Appreciating teachers

In the USA, they are coming to the end of Teacher Appreciation Week.  Sounds like a good thing to do - appreciate your teachers!!
There are so many of my teachers that I'd like to meet up with again and say thank you.  In particular my French teachers and Mrs Martinez who started me on the road to learning Spanish!  They really inspired!!

I discovered that it was Teacher Appreciation Week when I was on Facebook and saw a post on Sue Pexton's page.  Sue is  a great friend and is also one of the Iberian Seminar Presenters and is based in Lleida.

I clicked on the Definitions and went to the Facebook page of Weareteachers and found a video from Google.

I thought this was also worth sharing - to give myself and yourselves a pat on the back, but also because it's one of those videos that you could show in class and stop after 1 minute
and ask students what the person does for a living.  It seems like it's going to be an astronaut, but we discover it's a teacher.

And I had a quick look at the Weareteachers website and am definitely going to bookmark it because there are lots of resources there.

http://brentwoodpta.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/teacher-appreciation-chair.jpg

Showing you're here on Earth

Isn't it amazing how our lives are changing?  Who would have thought that next Tuesday, thousands, or maybe millions of people could be taking a selfie and posting it online.

Will you?

NASA want to make a global selfie.  They are asking people to take a photo of themself, holding a printable sign or to mark their spot with rocks, drawing on the sand, or whatever.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/GS_SIGN_English.jpg

Then, you upload the photo to facebook/flickr/instagram or twitter.

NASA will then create a global selfie portrait - a mosaic image and a video and share it in May.



It's a long way on from the first reported selfie:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/first-ever-selfie-amazing-pic-3218544

Selfie has only just made its way into the dictionary but, as this picture taken in 1839 shows, people have been doing them for a long time.

In fact, this has been hailed as the first ever selfie.

Amateur chemist and photography enthusiast Robert Cornelius, from Philadelphia, took the self-portrait in his family's silver-plating shop in the city.

There was no remote shutter release on the primitive camera - a Daguerreotype invented by Frenchman Louis Daguerre - so Robert had to scamper in front of the equipment after removing the cover on the lens.

He wrote on the back of the photo: "The first light picture ever taken. 1839."

Considering that he was making history, he doesn't look all that chuffed - maybe it was because he had to stand still for up to 15 minutes for the portrait. Or maybe it was because he had an inkling that some celebs would one day make the selfie such a self-indulgent yawnfest.

Robert's picture is kept in the Library of Congress  in Washington DC.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/first-ever-selfie-amazing-pic-3218544#ixzz2zJuZSkSg 

What day is it today?

Today has been a special day.  Not for me in particular, but for the world generally, a sequential date.  I'd never come across that term before - and I've lived through others, but just didn't realise!!

Last year, the 10th November was a sequential date - 10.11.12.  The year before, the 9th of October was too.  (9.10.11)  Today, for a second, we lived through 1/12/13 14:15.16.

http://heidiscottage.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/111213.html

Not that I was aware of this happening - I discovered the term sequential date just 20 minutes ago via a friend's Facebook post!

Apparently, dates like these are often chosen for special events - like getting married.  It will certainly help people remember their wedding date!  Apparently, wedding venues in Las Vegas were really busy when the USA celebrated this same date - back on the 12th of November (because of course there, they write the date with the month first and the day second).

There has been nothing particularly memorable in my day - the usual combination of work and sport.

Mind you, the sunrise this morning was pretty impressive ...

and the south wind meant that Santander was glowing all day!  

Do you smell a rat?

Back after a short break, I thought I'd write about some fun things that were launched on the (unsuspecting?) world yesterday.

The first - Google Nose.  Here's how Google describes this new feature on Youtube:

We're excited to announce our newest addition to Search: Google Nose. What do wet dogs smell like? Google Nose! How about victory? Google Nose! Try searching on Google for "wet dog" and explore other smells that people sniffed for, or visit google.com/nose to learn more. Happy smelling!

http://youtu.be/VFbYadm_mrw

The second story comes from the UK.

Dexter the internet crime sniffing police dog

Cyber crime is on the rise and online fraud and identity theft are major issues these days, that's why the Get Safe Online team have teamed with the City of London Police to utilise the talents of Dexter. He's a police dog that can sniff out crime through a desktop computer.

https://www.getsafeonline.org

Cute doggy!!  And clever too!

And the third story appealed to the teacher and linguist in me:

From Twitter:

"Starting today, we are shifting to a two-tiered service: Everyone can use our basic service, Twttr, but you only get consonants. For five dollars a month, you can use our premium 'Twitter' service which also includes vowels." it saysin a blog post. "We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream. Here’s our mockup of the most retweeted Tweet of all time as it would appear in the new Twttr.

wttr.com
Twttr will roll out slowly to a small percentage of users, growing to 100% over the next few days. We recommend that you practice using only consonants (and “y”) with the hashtag #nvwls (or if you have paid for our premium service, use#icanhasvowels).

