Letter 1

Dear Ekaterina Rudenko,

We are pleased to inform you that you are the winner of this scholarship; congratulations. Please let me know immediately whether or not you will be accepting the award and coming to the Brighton 2011 conference. Someone from the Humanising Language Teaching e-zine will be contacting you to arrange for receipt of your article on how you have incorporated a person-centered approach into your teaching. The article is not due until September 2011.

I will be contacting you again later to invite you to the scholarship winners meeting with the IATEFL president and members of the Co-ordinating Committee at the conference. That happens in one of the breaks and is an excellent photo opportunity and a chance to meet all the other scholarship winners and your sponsor.

Your award consists of a conference registration, a year’s IATEFL membership, and 580 GBP towards your conference related expenses. It is most convenient if you can pick up your award from the finance section of the IATEFL registration desk during a quiet time in the afternoon of Day 1 of the conference. However, if you need to have an amount paid in advance towards travel expenses, please contact Alison Medland (copied in to this email) with your bank details and explain your requirements. She can also help you find accommodation We look forward to meeting you next year.

Congratulations and very best wishes

Eryl Griffiths
(on behalf of the Scholarship Working Party)

Letter 2

Dear Hania

Apart from the HLT scholarship which you all know about, IATEFL has a growing collection of other awards, sometimes focused on the country you come from or the distance away you live (e.g. WR Lee scholarship, IH Global Reach scholarship), sometimes focused on the sector you work in (e.g. OISE Young Learners scholarship, Trinity College London Language Examinations). The IATEFL Scholarship Working Party (SWP) is striving to have something to offer everyone in the profession and to increase the number and value of the awards and to enrich the conference experience for the winners. At present there are awards for post-graduate students and teachers right at the start of their careers (e.g. Cambridge ESOL's Dr Peter Hargreaves scholarship or Cactus to Conference), for aspiring writers (e.g. TD SIG's Articulating Development Scholarship), and for experienced presenters (e.g. Ray Tongue scholarship), while not forgetting researchers (e.g. IH Classroom Exploration scholarship). Details of all the scholarships are at www.iatefl.org/scholarships

In the table you can see the names and provenance of the winners for the 2011 conference in Brighton.

Five more winners of the new Cambridge ESOL scholarships will be announced in December. Don't forget that during the IATEFL conference itself there is the chance to take part in the online proceedings and to apply for the Consultants-E IATEFL Online scholarship where you can win a free course on using technology in language teaching.

Why don't you visit the website and get ready to apply for a scholarship which could take you to IATEFL Glasgow in 2012?

FYI below you will find the information for the 2011 Conference

Greetings
Eryl Griffiths

Letter 3

Dear Hania

I’d like to share a recent experience from east Africa. I hope your readers enjoy it.

I was in Kenya recently, spending time with my family. Nya nya, the grandmother, of uncertain age, but who was born before European forces brought their fight to her homeland during the First World War, and who chuckles with delight as she remembers my dancing at the wedding, but that's another story, nya nya had a helper, Auma, an old lady herself who dressed in brightly coloured garments that matched from head to toe. With my wife’s sister able to translate Luo, the name of both their tribe and language, shared coincidentally by Barack Obama’s father, I orchestrated my first Luo lesson.

“I’m going to the farm”, I wanted to learn. My wife’s mum was always back and forth from the farm. “Adhi puodho”, Auma responded. “Puodho” translates as farm, garden; small-holding may be best, any of these really. I repeated and practised the words. “Nang’o?” Aumu interrupted. “Nang’o?” “Why?” she was asking. “Why are you going to the farm?” Good question. “I’m going to pick vegetables” I ascertained. “Adhi ng’weto alot”. “Alot”. That was easy to remember. “Alot. Vegetables.”“100 carrots. That’s a lot alot!” Haha. My first bilingual Luo-English joke.

“Kaeto adhi chiro!” “And then I’m going to the market!” I was soon able to say. This was fun. Relaxing in the early evening sun, surrounded by lush species of tropical spinach that I’d eaten many a time there, I was writing these phrases down as a language plant. “Adhi”, meaning “I am going...” was my nice big trunk. All the other new words I was wanting branched out from it.

