Letter 1

Hi Hania

(…) I thought I would let you know that Professor Stephen Krashen has left a comment on our podcast that you might like to read and maybe report in HLT.

He listened to the 'before and after' audio clips of a Chinese learner, Jane, 27. The audio is just 8 mins long and has a clip of Jane speaking in her first session with me after she had used a beginner lesson plan and then a clip of her sixth speaking session after she had completed an intermediate lesson.

So she went from speaking like a beginner to communicating at intermediate level after just 18 hours of EOT.

Click here, scroll down a bit and click on 'comments' to see what Professor Krashen has written:

http://languagesoutthere.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2010-04-29T10_09_39-07_00

Our work on Facebook is all directly linked to the podcast case studies and our materials. I think the story for you could be that I made myself available to some English learners on an English club website for free and randomly agreed to help the first two.

They are Waldemar Piechura, 29, from Pabianice in central Poland and Jane, 27 from China now living on Strasbourg.

The deal was I would help them to improve their English for free if they allowed me to record all of our speaking sessions using Facebook and Skype and allowed me to post our chat histories and email exchanges. They agreed.

So our podcast contains a complete history of our contact time with the language from the lessons. I hope it provides an interesting case study and possible article material for HLT.

Something occurred to me recently and I put it to the test using Google. I searched for 'before and after English course audio' and many other variants to see if any English language providers or publishers were advertising their courses and materials using before and after audio or video clips.

You maybe surprised to learn that I could not find any. The only ones I found were our podcast and our before and after videos on Youttube from 2006.

Why do you think it is that in this day of quality phone video, Skype recording, Youtube and social media that (to the best of my searching) no one selling English courses or English language teaching materials feels that they take the most obvious step to proving and selling their product? (…)

I hope you find what I have written here interesting.

All the best

Jason (West)

Letter 2

Dear Esteemed Asia TEFL Members,

How are you? At this time, I am happy to announce that The Journal of Asia TEFL has been accepted for indexing in Scopus, the largest database of abstracts and citations for scholarly journal articles, considered equivalent to the SCI-class databases. On this occasion, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to all the people involved with the Journal for their great contributions to the Journal. If you would like to contribute a paper to the Journal and/or subscribe to it, please visit the Asia TEFL website and go to the Pub! locations section.

The 9th Asia TEFL Conference will be held at the Hotel Seoul KyoYuk MunHwa HoeKan in Seoul , Korea , on July 27-29, 2011. The conference theme is "Teaching English in a Changing Asia: Challenges and Directions." The deadline for the submission of presentation proposals is March 1, 2011. For more information about the 2011 conference, please visit the Asia TEFL website: www.asiatefl.org About twenty internationally renowned scholars will be invited to talk as the plenary and featured speakers. About 500 paper presentations will be made in diverse presentation types including research papers, teaching demonstrations, workshops and colloquia, and poster presentations. About 1,500 participants are expected at this world-class English language teaching convention.

Asia TEFL is proud to be awarding travel grants to about 25 concurrent session presenters and giving Outstanding Presentation Paper Grants to about five persons. These paper grants will be awarded to individuals whose paper addresses Asian-specific ELT issues and concerns, and provides outstanding resolutions and pedagogic implications (innovations). For more information, please visit the Asia TEFL website, Asia TEFL strives to be a better stage for you to perform a more important role in English language teaching and learning in Asia through the annual conference and The Journal of Asia TEFL. I sincerely hope many of you will participate in the 2011 Seoul conference. The 2011 call for presentation is now available on the website.

Respectfully,
Hyo Woong Lee, Ph.D.
President of Asia TEFL

Letter 3

Dear Teacher,

The school year is about to begin - I hope you all feel refreshed after the summer break.

The Tune Into English Roadshow is currently in preparation, and I would be delighted to visit your school to present it to your students. A letter with full details will be mailed to Italian schools in the coming week - this is online at www.tuneintoenglish.com/lettera_sett10.doc . You can see photos and videos from over 150 shows on the Tune Into English facebook page.

This month, as always, there are three exciting new additions to the Downloadable Worksheets section of the Teachers' Area of www.tuneintoenglish.com, all candidates for inclusion in the new Roadshow. Thank you to those teachers who have submitted worksheets, I look forward to receiving your contributions.

The first is ideal for this time of year, recalling the fun of the summer - there are two separate worksheets for John Travolta and Olivia Newton John's Summer Nights, from the film Grease. Submitted by Elena Salvetti, Breno (BS), it coincides with a revival of the film, currently filling cinemas throughout the U.S.A. in its karaoke version - see www.greasemovie.com

I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas has been the soundtrack of the last 12 months, and Mercedes Rayan, La Rioja, Argentina, has written a simple worksheet for this song - your students will love it! The third worksheet is for a song inspired by I Gotta Feeling - find out how by downloading Timbaland & Katy Perry's If We Ever Meet Again, sent in by Laura Casolero, Grumo Nevano (NA). Don't forget that Earth, Wind and Fire's September and Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends are also online!

The 26th of this month is European Day of Languages - to celebrate I have prepared a special musical lesson, teaching basic Italian through songs. Tune Into Italian will be presented in two schools in Northern Ireland on the 21st and at Cork Culture Night on the 24th - see www.corkcity.ie/culturenight/culturenight2010 for further details.

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 7,000 songs, including all those mentioned in this newsletter, as well as all of this summer's top hits - why not organise a classroom singing session with your students to ease them into the new year?

Finally, quien habla espanol may be interested in watching the 36-minute documentary on the Tune Into English Roadshow, broadcast on local Spanish television Guadiana TV after my visit in April - you can see this here or by following the link on the Roadshow page of the site.

I look forward to meeting you and your students in the coming months,

Best wishes, and indeed Buon Lavoro!

Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English, www.tuneintoenglish.com

Letter 4

Hi Readers,

What music inspires you????

By this question, I'm not referring to the background music you listen to while driving, reading or studying. I'm interested in the music that changes your emotional state!!

Thanks to those of you who've already sent me your lists, short & long after reading mine. Thanks to those of you, I've discovered some great new songs/music & rediscovered some old classics! My lists can be found on my website. www.laughnlearn.net , then click on activities, memory and learning and scroll down to the bottom. I have written seven English/American songs. If you look on the Italian page, following the same procedure, you can find seven Italian songs that inspire me too.

I have to say that my English/American list was compiled off the top of my head under pressure from my webdesigner, so the genre of music might seem rather similar. However, those of you who know me well, will know that I also love classical music esp. Piazzola. One of the best "live" bands that I've had the fortune to see is James Taylor Quartet (Acid Jazz) & thanks to the recent film, The Men who stare at Goats, I was reminded of an old classic, More than a Feeling -Boston, which I used to begin many of my lessons from March - May 2010.

Look forward to receiving more of "Your Inspirational music".

The language of the songs is not important, as I will try to listen to them anyway..

All the Best
Danny (E-mail: singh_danny@hotmail.com)