So hungry you could eat a horse?

This week it was discovered that some beefburgers sold by some Tesco, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland supermarkets in the UK and Ireland contained traces of pork and horse.

Apart from Kenneth Williams's character, J. Peasmould Gruntfuttock, in the 1960s radio comedy, Round the Horne, who regularly mentioned his purchases from "the horse meat shop in the Balls Pond Road", I've never heard anyone in Britain mention eating horse meat.

(As a child I'd heard stories that the French ate horse meat but from a nation whose staple diet is frogs legs and snails, it hardly surprised me.)

If you really want to know why the Brits are revolted by the idea of eating horse flesh there is a good BBC article here and Peter Lund Simmons 1859 book, The curiosities of food contains lots of information about the French and their love of horse meat.

This got me thinking about how this story was reported around the world, so here are some links to reports I found which could be used with students:

FRENCH

L'express has a great article (and links to horse-recipes)

Ouest-France takes the view that it is a terrible thing because consumers wanted beef but got pork and horse.

L'Orient was more worried that the burgers contained pork which some religions are not permitted to eat.


GERMAN

Spiegel concentrates more on the German companies, Aldi and Lidl, involved.

Die Welt has the same slant but also has a photo of a man with a big knife and a horse.

Schweizerbauer.ch has a brilliant sensationalist headline: Schwindel bei Tesco!


SPANISH

I chose this from diarriocorreo in Peru because in South and Central America eating horses is quite common.

El pais reports that Ireland blames Spain for the fiasco.

El mundo presents a more factual report.

So there you go.

Finally here is a French website full of recipes for the novice hippophagist.

Personally, I wouldn't ask for a horseburger, but if something tastes really good, does it matter what's in it?

Bon appétit!

News 4 Kids in German.

Last summer I published a post containing links for articles I was going to use as extra reading for my Year 12 AS German class. 

Recently I discovered News4kids a news website designed specifically for German speaking children. 

It's quite similar to 1 jour 1 actu only not in French.

The site is easy to navigate and has 4 sections.

1) Nachrichten 

- short news articles on a variety of topics written in an easy to understand unpatronising way. The articles are categorised into 4 main areas: Mensch und Natur, Gesellschaft, Technik, and Kultur.  I just used an article from last summer's Olympics with my group.

2)  Wissen 

- articles about many interesting things which are not really news stories. For example this story about conditions for scientists working in the Antarctic.

3) Mitmachen 

- stories with opportunities for readers participate and to give their own opinions about certain topics. Here is an article and discussion on whether animals should be performing in a circus. 

4) Spiel und Spaß 

- a section with online games, puzzles and film and book reviews and links to other sites. 

I really like this site as it is updated regularly and I can always find something for my students which is relevant to their programme of study.

I use the articles as general reading, but I also make gapfill worksheets and reading comprehensions with them, too.

ICT and Languages Conference 2013 #ililc3

Happy New Year!

2012 was a great year for me - I met a lot of new languages people both virtually and in real life, learned some new teaching techniques and tools, the BBC recorded more of my comedy radio scripts and I finally got to meet one of my heroes.

However, I guarantee that 2013 will be even better!

And what could be better than the ICT and Languages Conference 2013 #ililc3 at the University of Southampton?

It's a 2 day event on the 9th and 10th of February. The keynote speakers are Joe Dale and Isabelle Jones and over the 2 days there will be workshops delivered by some amazing practitioners including: Samantha Lunn, Lisa Stevens, Jo Rhys-Jones, Jen Turner, Clare Seccombe, Amanda Salt, and John Connor.

I shall also be leading 2 workshops: From Squawk to Talk and Motivating 6th form students.(I'll post my workshop materials when they're finished)

On the Saturday evening the MFL Show and Tell will take place at Jurys Inn Hotel, Southampton.

The Show and Tell is a free event where teachers are encouraged to sign up and present for a few minutes about the good things which are happening in their own classrooms.

So sign up and come along. It will be amazing!

Learning to speak dog.

A few years ago I set up a few Google Alerts to keep myself up to date with new ideas, fashions, fads and articles in education and language learning.

Every day I receive a few links in my inbox, most of which I glance at and delete.

Sometimes, one will catch my eye and I will be intrigued.

Today I read "learning to speak canine" a fascinating article from petside by dog trainer, Victoria Schade, in which she tells us that understanding a dog's body language can help to translate its behaviour.

As a dog owner I already knew some of this stuff. But can I really tell how my dogs are feeling?

It got me thinking about my reactions to the behaviour and reactions of the children I teach and asking myself similar questions to those posed by Victoria:

Do I know my students well? Do I know them at all?

Is the yawning student bored? Is it me or the curriculum?

How can I keep the interest of my year 7 students into year 8?

Why do I expect year 12 students to be mature and sensible when they're still 16 years old?

Body language is definitely something I'd like to learn more about.

Although, I've no idea what I'm going to do with the kid with the wet nose who is always scratching himself.

The Unbelievable Truth

The Unbelievable Truth is a comedy panel show on BBC Radio 4 presented by comedian David Mitchell.

The object of the game is for the participants to give a lecture on a subject by telling lies and including only 3 true facts. The other panellists have to try to guess which of the pieces of information are true. If they are correct they win points. If they are wrong they lose points.

It really is much better than my explanation.

So my idea is this:

Give the students a text which contains 3 or more errors.

The students have to find the errors.

It's as simple as that.

You needn't create anything new. Just add the lies to any pre-existing text.

If the students are completing reading comprehension, this could be the ideal way to get students to read a text properly and fully before attempting to answer any questions.

It would be ideal for most year groups and definitely for the cultural topics at A level. For example: a summary of a chapter in a book or a scene in a film.

The students could have to explain the errors, highlight them or correct them.

There are lots of possibilities.

Fun with Powerpoint

Many of my colleagues are obsessed with students making powerpoint presentations whenever they go to the ICT rooms.

It's something all staff and students can do and it needs minimal supervision.

There is nothing wrong with this of course, but the problem is what to do with them once they are finished. 

You could put them on the class wiki/blog but you'd need to download each one separately to view them.

I decided therefore that it would be a jolly good wheeze to make Powerpoint presentations and make them into little cartoon strip style movies.

How do we do this?

Step one: Make a powerpoint

Step two: Instead of saving it as a powerpoint presentation save it as a series of jpeg files.

Step three: Go to a gif making website e.g. makeagif.com although other sites are available

Step four: Upload your jpegs and create an animated gif

Step five: Download the finished gif and put it on your wiki or blog

It can take fewer than 20 minutes to create something fairly good.

Like this:

UPDATE

As Clare Seccombe also pointed out, this can also be used as a stop/start animation tool.

I've done something like this in the past with my beginner German students.

It works like this: I give them a powerpoint. They fill in the blanks in German. Then they make it into a gif. Finally they use the ppt as a basic template to create their own.

This is the template made in to a gif:

Headteacher bans mobile phones and improves standards.

If you live in the UK you may have seen this story in the newspapers or on television or radio on Friday.

The headline in the Daily Telegraph was: Headmaster who banned mobile phones makes the right call.

Please read the article and make up your own mind.

From having read the article, it seems to me that this school should not have banned mobile phones, on the contrary, it should have taught its students how to use a mobile phone responsibly.

It claims that since banning mobile phones the attainment of students has "soared".

It could just as easily have been claimed that making the students wear blazers (a rule which came in at the same time) has contributed to the improving academic standards of the school.

Ironically, the school which banned mobile phones is a Media Arts College.

Some people just don't have a clue...

image courtesy of clker.com