Summer Teaching at the Lake!

I think I am now .........

regarding blogging for the moment!

This rather belated post is going to be about my teaching at the Lake School of English during the summer months from July through to October this year.

Comic tool used: http://www.professorgarfield.org/pgf_comics_lab.html

I had the great pleasure to teach a variety of levels ranging from AO (Complete Beginner) to B2+ (Upper Intermediate).  All the learners were wonderfully receptive and I enjoyed teaching each individual class.  It was also as usual, fantastic to be back in the staffroom and be an active member of the dynamic teaching team.

If you are on Facebook, you can see the many social activities that are organized by the school, and it is plain to see that all the students are happy with their studies and with the school in general.

Lake School Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/TheLakeSchoolofEnglishOxford/

Never Stop Learning
Not having taught in a physical classroom for a number of months, I was pleased to see that I slipped straight back in as if I had never been away.  This was encouraging, and over the nine weeks I challenged myself to be creative and try out new lessons whenever possible.

Whilst in Oxford, in September, I quietly celebrated my 38th year of being an EFL teacher / Teacher Trainer.  Looking back on my very first day of teachng at the Briam Institute in Madrid in 1979, I was able to reflect on how things have changed since those early days when I was a novice teacher. I guess the most important  point I have learned along the way is to always strive to develop as a teacher, and to never stop learning.

I will outline some of the tools I used in my lessons. They are tried and tested ones, and I have used them time and again to create colourful visual aids to help motivate my learners.

The Joy of Teaching Teens

I taught classes mostly consisting of adult learners but also included a lot of Under 18s.  I particularly enjoyed teaching a group of Teens from Switzerland, who really kept me on my toes and forced me to think quickly during the lessons.

I hadn't taught a specific teenager class for a little while and with a 40 year+ age difference, I asked myself this pertinent question:

 'How can I motivate these lively teens and hold their interest, and how on earth can I gain an insight into their psyche and interests in a short period of time?'

Well, the lessons worked out fine and I found the learners to be very knowledgeable with a good level of English and keen to communicate.  The age gap did not make any difference to how I felt about teaching them and I really enjoyed the buzz from their collective energy. 

The following articles make for interesting reading:

• Teaching Teenagers, English Teaching Professional, Issue 23, 2002 
• Teen Power,  English Teaching Professional, Issue 39, July 2005
• Teenagers! Motivating the teenage brain, MET, Vol 13, No 4, 2004
• Motivating Teens to Use English (and not L1) in Class, ELT Chat summary, 19/01/2011 
• How to motivate teens to extend their speaking activities, ELT Chat summary, March 15, 2011

This article written by Tiziana Angiolini , outlines a summary of a presentation she attended called Motivating Teens and Youngsters

I have bookmarked it as essential reading for my next class of teens in the future.  Thanks Tiziana!

Jazz Chants

What the class above seemed to enjoy most of all was doing Jazz Chants.  This was a good way of drilling them on stress patterns in a fun way.  I asked them to create their own jazz / rap chants to recycle some phrasal verbs I had taught them and then to recite them in front of the class.  It helped that one of the students was a keen rapper, so he offered to keep the dialogues flowing in a rap style by beating the rhythm on the desk to keep the flow moving smoothly.  They did really well on this activity and although they had protested at the beginning that they didn't really like studying phrasal verbs, it was amazing how many verbs came up in their rap chants and all were used in a great context.  I wish I had recorded a few of them!

The Wonderful World of Word Clouds

I used word clouds very often in my lessons for recycling / revision purposes, as lesson summaries and as vocabulary pre-teaching.

Below a selection of lesson ideas using WordArt

A summary of one of my classes.  The umbrella shape was chosen because it had rained during some of the lessons and I had asked the students if they had all brought their brollies with them!

Here is a summary of the Green Room class I taught.  The bike represents my cycling to work every day!  The cloud shows what topics we covered in one of the weeks and some adjectives about the group, who were receptive and hardworking!!

Below a summary of a 1-1 lesson, where we had a cup of tea whilst discussing a wide variety of social topics around the world...

