Year 3 Number 61 December 14th 2001
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Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being SHARED
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Dear SHARERS,
This
has probably been one of the toughest weeks of very tough year we are somehow trying to survive. The
utter state of chaos of our economy and the consequent feelings of anger and
impotence in our people have long been self-evident but what alarms us in the
escalating violence in the public demonstrations of this week. Concern and even
anger can be justified but we can never condone violence.
This
message that a dear SHARER from
Rosario, Gabriela Pigliapoco, sent to us seemed very appropriate to us to start
this issue of SHARE :
…Let
me share with you a beautiful passage I read in a book some time ago. Shouldn't
we read once and again things like this and reflect on what is happening to us
in the world today? Here it goes:
“Según cuenta un antiguo relato japonés, un belicoso samurai desafió en una
ocasión a un maestro zen a que explicara el concepto de cielo e infierno. Pero
el monje respondió con desdén: "No eres más que un patán. ¡No puedo perder
el tiempo con individuos como tú!"
Herido en lo más profundo de su ser, el samurai se dejó llevar por la ira, desenvainó
su espada y gritó: "Podría matarte por tu impertinencia".
"Eso", repuso el monje con calma, "es el infierno".
Desconcertado al percibir la verdad en lo que el maestro señalaba con
respecto a la furia que lo dominaba, el samurai se serenó, envainó la espada y
se inclinó, agradeciendo al monje la lección.
"Y eso", añadió el monje, "es el cielo".
"La
Inteligencia Emocional" Daniel Goleman (cap 4, pag 67)
Thank
you, Gabriela and let us pray we may always be able to see the difference.
Love,
Omar
and Marina.
In SHARE 61
1..- For the Love of Words.
2..- News from Universidad de Belgrano
3.- A
Lesson in the Chat Room.
4.- Stories for Peace.
5.- International Conference in Rosario.
6..- What Gender is a Computer?
7.- Workshops on Resourceful Leadership and
NLP.
8.- Web Journal for the Teacher of English to
Adults.
9.- Seminar on Introducing ELT to Young
Learners.
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1..- FOR THE LOVE OF WORDS
The
following is a selection from the postings (they are free!!) of Wordsmith that I receive daily and enjoy
enormously.
(
to subscribe: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscribe.html )
I
know that we ,teachers and translators of English, love words so I thought you
might enjoy a few of them too;
retronym (RE-truh-nim) noun
An
adjective-noun pairing generated by a change in the meaning of the noun, usually because of advances in
technology.
When
I grew up, there were only Coke, turf and mail. Nowadays, Diet Coke, new Coke,
artificial turf, and email (electronic mail) have spawned the retronyms real
Coke, Classic Coke, natural turf, and snailmail or hard mail. Once there were
simply movies. Then movies began to talk, necessitating the retronym silent
movies. Then came color movies and
the contrasting term black-and-white movies. Once there was television. Along
came color television and the retronym black-and-white television. Then came cable
television and the retronym on-air television.
And
here are some other retronyms I pray will never come to pass -- graffitiless
wall, nonelectronic book, teacher-staffed school, monogamous couple, and
double-parent family.
aptronym (AP-troh-NIM) noun
A
name that is especially suited to the profession of its owner.
Examples:
Dan Druff for a barber, Felicity Foote for a dance teacher, and James Bugg for
an exterminator -- all real monikers. More famously, we have William
Wordsworth, the poet; Margaret Court, the tennis champion; Sally Ride, the astronaut; Larry Speakes, the White House
spokesperson, Jim Kiick, the football
star; and Lorena Bobbitt ("bob it") the you-know-what-er.
capitonym (KAP-i-toh-NIM) noun
A
word that changes pronunciation and meaning when it is capitalized.
As
in the following poems:
Job's
Job
In
August, an august patriarch
Was
reading an ad in Reading, Mass.
Long-suffering
Job secured a job
To
polish piles of polish brass.
Herb's
Herbs
An
herb store owner, name of Herb,
Moved
to a rainier Mount Rainier.
It
would have been so nice in Nice,
And
even tangier in Tangier.
heteronym (HET-uhr-uh-nim) noun
A
word that has the same spelling as another word but with a different pronunciation and meaning.
In
the following poem, each end-word is heteronymic:
Listen,
readers, toward me bow.
Be
friendly; do not draw the bow.
Please
don't try to start a row.
Sit
peacefully, all in a row.
Don't
act like a big, fat sow.
Do
not the seeds of discord sow.
In
a pure heteronymic pair, the two words must be etymologically unrelated, as in bass, buffet, deserts,
dove, entrance, lead, moped, unionized, wind, and wound.
