Place Spotting has got me too!

placeSpotting.com
The things you do when you're off work ill.
Here is my offering for placeSpotting. Can anyone find it?

An odd experience

I had an "odd" experience the other evening and meant to blog about it then but due to my cold I forgot because I was drowning in tissues ( a lovely image, I know).
Maybe this only happens to me but...my husband decided to read this blog (can't remember why now) and all of a sudden, I felt a bit squermy (???). I don't know why but it felt strange that someone so close to me was reading my thoughts! Odd, I know...I think I was worried that he was going to criticise my spelling or grammar (he used to be an English teacher), or maybe I thought he was going to exclaim "you can't write that!". Anyway, I don't think he'll do it again - I think he thought it was a bit boring (and is probably right).
But there we go, just an odd post, mainly because I can't think of anything else blog at the moment about...apart for Dutch project stress and we're all tired of that old chestnut :os
Oh, and did I mention my cold (sneeze)

Great Language Learning Site

Many people are probably already aware of this site but I only became aware of it recently through a post on mfl resources. This is Languages Online...but not the English one that I have been using frequently and with great effect. This one is an Australian site and it's really nice that the kids can go onto it, revise their language, learn new things and enjoy it! I had a (usually very noisey) Yr 9 class and once they got going it was almost silent! They loved all of the songs and the different activities.

Definitely a hit with me :D

The URL of this site is:

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/languagesonline/default.htm

Exchange projects finally coming together

I feel I've had a pretty good week as far as work with abroad goes so far.
After a chat in our eTwinning portal, Sylvie and I have a come a long way with plans for our French exchange. We're going to work on a project called "biographies", where our kids find out about Alain-Fournier and his book "le Grand Meaulnes" (great read if anyone hasn't read it) while in Bourges (of course!) and produce a resource (or two) about his life. When they come here, our project will be on Captain Cook..how could it not be with Whitby not far away, the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Stewart's Park, 20 mins away and of course the Endeavour Replica right here in Stockton (for some reason)! We thought that it compares the "Ländlich" (no decent English word for it) of Bourges and the seafaring tradition of this area of England.
In addition to this, we now have homes for all of our Dutch children and have the full programme in place. Now we just have to hope that our partners don't change their minds about what they want to do, or when they want to arrive! We had the parents' meeting for our kids this evening and everyone seems quite happy with arrangements. It was nice to meet the parents of these lovely kids who are so keen to support the school in this venture. Also lovely to chat with the mum of a wonderful boy in my tutor group, who is invloved in the group who have done a lot on the Je blogue, tu, blogues...let's blog project and have her comment how nice it is to be able to let her parents and other relatives in Canada see what her son's doing with his online work. Just another example of the value of all this blogging / podcasting malarky.

SLanguages 2008

I read on the Lingu@net Forum recently and again today on Adam Sutcliffe's blog So much to learn...so little time about the above event SLanguages 2008 on the 23rd/24th May. I've decided that since I want to learn so much more about Second Life I'm going to attend so have registered on the SLanguages.net site. I don't really know what to expect, as I never do when I do anything that involves Second Life, however I'm sure that I will learn a lot and end up even more enthusiastic about it than I already am.
Like many others, I am keen to be involved in some way in a Second Life project, particularly involving languages and am "in discussion" with our CLC about possibilities but, as ever there are the inevitable problems of Firewalls etc...
Maybe this conference will be able to answer many of the unanswered questions that I have about Second Life, languages and the metaverse!

Dictation!

It's that time of year again when Yr 11 have had enough of GCSEs already and they haven't even started them yet (or is that just mine). I seem to have them come in every lesson and sigh when I remind them that there are only another 2 weeks of term left, then another week and then it's the orals...I must admit that I groan too!
So, today, I took a "new" approach and showed them how things used to be! We did dictation both with my Set 4 French set and Set 1 German set and I must say it worked quite well. My French "skater boys" (as my colleague so aptley described my loud, hairy, trousers-round-the-tops-of-thighs-rather-than-waist wearning Yr 11s) actually engaged with it for about 30 seconds and my top set suffering from "last lesson of the day-itus" also did well. All I did was dictate a "model" C type answer about school that they had to write out, then they came out and wrote their version a line at a time. After that they had to translate it into English and the German class then had to make the answer and A* answer instead of C/B. I think looking backwards could be the way forward :o) They all seemed to enjoy it!
And whilst thinking about GCSEs, does anyone else find it a very long and boring process, getting the conversation question answers prepared and marked? With a top set, marking them so that the answers are A/A* level can take an age...of course, I've only heard this on the grapevine, I would never dream of getting my pupils to pre-prepare their answers, our conversations are all spontaneous and "off the cuff" in our Speaking Exams(cough) :D

Rich Hall

Graeme and I had a rare treat last night, a night out at the theatre!
We were in Stockton on Saturday morning (a depressing activity at the best of times) when we saw an advert for Rich Hall (well known from QI, among other things here in the UK), a comedian who we both like. So Graeme phoned the box office at the theatre and managed to get tickets and even got his parents to babysit (but not during the call to the box office!)
I was a little nervous...had never been to see a comedian before...but fortunately we were sat far enough away to be anonymous and not to be engaged in any conversations with the performer! However, it was great. I didn't expect to laugh out loud, but I was very impressed at his ability to make a joke from anything that he picked up about members of the audience. In the second half he came out as the character Otis Lee Crenshaw, a country music singer, and managed to create songs that wove all of the information about the audience members he had spoken to in the first half into them! Particular favourites included a song about the "crap towns" he had visited on his tour (many of which were in Wales!) but it all made us laugh.
What a pleasant, funny evening, just a shame we had to return home and go to work this morning, as we felt it would have been nice to have gone out in Middlesbrough and returned home in the early hours of the morning. Oh well, we can do that when we go to Redworth Hall on Saturday for our neighbours' wedding :o)