Below a smiley word cloud to recycle phrasal verbs with 'OFF' particle:

Below a word cloud used with my AO class to review family vocabulary relevant to them:

Reviewing some classroom language with this Beginner group:

I asked B2 students to create a dialogue / short story using some of these verbs in the cloud as prompts:

In the example word cloud below, you can see some informal English expressions which were included in a lesson from OK 4 book.  I simply added them into a word cloud and used it for revision and recycling purposes.  The students were given a copy to refer to.

The general feedback I received was that learners liked the word clouds very much as it / they helped them to remember the expressions in a memorable and visual manner.

 Using Comics to Motivate Learners

I love using comics in my classes as they can be powerful learning tools for learners. My scoop it site contains many links to comic creation sites and information on how comics can be used in a challenging, creative, and pedagogical manner:

https://www.scoop.it/t/comics-and-cartoons

Here is a comic I created a while back and I always use it when presenting phrasal verbs. 

Asking questions about the weekend using informal expressions:

Some sentences my students created with 'OFF' phrasal verbs transfered into comic form:

Mind Mapping Introduction!

I used Popplet mind map to create a simple introduction to myself, and students had to ask me questions to find out more information.  They were then invited to do the same.

Quizlet

I used this tool for revision and recycling of colloquial expressions with one of my groups.  I invited  members of the class to go to the computer and then the rest of the class had to help them complete the tasks.

                                        
This was great fun and the students were invited to create their own flashcard sets if they wanted to.

Newspaper Info

Summary

The time spent teaching face to face during the summer months went by too quickly. Teaching is in my blood, and I guess it is one of the most satisfying jobs one can ever do.  Of course it all depends on the students, the staff, and the working environment.

All three aspects and many others were absolutely .........

Another post about the Lake School will be written soon. I will include a mention of a very special landmark event for the school in 2018!!

RSCON4 - An Exciting Weekend of Fantastic CPD!

I am delighted to be presenting at the global and internationally renowned RSCON4 virtual e-conference.  This action-packed event is going to be held online from Friday October 11 - Sunday October 13th.

I have had the pleasure of presenting for The Reform Symposium Conference on two occasions, RSCON2010, and RSCON2011 and this year, it promises to be bigger and even better than previous years. Presenters will be sharing transformative approaches to learning and teaching. Influential international keynote speakers are currently being lined up to deliver presentations that will challenge our way of thinking and inform us about the way forward in education in general.

Professor Sugata Mitra will be delivering the Opening Plenary - The Future of Learning.

Below you can view a screenshot of the main page of The Future of Education ning site where more details are available. If you join the Future of Education group, you will be able to keep up to date with all the announcements and news about the forthcoming presentations.

You can find out about all the RSCON4 updates via Twitter by following @RSCON4 and using the hashtag #RSCON4.

I can guarantee that you will enjoy a wonderful weekend of Continuous Professional Development in the comfort of your own home!  I am looking forward to learning about lots of different topical subjects from passionate educators from around the world.

You can read more blog posts about RSCON4 on this Gdocs created by Chiew Pang here: http://goo.gl/KvplSP

Some Visually Inspiring Activities!
My session is called 'Visually Inspire Your Learners!".  It will be held on Sunday October 13th at 4pm Rome Time.

I will be discussing ideas and highlighting some activities to inspire and motivate learners connected to images, comics and cartoons and photo-editing tools.

Examples of Picture activities I have blogged about in the past can be found under the label Picture Activities.

Teach Meet International presentation on Visual Blogging with Muzy:

Slideshare of the Virtual Round Table Presentation on Project 366: A Picture a Day.

Please note, sadly Posterous does not exist any more as a blogging platform and so the links refering to my Project 366 blog on Posterous no longer function, which is a great pity!!  However, some of the ideas contained in this presentation, and the others mentioned in this post, may be included in my RSCON4 presentation.

I hope to present some of my favourite activities and I plan to create a few new ones, especially for RSCON4.  Watch this space!!

WIKI 
I have created a special RSCON4 wiki page to add ideas, links and resources!  It is a work in progress.....

Please click on the Make Beliefs Comix below to enlarge it.

Interview Update
This evening I had the chance to chat briefly about the event with Bruno Andrade, an inspirational EFL teacher and moderator from Brazil, and you can view it below.
Thanks very much to Bruno for giving me this opportunity :-)

The Machine vs Janet

 11.45am  will be imprinted on my mind for a long time.