To make the transition easier for you, we’ve built a site that automatically transforms your Tweets into a Twttr friendly format. Try it today at twttr.com.

And just in case you're wondering what the connection of the above stories is, 

They all appeared yesterday, April 1st!

American English

Another day with a few minutes spare to try and clean out and organise my email inbox.  (Some days because of (lack of) time, all I can do is read the emails that come in.)  

While re-reading one email, I checked out a useful resource I'd been sent by the local Teachers' Centre.

http://www.americanenglish.state.gov/

I haven't had time to try out all the resources yet, but I did download the Sing Out Loud Traditional Songs mp3 file and liked what I heard (and sang along!).

I have also downloaded the pdf. document of the book:

I shall continue to check out more resources, but thought I would make a move and share this site with you asap.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Alcalá de Henares, to the

4th Cambridge English Iberian CEM Conference, Centenary Reunion, 2013

I'll be meeting up with my seminar presenter team, with centre managers, team leaders, inspectors, people from the Cambridge ESOL Madrid office and from Cambridge ESOL UK too.  I hope to come back with lots of ideas and inspiration!!

Speak to you next week!

Are you ready for 2013?

We are about to start another year - 2012 is coming to a close.

http://www.allegiance.com/blog/thank-you-for-a-great-year/5639#.UN_4w4nm6uQ

For me personally, 2012 has been a great year.

Lots of travel, meeting up with friends, work, contact with teachers in Spain and abroad.  (Face to face and online.)  Several family celebrations - it's been great to reminisce on the past and catch up on the present.

I've learnt and seen lots of new things.   I've made some new friends in various settings.

And I've written 95 posts on this blog!!  The number of people reading the blog has grown tremendously -

The end of one year and the start of another is traditionally the time to plan to do new things or to get rid of bad habits.

So what new year's resolutions am I making this year?

http://www.havebury.com/tenants/keep-in-touch/

I'd like to keep in touch with as many people as possible and with some especially, more frequently.  I hope to not have too many days when I end up realising that it's too late to phone someone I intended calling all day.

http://www.sewmakebelieve.co.uk/2012/08/27/organising-scrapbook-supplies/

I will get round to organising photos and other records of travel, memorable moments.  I've made a start on this in 2012 and have done a lot of the groundwork, so I hope to push on with this.

http://myturnstone.com/blog/getting-control-of-your-email-clutter/

I will aim (can't promise that I'll make this, judging by past experience!) to write up all the notes I have made when I've found something interesting, to file away useful articles.

http://www.which.co.uk/technology/computing/guides/computer-repair-top-tips/

I must make a full back-up of all my computer files.  I don't do this enough and dread my computer crashing and losing so many files and photos.

All that remains is for me to wish you all a great 2013 - may it bring wonderful experiences, endless laughter and inspiration.

Ready, steady, go!

It's July 27th, and the 2012 Olympic Games are almost at their starting blocks!

I for one will be glued to the television this evening to watch the opening ceremony.  I've heard lots of snippets of information about what it is going to be like, but lots of things have been kept secret.

Almost unbelievably in this era of Twitter and Facebook, the tens of thousands of people who watched rehearsals for the opening ceremony this week have largely kept the details secret, although some aspects of the show have been announced already – including the choice of Sir Paul McCartney to bring the curtain down – and photos have shown the stadium transformed into a giant mock-up of the English countryside, complete with live farm animals, cricket players and actors in Victorian dress, with the curve of the Thames sweeping through the arena. Daniel Craig's James Bond is also said to feature.

One of the only things that seems certain, is that at some point, we will see a representation of a typical British rural landscape.

Yesterday, the BBC released a 30 second clip from a dress rehearsal for the ceremony, but unfortunately, because I'm in Spain, the BBC website won't let me watch it!

One of the things that also remains a mystery is who will light the flame in the Olympic Stadium tonight - lots of suggestions have been made.
 (See the previous entry today for an article about this.)
  Apparently, it will not be David Beckham, and I know it won't be me!!!


Of course, the build-up to the Olympic Games has been taking place for months.

You can watch a video showing some of the things that people have been doing around Britain to celebrate the games here.


And if you'd like to have something to remember these games, there are lots of things on offer, for example:

And today, at 8.12 a.m. UK Time, people around the country were asked to ring any bell for three minutes.

You can read about this initiative here.

Don't forget that there is a great part of the London 2012 website dedicated to the different sports.  I wrote about this back in April.

Let's hope the games are fun, successful and exciting!  Good luck to everyone involved in London 2012!!!

Face Britain

What do you think of this self-portrait?  Who do you think painted it?

If you like the singer, Adele's self-portait, unfortunately, you missed the chance to buy it for   £5,000.00!