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2.- NEWS FROM
UNIVERSIDAD DE BELGRANO
Our dear SHARER and admired professor Aldo Omar Blanco writes to us :
University of Belgrano
School of Languages and Foreign Studies
BA in English Course
The BA (Licenciatura) in English course is a two-year course for English teachers and translators graduated in Colleges of Education (or Teacher Training Colleges). The BA course opens the possibility of having access to postgraduate courses (master’s courses) at universities. The BA in English course consists of 10 subjects or modules which include new topics, i.e. topics that have not been taught in teacher training colleges.
Classes are given on Saturdays only, from 9am to 4pm. The subjects (or modules) have no prerequisite relationships with one another, which allows a student to start her course with any subject at all. The teachers and the syllabuses are the same at the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires as in the colleges in the suburbs of Buenos Aires which have signed an agreement with the University.
Each subject lasts 5, 10 or 12 weeks, depending on its contents. Promotion requires a term test towards the end of the module and a final exam on the last meeting of each module. The term test usually consists of questions on the topics taught during the module, and the final exam is an academic paper on a subject dealt with during the module.
The basic objective of the course is to improve the academic level of the teachers and translators attending it, especially as regards various aspects of the English language. Classes are given in English except Comparison between English and Spanish and Terminology, which by their very nature have to be discussed in both languages. A special goal is to develop academic attitudes in the students, especially attitudes of critical approaches and creativity. The meetings are characterized by unlimited debate. In these debates the aim is to get teachers and translators to differ in their opinions with the teacher giving the course and with one another, and also with whatever they read and comment on. Differences in opinion on academic subjects are absolutely respected, in fact enthusiastically encouraged.
One entrance requirement is a four-year teacher’s or translator’s degree. Teachers and translators who have done a three-year course must take a bridge course previous to their enrolment in the BA course. This bridge course comprises four subjects: English Language, English Grammar, 20th c History and 20th c Literature. This bridge course will be taught for the first time in January 2002 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursday, starting Monday, January 7 and finishing on Thursday, January 31. This bridge course will be taught again in February, March and April 2002. When the teacher or translator has passed these four exams, she can enroll in the BA Course in English, starting with any of the subjects whatsoever.
Please request a copy of the timetables of the bridge course and of the BA course.
José Hernández 1820, 1426 Buenos Aires,
4784-4010. alblanco@ub.edu.ar Secretary Mariana Cota: leng3848@ub.edu.ar
Aldo’s home: alblanco@xaersoft.com.ar
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3.- A LESSON IN THE CHAT ROOM
Our very dear friend and SHARER , Susana Trabaldo sends us this brief report about
the first “lesson” taught in a chatroom at INSPT- UTN.
Susana is a teacher of English and teacher trainer and holds a Licenciatura in Administration of Higher Education. She also has a post-graduate Diploma in Educational Technology from Universidad CAECE and is finishing her thesis for the
M.A. in Distance Learning from UNED (Spain). Here´s her report:
I believe that last Wednesday 31st October was a very important day for the
students attending Information and Communication Technology Applied to ELT at
the teacher’s training course at the Instituto Nacional Superior del
Profesorado Técnico at Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. They had their first virtual class
in a chat room!
Since there are twenty two students, they
were divided into two groups. The first session started at 9:00 and
finished at 9:50 and the second one was from 10:00 to 10:50. After having gone
through the experience of synchronous and asynchronous telecommunication for
teaching / learning purposes and having read the latest research papers about
the didactic use of e-mail and chat, we discussed these issues actively in the virtual classroom. I acted as a moderator and the students
contributed their different points of view supported by their experience and
reading. Some of the students worked
from their computers at home, others from the computers at the INSPT computer
laboratory. It was a very successful
experience because it had been planned carefully and everybody knew what they
were expected to do.
I want to share this innovative experience with you
all, congratulate the students on their participation and encourage other
teachers to become familiar with these new technologies which are here to stay!
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4.- STORIES FOR PEACE
Our
dear SHARER and neighbour Cecilia Vazquez Domeq from Laboratorio de Idiomas Adrogué shares with us some hints to ,as
Crosby, Stills , Nash & Young would say, “to teach our children well”
Celicia
writes : Even in the face of violence we still must teach our children to
resolve conflict non-violently in their personal interaction. Here are some
metaphorical folktales to talk about:
On
the Power of Gentleness:
The
North Wind and The Sun
An
Aesop's Fable
The
North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was
great
power in gentleness.
"We
shall have a contest," said the Sun.
Far
below, a man travelled a winding road. He was wearing a warm winter coat.
"As
a test of strength," said the Sun, "Let us see which of us can take
the coat off of that man."
"It
will be quite simple for me to force him to remove his coat," bragged the
Wind.
The
Wind blew so hard, the birds clung to the trees. The world was filled with dust
and leaves. But the harder the wind blew down the road, the tighter the
shivering man clung to his coat.
Then,
the Sun came out from behind a cloud. Sun warmed the air and the frosty ground.
The man on the road unbuttoned his coat.
The
sun grew slowly brighter and brighter.
Soon
the man felt so hot, he took off his coat and sat down in a shady spot.
