Book Review: Talking Images: Idioms - by Lucy Holmes and Sharlene Matharu

I am delighted to be writing a review of a newly published photocopiable teachers' resource book called Talking Idioms: Images, written by two of my Lake School of English colleagues.

The talented joint authors are Lucy Holmes and Sharlene Matharu and they have been working at the Lake School of English for a considerable number of years between them now.

Below an image reproduced with kind permission from the Lake School.  It shows the two authors with their book called 'Talking Images: Idioms'. This resource book is created for teachers by two practising and very experienced teachers.  You can read more about them here.

All the original and brilliant artwork contained in the book has been drawn by Sharlene Matharu herself, seen below on the right.

Before I begin the review, I would just like to mention that the Lake School is a hotbed of incredible creativity, talent and innovation. This is thanks to the amazing support and encouragement of the two hardworking and inspirational directors, Carmel Engin and Susan Barber, (seen in the image below).........

..........and the warm, friendly atmosphere created by the school by the teachers and staff, and of course, inspired by the many students from around the globe!

'Talking Images: Idioms'  has been primarily designed as a 'pick up and use' resource book, and I honestly believe it is and will be the perfect addition to any busy staffroom.  It contains a wealth of idioms, all based around practical themes, and using images to gain maximum communicative effect.  All the materials have been trialled at the Lake School beforehand, and given the seal of approval by both students and teachers alike.

I have recently had the pleasure to have a good look through the contents of the book, which contains 12 thematically based units. Each lesson aimed at B1 level and above, would ideally take 45-60 minutes of classroom time.

I was most impressed by the following aspects:

What I liked most of all was the wide variety of lesson activities contained in the book.  They would appeal to new or indeed, experienced teachers, to enjoy using and I have added a few of them below:

Each lesson has a set amount of clear, logical stages, and thus it makes it an engaging book for any teacher to work through.

I can't wait to try some of the lessons out in real time, and hopefully this will happen in the very near future :-)

The authors have included a free sample chapter for people to view, and it is available via their website here:

http://talkingimagesidioms.com/sample-chapter

Once again I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Lucy and Sharlene, a dynamic duo who have worked so hard to achieve this dream of self publishing their materials.

I would highly recommend this excellent teachers' resource book, and it is a truly......

........achievement for them both.

I hope I have given teachers, who are reading this post, a little taster of what the book is for and about.

You can find out all the details of how to purchase it via the writers' own website 'Talking Images: Idioms'

http://talkingimagesidioms.com/

There is also a great competition to win a signed copy for free, and details are on the Lake School of English Facebook page:

Lucy and Sharlene have created their own 'Talking Images: Idioms' Facebook page where you can view comments and updates as they occur:

https://www.facebook.com/talkingimagesidioms

To enter the competition, you need to like their Facebook page, and post a funny sentence, using your favourite idiom.  If your entry makes them laugh the most, you could be .....

If you do win a copy, please DO make sure to add a comment here to let me know!

Best of luck!

When Pants go Stratospheric!!

This Tagxedo contains the key to how to become a billionaire...

I had never heard of Sara Blakely before I woke up this morning. Now I know that the sales of pants have made her into a super billionaire. However, they are not your usual "pants". They are in fact called "Spanx" and they make people look slimmer.

Why have I chosen to focus on this story? Reading through the very interesting post on Yahoo News Online, I came across the idiom "have a brainwave".

To "have a brainwave" means to have a brilliant idea. What was Sara Blakely's brainwave, which has made her the youngest self-made billionaire in the world? Simple really.

"Blakely had the brainwave of cutting the feet out of a pair of tights (or panty hose as they are known in the US) to create a smoothing and firming effect. However, when she wore the cut off tights underneath her trousers she found the tights rolled up her legs all night.

This wardrobe malfunction meant an idea was born. At 29, Blakely invested her life savings of $5,000 (£3,190) trying to come up with something flattering to wear under white trousers. Control hosiery Spanx was born and Blakely wrote the patent herself to save money."

You can read more here.

I'm always on the look-out for idioms in context. You can't get a better context than Sara Blakely's amazing brainwave...

