So, one of the side effects of living and working in expatriate land is that I get to hear a lot about British politics.
Between hearing the opinions of my co-workers at work today, and my Facebook and twitter feed, I've been getting a good sense of how upset British people are about the vote.
I'm not informed enough to have an opinion on the issue. (Everything I know comes from John Oliver).
It does sound like the European Union has both some advantages, and some significant disadvantages. (Taking power away from the voters and giving it to bureaucrats is always worrying.)
And yet, almost all of the British people I know interpreted this referendum as being about xenophobia versus multi-culturalism. And they are interpreting this as a victory for xenophobia.
Couple this with the rise of xenophobia in the US, and it's shaping up to be a depressing year.
*********************************
Sidenote:
Back during the Scottish Independence vote, I used to ask my Scottish friend about the European Union issue. The argument at the time was that Scotland shouldn't become independent, because then they would be out of the EU. (It was not guaranteed that an independent Scotland would have been granted EU membership.)
He told me that Scotland would be better off independent, because he thought the UK was going to vote to leave the EU anyway.
I am now slightly in awe at his prescience.
It does appear, however, that wanting to stay in the EU was a major factor for many Scottish voters who voted no for independence in 2014.
With this no longer being a factor, many of my UK friends are predicting another referendum, and this time, probably a Scottish Independence.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Life Elementary Textbook: 4E You Have an Email p.53
(Supplemental Materials for Specific Textbooks--Life Elementary)
Life Elementary 4E You Have an Email p.53
https://quizlet.com/_1w437i
Life Elementary 4E You Have an Email p.53
https://quizlet.com/_1w437i
Life Elementary 4E You Have an Email p.53
https://quizlet.com/_1w437i
Life Elementary 4E You Have an Email p.53
https://quizlet.com/_1w437i
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Life Elementary Textbook: 4D In Your Gap Year p.52
(Supplemental Materials for Specific Textbooks--Life Elementary)
Google Drive Folder HERE
Crossword Puzzle (drive)
Crossword Puzzle answers (drive)
1. Help the lions: Volunteer in Zambia and help hundreds of orphan lion cubs.
2. Write a newspaper: An English newspaper in Bolivia needs young enthusiastic journalists.
3. Teach English: Work with young children in schools all over the world.
4. Clean up the river: Help pick up trash from the river.
5. Watch the children: Watch young children while their parents are busy working.
6. Feed the hungry: Help bring food to hungry people.
7. Building houses: Help build houses for poor people.
8. Hospital Volunteer: Help the doctors care for the sick people.
9. Farm Volunteer: Help poor farmers with their fields.
10. Traffic Safety Patrol: Help young children safely cross the street.
|
Ask your partner questions in order to determine which job is best for them.
You can use some of these structures:
Are you good at ________________? (noun, Ving)
Do you like ________________? (noun, Ving)
Can you ________________? (V1)
6 Across →
I like _________ people. (help)
|
2 Across →
I’m not good at _________. (ski)
|
4 Across →
I can _________ tennis. (play)
|
5 Across →
I can’t _________ very high. (jump)
|
8 Across →
Do you like _________? (sing)
|
9 Across →
I don’t like _________. (run)
|
1 Down ↓
I’m good at _________. (swim)
|
3 Down ↓
Can you _________ across the top of a mountain? (cycle)
|
7 Down ↓
Are you good at _________ sports? (play)
|
Find Someone Who:
1. Find someone who is good at swimming ______________________________
2. Find someone who can ski ______________________________
3. Find someone who likes playing soccer ______________________________
4. Find someone who doesn’t like playing soccer ______________________________
5. Find someone who can’t swim ______________________________
6. Find someone who isn’t good at Math ______________________________
7. Find someone who likes cooking ______________________________
8. Find someone who can play tennis ______________________________
Which of these phrases do you hear? Match the phrases to the gaps.
A). Are you good at teaching?
B). How well can you speak English?
C). Can you teach?
D). Do you like animals?
E). I can speak English well.
F). I can’t go for eighteen months.
G). I’m not very good at writing
H). I don’t like animals
J). I love them!
|
T: Hello, Gap Year Volunteer Work. Can I help you?
