Letter 1

Dear Hania,

I want to praise the extraordinary precision and accuracy of Prof. Peter Lutzker in his article “A Reply to Stefan Rathert’s article and a Discussion of Steiner School Foreign Language Teaching”. The information he provides is extremely useful and it will help to clarify some strange ideas that a common trend of intellectuals have about Waldorf schools.

The second part of my letter is addressed to Mr. Stefan Rathert’s letter in the last issue “Reader’s letters”.

Mr. Rathert keeps on insisting I have plagiarized several works to publish my article. This claim is so ridiculous that I don’t want to waste the reader’s time defending the seriousness of my work since it is something I have done before.

About the issue of being a native or non-native speaker and the influence of the author’s cultural background, I think though English is not my mother tongue, I have been speaking the language since I was five years old so my mastering of the English language is good enough.

He also claims that my grammar is not very accurate. What grammar does he mean “German Grammar” or “English Grammar”? “Written” or “Spoken Grammar?

Last but not least, I would strongly recommend Mr. Rathert to come to Pilgrims and do an NLP course. I am sure he won’t regret it.

I could have answered Mr. Rathert with the same lack of respect he usually writes about my articles, but since I have a very forgiving nature the whole episode for me is completely forgotten.

All in all, I want to praise you Hania for your patience and efficiency at editing this magazine. Mario Rinvolucri was undoubtedly good but your sense of good principles and letting variety highlight the main articles of this magazine is worthy to be praised.

Thank you.

Tony Cañadas

Letter 2

Dear All,

We hope this mail reaches you in good spirits.

I am writing to inform you all about the Storying's online version. Hoping that you can share this on the social media, blogs and other story related internet pages. See:

http://goo.gl/cDN76

Thank you one more time participating in the organization and helping make the idea of this magazine come into life.

Best wishes from Istanbul!

Utku Özturk

Letter 3

Hi Hania,

I just wanted to share our latest news with you;

LingleOnline wins inaugural ‘Language Technology Innovation 2012’ award at LT Innovate Summit in Brussels

Dublin, Ireland, Friday June22nd 2012: LingleOnline Ltd goes from strength to strength as the start-up was presented with the inaugural award at the ‘Language Technology Innovation 2012’ event in Brussels.

Lingle is an innovative technology that allows English language teachers to automatically generate exercises, lesson and resource materials from current news articles. LT-Innovate gathered top executives of European companies involved in developing products using speech, translation or intelligent content technology and at its summit in Brussels this week. Lingle was awarded ‘Language Technology Innovation 2012’ at the event showcase.

Ian Butler, CEO of LingleOnline said:

“We are delighted to have received such a prestigious award and to have been recognised as a new, innovative technology provider that can help teachers achieve their goals and remove barriers from implementing best teaching practice. The award will enable us to take the next step forward in bringing our product to market and, along with our recent collaboration with the British Council, we feel confident that LingleOnline will continue to grow.” (We've also just updated our site: all our exercises are now interactive and printable, and we've added new dictionaries features)

Ian Butler

Letter 4

Macmillan Education is delighted to have won the ELTon award for Innovation in Learner Resources with the mobile application Sounds: The Pronunciation App at the inspiring ELTons award ceremony in central London last week. It is the first app ever to win an ELTon award.

The British Council Innovation Awards, or ELTons, are annual awards for the ELT sector and recognise and celebrate outstanding new English language teaching products.

On winning the award, Digital Marketing Manager Matt Kay emphasised the importance of Sounds having been recognised as a new step forward in English language education:

‘We’re absolutely thrilled to have received this prestigious award from the British Council for the Sounds app. The feedback from users of the app has been fantastic, and it’s great to see this recognized by the ELTons judges. We always knew that there was real potential with the recent developments in mobile devices for producing a tool that could really help students and teachers with the sometimes tricky topic of English pronunciation.’

Sounds: The Pronunciation App is based on the best-selling Macmillan title Sound Foundationsby Adrian Underhill. As a mobile App, it helps students and teachers study, practise and play with English pronunciation wherever they are.

At the award ceremony, International Marketing Director Jo Greig was proud to present the Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing to Kate Khoury, Sarah Raybould and Louise Salim for their book Sensing Humour ‘in English’. The £1,000 prize, sponsored by Macmillan, is awarded to a potential project from undiscovered authors in the ELT world and gives them the opportunity to have their work published.

Notes to Editors

Sounds: The Pronunciation App is available as a free or upgraded premium version on both Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) as well as on all Android devices. The App includes an interactive phonemic chart, vocabulary wordlists in British and American English, quizzes and practice tests.

For more information, please visit www.soundspronapp.com

Letter 5

Dear Teacher, We had a great time in London at the ELTons Awards. We did not take home the “statuette”, but are extremely proud to be considered one of the Top 7 innovators in Teacher Resources this year. Once again, thank you all for your support, this recognition also belongs to you!

You can watch the full ceremony, preceded by the “Red Carpet” interviews, at: http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/eltons. Check out also our London Pilgrimages photo album.

It is World Environment Day on 5th June, and with the third anniversary of his death this month, Michael Jackson’s poem Planet Earth with its theme of the urgent need for more environmental awareness is the ideal lesson for your students. The first of this month’s new worksheets on www.tuneintoenglish.com focuses on phonetics and features an extra activity by Sabrina Masnata from Genova.

From the King of Pop to the King of Rock & Roll, this summer (16th August) sees the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s passing. The second new worksheet, submitted by Claudia Cantaluppi from Como, is Always On My Mind, looking at Past Simple negatives.

The Cure will be touring Europe this summer, and the third new worksheet is a vocabulary activity based on their 1992 hit Friday I’m In Love. The activities were was written by Maria Gulczynska, Ancona.

This month’s addition to the Italian worksheets, on the Tune Into Italian page, written by Caterina Ziliani, in Houston, Texas, is Via Da Questo Mare by Sergio Cammariere, featuring an English-Italian translation (this can also be adapted for your English lessons!)

Thank you to all teachers who have submitted worksheets – I look forward to receiving your contributions in the future.

This year’s Tune Into English Roadshow had its final performance in Marsciano (PG) on 30th May, wrapping up a season of 155 performances in 94 schools in 78 towns and cities in Italy and Spain. Thank you to all who have hosted the Roadshow this year, and for all the wonderful feedback I have had - you can see photos and videos on our facebook page, and check out the comments. A very special thank you to the students of the Scuola Primaria “Dante Alighieri” (San Pietro in Cariano, VR) for the wonderful drawings!

Teachers at the Scuola Superiore di I° Grado may be interested in Up To You!, ELI’s holiday book, consolidating and revising vocabulary and structures presented during the year. Written by Kavanagh and Morris, you can read more about this.

The Karaoke page of Tune Into English features over 7,800 songs. Don’t forget that you can sing along with the UK Top 10 Charts on the Speak Up site – updated weekly; there is a link on the Tune Home page too.

With the warm weather coming, what better time to add the Tune Into English T-shirt to your wardrobe? Made of high quality material and featuring the Tune logo. Don’t forget that the Once DVD and 48-page worksheet is also available.

One month to go before the holidays! The Tune Into English newsletter will return in September, but in the meantime check out the facebook page for updates. Have a great Summer – you deserve it! I’ll leave you with a message from Vasco Rossi’s facebook page. Our thoughts are with all those affected by recent events in Emilia-Romagna.

Best wishes,
Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English