olympic Sports page of the London 2012 website.

You can click on any of the sports listed on the left or on the blue icon for it.  This will take you to a new page where you can read about the dates the event will take place in London, the venue.  There is a video illustrating figures about the number of players taking part, etc.

For example, for Table Tennis:

Key facts

Venue: ExCeL

Dates: Saturday 28 July – Wednesday 8 August

Medal events: 4

Athletes: 172 (86 men, 86 women)

I particularly liked the 'Did you know?' box on the page.

Other names for Table Tennis include ‘Ping Pong’, ‘Whiff Waff’ and ‘Flim Flam’, reflecting the sound of the ball being struck and bouncing off the table.

There is lots of material here for all levels, including lower level classes.  And as sport usually features in most coursebooks and on most syllabuses, it should fit in - especially this year of the Olympics.

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Funny consular requests

In the past here in Cantabria, teachers at the school where I used to work and myself too were often asked to help out tourists in difficulty.

Incidents included putting up a couple who had missed their ferry till the next one because they had spent all their money and could not pay for a hotel room.

I was asked to interpret for a poor woman who had been involved in a tragic motorbike accident and she and her partner (and the doctor treating her) needed someone who could help them communicate and also help make the arrangements to get her back to the UK.

At the time, we had a British Consulate in Santander (no longer though), yet for some reason or another, people in need of help were directed towards us.  And none of us felt we could refuse to help in such situations of need.

I was reminded of all this when I watched William Hague talking about bizarre requests received by consulate staff around the world.

A fun video to use in class to introduce the theme of helping others or problems that can occur when on holiday?

Do you have any similar stories to share?

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The Big Egg Hunt

Some of you have already started your Easter holidays.  In Cantabria, we start on Wednesday :·)

I was preparing a few suggestions for some friends who will be visiting London next weekend, when I came across the Big Egg Hunt.

Next weekend (Easter weekend), 209 giant Easter eggs will be on display in Covent Garden. Up until yesterday, they were 'hidden' around London and people went round hunting them.

Want to see more of these beauties?   Visit the Fabergé Big Hunt webpage.

Unfortunately (?) my favourite - the Egg Letter Box has already been sold!!!

And for a very usable video to use in class or to ask your students to watch at home, I suggest this one from  SightseerTV:

It has an interactive transcript so that students can choose to read and listen at the same time - or you could use it to design a listening/viewing task.

Happy Easter!!!!

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