I have summarised the article as a tweet in under 140 characters. I have used an idiom (have a brainwave), a fairly new expression ( have a wardrobe malfunction) and a phrasal verb (come up with = produce, think of).

Crowdsourcing Idioms

I am doing research into idioms for a forthcoming book chapter related to my Connecting Online 2012 presentation, that I had been scheduled to do on March 3rd. I am required to write 6,000 words and I am almost half way there. I didn't realise that 6,000 is quite a big amount to write and I haven't had to write so much since my university days, which is a long time ago. It's a huge challenge for me and I am prepared to do my best. I am grateful to Dr Nellie Deutsch, my former tutor and mentor on Moodle For Teachers and WikiEducator courses, for allowing me to work on this collaborative writing project which will be published online next month. One of my goals for this year was to write an e-book, so this is definitely an excellent start.

My chapter is based around my Teaching Idioms with Web 2.0 Tools presentation, which was originally premiered in Brighton 2011. The book chapter will support my presentation and will include some brand new lesson activities and ideas, which I have been working on the past few days.

I love teaching idioms and my students have always enjoyed learning them, too. I hope this chapter will provide further insight into how idioms can be taught effectively.

Looking through my folders, during my research on idioms just now, I found I had created an Xtranormal animation on Idioms a while back, and I include the tweet below. If you click on the image, it will take you to my Xtranormal page and you can view all the animations I have created. Be warned. They are very simple, but I hope they manage to convey whatever vocabulary I am trying to put across to my students!

I have published an Idiomatic Love Story and you can view it online at Slideshare/JanetBianchini or you can simply click on the image of the book below.

In the chapter, I would like to write a few sentences about how some British idioms have completely different meanings in other languages, or make no sense at all. I had read about the power of "crowdsourcing" on Nicky Hockley's fab blog, e-Moderation Station, entitled, "Sourcing the Crowd." So, I decided to do a bit of crowdsourcing myself, for the first time, and this is what I tweeted to my PLN yesterday:



In British English if you were to say "Victoria is full of beans today", it wouldn't mean that she had just eaten lots of beans and so was literally full of beans. No, the meaning would be that Victoria is very lively today, on the ball, very energetic.

http://www.free-stockphotos.com/download-free-coffee-mug-full-of-beans-images/

So my question to my fellow bloggers and readers is this: how would this idiom translate in your language?

Please do add your comments in the Comments' Box as this will help me in my research. Thank you in advance!!

The previous day I had done another bit of crowdsourcing as follows:


Sandy Millin responded within a very short time and gave an excellent reply as follows:

Evelyn Izquierdo my lovely tutor on the EVO Podcasting 2012 course also replied to my tweet and this is her super response:


Thank you both, Sandy and Eve for taking the time to add your thoughts!

I would be thrilled if anybody else could add their comments to my two questions, either here, or via Twitter. I will then be able to summarise the ideas in my book chapter.

My deadline is March 15th, so please do write in before then. Many thanks!!

NB
Below you can view a new idiomatic movie I have just created with Dvolver.

In the movie, Frederick is trying his best to woo Isabella back. I have deliberately chosen this movie to be in silent mode. There is a selection of music that you can choose to embellish your movie and make it more jazzy.

CO12 - Fab E-Conference, 3- 5 February

I have just been reviewing my slides, as seen in the mosaic below, for this Saturday's CO12 webinar on Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools.

My webinar, on Saturday 4th February, is part of many fabulous sessions you can attend for free on February 3 - 5 via Wiziq.

CO12 will be a fantastic opportunity for Professional Development. You can read why as follows:

The conference will be of interest to educators, administrators, students, and community members who value the importance of integrating technology into the curriculum to improve instruction, learning, and business. Online learning involves various skills on the part of the instructor and learner. These include social and communication skills, social networking, independent learning strategies, critical and higher order thinking skills, creativity, and effective online and face-to-face facilitation. In addition, there are many challenges that educators, administrators, students, businesses, and community members face.