“Adhi ...I’m going... adhi... to buy meat. What’s “to buy meat?”. “To buy meat.” How do you say it in Luo?” I suddenly needed to know. “Adhi ng’ieo ring’o.” Difficult. ““Adhi ng’ieo ring’o.” I stumbled. You can imagine I didn’t get the pronunciation perfect, but I managed to make myself understood, and I contented myself with that, and recapped.

“Adhi puodho ng’weto alot ...and? and? gi...gi adhi chiro ng’ieo ring’o”. Wow. I had just said: “I’m going to the farm to pick vegetables and I’m going to the market to buy meat.”

“And then ... kaeto ... adhi ... kitchen! Jikon. Kitchen. Kaeto adhi jikon.” “Adhi jikon gi kaeto adhi tedo”. “I’m going to the kitchen and then I’m going to cook”. “Tedo alot gi ring’o”. "To cook vegetables and meat”, I affirmed.

“No salt?” She laughed. But that was for another day. I was exhausted. And hungry. “When’s mum back from the puodho?”

The sun was getting low and night falls quickly at the equator. “Ah, here she is! Mum, adhi tedo with you. What are we having?” “Alot gi ring’o!” she called back. “Ummm, sounds delicious! ”And it was too.

If you would like to see the language plant I made of this lovely exchange, please click here
http://languagegarden.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/for-those-who-know/

Best Wishes
David
www.languagegarden.org

Letter 4

(…) Although HLT does not pay for articles, I'm much happier contributing to it as it takes a much wider view of what ELT is all about than the conventional publications do and, being a bit of a black sheep, I feel more at home in it!

Hope you're having a good day

Michael

Letter 5

Dear Teacher,

It is almost Christmas! This month’s three additions to the Downloadable Worksheets section of the Teachers’ Area of www.tuneintoenglish.com are appropriate for the festive season.

The first is the Bob Geldof-led charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Band Aid. This raised millions for famine-stricken Ethiopia in 1984, with subsequent versions in 1989 and 2004 continuing the fundraising. This worksheet was submitted by Mena Bianco in Naples.

For many children Christmas means presents, and the second addition is about a rather unusual toy – the worksheet for Coin Operated Boy by The Dresden Dolls, sent in by Silvana Fazio from Sondrio, features a crossword and gap fill.

The third worksheet is Your Guardian Angel by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, with a tense review, written by Claudia Cantaluppi from Como.

Thank you to those teachers who have submitted worksheets, I look forward to receiving your contributions.

There are also five other Christmas worksheets on the Downloadable Worksheets section of the site: Happy Xmas (John Lennon), Last Christmas (Wham!), Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer (Dr. Elmo), Thank God It’s Christmas (Queen) and the traditional Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.

There is also a special Christmas Karaoke area of the Tune Into English website, featuring over 100 festive favourites, so why not have a special lesson on Christmas songs?

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. The Karaoke page of Tune Into English now features over 7,200 songs.

Thank you to all of you who hosted the Tune Into English Roadshow in 2010. My calendar is now full until the beginning of March 2011, but I would be delighted to come to your school after this. You can see a large selection of videos and photographs from over four years of the Roadshow on facebook – there is a link on the home page of the Tune Into English website.

I would like to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Best wishes,

Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English
www.tuneintoenglish.com

Letter 6

Hi Hania

(…) You might like to know that things are developing here and now a well known online language exchange is linking to us because they have had recommendations about EOT from learners using the platform:

They ever put us in the FAQ:

*What should we talk about? I need a topic or maybe a lesson idea.*

CALPER is a research organization in the U.S. The created a lot of fun activities for teachers to do with their students. You can look at them here. The ones labelled as Chat in the Tool section are probably the best. If you're looking for more structure and would like lessons along with ideas and topics for the exchanges, try Languages Out There.

