Thursday 31 December 2009

Richard Wiseman

Shelly posted Richard Wiseman's "Top 10 quirky science tricks for parties" on her blog:



...which led me to Richard Wiseman's lovely blog itself, with his "Friday puzzles", a nice resource if you're teaching people with an interest in science!

Monday 28 December 2009

David Crystal: Which English?

Are you familiar with the Macmillan YouTube channel? They've posted great interviews and presentations by their eminent writers. Some MELTA members enjoyed going to IATEFL together last spring and heard a talk and a reading by David Crystal. Here he presents the problem of choosing which variety of English to teach:


Which variety do you teach, and why?

I generally teach American English, my native tongue. But when I've been doing a lot of writing and translating for clients who have ordered British English, I am sometimes confused into using British English pronouns and expressions. Just last sumnmer, to my acute embarassment, I found myself saying "at the weekend", which to me sounds wrong, wrong, wrong. Does that ever happen to you? Any experience to relate?

Thursday 24 December 2009

Merry Christmas, allerseits

This was sent by Joan, and I can't resist posting for our German-English teachers' community. :)


A little Weihnachtsgedicht


When the snow falls wunderbar,
and the children happy are.
When the Glatteis on the street,
and we all a Glühwein need.
Then you know, es ist soweit.
she is here, the Weihnachtszeit.

Every Parkhaus is besetzt,
weil die people fahren jetzt.
All to Kaufhof, Mediamarkt,
kriegen nearly Herzinfarkt.
Shopping hirnverbrannte things,
and the Christmasglocke rings.

Mother in the kitchen bakes,
Schoko-, Nuss- and Mandelkeks.
Daddy in the Nebenraum,
schmücks a Riesen-Weihnachtsbaum.
He is hanging off the balls,
then he from the Leiter falls.

Finally the Kinderlein,
to the Zimmer kommen rein.
And it sings the family
Schauerlich: "Oh, Chistmastree!"
And the jeder in the house,
is packing the Geschenke aus.

Mama finds unter the Tanne,
eine brandnew Teflon-Pfanne.
Papa gets a Schlips and Socken,
everybody does frohlocken.
President speaks in TV,
all around is Harmonie.
Bis mother in the kitchen runs,
im Ofen burns the Weihnachtsgans.
And so comes die Feuerwehr,
with Tatü, tata daher.
And they bring a long, long Schlauch,
and a long, long Leiter auch.
And they schrei - "Wasser
marsch!",
Christmas now is in the Arsch.

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas,
hear the music, see the lights
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht.
Merry Christmas allerseits...

Friday 11 December 2009

Edublog Awards, the polls are open

Vote for the blogs of your choice from the shortlists here: http://edublogawards.com.
A great way to see where the education community stands at the moment.
A few distinct communities seem to be evolving, and it's exciting to try and find your feet in them. More hands-on techy? More critical theory of technology and society? More inspirational/ personal mental guru? More paedagogical-analytical? More community-building and sharing? As they say, it's all good. And I'm still stumbling through. Do you notice yourself being drawn more and more to any one community of blogs?

Tuesday 8 December 2009

ELTons 2010

Here are the British Council ELTon 2010 Awards Nominees.

Which of these resources do you know, use, like? How, why?

  1. Nik's Daily English Activities – Blog – Nik Peachey
  2. Vocabulary Matrix – Book – Heinle ELT, Cengage Learning
  3. Teaching Unplugged – Book – Delta Publishing
  4. www.teachertrainingvideos.com – Russell Stannard
  5. Fast Track to Reading: Accelerated Learning for EFL & ESOL Students – Book – Garnett Education
  6. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th edition – Pearson Education
  7. Teaching with Bear: Using puppets in the language classroom with young learners – Book, DVD, Bear Puppet – Oxford University Press
  8. IH Online Teacher Training Institute – International House World Organisation Ltd (IHWO)
  9. The Bell Online Delta – online training – The Bell Educational Trust
  10. Primary i-Box – classroom presentation software – Cambridge University Press

Monday 7 December 2009

Edublog Awards, take 5!

I'd like to nominate the following blogs for http://edublogawards.com

Just keeping it very simple and on the ground, I've left some of the categories out. I'd like to express my deep gratitude to all who have networked with this blog and my home blog, the Island Weekly. There are so many bloggers around now that it's quite hard to keep up, and most of the blogs I read don't really fit into this grid; they're more personal and individual. Blogging isn't really about the best and the brightest. Never mind. Some of the main movers and shakers whom I owe a great deal to are:

Best individual blog:
Alex "I don't do Twitter" Case http://www.tefl.net/alexcase

Best collaborative blog:
It's his blog, but he invites many guest bloggers, so it seems very collaborative
Lindsay "Six Things" Clandfield http://sixthings.net

Most influential individual post:
Karenne "Here, There and Everywhere" Sylvester
http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2009/08/blogging-english-language-teachers-tech.html
Her blog carneval and her Ning for bloggers in EFL, BELTfree, kindly put little blogs on the map.

Best resource sharing blog:
Nik "Tech Tools" Peachey http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com
...but there are so many fabulous newcomers, e.g. Ozge Karaoglu
(for Young Learners)

Best individual tweeter:
Shelly "Reboot" Terrell http://twitter.com/ShellTerrell

Most influential tweet based discussion:
Teacher Tuesday, #edchat

Best teacher blog:
Marisa "Let's think this through properly" Constantinides http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org

Best student blog:
Markus "Englisch mit sch" Brendel http://www.der-englisch-blog.de

Best new blog
There are so many, so I'm saying, since September:
Darren "Lives of Teachers" Elliott http://www.livesofteachers.com

Best elearning / corporate education blog
Deborah "Wise Words" Capras http://www.business-spotlight.de/blogs/deborah-capras
and my great colleagues at Spotlight, especially Dagmar Taylor (whom I suspect I'm not allowed to nominate, but she's great.)

Best educational use of audio:
Sean "Listen a Minute" Banville http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com

Best educational use of video / visual
Jamie "Say hi, Dad" Keddie http://www.teflclips.com

Best educational use of virtual worlds
Nergiz "SLExperiments" Kern http://slexperiments.edublogs.org/

Lifetime achievement
Larry "Community" Ferlazzo http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org

Also see Shelly's shortlist - her blog is getting more populated and lively every day.


Looking at this list I'm a little dissatisfied. These blogs are great, don't get me wrong. It's just... So where are the categories that move me just a bit more, if I'm honest? The blog I read when I want to laugh? The one that has the songs I love? The one that has the news from a slightly different perspective and gives me the idea I need to jumpstart my lesson? The one that is charming and reminds me how different we all are? The one where there is sure to be a rollicking good fight? Or the one that is simply beautiful to look at? The one written by someone who really knows how to write (those are my favorites)? The one that has intellectual stamina that just reading it gets my brain into gear? The one where I find the best book tips? The one whose writer I'm secretly in love with? Or whom I'd like to meet because I think I've found a kindred spirit? Or the one who's been around the world and makes my feet want to go?

Do you read blogs like that, too?

Saturday 5 December 2009

Russell Stannard

Russell Stannard has written with this request:

"I have been shortlisted for ELTons British Council awards
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-innovation-awards.htm
I need to send in some examples of what people think of www.teachertrainingvideos.com and why they like it. If you like the site and use it, can you just write a few lines explaining why you like the site and how it has helped you?"