Please view the video below by Dr Nellie Deutsch, the founder and current co-ordinator of Connecting Online 2012 Conference. It will explain all you need to know!

CO12 Connecting Online Free Online Conference on WizIQ from Dr. Nellie Deutsch on Vimeo.

Why don't you have a look at the list of presentations here and choose a few to attend this weekend? Whichever session you choose, I am sure it will inspire you! You can enjoy the session in the comfort of your own home.

So far, these are the presentations I have registered for. Why don't you join me??
Digital storytelling for employability
Blogging and Quadblogging - The power of audience on learners of all ages

Reform Symposium: The Final Countdown

Comics and Cartoons
The excitement is mounting, the pressure is building up and it's time for me to pull my socks up and put the final touches to my Reform Symposium virtual presentation on Using Comics and Cartoons in Lessons.

I am currently teaching 24 delightful primary school teachers of EFL at the Lake School of English, Oxford, and as a group we are analysing and incorporating the use of comics wherever possible.

Below is a MakeBeliefsComix created by Group A to practise collocations with HAVE. Please click on it to enlarge it.

A Writecomics example to practise the use of 2 phrasal verbs is below:

I have gradually created and built up a store of comics to use in class and I now need to organise them to present them in the session in a logical manner. I only have 30 minutes approximately to get my message across and there is so much information available that it's difficult to know how to condense it all.

I still have a dilemma. How can I be truly original when everything has already been published on this subject? Well, I guess I have to create some original comics and cartoons to convey my meaning.

A Young Learner's View on Comics
My 8-year-old niece was able to create the following Marvel Superhero comic in a matter of minutes. She grasped how to use the tool very quickly and she planned how she wanted the comic to look before she created the comic. She told me that she used comics at school to help in literacy classes and for storybuilding. She was very enthusiastic about them and she explained how much she enjoyed learning French via the use of comics. Comics contain few words which are easy to work out the meanings of and they are memorable and engaging for younger learners in particular. I was very impressed with the result.

She enjoyed the whole process very much and the final outcome was that I emailed the comic to her parents to show them what she had done. They then simply printed it off and had the option of making it into a poster.

I have been burning the midnight oil recently and I hope I won't be dog tired by next Saturday. I am as keen as mustard to present at this unique e-conference and I am over the moon to be presenting. Below is a recording of me practising with my webcam. I want to record a short introduction to my session and put it on Youtube. Other RSCON3 presenters have already uploaded their lovely introductions on the site.

Below is an introduction from Eva Densiger, who is going to present on Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Primary Classroom. The session looks very interesting, and maybe my group of Primary school teachers can watch the presentation if they are still around.



The Power of a Twitter PLN
I had no idea how to delete a video (to introduce myself for the Reform Symposium) from my newly created Youtube channel! The video recording had somehow got completely out of synch and I wasn't happy with it. I went onto Twitter and posted a plea for help. Within moments Ron Hautman aka EduTechGeek had very kindly done a screen tutorial to show me how it was done and posted the link on Twitter for me. I was able to follow the very clear instructions and so I immediately removed the video. Many thanks to Ron for helping me in my hour of need!

Below is a new Youtube video presentation I uploaded tonight straight from my webcam. It's much better than the previous one I did!!

Click on the link to view lots of other presenters introducing their topics on the Reform Symposium Conference 3 Youtube channel.

RSCON3 Information

In a few days, nearly 8000 educators from over 40 different countries are expected to attend a free 3 day virtual conference, The Reform Symposium, #RSCON3. This free award-nominated e-conference is going to take place on July 29-31st, 2011. Participants can attend this online conference from the comfort of their homes or anywhere that has Internet access. This amazing conference provides educators new or currently active on social networks the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide. With over 12 Keynotes, 80 presenters, and 3 keynote panel discussions you are bound to be inspired!

• View the schedule to plan which presentations you will attend!
• Download the flyer to share with your school!
• Watch this Youtube video of January 2011's conference!
• See if your school will count this as continuing education credit!
• Consider hosting a viewing party!

