Infonews n°254 du 02/10/2005
Annular Solar Eclipse ( Monday, October 3rd)
Audio file from the BBC
Play the game Online
Read the Quotes
Other Resources
Football In the News from the BBC
Working abroad from the BBC
English Language Listening lab Online
VOA special English
English as a Second Language Podcast
Calendars (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Tuesday, September 27th)
Make a Teaching Clock
Picture Recipes
Memorize Names and Numbers
Calvin and Hobbes
Driving and Road Safety
List of irregular verbs (from Martine Martin on eTeach)
Different Roads from the MoMA
Interview of Shazia Sikander from the MoMA
Recent wine trade agreement between European Union and United States criticized
Epicurious ([LII New This Week] September 29)
Tiramisu: Heaven in Your Mouth ([LII New This Week] September 29)
L'informatique pour les Nuls selon Rennes
Section Européennes
Thot in English
Annular Solar Eclipse ( Monday, October 3rd)
- for the youngest : exercise : label a solar eclipse.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/activities/label/solareclipse/
- for the more advanced, graphs, photos and explanations
http://www.shadowandsubstance.com/
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/ASE2005/ASE2005.html
- webcams and photos : (it'll be full in Madrid between 10:55 11:00 am )
http://eclipse.span.ch/Madrid/SolarEclipseMadridOctober3.htm
http://www.live-eclipse.org/en/eclipse.html.en
-in Ireland (partial, same in Paris)
http://www.eaas.co.uk/webcast.html
http://www.astronomy.ie/eclipse.html (astronomy
and space magazine)
Audio file from the BBC
if you feel like discussing this TV game with your students (why do you hate
it? why is it stupid? what do you think of people who watch it? what do you
think of the host?), the BBC offers an audio file:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1446_entertainment/index.shtml
there is no script, but some of the words are explained in English as they
come into the program, and some examples of how to use the word are added.
Some may find these interruptions and comments difficult to deal with, some
others may like it...
the file is 5 minutes long, so you have to choose the part you want to study.
Can be enjoyed but upper intermediate students with medium capacities in audio
comprehension.
Play the game Online
You can also introduce the students to the game by actually playing it online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weakestlink/game/game.shtml
Read the Quotes
advanced students can enjoy caustic humor in the quotes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weakestlink/quotes.shtml?1
I loved : "The wheel is turning but the hamster's dead." and "Whose
donut has run out of hole? " !!!!
Other Resources
Intermediate students will enjoy this step by step guide to the rules of
the game, with pictures:
http://www.gameshow-galaxy.net/link.htm
or this one, with another host:
http://www.gameshow-galaxy.net/link2.htm
and to know everything about the show, Wikipedia and imdb (the excellent "Internet
Movie DataBase")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weakest_Link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268862/
Funnily enough, you can also read an interesting analysis of the players strategies
in New Scientist Magazine "Strongest strategy for The Weakest Link revealed"
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1800
you can also try those simple questions made up by someone on the net:
http://www.naute.com/puzzles/puzzle20.php
Football In the News from the BBC
Red card for Brazilian referee
http://www.bbclearningenglish.com/newsenglish/witn/2005/09/050926_brazil_referee.shtml
The text is about a referee favouring a team or another to please an illegal
betting ring. You can listen to the text and read it, hear the vocabulary and
read the explanations in English, and read another article on the same topic.
From good intermediate level upwards, interested in football.
You can go further with this theme by studying those articles about violence
in football, http://perso.numericable.fr/~dreymondch46/infonews/themes/violenceinfootball.htm
and then invite your students to report some incidents of the same type that
happened lately.
Working abroad from the BBC
the BBC offers several recordings of people discussing how to move to a new
country and work abroad. The documents are interesting to use for their content,
as well as to improve understanding oral English skills. Excellent for all
those who plan to work abroad sometimes in their life, especially the students
learning business, tourism, services and office work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/wab/site.shtml
see also the other parts dedicated to working abroad and learning business
English : 10 days in Manchester, Handy guides and also the tips in the work
skills.
English Language Listening lab Online
Laurence Bernard recommended this site on e-Teach. English Language Listening
lab Online is really full of varied and easy to use resources. There are:
- songs with their lyrics (folk, jazz, r&b and love songs)
http://www.elllo.org/months/weeks/music.htm
- super "games" where the students have to understand what they hear
and interact, and then they can also access the script and listen to the recordings
again. I loved the one with the phone call, but the sandwich is also good,
and so is the description!
http://www.elllo.org/months/weeks/ga
.
