The wedding of 2014 sees George Clooney wed Amal Alammudin in the most romantic of locations - Venice. I fell in love with Venice years ago and for me it is my favourite place in the entire world, second to Barcelona!
Why the interest in George Clooney? Well, he has a connection with Abruzzo!! I went all the way to the fairy tale village of Castel del Monte a few years back, in the hope of meeting him in person!
Image of the village taken by K and then made into a tryptich for one of our walls below;
Sadly the planned meeting was not meant to be, but you can read all about him in these blog posts below:
It was my great pleasure yesterday to present at the first TESOL seminar of this new school year for Tesol Italy in L'Aquila, Abruzzo. This meeting was organised by Annamaria, the co-ordinator of the Tesol L'Aquila group, and it was lovely to meet her in person. She welcomed me and K (who was my personal chauffeur for the day) very warmly, and then helped me to set up the computer in the designated room, which was in the newly born Resource Centre for Teachers of Foreign Languages, hosted by Scuola Media "Dante Alighieri" of L'Aquila. This fabulous resource centre has been equipped by Tesol Italy with all kinds of materials available for the teachers of L'Aquila.
The session lasted approximately 2 hours, and there were over 20 teachers who were able to attend. My presentation was entitled "Effective Images for Powerful Activities". I showed a combination of slides I have used before, and a few additional new slides. I have embedded a Slideshare below.
Feedback and Analysis It was an absolutely amazing and very moving experience for me to be with teachers, who have been through so much. I was very happy to see all the participants joining in the activities with such a lot of enthusiasm. It was a very interactive presentation, and I liked the fact that I was able to move around everyone and see how they were getting on with the tasks I set. I think we all had some fun and the time literally flew past!
The participants did the following activities amongst others:
brainstorm adjectives beginning with "C" to describe qualities of an effective teacher
discuss the qualities of an efffective teacher
20 questions "guess the famous couple" (Romeo and Juliet)
retell the story of Romeo and Juliet in under 50 words in pairs / groups
retell the story around the class with each participant using only one word (this was fun!)
guess the story of how a couple met
create a poem/short paragraph from a picture prompt
read a poem out aloud with correct stress patterns
complete half a text to recreate a full text
guess a famous person (George Clooney) - relevance to Abruzzo being his latest film "The American"
briefly touch upon the implications of "teaching unplugged" via a picture prompt
Some Web 2.0 Tools I introduced and showed examples of the following tools (amongst others), which I had used to create special effects and or edit my own images:
The mind map below is one I have just created highlighting the lovely qualities of the teachers I met yesterday. Please press on the image to make it bigger. This has been saved as a .jpeg file.
Below is the same mind map, but it has been saved as a moving file, which is quite fun. This was embedded very easily straight from bubbl.us to my blog. Which one do you prefer?
Teaching Unplugged I discussed the fact that teaching "unplugged" is a topic which is very topical at the moment. To teach with a coursebook or not / to teach "Dogme" style lessons or not. I introduced this topic briefly by a tuxpi - edited image of myself teaching back in 1981 (!!) in the GDR. Of course, back in those long distant days, I did literally teach "unplugged". Eg I had no internet, no OHP, no modern gadgets. Just the plain old, but incredibly useful, blackboard you can see behind me. The excellent "Streamline Departures" was the coursebook I used with all my Beginner level groups of students for the whole year. That is why after 30 years I still know the book inside out. I have very fond memories of it indeed!
I also showed the following image to generate a short discussion topic on "guess what is Janet saying to her students in 1982?"
As an addendum to our brief discussion yesterday, I would like to add the following excellent blog posts, which are currently featuring the subject of "Teaching Unplugged" principles:
I was very touched when at the end of my presentation, Annamaria presented me with a beautiful book on the history of L'Aquila. I will treasure this book forever.
Many, many thanks Teachers of L'Aquila for your wonderful participation in my seminar. It was a huge pleasure to meet you all. Hope to see you at TESOL - Italy Rome National Convention next month!
You can click Wallwisher above to add your sticky, or for bigger image of Wallwisher, click here to add your stickies! Many thanks in advance.
Over the next 2 weeks I will be teaching 23 primary and secondary school EFL teachers in 2 groups at the Lake School of English, instead of writing about teaching! I love writing my blog, but it's time to get back to the chalkface, figuratively speaking. So, I've decided to experiment with my lesson planning here, where else? It will be a diary of events and also my learning journal.