S: Yes, hello. I’d like some information about your gap year jobs. I’m a student and I want to travel next year. Do you have any interesting volunteer jobs?
T: Sure. We have a job for English teachers. (1)___.
S: Err. I don’t know. (2)___, but what other jobs are there?
T: Can you write? There’s an English newspaper in Bolivia. They need journalists. But it’s for 18 months.
S: No, I can’t go for 18 months. And (3)___. Is there anything else?
T: Do you like animals?
S: Yes, (4)___!
T: Well, we have a job in Zambia. It’s with lion cubs.
S: Wow! That sounds interesting. What’s the job exactly?
Answers:
T: Hello, Gap Year Volunteer Work. Can I help you?
S: Yes, hello. I’d like some information about your gap year jobs. I’m a student and I want to travel next year. Do you have any interesting volunteer jobs?
T: Sure. We have a job for English teachers. Are you good at teaching?
S: Err. I don’t know. I can speak English well, but what other jobs are there?
T: Can you write? There’s an English newspaper in Bolivia. They need journalists. But it’s for 18 months.
S: No, I can’t go for 18 months. And I’m not very good at writing. Is there anything else?
T: Do you like animals?
S: Yes, I love them!
T: Well, we have a job in Zambia. It’s with lion cubs.
S: Wow! That sounds interesting. What’s the job exactly?
Life Elementary 4d In your Gap Year p.52
https://quizlet.com/_1vmtxf
Life Elementary 4d In your Gap Year p.52
https://quizlet.com/_1vmtxf
Life Elementary 4d In your Gap Year p.52
https://quizlet.com/_1vmtxf
Life Elementary 4d In your Gap Year p.52
https://quizlet.com/_1vmtxf
In English, not every word in a sentence is stressed equally. Some words have a stronger stress. Listen, and underline the stressed words.
1. Are you good at writing?
2. I’m good at writing.
3. Can you teach?
4. How well can you teach?
5. I can’t speak English very well.
6. Do you like animals?
7. I love animals!
Help the lions: Volunteer in Zambia and help hundreds of orphan lion cubs.
|
Write a newspaper: An English newspaper in Bolivia needs young enthusiastic journalists.
|
Teach English: Work with young children in schools all over the world.
|
Clean up the river: Help pick up trash from the river.
|
Watch the children: Watch young children while their parents are busy working.
|
Feed the hungry: Help bring food to hungry people.
|
Building houses: Help build houses for poor people.
|
Hospital Volunteer: Help the doctors care for the sick people.
|
Farm Volunteer: Help poor farmers with their fields.
|
Traffic Safety Patrol: Help young children safely cross the street.
|
TEFLology Episode 45: The EFL Teacher Journeys Conference
(TELFology Podcast)
A new episode of TEFLology (link HERE).
At the end of my TEFLology Podcast review, I committed myself to doing little mini-reviews of each subsequent episode.
I'm beginning to wonder if that was a wise idea, given how little I have to say about most episodes.
I mentioned in my original review that although I found the series as a whole to be quite useful and informative, there were many individual segments that I found less than useful. This was probably an example of the latter. I'm not sure what information I gained from this podcast.
This podcast had a different format than usual. It wasn't just one interview, but it was a series of mini-interviews with conference participants.
This had the potential to be interesting, but many of the interviewees just talked about how wonderful the conference was, and at times I felt like I was listening to an advertisement for the conference.
Many of the topics had been already covered in previous episodes. The experience teaching the blind student had already been a segment on a previous episode. The native speaker teacher/ non-native speaker teacher distinction has been done several times already on this podcast.
The sound quality was particularly bad. There was a lot of background noise which sometimes made it difficult to hear what people were saying. (There have been several episodes in the past where the TEFLologists have apologized for the audio quality of the recording, or the background noise, and then when I actually listened to it, I thought, "Huh, that wasn't bad at all." Here, it actually was pretty bad.)
On the positive side, there were a few interesting stories. I liked David Paul's story about playing Shogi at a business meeting. (It was a very typical story about how business relationships operate in Japan).