We would like to thank the incredible organizers- Shelly Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Chris Rogers, Lisa Dabbs, Melissa Tran, Clive Elsmore, Mark Barnes, Ian Chia, Cecilia Lemos, Jerry Blumengarten, and Kyle Pace- and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 and The Future of Education online communities for making this incredible conference possible.

We hope you can join us for this incredible professional development experience!

Having Kittens, Literally!!

From being a kitten to having kittens herself very soon, Samantha's life has been a dramatic rollercoaster ride in just 8 short months. Having been cruelly abandoned by her owner, she found her way to our home and this is her amazing story "Welcome to Samantha's World". You can also read "An Open Letter to Valentina from Samantha".

She's been wandering around like the cat that got the cream recently, and has according to a very reliable source, been getting bigger and bigger by the day. I would like her to organise herself so that she can have her kittens when I get back to Abruzzo, so that I can enjoy the excitement and all the fun involved!!

Click on the image below from the Visual Thesaurus to find out some synonyms for the idiom "To have kittens".


The Imminent Arrival of Frederick!
Yes, you may by now know that Frederick had his literary debut at IATEFL Brighton. I can now purposefully "let the cat out of the proverbial bag", or in other words, reveal a secret! Frederick is also the name of the future cockerel that I will buy as soon as I get back to Abruzzo. It has always been the intended name, just as little capon "Al Capone" was named way before he was ever bought!! Unfortunately, Al didn't last long. In fact he suffered a very untimely and gory ending at the talons of a wild local hawk. I doubt whether a baby cockerel would experience the same exit, but I guess I had better not tempt fate!

Below an image sent to me by K of a bird taken in the garden in Abruzzo yesterday. What is it? A falcon? An eagle? A buzzard? It looks quite pretty, anyway!!

You can view a video from BBC News ( 2008) about Basil the noisy cockerel here.
A story about an interesting hen can be read here.

Tulip Fever
How is my garden faring? I have to content myself with images of my tulips such as the one below, sent to me by my hubby K. I do hope I will see some of the many tulips and spring flowers I planted before I left! Apparently all my seedlings are growing dutifully, and I can't wait to inspect them in military fashion, and then transplant them.

The photo of my tulips has been embellished with the use of Tuxpi, my fave tool of the moment.

A chicken-proof area has been set up and so hopefully this year, my veggie crops won't be decimated and trampled over by the last four chickens left standing!

Happy Easter!
I wish all my readers a very happy Easter 2011. I hope you are enjoying the same kind of weather as in the UK at the moment - sizzling sunshine!!

Breaking News on Easter Day!!
Samantha has had 4 kittens today. Please see the first born below. More pictures to follow later!! It's a pity I've missed out on all the fun. Can't wait to see them all soon.

IATEFL Brighton 2011 Rocked!

Original image source of Brighton Pier here.

Brighton was awesome, the 45th IATEFL Brighton conference was amazing, the presentations I attended inspiring, and seeing many members of my lovely PLN was absolutely incredible. It was a dream come true to meet everyone under one roof, so to speak and also to present for the first time at such a huge global and international event. This is an initial posting, and I hope to post more impressions and feedback in the coming days....

My session on idioms went very well and a full house attended in the Boardroom of the Old Ship Hotel. As promised, I have enclosed my presentation below as a Slideshare.

Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools

I have also included the actual "Idiomatic Love Story", that I created specifically for IATEFL Brighton in order to showcase various Web 2.0 tools
An Idiomatic Love Story

A Huge Thanks
I'd like to say a very big thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on "Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools". It was lovely to have so much support from my PLN and also from people whom I had not met before. I really appreciated the enthusiasm you all had to do some of the activities and I am glad if the session was useful!! I am delighted that some very kind friends and kindred bloggers have written up a review, and I would like to post them here below for your reference:

Karin from Coffee Addict blog: Straight from the Horse's Mouth
Eva from A Journey in TEFL blog:IATEFL Chronicles, Day 2

Thank you so much, Eva and Karin!! It was lovely to meet you both in person.