Image of bank teller windows from the free clip art site called ClipArt ETC here.
Full website: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/galleries/317-banking

Have you ever got to the cashpoint machine, put your card in, pressed the amount of money you wanted, then heard a repeated whirring sound, then a receipt comes out saying "You have withdrawn 150 euros", but at the same time, NO money comes out???

It's a Saturday, the bank is closed so you are powerless to do anything at that very moment, apart from stare blankly at the receipt and the cash machine?

You wait until Monday morning, you go to the bank, and you are politely told that nothing can be done until the person responsible for the ATM machine comes in on Thursday?  Oh, I see. Va bene. Ok!!

Thursday arrives,  a phone call  from the bank informs me:

 "Good afternoon, Signora. Unfortunately for you, our ATM  machine showed NO irregularity. No excess 150 euros was found.  The computer says NO (cough!). We are very sorry, but there is nothing we can do.  I DO suggest that you ring your bank to sort it out? It's now between you and your bank."

 So I ring my bank who very politely tell me "Sorry, Signora, there is nothing we can do, It is now between you and the machine, and the bank!!"

 "What???  I can't believe this!!  The ATM machine did not give me the money but the bank has debited my account!!  Please advise me what to do??

"Ok, Signora I suggest you write an Express signed-on-delivery letter (Raccommandata) to the bank saying you would like a refund of 150 euros, due to the malfunction of the machine".

"Ok, thank you very much for this advice, but it does NOT help me regain my money immediately".

Kafkaesque
I now feel as if I am well and truly in a Kafkaesque situation.  A vicious circle. A whole week has passed. One tiny provincial  bank vs another multi-national, conglomerate bank.  Neither of them can help me.  Both banks have asked me to go to the other bank to "sort it out".

It is my WORD against the Machine, which printed out a statement saying it had given me 150 euros. 

At this point, my dear reader, you have most likely already formed a logical opinion of what happened, but I am the only person in the whole world who knows what happened in the space of a few minutes...

A Hypothetical Question
What would you do if you were me?  Would you give up at this stage and say "How on earth can I prove what happened?"  It is a no-win situation?

Or

 Would you take on the power of the machine, and somehow prove it got into a technical glitch at precisely 11.45am on Saturday January 12th 2013? Prove that this ATM unfortunately issued an untruth by printing out a piece of paper, which has no substance?

A Past Hypothetical Question
What would you have done if you had come to the ATM machine last Saturday and you had found 150 euros waiting in the tray?

A) Would you have rushed to catch up with me and say "Signora, I have just found this money which the machine  has only just dispensed after you left?  It''s not mine, so it must be yours? You were the last person at the ATM before me??

B) Would you have thought  "Well this is a nice unexpected present.  I could use this 150 euros to:

• buy a lovely bookcase from IKEA (approx 129 euros)
• buy some heating for the house (Gas bombolas cost 26 euros for medium, 36 euros for big)
• buy damp-proofing to fix a leaking roof (approx 500 euros)
• get 2 kittens spayed (approx 200 euros)
• buy a headlight for the Capo (approx 90 euros on EBay)
• treat my hubby and myself to a nice birthday celebration meal (approx 50 euros)

OR

C) Would you have gone into the bank on Monday morning and said. "I found this money in the machine.  It is not mine, so could you PLEASE check your ATM records at approximately 11.45am to see which card owner tried to withdraw 150 euros, and then could you contact the rightful owner and hand it over?

Would you have done A, B or C??

Scenarios
So there are 3 possible scenarios for the mystery of the ATM machine.
a) It encountered a technical /  mechanical issue / glitch and it counted the money internally, but for some inexplicable reason, the money did not come out, but it still issued a receipt!!
b) The money came out, but the person did not withdraw it before 30 seconds, so the transaction was null and voided, but the bank still deducted the money!!
c) The money did actually come out at a delayed time, and wait for it........somebody else took it???

 Image source of A stack of money: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/19500/19551/money_19551.htm

Options
So I have 2 options.  I am going in on Monday to have a meeting with the bank manager.  I will politely and calmly ask to see
a) the ATM till roll to see all the transactions from 11.40 -11.53
b} the CCTV video footage.  This will clearly show me looking quite perplexed and will irrefutably show that I did NOT take any money.  All that will be visible is me waving a till receipt around and staring at the cash machine willing the money to come out...which of course it didn't in my presence.

