Infonews n°338 from 07/09/2008
Hurricanes
Bearskin hats
Deauville Film Festival
Calendar of events for September
European Mobility Week : September 16th to 22nd
How it works
Special reports
Activities
Audio Comprehension
Written comprehension
Discover Sarah Palin
Learning the alphabet and words
US Geography and States
Recipes
How to describe a picture
How to choose a scooter
Cycling in Kansas City
Audio-Lingua
Free Resources for Tech Integration
To write phonetics
To learn phonetics
Progression
Evaluations
Discover Google's new search engine designed
especially for schools. It works like Google,
with the choice to search the web, or look not
only for images or videos, but also for sounds,
maps, stories or lesson plans. You can use it in
class with better and safer results than the
global Google, because it researches only
educational websites like Fact Monster, Enchanted
Learning, National Geographic, Encarta, Teacher
Tube, School Tube, how stuff works, etc.
It is only starting, so I didn't find many
resources in the "sound" and "teacher's
resources" sections, and the links in the story
section where mainly to books that you have to
buy. But I think it can be useful to keep this
site in mind and see how it develops.
http://www.kigose.com
To test it, I tried using the word "bike" (a
topic which can be useful for Mobility Week, see
below.) and I got the following interesting results :
- Parts of a bike
http://www.infovisual.info/05/033_en.html
- a video by a child explaining how to ride a bike
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c6425a7a810921be3eac&page=1&viewtype=&category=
- How bicycles work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/bicycle.htm#
with a video of the Cannondale Bicycles assembly
line on page 1 (level B1, for technicians) and a
video about the electric bike on page 2.
- The Wikipedia's page about motorized bicycles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorized_bicycle
- an invention : the rocket bike, with a picture
and how it works (from Popular Sciences magazine)
http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2005-12/real-rocket-bike
- a very technical worksheet with calculation,
for students studying technology in English or as
part of a TPE engineering sciences/English.
http://www-tc.pbs.org/teachers/mathline/concepts/designandmath/Act1Student.pdf
Hurricanes
Gustav is gone, Hanna is almost finished, Ike is
approaching Florida. get all the information on
these sites recommended by the Librarian's
Internet Index newsletter from September 4th:
http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/1601
http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/emergency/naturaldisasters/hurricanes/hanna/index.html
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/hurricanes/
and the best site I found about hurricanes is
"how stuff works" with five pages of information,
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hurricane.htm#
including an excellent pedagogical video
explanation of the phenomenon presented by
Marshall Brain, the founder and owner of How Stuff Works (level A2)
and you will find lots of resources and
activities for all level on Michelle Henry's page
about natural disasters and especially hurricanes
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/geocata.htm#hur
Bearskin hats
PETA protested against bear being slaughtered to
provide the hats of the Queen's guards outside
Buckingham Palace. here is an article from
September 2nd saying that the Ministry of Defense
is "actively looking for alternatives", and an
older article showing a naked demonstration that
took place in May 2006, with a picture that can
be used to invite students to discover the topic... ;)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7590705.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/5002082.stm
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41669000/jpg/_41669390_bearskin_protest203.jpg
Deauville Film Festival
Here is the program:
http://festival-deauville.congres-deauville.com/GB/accueil_GB.html
Calendar of events for September
Michelle Henry has prepared a detailed calendar of the event in September:
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/default.htm
with US Patriot Day (11/09), Roald Dahl Day
(13/09), International Day of Peace (21/09),
World Car Free Day (22/09) and the European Day for Languages (26/09).
European Mobility Week : September 16th to 22nd
The official site contains information about the
topics such as: air pollution, overconsumption, quality of life, etc.
http://www.mobilityweek.eu/-Citizen-
and in the download section, you can see a flash
video about Frankfurt mobility week (level A2)
and download posters and leaflets.
http://www.mobilityweek.eu/squelettes/swf/frankfurt.swf
I also liked the documents (and a game!) that I
found on the European Commission's Climate Action
site, with lots of documents and a video (too much Italian for me...)
http://ec.europa.eu/climateaction/index_en.htm
and a color brochure to download with lots of
charts and figures and information about all the
renewable energies, including biofuel and
biomass, solar and goethermal energies, etc.
Better than a text book and up to date! ;)
http://ec.europa.eu/climateaction/index_en.htm
How it works
Here are some sites explaining the system.
