The Economist offers short quality videos on a number of interesting topics such as economy, migrations, environmental issues, medicine, history… Very useful for classroom work.

Go to http://audiovideo.economist.com/ and follow the link to “videographics” in the left-hand menu.

We are pleased to invite you to our LSP conference ‘Challenges in Languages for Specific Purposes’. It will be held on February 5 and 6 2010 at the Faculty of Administration, Ljubljana. The language of the conference is going to be Slovene. For more information, visit the conference page.

When you visit your PBwiki account next time, you’ll notice it has got a new name: it has become PBworks. But don’t worry if you have a free account: your pbwikis are safe. You can learn more about the change here or here.

Started a graffiti project called Listen to the Walls Talking. Anyone interested is warmly invited to join in. The project site, wiki and Flickr group have recently come alive and graffiti started trickling in. Check it out here or here. Feel free to request access to the wiki to add your name, page, suggestions, whatever…

We’ve mentioned  TED Talks before, teachers enjoy using them in class,  the site is a goldmine of inspiration.  I now want to bring to your attention a lovely wiki by Jackie Gerstein titled Teaching with TED, which  pulls together ideas and resources for – teaching with TED. Truly wonderful.  Worth checking out. Heard about it via Larry Felazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Doris posted this at Integrating Technology Ning. I enjoyed it a lot so I thought why not posting it to this place too – I think you’ll like it.

Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It’s for your own good..
And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

Today the SDUTSJ members gathered for the General Assembly where we concluded that 2008 was a very productive year and that we have many new plans and fresh ideas for 2009. The members provided rich snacks and Nada’s SDUTSJ cake was simply delicious.

When we don’t understand something a person says, the English the phrase “It’s all Greek to me” is used. Or even double Dutch. Other cultures may use a different language name in the same phrase. Check this graph by Liberman from the Language Log that sums up this phenomenon. In Slovene “To mi je španska vas” is used – just like in Croatian, Macedonian, German and Chech. Would you add any other language to the graph?

New Year is coming and with it traditional TESOL EVO sessions. These bring together educators from all over the globe, experts and newbies, and are a wonderful opportunity to learn about ICT in a fun way. Check out the announcement below – there’s plenty to choose from for anyone. Hope to see you there.

The CALL Interest Section of the international TESOL professional association is pleased to offer the opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village Online (EVO) 2009 sessions. This is a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2009 Convention in Denver, CO . The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL 2009 participants and those who can participate only virtually.

You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in a free, six-week, wholly online session of the EVO, Jan 12 -Feb 22, 2009. Please visit our Announcement Web page to select one among the various offerings.
http://evosessions.pbwiki.com/Call_for_Participation09

Yours in TESOL,

Dafne Gonzalez
On behalf of
The EVO coordination team