You can check out the lessons for English here. They're not free, though they're pretty cheap and there is a free trial.

Cheers

Jason

Letter 7a

Dear Lizzie

I will be helpful if you have the link for the HTL issue in the online newsletter - otherwise one has to go through Google to find it!

Regards
Leona Lehner
Austria

Letter 7b

Dear Leona

Thank you for your e-mail and the suggestion.

We have had this suggestion before and tried to take it on board. By the looks of it when we send an e-mail to 20 000 subscribers of HLT with a web link the mail is blocked by the system as it is recognised as spam.

I hope it is not to inconvenient to type hltmag into google
It comes up as the first website

In fact now I have a thought....
Your e-mail has given me an idea
I will explain the situation to the subscribers in the next e-mail to the readers

Many greetings
Hania

Letter 8

Dear Hania,

First, thanks so much for your work on the lovely HLT magazine. I love to read that here in rural Japan, where sharing is less easy.

(…) Also, may I suggest that you include the link old.hltmag.co.uk in your email notices so that readers can instantly jump to the site?

thanks so much, all the best

Lawrie

Letter 9

Dear Teacher,

The 25th November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and two of this month’s additions to the Downloadable Worksheets section of the Teachers’ Area of www.tuneintoenglish.com focus on domestic violence.

The first is Behind The Wall by Tracy Chapman, submitted by Mena Bianco in Naples. This worksheet will also be published on Amnesty International’s Italian site – you can see this, along with other didactic worksheets, by clicking on the Links section of the Teachers’ Area of the Tune Into English website.

The second is Luka by Suzanne Vega. This worksheet is written by Caroline Swettenham from Naples and focuses on child abuse. Appropriately, the 20th November is Universal Children’s Day.

2010 marks the centenary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. The third addition to the site is El Fusilado by Chumbawamba, written by Claudia Cantaluppi from Como. This revises the past simple, while focusing on one of the key figures of the period.

Thank you to those teachers who have submitted worksheets, I look forward to receiving your contributions.

The Tune Into English Roadshow is now almost fully booked until Christmas, and is taking bookings for 2011 – thank you to all of those who have already booked; I look forward to meeting you and your students. You can see a large selection of videos and photographs from over four years of the Roadshow on facebook – there is a link on the home page of the Tune Into English website.

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. The Karaoke page of Tune Into English now features over 7,200 songs.

Finally, some dates for your calendar. On Saturday 13th November, as part of the Cinema e Diritti Festival in Naples, I will be chairing the presentation “Irlanda del Nord: Violazione dei Diritti Umani e Verità Negate”, with author Silvia Calamati and Paul O’Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre, Derry.

The following Saturday, 20th November, Tune Into English will be a guest at Nick Broom’s presentation at TESOL-Italy’s 35th National Convention in Rome - all are welcome to join us for the presentation “The Mobile Generation – Friend Or Foe?”

I look forward to meeting you all in the coming months.

Best wishes,

Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English
www.tuneintoenglish.com

Letter 10

We've been busy here at Lear Books.

This year we have published the second Silver Wheel anthology, ‘Lughnasa, History, Lore and Tradition’ by Anna Franklin, ‘Midsummer, History Lore and Tradition’ by Anna Franklin, ‘Wyrdstaves of the North’ by Nigel Pennick on the magic and traditions of Northumbria, and ‘Zen Druid’ by Jon Moore.

The third title in Anna Franklin's Wheel of the Year series is due out in December 2010. This will be 'Yule, History Lore and Tradition'.

Coming in early 2011 we have the second in Nigel Pennick's regional magic series, 'In Field and Fen' dealing with the traditions and magic of East Anglia. We'll also have the third Silver Wheel Anthology, and two books on shamanism by Dr Michael Berman – ‘Tales of Power’, investigating the role of the story teller in shamanic society, and ‘To and From the Land of the Dead’ looking at the shamanic journey and the shaman as psychopomp.

You can order via our website www.learbooks.co.uk or email us on learbooks@aol.com and we'll be happy to take your order.

Many thanks

Briony