- Laure Peskine recommends an animation called
"Electing a US President in Plain English" (level B1)
http://www.commoncraft.com/store-item/election
- a written version on Ben's Guide
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/election/primary.html
- a shorter one
http://www.xomba.com/how_does_the_presidential_election_work
- an original written version with pictures on
the BBc website, comparing the elections with base ball
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/americas/04/us_election/election_process/html/default.stm
- Brain Pop also offers useful Flash animations,
but it doesn't always work and you may have to
pay to access some videos or the subtitles.
http://www.brainpop.com/search/index.weml?keyword=election
Special reports
Michelle Henry's page is packed with useful sites
and ideas for the US elections:
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/civiuselections.htm
You can also compare with the 2004 elections (Bush/Kerry) with these sites:
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/uselections.html
Most newspaper offer full coverage and special reports for the elections.
For me the best and easiest for students is the
different sections in the Election 2008 page of Time For Kids
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/election08/
from the US bureau of International Information
http://uspolitics.america.gov/uspolitics/elections/index.html?gclid=CNbF2fLByZUCFQS-ugodHQ8JjQ
from CNN
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/
from the New York Times (with a good guide on the issues)
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/index.html
from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm
Activities
*** Election 2008 webquest, from the académie de Paris
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/uselectionsTH.php
*** Electing a President from Pocantico Hills
School, with a very short and visual
presentation, a quiz and easy activities. (level A2)
http://www.pocanticohills.org/election/election.htm
*** Based on the Time For Kids pages, I designed
a worksheet for my students to work from, level
A2. There is a questionnaire and two texts. The
students work in pairs, both have an empty
information sheet with lines to fill in (some
items are missing, they have to decide what they
are, either in pairs or as a class), then one has
Obama's profile, and the other Mc Cain's. They
have to ask each other questions in order to find
out the information about the other candidate and
complete the questionnaire. I already did this
worksheet about the 2004 US Presidential Election
and the students loved it. If you want this worksheet, just ask me!
Audio Comprehension
BBC learning English offers a short text level
A2, about Obama's speech of acceptation (plus the
audio file and a teacher's guide to download).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2008/08/080829_obama.shtml
the full text and the video are there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7587321.stm
You can also find other speeches on You Tube, and
the transcripts either in the special reports or
on the website of the candidates:
http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
http://www.johnmccain.com/
Written comprehension
Bac paper about Obama's book
On e-teach, Sandrine Babayan recommends bac from
March 2007 in Nouvelle Calédonie based on an
extract from "dream from my father". You can
download the text, the questions and the
corrections from the e-teach shared document page.
http://teachers.domainepublic.net/shared/Preparations%20de%20cours/Lycee/
Discover Sarah Palin
In the last edition of Time magazine, you can
find an article about Sarah Palin and photos.
Since she is a new character in the run and a
woman, it might be interesting to introduce her
to start a teaching unit about the elections.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1838553,00.html
And you'll find lots of reports, videos and
information on this page from the Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/
See also this video of an interview by Charlie
Rose (PBS), where she answers precise questions
and says things like : "the best advice my father
gave me was : "Never try to please everybody"
"and "my main concern is to keep American safe". (level B2)
http://www.charlierose.com/guests/sarah-palin
Learning the alphabet and words
Alphabet poem (each letter with about 5 easy
words starting with the letter, no illustrations)
http://www.sunniebunniezz.com/educational/abctextpoem.htm
interactive page with the sound of the letter and a picture of an example
http://www.learningplanet.com/act/fl/aact/index.asp
Sing Along Songs : a song for each letter, with
the text and illustration for the words used as examples
http://www.mrsjonesroom.com/songs/alphlist.html#alph
Those three sites come from Mrs.Alphabet website
recommended by Pascale Aucoin on e-teach. You can
find many other useful links on this page:
http://mrsalphabet.com/links.html
US Geography and States
On e-teach, Laure Peskine informs us that she
wants to share with you the first teaching unit
about the geography of the USA that she designed
for her European class (level A1+). It is on Open
English Web (click on "géographie"), where you
can find also lots of other resources, and you can also share yours!
http://www.openenglishweb.org/
Pascale Aucoin recommends this site listing the
states, their capital, their bird, flower and the
date it became a state. When you click on the
name of each state you can see a map of the
state. This document level A1 is also available in .pdf, ready to print.
http://www.abcteach.com/States/StateTOC.htm
It was made from the famous "50 states" site, which is much more comprehensive:
http://50states.com/
And you can use these pages and quizzes with
students level A1 or A2 to help them locate and learn each of the 50 states.
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/50states.htm
Recipes
Students always enjoy studying a recipe or even
doing it at at school. Here is the video recipe
of the apple crumble, for an audio comprehension
level A2 recommended by Stéphane Busuttil. the
ingredients and utensils are written on the
video, and when you click on "text version" you
get the script. There are also information in the
video that are not in the script, which allow
students level B1 in the same group to work on
what is not in the script, or spot the differences.
