"Deadly Bermuda Triangle"

the bermuda triangle is an area situated in the Atlantic ocean, also known as the "devil's triangle", bounded by the islands of Bermuda, the east coast of Florida and the island of Puerto Rico.
This triangular area is the place where mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft happens since the XIX century, while authors dates back the origin of the mystery at the time of Christopher Columbus.
The legend has grown with the disappearance of the 5 fighter-bombers squadron, in December 1945 off the coast of Florida. It was known as FLIGHT 19. after an hour of flight, the lieutenant called the base of Fort Lauderdale telling them that they where lost. thereby, a seaplane was sent to look for them and both didn't return.

Safa ;)

Stonehenge mysteries

Stonehenge is a prehistoric momunent formed by huge block of stones that are amazingly localted near salisbury in the wiltshire countyside. How did our ancestors  manage to carry the mighty stones from so far away and then, using only the most primitive tools, buitl this amazing structure?  Was Stonehenge un calendar, a temple for a sun worship, a runway for aliens?  Nobody really knows and Stonehenge never fail to impress.
Alphonse

The Best of Series 2! Teaching English Radio

Hello everybody!

Today there was a special 'Best of Series 2 Teaching English Radio programme! which kicked off with Tina Turner's big hit 'Simply the Best!' ; the programme looked back at the best extracts from the 6 programmes of series 2;the topics that were discussed were:

'Teachers supporting each other' , 'Finding, Creating and Sharing Resources', 'Using group work in Large Classes' ,  ' Pair and Group work in Practice ' , ' Teaching Listening Skills ' ,
' Developing Teachers 'English '.

In the studio today the special guests were Olfa Hmili a translator,Sonia Zaier ,an university teacher from the University of Tunis and Patric Fawcett Teacher Trainer at British Council Tunis.

Sonia mentioned that when she first started teaching she appreciated the support from her colleagues;Hayet the presenter emphasised the fact that the support from experienced teachers is especially beneficial for new teachers. Olfa,who is currently doing a TKT Preparation course and has recently obtained a teaching position in Turkey,said that 'sharing with your colleagues' would be important in her new future career of teaching.

Re the topic of teachers supporting each other the importance of peer observation is useful in getting constructive feedback on the material that you create and not ending up ' like a blind person' .
Feedback is extremely useful to know you're heading in the right direction!

As Nigel Bellingham pointed out in the programme broadcasted from Gafsa it's not always good to over rely on resources and students themselves can create resources such as in the case of Sonia's medical students who wrote a song based on the parts of the body as part of their presentation on the human body!
Patric said his Upper Intermediate students did presentations and one of them did one on the topic of body language and got her classmates to do a miming game as a lead-in to the topic;the students felt involved and the class was learner centred rather than teacher centred. The students can be very creative in creating their own resources!

Assigning roles for each student helps to make sure that each student participates;also having a time limit on speaking lets all the students speak rather than just one student dominating.On the topic of group work where the stronger students finish quickly they can give support to the weaker ones or be given extra activities while the weaker students have more time to finish the activity. In addition the activity could be extended to make the activity more challenging for the stronger students in which they can come up with definitions for some of the vocabulary.

For a pre listening activity Patric mentioned that focusing on the difficult words can help the students with their comprehension. He also mentioned the MP3 Player in recording the students;with one of his Upper Intermediate students he interviewed him on the topic of motivation and in the interview the student said he uses the British Council Podcasts to keep up his English.

Olfa said the TKT course she is doing at the British Council has helped her with ideas in creating listening resources which will be useful with her teaching in Turkey.

On the topic of developing teachers' English Sonia has found that attending teacher training sessions is beneficial for her teacher skills as well as the aspect of developing her English.

Remember the British Council Teaching English web site is useful for developing teachers' English:
check out the section on publications,written by teaching experts,
and the CPD (Continuing Professional Development ).

click http://www.radiotunisienne.tn/rtci/sounds/anglais/anglais14062013.mp3 to listen to the programme!


Well,it's goodbye until Series 3 in October! Enjoy your holidays!

SMOKING

Smoking leads to deaths from lung cancer and heart disease. Passive smokers increase the risk of lung cancer by up to thirthy percent and heart disease  by twenty three percent.  If many people think that they have the right to smoke, they must know that non smokers have the right to be healthy and to live as well.

STOP SMOKING

ALPHONSE

Well done Alphonse!

Alphonse: you're doing well with the different things you've written on the Tunis Class Blog! Well done!

I hope you enjoyed listening to the song '7 seconds' in class and also looking at the lyrics;now you understand the song! It's a great song! both in terms of the music and the lyrics!

Have a good week!

Patric

Ethics

African union has celebrated recently  his golden jubilee. It's now time for our continent which is the wealthiest  in the world to make progress based on ethics. We must show ethics everywhere and in everything if we do want to dévelop our lovely Africa.

Alphonse