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 21:47:40 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
http: //www.elllo.org/months/weeks/mark_alabama2.htm
http: //www.elllo.org/months/theme.htm
I liked the recordings about hurricanes: http: //www.elllo.org/oct/ivan/storm.htm
http: //www.elllo.org/june/alex/ahuri.htm
http: //www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
http: //www.elllo.org/months/weeks/newsguy.htm
Content-Type: text/plain
X-AVK-Virus-Check: AVK 16.772;30F96
VOA special English
Laurence Bernard also recommends Voice Of America : a site of recordings
and scripts to learn English. The texts are said slowly enough for foreigners
to understand, but it can sometimes sound almost natural....especially in the
stories (good resource for adults who want to listen to English)
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/index.cfm
Discover the story of the Princess of Mars
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/princess_of_mars.cfm
English as a Second Language Podcast
On the site you read : "With ESLPod.com's English as a Second Language
Podcast, you will improve your English by listening to native speakers talk
and discuss topics of interest to you. You'll learn new idioms and expressions
and learn to use them the way native speakers do. No more "textbook English"!
The podcasts are all recorded at a speed you can understandclearly and comprehensibly.
This way, you'll be able to actually understand the English you hear, and pick
up the meanings of new words and phrases."
http://www.eslpod.com/index.html
From the homepage, go to : "previous podcast"
and download the mp3 files. You can listen to the recording and read the script.
My opinion : the texts are completely artificial, and said so slowly that no
sentence intonation is audible. But they are easy to understand for adults
who want to get back to English : it will make them feel comfortable, but then
they will complain that they can't understand the news on TV or a conversation
with a normal English speaker!
Calendars (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Tuesday, September 27th)
If you are counting the days until the one hundredth day of school, learning
days of the month, graphing the weather, or learning the day of the week, there
are several suggestions here to help create great calendar walls for elementary
learning concepts.
http://www.jmeacham.com/calendar.htm#whole
Make a Teaching Clock
In n°253, you had time work sheets. To complement this, here is a template
to make a teaching clock, with all the steps to do it. Teachers can also use
this template to invite the students to understand the directions and make
their own clock.
The teacher will just have to provide the brass fasteners (attaches parisiennes)
to fix the hands of the clock.
http://math.donnayoung.org/m01/clocks/clockset.pdf
Picture Recipes
These recipes can be used with primary school children, and will also be
excellent in all classes learning how to cook, including special need classes
(SEGPA). The children can see the pictures, associate the pictures and the
short texts, or even only words, and act as they speak.
http://www.bry-backmanor.org/picturerecipes.html
Memorize Names and Numbers
These activities are used with American pre-schoolers, but can easily be
transferred to primary school ESL classes, to invite the students to remember/recognize/memorize
words:
Clapping rhymes, name Bingo games, lunch bag houses, and pizza delivery addresses...
These are just a few of the very creative suggestions for helping to teach
your preschoolers name recognition and address memory.
http://www.hummingbirded.com/name_phone_address_time.html
Calvin and Hobbes
It's rather difficult to find those cartoons for free on the internet, but
Elisabeth Buffard recommanded some site on e-teach. You can also go to each
book on Amazon, to access some extracts.
http://www.reemst.com/calvin_and_hobbes/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0836218663/ref=sib_rdr_ex/002-7509255-2520015?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S006&j=0#reader-page
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0836218787/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-7509255-2520015#reader-link
etc.
You can also show your students those animations and ask them to comment
http://www.simplych.com/eatme.gif
http://www.simplych.com/foodart.gif
or use those other extracts:
http://www.simplych.com/comics.htm
Discover Calvin Ball
http://www.simplych.com/cb_rules.htm
to discover who Bill Waterson is (you can even write to him!) and read a few
articles
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/calvin.htm
and a page of links to explore:
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/calvin.htm
Driving and Road Safety
you will find on this site for home schoolers a lot of interesting links
concerning road safety and learning to drive. For intermediate students.
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/directory/DriversEd.htm
List of irregular verbs (from Martine Martin on eTeach)
Here is a list of irregular verbs ordered according to the transformation
they undergo : no change, one change, all different, etc...
