Letter 1
(…) Two nice episodes from my class.
1. In a first year group, when asked to describe one of their teachers, a student wrote: ‘She’s got brown eyes but sometimes she’s got big red eyes!’ What better way to describe a teacher who gets angry quite easily and often shouts at them?
2. After having a CLIL science lesson about the skeleton, the day of the test my second year students asked me if they could play Simon Says… - one of their favourite games – in a slightly different way, so that they could revise the new vocabulary. So here is how it went: Simon says put your hands on your skull, Simon says put your hands on your rib cage, put your hands on your backbone, Simon says put your hands on your femur… and so on. I thought it was a very good idea. And it came from them!
Best.
Daniela Villani
Scuola Media ‘G. Cassano’, Trecate
PS They all did the test quite well.
Letter 2
In common with other EFL teachers, I sometimes find it a challenge to get my students (from 4 – 74 years) speaking English (however limited in quality and quantity) without being too much of a sergeant major; I have added to the confusion when I myself use L1 at certain moments during the lesson. It also negates a preferred classroom culture in that I impose a rule that my Ss should not speak L1 but I can. With the aim of restoring a level-playing field, I introduced the idea of the English zone around the table (where we mainly do our lessons), where only English is spoken, and a sufficiently-distant Italian box, which both students and teacher have to ‘enter’ (you can pretend to ‘climb over’ the ‘entrance’ to the box) if and when we want/need to speak Italian. At the very least, this idea makes crystal clear the spaces in which we can speak L1 or L2 and, at the very most, I have been amazed by the results: some Ss’ laziness soon kicks in and, instead of running to the end of the room and back, they manage to produce gems like Please can I borrow your rubber?
Jane. O. Davies
Letter 3
Dear Colleagues and Friends:
My web site came on line August 8, 2009, a scant 5 months ago. Google has just upgraded my page rank to 4. Web sites that have been around for several years only have a 2 or 3 page rank. The page rank is the importance Google places on a web site, after thorough analysis.
I am not hyping my web site. I am just expressing my surprise and appreciation to Google for recognizing the opinions of my Chinese students.
Martin Wolff, J. D.
Professor of Holistic English
Sun Yat-sen University
Faculty of English Education
email: holisticenglish@yahoo.com
web: http://chinaholisticenglish.com
Letter 4
Dear Hanna,
UK Deputy Prime Minister, Patricia Hewitt, recently gave a speech about people she called welderly, and these she defined as people over 65 who are still hale and hearty and could be useful to the economy. I googled the term and found 7000 references, which in Google terms is a very small number. I therefore suggest that maybe the welderly, ( uncountable) is maybe a new word at the beginning of its career in English. When I googled the ilderly I found only 700 references. I feel good about catching new words early in their linguistic infancy. How about you?
Mario Rinvolucri, Pilgrims
Letter 5
(…) In fact, I was really impressed with the way HLT has grown and
developed, brilliant.
Love Sandra Piai
Letter 6
Dear Hania,
Thank you so much for addressing me such good news spread through your HLT e-zine. This latest issue is a delight for every EL teacher, it is true. It provides plenty of innovative, diverse materials designed by outstanding ELT figures as well as a lot of information on ELT events across the world, not to mention specific humanising articles.
How nice it was to know about Mario Rinvolucri's Video Conference from the University of Kent to that "large crowd of Mexican folk". My sincere congratulations to Mario, one of the best ELT figures who have inspired me since I started the EFL career in my country, Portugal.
We have also enjoyed the "entertainment" features, e.g., "Two Jokes", by Cecil Marit; "Two Five year Old Voices" submitted by Mario Rinvolucri; even a poem, "Dot" by P. Bress.
I look forward to following you on Pilgrims facebook site.
Maria (do Céu Costa)
Letter 7
Dear Hania Kryszewska
‘Don't Give Up! ‘ is a European Union language project that has written a book of 48 best practices for every level of language educators (schools, managers, teachers). The best practices will help improve the motivation and the results of language courses for adult learners.
The project spent 2 years researching and analyzing the problems of adult learners, language educators were asked their opinions and ideas, as well. The results of the research were combined with the project team's ideas and experience.
The best practices cover aspects of managing language schools and classes, enhancing lessons, engaging and motivating students and dealing with many aspects of the problems adult learners face to learn a language. This book can positively contribute to the results of your language courses.
The best practices are summarized on the project website http://dontgiveup.eu with some examples. The 138 page Don't Give Up! Book is available through the web site in English, Czech or Spanish. Please visit the project website to request a copy or reply to this email directly.
We look forward to your interest and comments.
Best regards
Dasa Pelikanova, Czech Republic
Email: dagmar@dontgiveup.eu
Letter 8
(…)sent us the following list of oxymorons:
- virtual reality
- original copy
- old news
- act naturally
- pretty ugly
- living dead
- jumbo shrimp
- rolling stop
- constant variable
- exact estimate
- paid volunteers
- civil war
- sound of silence
- clever fool
- only choice
What about my favorite: military intelligence?
I wonder if the linguistic unconscious mind reacts to these "normal" oxymorons in way that is different to way the conscious mind reacts.
I wonder how "new is" oxymorons hit the brain e.g. " English for Peace" ? Do some languages go in for this more then the one I am writing in this evening? How about Polish?
Mario
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