Hello! Is there anybody out there?

No, I am not going to write anything about Pink Floyd music (although many of their lyrics might be used in class), but I hope there is someone out there who might be interested in cooperating with me and my students. The thing is, I started up with a new group of students today, and one of the first tasks I gave them was to come up with suggestions on how they were to improve their English skills. I do believe all the "creme de la creme" students have come to my English class this year! They had a lot of interesting ideas on how to work with English, and I am happy to see that they share many of my ideas, too. Blogging was suggested (jippi!!), and I have therefore put out a survey for them to see how many would like to start blogging in English. An other idea I found interesting was getting in contact with students elsewhere, either native English speakers, or EFL learners, who could be our online pen pals. Therefore, I ask, "Is there anybody out there?" Are there any teachers out there who would like to cooperate? Please, leave me a comment or send me an e-mail if your students would like to get in touch with mine, and then we will see what we can work out.


Picture: "Atlas,it's time for your bath"

Cooperation makes my world go round

Earlier on this blog I have told how much I appreciate cooperating with my colleagues, and how important team work is to me in my everyday life. The internet gives us the opportunity to cooperate also across boarders. My colleague Ingunn introduced the network "Del og bruk 09" in February, and already the network has almost 1000 members. This shows that people want to share and want to cooperate with others. For a long time, I have hoped to get in touch with teachers from other countries and to get some kind of network which can help me and give me information in my everyday life and work. My dream is also that I can get in touch with teachers in English-speaking countries that want our students to start communicating. I am therefore quite pleased that I have received comments and e-mails from England, South Africa, the USA and from every corner of Norway since I started writing this blog. Thank you, all! It is a great inspiration!

At the moment I am enjoying ten days off from work. Although I have piles of papers to correct, I spend most of the time outdoors skiing, playing with my children and really enjoying the beautiful spring weather that has finally come to our area. It feels great to unwind and to refill the batteries after a long and busy winter!

Happy Easter!

Photo: "With you on our way...Let's go!"

Easterbunny from: http://thediaperdiaries.wordpress.com/2008/03/

"By working together we can change the world!" - Bono

Lately I have started watching and listening to the TED talks, and since I am in the middle of planning my lessons on Northern Ireland, I decided to have a look at this speech given by U2 vocalist Bono in 2006. We all know that Bono is so much more than a rock star, and that he has shown so much commitment when it comes to aid for African countries. Of course, this is also his main focus in this TED talk, but what I find interesting is that he starts off talking about how technology has really changed the world and how this development can actually help us helping the poor people in the world, too. Bono's speech and what he tells is really a wake up call for me, and though it has not really anything to do with my teaching of English at the moment, I really recommend others to take the time and listen to what he says. "By working together, we can change the world," he says, so lets start networking and actually do something!

"I get by with a little help from my friends..."

You may have noticed that I very often use phrases like "we decided that...",
"we asked the students to...", etc. This is not because I like to use the "royal we", but because I, 95% of the time, work in a team with my colleagues. This year there are four of us at my school who share the same course in English. We each have groups of 30 students, and we spend a considerable amount of time planning our lessons together, so that the students will be dealing with roughly the same things in the different groups. I really like this way of working. I am not left all to myself when it comes to coming up with ideas for project, texts and topics, and it is nice to know that there are other teachers around who can share their knowledge, experiences and thoughts. I do know that not everybody appreciates working in teams like we do, and I am aware of the fact that not all teams are working as well as ours. Therefore, I would like to say thanks a lot to my team mates this year and those I have worked with the previous years. I really appreciate our cooperation!

Photo: http://www.worth1000.com/entries/8500/8925_w.jpg