Souffler - a breath of fresh air

Sampled Room - Creating music with household objects

I thought this video was a lot of fun. You tell me how you could use it ....

 

Sampled Room from Mateusz Zdziebko on Vimeo.

"Happy Christmas Greetings" Spot the dialect

Just a bit of a fun Christmas greeting to all friends and colleagues out there. Can you identify which English dialect is in which of these sentences? What was the original message?

Your choices are:

a) Scouse        d) Geordie                g) Dead posh (ie: me)

b) Irish            e) Yorkshire              h) Brummie

c) Scots           f)  Cockney              i) Ali G street

1) Yav a really chuffed christmas with all bostin' wishes ter all ar dear an' loony friends afar an' wide.

2) 'uv a dead made-up Crimbo wi' all beesknees wishes ter all us dear and lewny friends far and wide.

3) Hev a deed happy christmas wi' aaal best wishes tuh aaal wor hinny an' loony friends far an' wide.

4) Hae a pure canty christmas wi' aw best wishes tae aw uir hen an' loony friends far an' wide.

5) Av eur chuffin' 'appy christmas wi' orl best wishes ta orl wee eh up 'n loony friends far 'n wide.

6) As da fe real chuffed christmas wiv all fittest wishes to all our me main geeza an' loony boys far an' wide.

7) 

'av a really 'appy christmas wi' al' best wishes ter al' our dear an' loony lads far an' wide

8) 

'ave a 'eaven and 'ell 'appy christmas wif aw Mae West Pots And Dishes ter aw our dear and loony friends far and duck 'n' dive.

9)  

Have ah hairlairh jolly christmas with all mwah mwah sweetie to all our deaaar and loohny friends faaar and wide. Goodness me!

 

Seriously folks, have a great Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Team teaching - any language teachers doing this?

When I was doing my PGCE training many moons ago, my tutor used to salivate over the concept of team teaching. We were taken to a demonstration lesson in a local school and I have to say I was impressed.

Since that time I have never been in a school where this was practised. However, it has always remained an idea that has stuck with me.

I have never felt that teachers are naturally programmed to work alone. Indeed the classroom isolation necessitated by what I see as an artificial construct of separate subject disciplines is one of the key factors that lead to teacher depression, burnout and disaffection. I wonder how many good colleagues have been lost to the profession because of this. In my own journey, I think it was a major factor in my decision to quit secondary teaching.

How can it be right that most of my generation of teachers have spent the majority of their classroom lives in splendid isolation whilst encouraging the pupils we teach to work in pairs, groups, conduct peer assessment and aspire to assimilate all the attributes of good team players?

Fortunately, the internet has facilitated an explosion in the sharing of ideas amongst peoples sharing a common interest, teachers especially. No-one need now feel isolated and opportunities are growing to attend online 'meetings', Teachmeets and the like, where we can connect to amazing colleagues across the curriculum with inspirational ideas. I wonder how long it will be before this new hub of inter-disciplinary connections begins to filter much more strongly back into the organisational structures of our schools?

As I work in primary schools now where a cross curricular approach is the norm, and as I explore the obvious links language learning has with other subject areas at KS3 such as music and drama, I was wondering whether there are schools out there who are actively pursuing the concept of team teaching across different subjects. If there are, please contact me to let me know.

I might even be tempted to return to the secondary sector ... now there is a scary thought to be resisted!

Create useful translation and verb conjugation shortcuts to WordReference

via www.wordreference.com

This link will take you to a page on the online dictionary WordReference which explains how you can add some bookmarks to your Favourites in the Firefox browser. Once installed all you have to do is type the short cut in the browser tool box to quickly translate words or conjugate verbs.This could be a really useful tool to help your students. the vocab tool is available for Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. Unfortunately there is only a conjugation feature for French, Italian and Spanish verbs.

There is a similar toolbar feature for Google Chrome

a propos of nothing ....

As a proud Dad, I'm posting a completely non mfl vid here, a collaboration between my daughter, Lucy and her musician friend Matt. Quirky and fun!

 

 

spiegel im spiegel Arvo Part mix

De-stress to this ....

This is nothing to do with languages but I love the haunting beauty of this music by Arvo Part. Think of all the most beautiful things in your life, then wrap this music around them.

Someone on Youtube recommended this trick so I have tried it out. You simply overlay the same track beginning at different start points. So I imported the original into garageband, copied it onto 4 different tracks and began each of the tracks at a certain equal interval from the beginning of the previous. Sounds like a piece from Ravel.

This is the result and is, I think, quite hauntingly beautiful and works really well. Tell me what you think! It's fairly long, a good 10 minutes.

I made a video of the Himalayas and put this as the backing track but the file is massively self indulgent and though beautiful can't be uploaded here. A "pic" will have to do ... (French play on words ...)

 
 

Enjoy!