hello everybody and welcome to speed dating!

What you think of speed dating?
Do you think it would be popular in Tunisia?

How would you introduce yourself and what would you talk
about in 3 minutes?

Teaching English Radio 'Using Group Work with Large Classes'

Hello everybody and welcome back to Teaching English Radio! 

After our adventures in Gafsa we're back in Tunis!

Today the topic was 'Using Group Work with Large Classes'

In the studio audience were Ridha Maknine,Primary school teacher,Bizerte
Myriam Matmsti,Secondary School Teacher of English,El Kram High School,Tunis

Hayfa Majoub,Secondary School teacher,Ben Arous, Tunis and Ian Smith,Senior Teacher Academic,British Council Tunisia.

Some of the key points of using group work is the importance of the  setting up of group work and  classroom management skills for instance the teacher’s role can change to monitoring, listening and giving advice.Some advantages of group discussion is that it allows students to relax, express themselves and really use the language. It can be very motivating and dynamic.
It can be adapted to suit all classes and different activities.

The studio guests also talked about their first teaching memory,how they felt when they saw their first class for the first time,the advantages and disadvantage of teaching a large group.Ian talked about his first teaching experience in Japan,a class of 45 students and though there's this image of Japanese people being polite;they were actually normal rowdy teenagers;as a young teacher it was an intimidating experience and another problem was that the course book wasn't culturally interesting - pop songs from the 1970's for students from the 1980's! Despite this daunting situation Ian said it was a good learning experience and gradually he developed strategies to deal with the large class and to make the lessons interesting.

One of the disadvantages that one of the Tunisian teachers mentioned was about assessing the students in group work and that it was difficult to assess them individually,Ian said that could be resolved by ensuring that everyone said something in their presentation and he found that the  stronger students made an effort to help the weaker students participate.
Another interesting point that Ian made was about the process of feedback and it was important for the students to do their feedback in their groups before a whole feedback as it helped the students to be more confident and prepared.

click 
http://www.radiotunisienne.tn/rtci/sounds/anglais/anglais01022013.mp3 to listen to the latest programme!

Be sure to listen to the programme 
on the 1st March!  We'll be in El Kef! 
Hope you enjoyed the programme! 

Patric

Filming in Bizerte

Have you ever wanted to be an actor?  Have you ever been in a film?  Are you a future film star?

After a few auditions at Sindbad Productions,a local Tunisian film studio company,this morning I finally got to be in a film! In fact I ended up in a short scene in an episode of the documentary series 'Locked Up Abroad',relating to Susan Hallam,an American woman ,whose husband,Roy Hallam,was kidnapped in Iraq during the Gulf War.

It was an early departure,8am,from La Marsa to Bizerte on the north west coast of Tunisia.
We arrived at a house on the outskirts of the town,upstairs there was a film crew preparing for the day's filming.The house was being used as Susan Hallam's ' home' in the USA.

For the scene that I was involved in,a group of us played the part of photographers and journalists turning up
at Mrs.Hallam's 'house' and bombarding her with lots of questions seeking answers to the kidnap situation.

The other people playing the 'Press' were an American woman,a young half-English half-Tunisian girl and three Tunisian men. The director prepared us with sets of questions which we had to use for the scene,but we could do some improvisation if necessary.

There were at least five takes for our scene and afterwards we individually recorded our particular lines so that the lines of dialogue could be edited into the scene if necessary.

There were two American guys also there who were going to play the part of FBI agents.

Before returning back to Tunis I found out from Philippa Day,co-owner of Sindbad Productions that the actress playing the role of Susan Hallam,was an Australia woman -Paris Jefferson , a good name for a future film star!

Today was the last day of filming and one of the final scenes was to be one of 'Susan Hallam' trying to relax by her swimming pool.However,the weather wasn't co-operating,with gloomy grey skies and rain showers.
The sun which earlier had threatened to break through those clouds didn't seem very likely as the rainy downpour continued thoughout the rest of the day! Lets' hope the filming wasn't a washout!

Patric

Haithem Bakkey (pre-intermediate 1)

Last holiday,I went to Istanbul with my friends.We flew there by plane.We stayed in a small hotel.It was expensive and it wasn't very comfortable.We visited many museums like the TOPKAPI where we saw many things like prophets' clothes, and many paintings of Ottoman sultans,and we got an idea about the history of Ottoman empire.We also visited an old Ottoman castle called DOLMABAHCHE where Kamal Attaturk, the leader of the modern turkish republic lived in.We were forbidden to take photos inside the castle, so we took a lot of photos outside in the garden of the castle.Really, it was a wonderfull castle.

Istanbul is a fashionable town where you will find all brands of clothing that is in the world and the clothes there is cheaper than it's in Tunisia so I bought some clothes.We had a good time.Istanbul is full of history and Turkish food is very good.

Hi Patric.

I'm Khouloud Fares.I'm 23 years old.I'm a student at British Council.I'm Tunisian and I live with my family in Menzel Temime.I have one brother and one sister and I'm the older than them.My last holiday,I went To Turkey with my family.We flew by plane with Turkish airlines by night.The flight was short.It was two hours from Tunis Carthage Airport to Attaturk International Airport.

We stayed 6 night in a colourful and big hotel in the city center of Istanbul.It's is a very nice country with many monuments and mosque like Blue mosque,Dolmabahçe and Hagia Sophia .We visited many place like the big bazar and we bought many goods  like scarf hand-painted ceramics and jewellery from there and some delight from the Egyptian bazar.We went to Prince Island by ferryboat,Istiklal Street and many outlets and malls shopping center.We spent a great time there.It's a memorable holiday :)

Good evening

Good evening,the last holiday i was with my friends in the south of Tunisia and I visited many cities (Tozeur, Djerba, Gbéli ..) and i spent a week down there.
 I was attracted to the monuments and desert and beautiful views.
Then, I visited the island of Jerba crocodilles and crafts and traditional city.
Finally, I spent the most beautiful holiday in my life . :)

Sidi Mohamed

HAPPY NEW YEAR