Tats Paul Nagasaka had some interesting thoughts about the perspectives of people under 40 versus the perspectives of people over 40--something that made my ears perk up a little bit since I'm just a couple years away from 40 now. Although after listening to him a bit more, I figured out he was using 40 not so much as a magic number itself, but as shorthand for whatever age you settle down and have a wife and kids, and have to support your family.
The entire idea of having a conference that is focused on the teacher's experience is an interesting one, as Mike Ellis explains in the opening interview, since current rhetoric is always about making schools more student centered.
Mike Ellis's example of how his former student fondly remembered his class because he was funny is slightly self-serving, but perhaps a good example of how the student's mind really works. My favorite high school classes were also all the classes in which the teachers were comedians.
Although they never discuss it, there's another discussion to be had about whether the classroom should be focused on input (something traditionally considered teacher-centered), or on production (something traditionally considered student-centered).
At least insofar as student centered is interpreted as "students produce the majority of the language in the classroom", there is potentially a danger. Both Krashen and Michael Lewis have warned that forcing students to produce before they are ready will cause problems, and that in the early stages of language learning, the receptive skills should take priority.
Unfortunately in many schools the obsession with reducing teacher talking time and with increasing student talking time can lead to beginning students being forced to produce before they are ready.
But that is just my own digression, and not a focus of this actual episode.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Finding Dory
Why I Saw This Movie
I didn't really want to see this movie, but the girlfriend did. And after making her sit through X-Men and Civil War, I owed her.
My History With the Franchise
I saw the original Finding Nemo on video, sometime around 2005 I think (before I started this movie review project). I wasn't a huge fan, but I do have to admit it got one or two chuckles out of me.
Negatives
* I have limited patience for sap and sentimentality, and boy is there ever a lot of sap and sentimentality in this movie.
* Suffers from the fate common to most sequels--its plot is largely just a retread of the previous movie's plot.
* The father fish re-learns the same lesson he already learned in the first movie.
Positives
* As in the first movie, the ocean is gorgeously animated. (Much of this movie took place in the aquarium, but the aquarium is also gorgeously animated).
* As with the first movie, the animators do a good job of conveying a sense of wonder about the ocean--something weird or wonderful or dangerous could be behind any rock. And this sense of constant wonder and surprise went a long way towards alleviating my boredom at what was an otherwise uninspiring story.
* As in the first movie, I enjoyed the humor of anthropomorphizing animal traits. Those sea lions protecting their rock by yelling "off off off" made me chuckle.
The Review
This movie wasn't quite as terrible as I thought it would be. It was watchable. It had it's moments. But I certainly wouldn't have sat through the whole thing if it had been up to me.
Rating :
2 out of 10 stars. (Mostly just because I'm 38. If I had been 5, I would have loved it.)
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky Debate 2016 - What Is Happening In Turkey and Middle East
Monday, June 20, 2016
When Leonard Nimoy died, Whisky Prajer wrote: "It's curious to grieve a man who played a beloved role"
I didn't know Anton Yelchin personally, so I can only grieve him for his roles. And I enjoyed his acting in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, and I'm sorry he won't be around to do the role any more.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Mingle Activity for "Going to"
(TESOL Worksheets--Going to)
Google: drive, docs, pub
[This worksheet uses the masculine pronoun "his" for the teacher. It will need to be modified by any female teachers using it in their classes.]
Google: drive, docs, pub
[This worksheet uses the masculine pronoun "his" for the teacher. It will need to be modified by any female teachers using it in their classes.]
Talk to three students. Ask them the following questions:
student 1
|
student 2
|
student 3
| ||
1.
|
What are you going to do after class finishes?
| |||
2.
|
What are you going to do tomorrow?
| |||
3.
|
What are you going to have for breakfast tomorrow morning?
| |||
4.
|
What movies are you going to watch?
| |||
5.
|
What clothes are you going to wear tomorrow?
| |||
6.
|
What time are you going to wake up tomorrow?
| |||
7.
|
What present are you going to buy the teacher for his birthday?
| |||
8.
|
What are you going to do when you retire?
| |||
9.
|
What books are you going to read?
| |||
10.
|
When are you going to exercise next? What exercise are you going to do?
|
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