Traduce Aqui:

Friday, February 22, 2013

To This Day Project - Shane Koyczan

A friend posted this on his facebook wall.  I think it's a good one to share.  When people think of bullying, they think of physical violence, and as the poem says, everyone likes to fall back on the addage "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"...  If only that were true.  Unfortunately, the reality is that  broken bones are easier to mend than self-esteem; and physical violence is usually easier to detect than verrbal abuse.  Teachers and parents should never underestimate the power of words and the importance of being on the look-out against  this more insidious form of abuse among children.

Have a look:

Monday, February 11, 2013

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window - Patti Page

I posted this on the webpage for my adult class.  We're learning shopping vocabulary. :)  I don't think I've ever heard the whole song before--cute.

Laying Down the Law

My kids' class from 7-8 on Tuesdays is a group that tends to be chattery, easily distracted and unfortunately there are a few students who just won't leave each alone: always stealing pencils, pushing, pinching, and name-calling.  Since we began in October, they've improved a lot, but there is one child in particular who likes to stir things up and is very good at getting everyone riled up and off-track.  Finally, last class, I decided we needed to get serious and lay down some rules.  

I've never had a list of class rules, though I know it is a good idea.  I suppose mostly that's due to the fact that my classes are small enough that things never get too far out of hand.  In any case, I decided that this class needed some explicit rules and some explicit consequences.  We spent the better part of the class period brainstorming rules and punishments.  This poster is what we came up with.  I didn't make up any of these rules; ALL of them were the students' suggestions.  I was particularly impressed with "Speak Enlish as much as possible!". :)  The idea of using yellow and red cards like in soccer was also their idea--apparently the PE teacher at school uses this method.

We'll see how things go tomorrow.  I am hopeful.  At least in theory, when the kids make up the rules themselves there's more buy-in--they're more likely to follow them and feel that the punishment for breaking them is fair.  

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Purple Pride!!


So this year I decided to put studying aside for a bit and enjoy the carnaval festivities in town.  All of the local pubs (except one) have joined together with the city to put on the celebrations.  Friday-Sunday they're doing different events and serving drinks from the city's market square.  Tonight's the night every one dresses up...  At the last minute I decided to go, but what to wear?  For lack of a better costume, I thought letting my true colors show was the best idea.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

GO TIGERS!!  It was painful to put on a Trojan red baseball hat...but I do think the hat helped the overall cause.

Painting myself a backwards #1 in the mirror was a trick!

Unfortunately, no one saw my CC jersey because it was too cold to take off my jacket!

I even found a tiger to pose with at the party! :)

Happy Carnaval!

The Greatest Speech Ever Made - Charlie Chaplin

Another gem found browsing through videos for English class.  Charlie Chaplin is most famous for his silent films, but here's a speech that will bring tears to your eyes.  The Great Dictator was a film made just before WWII, Chaplin plays a parody of Hitler.  Unfortunately some things seem to never change, and his words are as relevant today as they were then.

Listen:



Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Rubber Fingers?

So apparently I have hands of rubber.  Unfortunately, coming to this conclusion took shutting my finger in the car door!  And I don't mean just slamming my finger.  I mean, I shut the door and half of my right index finger stayed inside!  Somehow the warning signal to my brain (ie PAIN) was slower than my intention to leave the car.  I was jerked back toward the car as I tried to walk away...just as if my shirt had been caught in the door and a mili-second later I felt the pain.

The lucky thing is that I didn't break my finger.  I didn't even break skin.  We immediately iced it and then  put some anti-inflamatory cream on it.  The cream supposedly stops bruising, too.  I've always been sceptical...but right now, if you looked at my right hand you would never know I had my finger smashed in a door--it's not even swollen anymore...and it hardly swelled in the first place.

I had a nice indentation in my finger for about a half hour or more...but it's gone now.

I have rubber fingers!

Sunday, February 3, 2013

A House of Straw

The Three Little Pigs was written by someone with investments in the construction business, I am sure.  The first two little pigs--non-conformists--are rewarded by their out-of-the-box thinking by becoming lunch and dinner for the Big Bad Wolf!  On the other hand, the prudent third pig builds a brick fortress that no manner of huffing or puffing can blow down.  The message is clear: brick or bust.

Some of you know we had plans (dreams) of building our own house here.  We bought the land and paid to have the plans drawn up, but what the fairy tale fails to mention is that the third little pig was apparently loaded; building with brick is not an endeavor for those of us with limited economic means.  In my case, the reality is we don't have the money to do the building.

In the past few weeks we've been throwing around all kinds of options: staying where we are, after all; buying a flat in town; putting a mobile home on the parcel...  Among the many options we're considering, it occurred to us that we could build the house ourselves and save some money.  The other day on television we saw that in many places around Spain people are building their own homes with mud and straw--adobe.  I got in touch with a man we met this summer who has built several houses using different alternative techniques in hopes that he could help us build ours or at least give me a lead on someone in the business who could.

I got a response nearly immediately, but unfortunately he tells me that building with mud and straw isn't kosher according to the School of Architects.  That is to say, that unless we were building out in the middle of nowhere where nobody cares what kind of house you build and who oversees it, we can't build our house of straw.  To get a building permit to build in town, you need to have the house plans approved by the School of Architects.  So there you have it: no huffing or puffing required to demolish our dream.

...And so it's back to square one.  We'll see where all this leads.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Trombone Alpine Skiing

I saw this on a friend's Facebook wall... had to share.  The best part is the guy's from South Shore Tahoe; maybe I went to honor band with him back in the day!  His blue trombone is pretty cool, too.

...Who am I kidding, I pretty much like everything about this video! :)

Feeling Better

I've just about kicked my cold... though I do have a residual cough.  Somehow colds always tend to settle in my chest and I spend the better part of winter with a lingering cough.  But at least I'm feeling better and I'm not sneezing quite so much.  I have had to cancel  anymore classes either.

And speaking of classes, a little more about my adult class.  It's going well, although yesterday one of the students with more language experience commented, "don't you think we're going a little fast?"  Yes, and no. I have opted for jumping right in with a lot of vocabulary to get things going and so yes, it seems as though we're going far too quickly for any of this to really sink in.  However, my plan is to get a limited base of phrases that can be used in different situations and practice them throughout the three months of the course.  We've only had four classes so far so I think it's understandable that at the moment things seem like too much too fast.  I am planning to be "recycling" all the vocab we've studied so far, but getting to that point, means a lot of vocabulary thrown out there at once.

Perhaps I've made the wrong decision with the way I've organized the class, but my understanding of the course was to give the students a semi-solid base that they can use to be able to function with a minimum level of English in a variety of situations.  This is all new to me.  We'll have to see how things pan out.  I may end up needing to slow things down some, but I'm hoping that my students take advantage of the resources I've made available online to practice from home, too.

Other news...  I have little time for anything other than teaching, prepping and studying, but this weekend I am planning a movie night with A.  Saturday is the fiesta called Candelaria.  In the past our friends have all gotten together and had the traditional bonfire/bbq on the land where we have now built the bar.  This year, that's not possible... :)  And this year I'm feeling like a home-body, not much up for going out into the cold and stuffing myself on chorizo (although it is tasty!).  Since there's never much business the night of Candelaria, Angelines is expecting to close pretty early--around 10ish or maybe sooner.  We're going to have pizza delivered to the house, snuggle up on the couch with a fire blazing and watch movies. :)  Hooray!

Of course, this means that I'll need to be super-productive tonight so as not to get behind with things, but I think I can manage; after all, movie night is pretty good motivation. :)