A different way to learn the verbs, can be more confusing because they may
mix them up, but can also be more motivating than alphabetical order.
http://www.churchillhouse.com/english/verbsheet.pdf
Different Roads from the MoMA
For advanced, or very motivated intermediates students interested in sustainable
development (TPE). A site to read about alternative energy and how some new
cars work. This online exhibition is dated from 1999, so the information need
to be updated, but all the basic info are there.
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1999/differentroads/index.html
Interview of Shazia Sikander from the MoMA
students interested in art, how the artist's personal history influences
even a modern artist and how an Asian young woman can make herself recognized
as an artist in the USA will feel interested in these interviews (with full
transcripts) of the artist by young Americans. The site is organised so that
the interview is divided into several topics, and for each you can hear the
question and the answer, read the transcript, and also find links to the pictures
related to the topic. A well organized set of pages, very interesting to use
in class with students of a good level.
http://redstudio.moma.org/interviews/shahzia/shahzia.html
Recent wine trade agreement between European Union and United States criticized
Advanced students studying economics or cookery and wine art will be interested
in this special report from the Scout Report dated Sept 30th, with a text describing
how American wines might be imported to France, even if they are not made according
to the French regulation for wine-making,and sites to read more about this
topic.
http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/ScoutReport/Current/inthenews.php?PHPSESSID=9c6a1e65d167337dd4263bfc8104dc06
Epicurious ([LII New This Week] September 29)
Contains thousands of recipes, cooking tips, holiday features, cocktails,
wine advice, travel suggestions, and more. Many recipes feature helpful (and
mouth-watering) photographs. Though the site is somewhat commercialized, the
quality of the recipes--several notches above the average Web collection--makes
Epicurious a first stop for many cooks. Searchable and browsable.
http://www.epicurious.com ( invading
advertisement, but worth it)
*** see the "how to" steaming videos : you'll learn how to roll napkins
or make a mayonnaise. (no script, but the images are there to help students
understand)
http://www.epicurious.com/cooking/how_to/video/
[ for anyone interested in cooking!]
Tiramisu: Heaven in Your Mouth ([LII New This Week] September 29)
A mature, comprehensive site offering exhaustive information about this Italian
dessert. Recipes include classic versions as well as dozens of variations on
a theme, including low-fat, eggless, and other embellishments. Readers may
submit recipes, rate versions of tiramisu from their local restaurants, and
contribute thoughts to a guest book. Maintained by a knowledgeable hobbyist;
many recipes personally verified by LII leadership.
http://www.heavenlytiramisu.com/
L'informatique pour les Nuls selon Rennes
Vous trouverez sur le site de l'académie de Rennes une page qui vous explique
le B.A.ba du maniement de votre ordinateur pour récupérer et manipuler une
image, un son, une vidéo. Ce site sympa part du début, le plus facile, et vous
conduit vers ce que vous voulez faire, avec force copies d'écran afin que tout
soit bien clair. Vous y trouverez aussi un tableau pour télécharger tous els
logiviels dont vous pouvez avoir besoin.Un outil bien utile!
http://www.ac-rennes.fr/pedagogie/anglais/nuls/bnuls.htm
Section Européennes
Le site de l'académie de Paris nous informe de la mise à jour des pages : "Sections
européennes"
Programme 2006 :
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/programse.php
Dispositif pédagogique :
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/dispopedago.php
Sections européennes dans l'Académie de Paris :
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/acaparis.php
Voyez aussi les sites du ministère, d'Eduscol et des académies de Versailles,
Caen et la Martinique
http://www.education.gouv.fr/syst/igen/rapports/secteuro.htm
http://www.education.gouv.fr/int/fiches/seceuro.htm
http://eduscol.education.fr/index.php?./D0121/accueil.htm
http://www.ac-versailles.fr/sections-europeennes/
http://www.ac-caen.fr/daric/sectioneurop/sectioneurop.htm
http://www-peda.ac-martinique.fr/anglais/2_sect_europ.shtml
Thot in English
Find lots of resources selected by the Canadian newsletter Thot, now also
in English. Some resources are not free, and some others require to pay to
access them, but among the remaining adresses, there are still a few useful
and interesting. Have a look:
http://thot.cursus.edu/
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