Lesson Ideas
Exploit 2nd conditional hypothetical grammar by using this example as an introduction to a lesson on Hypothesis.
Expand into a review of 3rd conditional sentences.
Create a Wordle of part of the text above and ask students to guess what the story is about as follows:

Communicative interaction:
Role play the meeting between the bank manager and Janet with a bad outcome.
Role play the meeting with the bank manager and Janet with a very positive outcome.

Use the "Currency Exchange" image below as a prompt to write a dialogue.
Image found on  ClipArt ETC

Formal Letter writing
Write a letter to the bank manager outlining your situation and asking for a refund.

Create a comic with Pixton

Create a comic with MakeBeliefsComix

Create a comic in seconds with MakeBeliefsComix and leave the last panel with an open question.  Please click on the image below for a bigger picture.

 Discussion topic: the history of the ATM. 

Present perfect vs Simple past exploitation, eg

Have you ever been in a similar situation?  When? Where? What happened? How did you resolve the issue?

Future Outcome??
So I have got this off my chest and I feel a bit better.  I am not looking forward to being fobbed off on Monday morning.

Will I get a very pleasasant surprise and the till roll will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the machine suffered a technical problem at precisely 11.45am?

Will the CCTV footage show exactly what happened?  Or will I not be allowed to view the video footage unless I make a formal complaint?

Will I have to resign myself that I can not win a fight against a machine??

 Wish me luck...

Addendum: 21st January 2013
I have just come back from the bank.  Due to restucturing of this bank, it does NOT have a manager in the branch.  The very polite bank clerk who attended to me looked a bit embarrassed when he said he could do nothing to help me.

"Can I speak to someone in the office in private, please?"

"No, Signora, they are bank clerks like me, and they will say the same thing."

"I see.  Ok.  What do I do then? "

"If you wish, you can apply to the Court in Pescara and ask a Magistrate to review the CCTV footage and the electronic till roll, which by the way, shows no irregularity"
.
"I see. How long will this take?"

Long pause.

 "Some time........It will have to go through a process which needs to be approved by a magistrate of the court and it will have to go before a judge."

"Years??"

Long pause.

"To whom can I address this Raccommandata letter, which outlines my situation?"

"You can send it to the regional manager.  Here is his address."

"Thank you for your help.  I am very disappointed.  Buon giorno!"

End of meeting.

End of discussion.

End of my hopes.

The machine has won.

IGNOTI
One word was repeated throughout our discussion.  The word "IGNOTI".  I didn't understand what this meant. I asked if the bank clerk could explain, but I am afraid I was a bit too distracted by the way things were turning out, and so I didn't quite understand what he said.

 I have looked it up now and it makes sense..

Ignoto =  unknown
Ignota = unknown person
IGNOTI
"sporgere denuncia contro ignoti" = to take action against person(s) unknown

This means I have to lodge a complaint file to the court saying that "someone unknown" has taken my money.  I do not wish to do this, as NO money came out of the machine in my presence. I do not believe anybody else took the 150 euros, as it was not dispensed from the machine.

The faulty ATM machine in question was struggling, chuntering, making a whirring sound as if it was trying to dispense the money, but something was preventing it from doing so. IF it dispensed the money after I had left the area to fetch K, then it will all be visible in the video footage, which I am not allowed to see...

What have I learned from this incident?
Never withdraw money from a cashpoint when the bank is closed
Always have someone with me by my side as a witness (eg K)
A few lesson ideas for 2nd and 3rd conditional activities
I have learned a new Italian word - "Ignoto".

That's how I feel at this precise moment.

Ignota.

Janet vs The Machine - Episode II
Wednesday January 30th 2013

18 days have passed.  No news.  I sent an express letter to the area Manager 12 days ago.  No news.

Just now I rang the local bank again (!!) and spoke to someone, who was covering for a sick colleague.  He was most sympathetic and asked me a few questions regarding the situation.  He actually told me that sometimes the machine doesn't dispense the money for 2-3 minutes.  This is an extremely interesting fact for me.  I can't remember if I stayed in front of the ATM machine for the full 3 minutes, waiting for the money to come out.  I know I did wait for probably up to 3 minutes.  In any case, the machine would still be at fault if it dispensed the money AFTER the 3 minutes, and I had gone back to the car to fetch K...