Frederick's Fate
I placed the ultimate fate of Frederick'sIdiomatic Love Story completely in the hands of the audience. There was a surprising majority of approximately 66.66% who voted in favour of the "Bad Ending", which was inspired by my classes, who thought my original "Good Ending" was far "Too Hollywood!!" The final page in the Photofunia-inspired antique book below, reflects Frederick's sentiments perfectly.

Hello To My Lovely PLN
I will be posting up images I took of Brighton and the conference as soon as I get back to Abruzzo, or earlier, if possible! It's difficult to name everyone I met, but I would like to say a big hello to Marisa, Nicky, Gavin, Kristina, Carl, Anne, Simon, Isil Boy, Burcu, Petra, Eva, Shelly, Ozge, Sue L-J, Sue A, Sue K, Burcu A, Shaun, Russell, Martin, Carla, Willy, Mike, Brad, Tara, Berni, Anisoara, Laurey, Karin, Helen, and so many more!! You know who you are and I do hope you all got back to your countries and destinations safe and sound.

Sadly, I didn't manage to meet everyone I know via Twitter, Blogging and Nings. I'm so sorry our paths didn't cross this time round. The Brighton Conference Centre was a huge venue spread across different areas and sessions took place in many different rooms, so it wasn't easy to be in one place at exactly the same time as everyone.

I really, really do hope to meet you at the next global conference :)

You can view all the videos filmed during IATEFL Brighton here.

Thanks to all the Conference organisers for a wonderful weekend of high level Personal Development and Fun Extra Curricular activities, such as the amazing Pecha Kucha Event on Sunday night, that I attended.

Watch this space for my next post on IATEFL Brighton called "The King and I".......

Dvolver Animation

You can watch Russell Stannard's Dvolver Video tutorial to find out how to make these easy animations!



Please note. I noticed that some of the characters are not suitable for younger learners so, a bit of caution is necessary in choosing ones which would be ok.

I've been burning the midnight oil the past few weeks! Teaching Face 2 Face full time by day, and online by night. Inbetween these periods, I have been busy finalising my IATEFL Brighton presentation. I have spent about 25 hours in total now on the preparation and I think I have got to stop!!! I met my self-imposed deadline of finishing my draft yesterday.

I tried out the presentation on my group of teachers today and I asked them about the ending of my Idiomatic Digital Story. They kindly suggested an alternative ending, so I have decided I will let my audience at IATEFL Brighton pick which one they prefer!

You can see a brief preview of my slides on the IATEFL Brighton online site here.

















I will be totally off-line over the 4 days I'm in Brighton. I won't be blogging, tweeting or doing anything technological during these 4 days. It will be back to basics, and I am looking forward to chillaxing by the beach. I really want to make the most of attending as many sessions as I can and also connecting face to face with people I have met online via my blog and Twitter. I am getting very excited indeed! I will try to write up a feedback summary of my experience when I get back.

An Idiomatic Story Set to Rock Brighton!!

4th Virtual Round Table -Janet's Presentation On Digital Storytelling

As promised during my 4th Virtual Round Table presentation on "Storytelling in the Digital Era" I have embedded the slideshare in this post for you to view it. You can link to the live sites from each slide. For viewing all the episodes to date of my "Idiomatic Digital Story", you can press on the IATEFL Brighton label here. I am hoping to come to the conclusion of this Evolving Idiomatic Digital story by inviting my students at the Lake School of English to come up with a suitable ending. If not, then I will have to get my thinking cap on rather snappily before April 17th!!

Embedded below is the official Virtual Round Table 2011 Animoto Highlights. The lyrics were composed by Heike Philp and they are sung brilliantly by Sue Lyons-Jones.



Despite the butterflies circling a few moments beforehand, I managed to get into the swing of things and I thoroughly enjoyed my live virtual session.

Many thanks to everyone from around the world who attended. I recognised many names from my PLN! It was lovely to see Jane and Carmel from the Lake School of English!! Thank you for your support.

A huge thanks to the brilliant organisers, Heike Philp, Berni Wall and Shelly Terrell.

Click for details of the recording of my presentation here.

You can expand the viewing box by clicking on the full icon below.