One of my favourite icebreakers involves using stickies. I write down a combination of 5 numbers/names/years on the board, related to me eg
3
1979
Daphne
18
30
Students have to guess what these numbers/years/names refer to.
Students then write down 5 things related to them on a coloured stickie. They stick the stickie on themselves, and then walk around viewing as many other bits of information from the other students and trying to guess the significance of the numbers / names they see. It's a fun way of getting to know each other.
Web 2.0 Introductions and Icebreakers
I have experimented with creating introductions using Web 2.0 tools like the following. Please do write a comment about any other tools you have exploited when meeting a class for the first time. How was the new tool received? Any useful tips?
Xtranormal
True or False information about your teacher. Students have to guess which facts are true.
Which adjective above does not appear in the Nespresso ad below?
George Clooney Update Please click on this link here to read an update regarding George Clooney. This link was very kindly provided by Jeffrey Hill from the English Blog.
We set off round the mountains to get to Castel del Monte, one of the most beautiful villages in Abruzzo. There was a slight hidden agenda on my part. My quest to meet George Clooney in person. However, I had forgotten that in Italy this weekend is a long bank holiday due to All Souls' Day.
We got to an eerily quiet Castel del Monte 50 minutes after setting off from home. Only 10 miles away as the crow flies, but you have to drive up and down and over mountains and encounter a lot of perilous hairpin bends. Why was the village so quiet? Where was everybody? Where was George? The evidence that a film was being shot in the village was all over the place. Lorry after lorry of cinema/tv production sets were parked up in the centre. Where was the buzz of the international film crew?
Lots of notices everywhere informing the villagers that 200 camera crew plus 500 extras would be invading the small mountain village from 15th October to end of November. The whole village to be transformed into a film set. Ok, so where were the villagers and the 700 extra American and international crew? K and I seemed to be the only people wandering through the bitterly cold streets......
A prominant notice made my heart sink. The filming of "The American" would recommence on Monday 2nd November. I grabbed a local and asked" Do you know if Mr Clooney is here? "Oh no, my dear. He left yesterday and he'll be back tomorrow". End of dream.
A bit of Local Gossip Not one to be disheartened so easily, I accepted this and hit a local bar and B&B called "Osteria del Lupo", where I drowned my sorrows with 2 lovely glasses of Abruzzo wine and 2 lots of absolutely delicious homemade bread drizzled in fresh olive oil. I spoke to Stefano, the barman and son of the owner and asked him about his feelings on the effect of the film on the village as a whole. He told me it was a fantastic thing and it was doing wonders for the local economy. He told me Mr Clooney had integrated with the locals and that he was very friendly and amenable. Two weeks had already passed and everyone had accepted the temporary disruption to their daily life with great patience and understanding. A lot of the locals had been cast as extras. It was interesting chatting to Stefano and the bar was very lively and atmospheric. Tomorrow evening, scenes of the film will be shot right in front of the bar so I guess the bar will become very famous! Thank you Stefano for making us feel so welcome!
Halloween: "Miss Strega" Contest Having viewed the information on the Internet about the yearly "Miss Strga" (Miss Witch") pageant held in the centre of the village, we left the cosy bar in search of the venue. We were informed that due to the sudden very cold weather, the event would now be held in the local sports hall. When we arrived, we found all the local villagers waiting for the children to do a "Halloween" parade. A jury would be present, to vote for the best costume. The hall was beautifully and spookily decked out and children all dressed up in wonderful costumes. We stayed for a while and then decided to make our way home after a most interesting evening.
The delectable George Clooney is filming in Abruzzo. He is currently filming "The American" in Castel del Monte, one of my favourite and most beautiful villages in the whole of Abruzzo.
Guess where I'd like to go over the weekend? Castel del Monte is only an hour away from home. It's a beautiful journey through rugged mountain scenery, traversing the spectacular National Park of Abruzzo. Yes, I really would like to see George Clooney in person. I wonder if that is going to happen? I'll keep you posted!!
A Parade of Witches I have discovered that tomorrow evening on Saturday 31st October, there is going to be a "Night of the Witches" Halloween parade in Castel del Monte. This looks like a fun event! The people of Castel del Monte are hoping George Clooney will attend. Must get K to definitely take me there tomorrow!!
Halloween
There are some excellent Halloween ideas for lessons and videos from Tech ELT Blog. There are some great Halloween Ads from the English Blog.
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