I told him I had sent an Express signed-on-delivery letter to the area manager 12 days ago and I still hadn't heard from him.  The bank clerk admitted that was strange.  Penne is only 20 kilometres away.  I could have easily walked to Penne and saved myself 4,30 Euros!!  He kindly gave me the area manager's phone number.

The Area Manager
I have just rung the regional manager and he seemed very nice and again, sympathetic.  This case is "being investigated at the moment", and I will hear from him in the next few days regarding the outcome. Hence the reason I haven't received confirmation that my Express letter had been received.

What continues to be very odd about this case is that there is no irregularity with the ATM machine, ie no excess 150 Euros was found at the end of the day, but my bank account has been debited.  It is a big mystery.

Psychology
I feel a bit better today after speaking to 2 people in the banking chain of command. Also a phone call to Adrian, a friend in the local area, helped me a lot, as he advised me to actually ring the area manager and speak to him personally. This is what I did as soon as I had put the phone down.

As you can see from the heading at the top of this new updated post, it is now called Janet vs the Machine.

Why?
Well, this heading puts ME in control of the situation.  It is therefore psychologically uplifting for me to know that my name comes before the machine. It means if I persevere, I may have a chance of solving this case.  However, I have to say, the odds seem to be stacked against me. But, I will NOT give up!!!

A very special thanks to family members and friends who have kindly given me advice about this, and willed me to pursue matters. 

I know it is not the end of the world, and far greater and worse things happen to people every day, so I have to put this into perspective.

I will know when the time is right to give up or not.

I'll update this post as soon as I know.

Janet vs The Machine Episode III
Tuesday February 5th 2013

RESULT!!!
The money has been reimbursed into my account today.  I rest my case.  The matter is now closed.

I would like to personally thank the area manager for being "on the case". I have phoned twice this morning, but he was busy.  I definitely want to say 'thank you' to him, so I won't give up until I have done so.

I think never doubting what actually happened at 11.45am on that particular morning 24 days ago has been my motivating force to not give up.

I am absolutely over the moon!!!  Ikea here I come!!

The Final Episode
Wednesday February 6th 2013
The area manager rang me today, and I was able to ask him how the matter had been resolved.  He told me  the following:

"I have taken your word, Signora, that what you say happened, did happen."

I was very touched indeed by this, and I truly thanked him for believing me.

The End.

Fun at the Lake

Jumping back into the Lake School of English, Oxford,  after a period of time away is always a refreshing change.  Face to face teaching is still such a thrill for me personally, after all these years, and I enjoy the experience enormously.  The three directors, Susan, Carmel and Lilly are wonderfully supportive, and the dedicated group of  friendly teachers and staff are a real joy to work with.

The Lake School of English has been featured in the EL Gazette in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as a Centre of Excellence.

This time round in September, I taught two General English courses, Elementary and Pre-Intermediate level - my favourites!  The students were a fabulous mixed bunch from Poland, Turkey, The Ivory Coast, Spain, Angola and Italy.

Having taught complete beginners for a whole year in Dresden, I have a particular soft spot for teaching lower levels.  The reponsibility of establishing a solid foundation right from the beginning, is quite vital.  If a teacher does not oversee a student's development at this critical stage it could lead to a lifetime of fossilized errors taking hold.  I enjoy being the lead teacher of an elementary group, so I can set up a strict focus on accuracy right from the beginning.  Trying to undo errors which have become fossilized at a much later stage can be a nightmare..

I decided I wanted to introduce a Blended learning element into this itineration of sessions and therefore any homework I set also had the option of being sent back to me by email.  A few of the students welcomed this opportunity and I was delighted to receive regular online tasks submitted.  I was able to give immediate feedback and  a good working relationship was established from the outset.  Mixing an online element with the f2f element gave me the chance to experiment with various tools to send to the students as feedback encouragement as follows:

Once again I used my Project366 blog for and in my lessons, and it was a useful place to keep materials and resources in one site.

Below you can see a word cloud I used as a warmer for students to guess my likes and dislikes connected to food and drink.  Can you guess what I like / dislike eating & drinking?

