New Art Exhibition at Mille Feuilles

On Saturday evening I went to the opening of a new art exhibition 'Libre Parcours' at the bookshop 'Mille Feuilles'.The 'paintings' made me think of carpet designs and when I bumped into the artist  Mona Belhaji ,this morning in the gallery, it seemed she was inspired by carpet designs but also by the idea of a person's identity;we all have an identity and Mona mentioned 'some Tunisians said the ex-president Ben Ali  had robbed them of their identities'. However,Mona said 'our identity is ours and will exist whether it's the past or the future'.

Mona explained that in some of the 'paintings' there are symbols related to the towns of Gafsa and Gabes
,in one ;painting' a symbol representing man and in another painting,two hands joined together representing 'a person's hand in his brother's'.

Mona said that one of the 'paintings' took about a week to complete.
The time that she spends on them probably depends on the elements that go into the work of art.

Some of the 'paintings' seem like you could be travelling into outer space or looking down on
the urban sprawl of a modern city. All the 'paintings ' are basically a series of cleverly coloured engravings.
In fact you could be immersed inn another universe!

Patric

Photos taken by Patric

ITEFL

Post ATEFL Conference at the Novotel Hotel in Tunis for various teachers associations.
I did the morning sessions on Learning Technologies including the presentations 'One to One Learning 'by Michael Carrier and 'Mobile Literacy' by Nicky Hockly.

Hi Patric.I'm Hanen, your student at upper-intermediate 3 level. I'd like to introduce my self since I missed the first lesson. I'm 29 years old, I work for Unilever ;a multinational company ,as General Trade Manager Assistant. First, I joined British council to attend English Language class especially for Business English. However, all places were already filled therefore I accepted to attend General Engish class. I think I'm plain in English Language because I  have studied English Linguistics for 5 years at the University of Letters Arts and Humanities la Mannouba, and my master thesis is in progress.
Hope this session wil be usefull for me to refresh my memory regarding my vocabulary and speaking skills since it's really crucial in my work especially for internal and external communications.

Sincerely

Introduction

As you told me Mr Patric to write a paragraph and post it in your blog. First i want to introduce my self . My name is Maher i am a student in the British Council . I want to improve my english because it's very useful specially when i travel or when i participate in pharmaceutical fairs . This is a short paragraph , it's my first time i wrote something in the net and it will be published . But when it will be a habit , i think it's a good idea to improve my english .

Teaching English Radio Live from Tataouine!

This month's programme was live from Tataouine,but not in some far away distance galaxy on the desert-planet Tataooine!, but the shorter distance of  531 kilometres from Tunis down in the south-west of Tunisia.

George Lucas was inspired by the town of Tataouine to use as an name for the sandy planet in the epic Star Wars films ; he also shot many of the scenes in the nearby surrounding desert.


click here for more information on Tataouinne

By the way there's the French expression 'Tataouinne-les-Bains' (go to Tataouinne ) which means to get lost at the end of the world!

Well,today's programme was on the topic of' 'Developing Teachers' English' and today's guests were Secondary and Primary teachers plus British Council Tunisia's English Project Manager Maria Norton.

The teachers discussed the importance of lots of exposure to English and though teachers might not always feel confident about speaking English in the class they mustn't be frightened of making mistakes 'mistakes are a part of life' ,in addition being well prepared for the lesson to avoid making mistakes in the classroom.

Maria emphasised how important a comfortable learning environment is for both the teacher and the students so that everybody is relaxed in the teaching/learning process.

One of the teachers mentioned the relevance of teacher development 'a teacher isn't static and needs to develop' ; to keep up with the students'. Hayet,the radio presenter said it's a case of 'keeping up with the Jones!'. One teacher advocated the idea of teachers having a weekly meeting discussing teacher development but conducting the meeting completely in English. Or having a 'Teachers Club ' where you chat about any topic that appeals to you!

Regarding resources to support teachers to develop/improve their language skills Maria mentioned the free resources/materials on the British Council Teaching English/Learn English/Premier English web sites.

Developing/improving your listening skills helps with improving your speaking and one of the teachers said he liked listening to songs for instance Michael Jackson and Marah Carey!

And finally another way to develop your English is to have a notebook and write some of the things you have done during the day and to make note of any new vocabulary that you have learnt writing down the definition with example sentences.

At the end of the programme Hayet invented her own proverb!
'An hour of English every day helps you on your way to improve your English!' One of the teachers said it was possible in Tataouine to find an hour 'we're in the middle of nowhere and Tataoiune is monotonous!'.