Adele painted this picture as part of the FaceBritain project:

Children aged 4- 16 were invited to create their own special self portraits in aid of the project, entitled Face Britain, in the hope that they would be able to explore their creativity and cement their place in history as the 2012 generation. Portraits at all levels of skill, and in any medium were acceptable, including drawing, textiles, 3D, painting, graphics, and photography.

Over 200,000 of the portraits were then used to form a giant portrait of the Queen which was then projected onto Buckingham Palace.

www.telegraph.co.uk

You can watch a video of the projection here.

And what do you think of these two portraits of the Queen?  What do you think they are made of?

Find out! (and see more portraits of the Queen) here.

The Big Egg Hunt

Some of you have already started your Easter holidays.  In Cantabria, we start on Wednesday :·)

I was preparing a few suggestions for some friends who will be visiting London next weekend, when I came across the Big Egg Hunt.

Next weekend (Easter weekend), 209 giant Easter eggs will be on display in Covent Garden. Up until yesterday, they were 'hidden' around London and people went round hunting them.

Want to see more of these beauties?   Visit the Fabergé Big Hunt webpage.

Unfortunately (?) my favourite - the Egg Letter Box has already been sold!!!

And for a very usable video to use in class or to ask your students to watch at home, I suggest this one from  SightseerTV:

It has an interactive transcript so that students can choose to read and listen at the same time - or you could use it to design a listening/viewing task.

Happy Easter!!!!

It's Valentine's Day!

Just thought I'd write a quick post to share a video with you all on this day, February 14th.




It's called Social Media Saves Valentine's Day.

How times have changed!!!!

And did you see the Google start up page today?  Valentine's Day definitely the theme!

 I like the fact that the message I got was no amount of gifts can beat sharing things with people you love!

(If you are reading this post after February 14th, the Google Doodle will no longer be on the Google page, but you can see it on Youtube here.)


To see Google's previous start-up pages for this day since 2000, click here:  http://www.networkworld.com/slideshow/30502

Have a great (Valentine's) day!

Another favourite

Earlier this month, I shared one of my favourite sources for teaching ideas with you:  Its-teachers.

In this current entry, I wanted to share another source of inspiration:

This is one of the first webpages I subscribed to when I started to use the computer and the internet.

So it's been around for quite a few years!!!


When preparing seminars, I often check out the articles in the resources section.

For example, a search for articles relevant to FCE, produced 65 results (some of the matches were the second, third, fourth... parts of articles so there are not really that many matches).

Among the matches, there is a good article on preparing Cambridge English: First candidates for Part 2 of the Speaking Test:

First Certificate Speaking: Part 2. Avoiding "ermmm": Adding coherence to spoken discourse using discourse markersby Jonny Frank


As well as the stock of articles, the lesson plans section is worth checking out.

And if you like to base your lessons around Days of the year, you can find a list of some of these as well as some materials on this site too.

There are other sections of the site that I am less familiar with - such as Moodle and Web hosting.  I mention them because they may be useful and relevant for you.

And, I dipped into the Warmers and Fillers section and found a useful suggestion at number 9 in the list for collocations.  I might try it out in my seminar next week in San Sebastian!

9.Collocations. Sort out which are right/wrong e.g. high person, tall building, Happy Birthday.

Happy new year!

I was reading in the newspaper about the spectacular fireworks display over London last night and thought I would share a couple of photos of them with you.

Here's hoping that your 2012 has started in such spectacular style. For the members of the Cambridge ESOL Spanish seminar team, it will be another busy year.

Every year we share ideas, experiences and knowledge with teachers all over Spain. Many teachers come back because they have already attended a seminar. Other teachers who have not been to one of our seminars join them.

Thanks to other ways of keeping in touch, such as the Teaching Resources Website, we are reaching more and more teachers (and their students).

This blog is another attempt to share ideas - watch this space in 2012!!

And please contribute your ideas, suggestions and comments!

Advent calendars

We are right in the middle of the build up to Christmas.   I am running a bit late with my Christmas cards this year.  I may well end up sending more greetings online this year.

Picture from:  blog.cardsdirect.com

I suppose it is a sign of the times.  Although I still love the act of opening a paper envelope to read the card inside (and hopefully a note or a letter too), there are also some fantastic ways of sending messages and greetings to friends and family electronically.

I have just created an advent calendar with photos to send to my friends.  This is the first time I've done this and as usual, although these things take time to master, you always learn something while you're doing it!

I did it using the site:  advientos.com.

And you can see the Cambridge ESOL Spain Advent Calendar here.  This was created using the Advientos website.

And while we are on the subject of technology and advent calendars, I came across this great wix.com advent calendar.  Each day gives you a great link to sites that you can use in or outside class with your students.  I plan to try a few out very soon - watch this space!!


Right - back to those Christmas cards ....... !