 I created an Animoto "Around Town" which was used in my lessons to teach vocabulary of places.

Try our video maker at Animoto.

We studied some make and do expressions and I had fun creating a new lesson.  You can see some of the lesson activities embedded in a Youblisher e-booklet format below.



I showed the class my weekend in the shape of a TagxedoWord Cloud flower, and then got them to create one for themselves, if they wished as homework to show to the class.

To get us in the mood for the weekend ahead, we listened to Rebecca Black's (in)famous Friday song.  Before the all-important singing stage, the students had to predict what the song was going to be about by viewing the words below:

My final message on my blog to the lovely students I taught. This cartoon was created with ToonDo. Picture frame by Tuxpi.

Now I am back in Abruzzo, I can keep up to date with Lake School news by checking into the Lake School of English Facebook page.

The Lake School is also on Twitter and you can follow regular updates from @EnglishinOxford.

Thanks to everyone at the Lake School for making it such a memorable teaching experience for me!
See you all again very soon :-))

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).

A Few Fun Lesson Ideas with Images and a Blog, Starring Fluffy - The Blogging Mega Star!

Insert a picture of yourself or a pet into the Gallery section of a photo editing site such as Tuxpi, Photofunia, and then ask this question:

How did X get to be exhibited at the National Gallery, London?

Set a time limit of 5 minutes for students to come up with an inventive story either written or orally. The class gets to choose which story they like the best.
This is a fun activity and works well as a filler / warmer /
Invite students to photo edit a photo of theirs and get the class to imagine how they came to be in the particular situation. An example is below:

Fluffy has become a world-famous feline mega star after her Storybird Fluffy The Mouse Catcher sold millions of copies around the world! Her portrait is now hanging in the National Gallery and thousands of visitors are flocking to view it.
Fluffy purrs contentedly when she explains her newly acquired superstar status: "I always knew it would happen one day!"

You can do the same sort of activity with a billboard poster:

Victoria - The Reclusive English Moggy

Image above edited with Dumpr and then screenshot taken.

Lesson Idea to practise Idioms / Expressions
Write a paragraph based on an image of your choice such as the one above of Victoria, Fluffy's house-mate, and create a Wordle by copy pasting your paragraph. Try to include a few examples of idiomatic expressions as a review. Ask students to predict the main content of the short paragraph.

Can you guess some of the content from the words in the Wordle? Sample paragraph is below.


Sadly our English moggy Victoria has been completely overwhelmed by the presence of 5 Italian felines, which include the mischievous Fluffy, and she keeps them all at arms's length. She eats separately from the gang, and keeps herself to herself during the day. Whenever a little mischievous kitten approaches her to try to make friends, she stiffens, hisses and gives it a wide berth.

Victoria's Daily Routine
Ask your students to imagine the daily routine of their favourite pet or animal. Get them to write a few sentences using the present simple. In the past I have used the example below with beginners to practise present simple, and adverbs of frequency. Using images of animals is just a change from always using images of famous people. Young learners in particular find this activity fun.


Fluffy's Blog - World Premiere!!!
Fluffy has agreed to star in her very own blog, which has been set up on Posterous Spaces. The title of her blog is The Hectic Life of a Fluffy Kitten. She may decide to change the name of the blog, so watch this space! It's been kept private for a few weeks while she got a feel for the blog space, but now she feels comfortable with it and I am delighted to feature it here on Janet's Abruzzo Edublog.

She has an "About" page, and also a special page dedicated to Fluffy Idioms!!!

The very first post is entitled "Welcome to Fluffy's World!". I hope you enjoy following her adventures in Abruzzo.

Why set up a blog for Fluffy?
Well, it is to showcase what can be done with a blog, and also to encourage all age groups from young learners to adults to see how much fun it can be to play around with a theme that you are passionate about. It improves literacy skills and writing skills and practises web tools in a fun context!!

I hope these ideas inspire you to try out some of the activities and have fun with editing your images!!

English Raven's Blogging Tips
I have been following Jason Renshaw's fantastic posts on why blog with students, and the posts offer a more in-depth analytical argument for starting a blog. I hope you will be inspired to get your students to write a blog!

Blogging with students (1): Why get them blogging?
Blogging with students (2): Choosing a blogging platform