Storytelling in the Digital Era

I attended Barbara Sakamoto's fabulous webinar called Little Tech for Big Result. It contains many great examples of how young students can create lovely stories and projects with low technology tools. Here is a list of the fab tools she showed us on her wiki here.

I also attended a wonderful session on Storytelling in ESL Classroom by Faisal Al Shamali.

Visit Virtual Round Table Conference

Max My Dream: Part 7 of A Digital Story: Frederick's Descent into The Abyss

Press on the link above to see what Frederick was dreaming of as he descended into the abyss waiting in the depths below him. As you are viewing him fall, can you imagine the answers to the following questions?

• Which 3 things were on his mind?
• Who was he thinking of and why?
• How had he got himself into this pickle?
• Which idiom springs to mind when you view the dream sequence?
  
• What was going to happen to him next?
  
• Where in the world would he rather be?
• What very quick and snappy question would you like to ask Frederick as he is tumbling down?

Try out this cool site called "Max My Dream!" I have discovered it via my fabulous Twitter PLN recently. You just write down what your dream is and press on the link, and you will see your dream visualised!! It's very clever indeed! If the background noise bothers you, simply unclick the sound icon at the top.

I have just remembered where I first saw Max My Dream and it was on Ana Maria's Life Feast blog. You can view it here.

In A Jam! - Part 6 of An Idiomatic Story

Frederick gets into a bit of a jam or indeed a pickle in this episode of an evolving digital and Idiomatic Story. Both these idioms mean that Frederick gets into trouble!

I have used Bitstrips, a nifty comic strip maker to embellish my digital and idiomatic story. I first found out about Bitstrips via Ana Maria's fantastic Life Feast Blog here. This tool is easily embeddable as a sliding strip or as an image. It has lots of lovely functional features which I found easy to use. The comic strip only took a few minutes to create.

I have included both types of style as I can't make up my mind which is better. I like them both!! Do you have a preference??

Please click on the image below to enlarge it.


You can view a YouTube video of the amazing effect Bitstrips has had on motivating school children to create comics here.

The Future of Frederick and Isabella is Up in the Air!
I feel that Frederick needs to be brought back to Isabella very, very soon. The reason being is that they have to have a meaningful ending before my presentation at IATEFL Brighton, where I hope to introduce this story to the audience. A suitable conclusion to this evolving story is therefore on the cards.

OR..
... maybe I could leave it as an open-ended grand finale and let the audience decide on how it should end?? I will have to put my thinking cap on for this proposition.....

Anyway, the next exciting installment will be "The Brutal Road" - Part 7 of An Idiomatic Story.
I have no idea what this chapter will consist of. I just like the title, so hopefully my creative juices will start flowing soon..

More Lovely Idioms!
For some enjoyable lessons on Idioms, please take a look at a Clil to Climb's blog posts featuring some fabulous idioms, in particular FOOD idioms here and here. However, I have to confess, I absolutely love Chiew's amazing interactive EGG idioms! They are right up my street, so to speak, what with my Chicks'R'us..

Looking for Caterina:Continue the Story
If you are up for an even more exciting storytelling challenge, why don't you have a read of this amazing interactive opportunity to continue a love story???
ProfesorBaker has set a challenge: to bring a Princess and a Pauper together. The title is "Looking for Catarina". Why don't you try it??

In the Money: Part 5 of "An Idiomatic Story"

Parts 1 - 4 of this evolving digital, multi-media Idiomatic Story can be viewed here.

Frederick's story continues via Dvolver, a great animation tool!



Lesson Tips for Students:
Watch the video again and find:

• an idiom meaning to work very hard
• 2 expressions which mean to make a lot of money
• an idiom meaning to have a fantastic time

If you like, you could get your students to create a Dvolver scene of their own to show what happens next in this digital story, or they could create their own made up story to embed in their class blog or wiki.

Learn how to create a short animation Dvolver film here.
See Nik's Quick Shout for more tips on how to use Dvolver.
Study Easy Peasy Phrasals!

Next exciting installment Part 6: "In a Jam", coming very soon on a computer near you!!