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-apple-crumble
This video is one of the many addresses
recommended by Michelle Henry on her very
comprehensive site, which includes other videos,
picture recipes, worksheets and a precious table to convert cups into grams.
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/food1b.htm#recipes
How to describe a picture
You will find a page about that in most of the
text-books, but here are also lots of links on Michelle Henry's site
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/des3.htm#thing
and some hot-pot exercises level A2 from our colleague Yvan Baptiste
http://www.franglish.fr/icono/index.htm
How to choose a scooter
A page from NPR with pictures and lots of advice.
A page to encourage students level B1 to read globally and extract information.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93434949
This page was recommended by the Librarian's Internet Index from September 4th
http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/26783
Cycling in Kansas City
Our colleague Jean Antelme, from Nancy-Metz wrote
to recommend this resource level B1 from the BBC
called : "Cycling in Kansas City". Here is his
comment : " Faced with increasing fuel costs
America's cities are being challenged by the
growing numbers of citizens taking to the roads
on bikes. You can podcast the 26 minutes of this
week's ONE PLANET from the BBC World Service.
Quite amusing and interesting I think. It's a
quick download, the MP3 file is only 12 megabytes."
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/oneplanet/oneplanet_20080903-2230a.mp3
[ It is too long for a use in class, but can be
downloaded by the students to listen to it at
home (balladodiffusion) or edited by the teacher
to study extracts in class. Discover also "One
Planet" a site from the BBC which "covers
environmental, development and agriculture
stories, dealing with the impact of humankind on
the natural world.", level B1 and above.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/oneplanet/
Audio-Lingua
On e-teach in June, Hélène Cayuela recommended
this bank of authentic audio recordings produced
by the académie de Versailles. You can find there
short interviews of natives ordered by level (A1
to B2), gender, age and the lenght of the
recording : from 30 to 120 seconds. There is no
script, and the content is not as dense as what
you can find in a school book, but it is English
in casual conversation, with gap fillers,
unfinished sentences and parts that are difficult
to understand precisely, exactly as in real life.
The documents are in .mp3 and are very easy to
download : just click on the button with the arrow and there you are.
http://www.audio-lingua.eu/spip.php?article57&lang=en
Free Resources for Tech Integration
In the last Techlearning newsletter, I found an
interesting article from Educators' eZine called
: "Free Resources for Tech Integration" By Terry
Freedman; There are no link in the article, but
in recommends some resources worth trying, like Kigose and TeacherTube.
http://techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196605392
To write phonetics
Many teachers want to insert phonetic signs
inside their documents or pages. here are some
advice from our colleagues on e-teach:
- Alain Krizic recommends Script Typewriter 1.3
which allows you to use it with any word
processor, especially Open office, without
downloading anything. here is what you can read
on the site : "You can use this tool to type
phonemic symbols to be inserted in a word processor."
http://www.e-lang.co.uk/mackichan/call/pron/type.html
- Thomas Werth recommends Phonetik, a program for
Mac and Windows, to add phonetics to your Word
files. You can download it here :
http://pointecole.free.fr/phonetik.html
And he reminds you that you also have to download
the phonetics font from the same page, and put
them in the WINDOWS/FONT directory.
To learn phonetics
This site presents the different sounds ordered
by type. For each sound you can hear the sound
and words, see an animation showing how it is
produced and watch a video showing how the mouth
of a speaker moves when he says it. I would
recommended this site to adults and students
level B1+ for an intensive use, but teachers can
use it as a reference or to show how to produce a
particular sound to the class. Note that it
presents American English. This site was
recommended by Laure Peskine on the [EntreProfsdeLangues] list.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
Progression
If you are looking for an example of annual
progression for lower secondary school, have a
look at this very comprehensive site recommended
by Christian Robert on e-teach.
http://membres.lycos.fr/englishforkids/pages/acces/progression.html
Evaluations
level A1 (en 6ème)
Several "académies" provide a full evaluation
downloadable online. Here are some examples, but
remember to check first with your local English website.
From académie de Limoges recommended by Florinda Fernandes
http://www.ac-limoges.fr/anglais/spip.php?article150
From académie de Poitiers recommended by Francis Mayet
http://ww2.ac-poitiers.fr/anglais/spip.php?rubrique28
Level A2 (en seconde)
les anciens cahiers d'évaluation mis en ligne par
Yvan Baptiste, avec les fichiers sons à télécharger.
http://pedagogie.ac-montpellier.fr/disciplines/anglais/ressources/evaseconde/
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