Today there were 4 winners of the quiz questions! Two people from Tunis,one from Gafsa and finally a winner from Tataoiune!

During my Saturday Young Learners class (students aged from 12 - 14) the students listened to part of the programme and agreed with the comment that a love of the English language and reading (newspapers,magazines,books and even e-books) was important in developing/improving Teachers' English.

Earlier on in my lesson some of the students had mentioned that their teachers of English at their school spoke mostly in French and Arabic;one teacher didn't speak in English at all whilst a couple of teachers spoke completely in English.Perhaps their teachers had listened to today's programme for some ideas!

In my lesson the students also discussed and wrote down their ideas for helping students develop/improve their English;here are some of the ideas that they mentioned:

• speak to your family and friends in English,
• talk all day long in English,
• write letters to your friends in English,
• learn the traditions of England to know the country and the language much better,
• set your phone,computer and television to English,
• have an English pen friend
• focus and concentrate on the lesson

Anyway my students had many similar ideas to the radio studio audience plus some extra ideas!

click here to listen to the programme

rtci tunisia podcast web page
'Teaching is an Art! ' Use it or Lose it!' 'An Hour an Day!
 'Keep on Sharing your Ideas!'

Well,it's goodbye from Tataouine! Enjoy your teaching!

Teaching English Radio back in Tunis!

We're back in Tunis for programme 5 of  Teaching English Radio!
This month the topic was 'Teaching Listening'.
In the studio this month:Ines Hfaiedh,Secondary School teacher in Bizerte,Hayfa Majoub,Secondary School in Tunis and Patric Fawcett teacher,ICT / ELT Coordinator British Council Tunis.

Getting Ready and Deep in Thought!

On the programme the teachers discussed finding a variety of materials to help students practise listening.
If there is an audio problem teachers can even act out the tape scripts from the book or adapt and create new listening texts.When we are able to record and play audio in class, there are many possibilities- including recording native speakers or playing clips from radio programmes.

Students need a purpose for listening- with activities before, during and after listening.
There are sub-skills we can practise; for example predicting, listening for the main idea or listening for specific details.Songs are a popular source of listening material and though it's difficult to find the right song to  teach a particular structure you can always use just the chorus or one verse of the song.Ines mentioned the importance of findings songs that are relevant and interesting for the students.

We heard a demonstration of using radio clips such as the weather forecast. The text is authentic and the task can be adapted to the students’ level for example the content of countries and temperatures can be useful for an Elementary class revising the topic of countries,nationalities and numbers. Patric suggested the students could record a weather forecast in conjunction with 'planning a picnic' activity,where of course it's important to know the weather in advance.

In the studio the studio audience demonstrated the describe and draw activity;each person had to draw an animal then describe their picture to another person who had to listen carefully and draw the animal.
Ines drew a cat whilst Patric did a picture of a shark swimming towards an island! This speaking and listening activity is good for those kinaesthetic/visual learners!

Patric talked about using the MP3 player to create authentic recordings:while he was in an art gallery in La Marsa he did a one-minute recording of himself talking about the paintings.With his Upper Intermediate class he played the recording in class to lead into the topic of art and then got the students to record themselves talking about various 'paintings' on the walls. He mentioned other activities that could be done with the MP3 Player and said that the students could self-assess their performance in terms of their pronunciation,fluency,grammar and vocabulary.

Hayfa mentioned using her laptop to make recordings focusing on lexical items that her students find difficult to pronounce.

Getting visitors or colleagues to walk into a classroom allows students to do real interviews in English.
So if you're lucky enough to have an English speaking friend here on holiday invite them into your classroom!
The students will really feel motivated in interviewing the person and at the same time improve their listening skills!

click  http://www.radiotunisienne.tn/rtci/sounds/anglais/anglais05042013.mp3 to hear more ideas from the teachers plus activities that can be done with the MP3 Player !

Thanks for listening! Bye!

Hope you enjoyed the programme!
Well it's goodbye until the next programme!

Patric

The Next queen of Danmark (NO no not me but it could be YOU :))

Hello everyone,

This is Fadoua, I'm from April session last year. How are you do all? and how's your course going?
Last night I've been to Jazz à Carthage and saw Patric ( well he didn't see me :-/ ) and I remember I have to come and check here. Things are doing well  since my last visit, I hope :)

Sinead O'Connor was crazy as usual , quite a show and a very pleasant evening. The post title is from her lyrics :D

Here a very blurry picture of the stage ( the best I could capture)

Keep rocking and enjoy the class.
Cheers,
Fadoua