Winter Wonderland in Abruzzo & News Update

A very well wrapped up Janet in her favourite winter jumper!!

These are the wintry scenes that greeted me this morning. The weather forecast predicting buckets of snow proved to be correct! My concern is for the 20 young olive trees that were planted recently. Will they survive this patch of cold weather? Will the part of the house which has no roof yet, be ok?

The Dream
When we bought our abode a few years ago, there was a huge amount of work to do on it. Having sold our house in Oxford to buy this house outright, we were able to do up the kitchen and the upstairs sleeping quarters, slowly but surely. There is still lots of hard work left to do, but Rome wasn't built in a day!! Now, with an irregular source of income coming in from time to time (lol), each step is taking that little bit longer.... My optimistic aim and dream is for us to live off the land in the future and thus be completely self-sufficient.

Living off the Land - The Reality
Well, with each year that passes, we are getting a bit more off the land and via our livestock, namely from these eggceptionally lively chickens here. With fresh eggs being dutifully laid every day, we can make fresh pasta, pancakes, omelettes, fried eggs, scrambled eggs and so on. Unfortunately, the chicks haven't been laying as many eggs as usual during this cold spell, but egg production should pick up again very soon.

Last summer, we had enough tomatoes, peppers, runner beans, French beans, melons, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, peaches, olive oil, eggs, almonds, figs, a few cherries, pears, and various fresh herbs to keep us from the wolf's door. I need to learn so much, though, about farming the land and to be honest, it's still a hit and miss affair!! I can't say I've got green fingers, just lots of enthusiasm!

Soil, Humus and Manuring
I have just finished reading a fascinating horticultural book by Shewell Cooper called "Shewell Cooper's Guide to Soil, Humus & Manuring", published in 1952. I learned an incredible amount about the value of worms in the soil as a guide to the soil fertility, and found out more about the joys of composting. I enjoy making my own compost to put back into the land. I wrote a review of "How to Cook Compost" a while back, which you might like to read, if you are interested in this topic.


I also love dipping into "Food from your Garden". Published in 1977, this book is a fantastic compilation of everything you need to know about growing your own food. I bought it from Oxfam last year for a few pounds, and it was a real bargain! It contains a lot of fantastic and timeless tips which are highly relevant even in 2011!

News Update! New Seeta Course
I have signed up for another Professional Development mini course on the SEETA site. The tutor is Marisa Constantinides, a highly experienced teacher trainer, with her own teacher training centre in Athens.

The course title is "The Reading Challenge: Motivation and Creativity in Reading Lessons". It starts on 27th February for 7 days, so please do sign up, and learn with me and lots of other keen teachers!! I hope I can be a good student and keep up with the course content. A lot of people I know have already signed up, and it promises to be a very exciting and enriching few days of learning.

Why do I Blog?
I have just submitted a guest post on the subject of blogging to the British Council Teaching English site. It is an honour to be included as a blogging guest in the blogging marathon. You can read the post here.

Countdown Challenge
I have been featured in Bits 'n 'Bobs/Show and Tell blog recently. The "Countdown 28 Challenge", which ends on Monday 28th February, is of a very innovative nature. Will my suggestion of "is" as the final word on the 28th day of the countdown challenge be the one that is indeed chosen by the author? The tension is mounting...

Electronic Village Online - Digital Storytelling
This fantastic 5-week course on Digital Storytelling finished a few weeks ago, and I am planning to write a feedback post shortly with my impressions and some of the work I was inspired to create during the weekly sessions. Watch this space!!

An Idiomatic Story - A Series in Motion
I have been busy drafting more episodes for my digital series of An Idiomatic Story and have been experimenting with Bitstrips and Dvolver. This evolving series is very exciting, and I am having fun using different digital media and Web 2.0 tools. The story of Frederick and Isabella is developing in an interesting way. Anyway, I'm doing my best, and the latest installment is due out tomorrow. Can you ermm...feel the excitement bubbling away???

Post Scriptum
I was very surprised just now and delighted to see that Part 4 Go Animate installment has had 18 views since I created it a few days ago. Maybe I am doing something right? I hope so!!