"How
did you do that?" said the Wind.
"It
was easy," said the Sun, "I lit the day. Through gentleness I got my
way."
On
the Self-Destructiveness of Violence:
The
Lion & The Rabbit
A
Fable from India
The
animals of the forest made a bargain with a ferocious lion who killed for
pleasure.
It was agreed that one animal each day would willingly come to the ferocious
lion's den to be his supper and, in turn, the lion would never hunt again. The
first to go to the lion's den was a timid rabbit, who went slowly.
"Why
are you late?" the lion roared when the rabbit arrived.
"I'm
late because of the other lion," said the rabbit.
"In
my jungle? Take me to this other lion."
The
rabbit led the lion to a deep well and told him to look in. The lion saw his
own reflection in the water and roared! The sound of his roar bounced right
back at him as an echo.
"I
alone am king of this jungle," he roared again.
His
echo answered him, "I alone am king of this jungle."
With
that, the lion became so enraged, he charged into the deep well with a great
splash! The lion attacked his own reflection and was never heard from again.
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5.- INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE IN ROSARIO
Our dear
SHARERS Laura and Jorge De La Torre
from Rosario invite all our SHARERS to participate in this coming event
at UCEL:
Universidad del Centro Educativo Latinoamericano
Departamento de Lenguas
Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas
First
International Conference of English
Language and Literature
to
be held in Rosario, Argentina on April 25, 26 and 27, 2002
Guest
speakers for the plenary sessions
Thomas
Docherty, MA (Hons) First Class in English and French, University of Glasgow.
D.Phil and MA, Oxford University (to be confirmed)
Rolando Costa Picazzo, Ph. D. Michigan State University. U.S.A.
Cristina Elgue, Ph.D. Universidad
Laval. Canada
Graciela Ricci, Lic en Filología Romanza y Lit Argentina y MD en
Neurolingüística, Univ de Macerata, Italia.
Milena Savova, Ph.D. in Linguistics, Universidad de Sofia. Bulgaria
Leandro
Wolfson, Tranlator
Fields
*
Literature in English
*
Comparative Literature
*
General and Applied Linguistics
*
New Trends in Literary Criticism
*
Cultural Studies
*
Education and Bilingualism
*
The Problematic of Translation
Students
Panel
There
will be a special section in which students will have the possibility of making
presentations. students' presentations should be supported by a specialist in
the subject.
Organizing
Committee
Fanny
S. Godfrid, Head of the Language Department
Cecilia Acquarone, U.C.E.L.
Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas
María
Adela Coccolo, M.Sc. in Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington
María del Rosario Fernández, MA in Theoretical Linguistics and Language
Acquisition, Universidad Nacional de Rosario
Mariana
Stoddart, MA in English, California State University
Graciela
Tomassini, PhD. D. in Modern Literature. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Information
and Enrolment
I Jornadas Internacionales de Lengua y Literatura Inglesas, (UCEL)
relacionesinternacionales@ucel.edu.ar
FAX:
0054341 4261241 / 4499292
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6.- WHAT GENDER IS A COMPUTER?
Our dear SHARER and much missed friend José Luís Garcia sends us this drop of humour from Catamarca:
FRENCH CLASS
A language instructor was explaining
to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are
grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. "House," in
French, is feminine- "la
maison." "Pencil," in French, is masculine-"le crayon.
"One puzzled student asked,
"What gender is computer?"
The teacher did not know, and the
word wasn't in her French dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two
groups by gender, appropriately enough, and asked them to decide whether
"computer" should be a masculine or feminine noun. Both groups
were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.
The men's group decided that
computers should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la
computer"), because:
1. No one but their creator
understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to
communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are
stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval;
4. As soon as you make a commitment
to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for
it.
The women's group, however,
concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer"),
because:
1. In order to do anything with
them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but
still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you
solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem
4. As soon as you commit to one, you
realize that if you'd waited a little longer, you could have gotten a
better model.
The women won.
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7.- WORKSHOPS ON
RESOURCEFUL LEADERSHIP AND NLP
Our
very dear friends and SHARERS Jamie Duncan and Laura Szmuch send this
information to us:
In
these days, heads and administrators of educational institutions need a wide
variety of skills to deal with the demands of their work. Neuro Linguistic Programming has numerous
useful tools for handling the challenging situations involving students,
teachers and parents that you may be facing.
It can also provide clear strategies for helping your institute function
smoothly and efficiently. To learn
practical ideas and something of our NLP can help, enrol in the workshop!
Workshop: Options for Resourceful Leadership
Target
Audience: Heads, Coordinators, Institute owners, School managers, Private
teachers
Date:
Monday 18 February 9.30 -12.30
Venue: Capital Federal, Buenos Aires
Enrolment:
For further details and registration please contact Laura Szmuch at lauraszmuch@aol.com or on (5411) 4641-9068 or Jamie Duncan at jamie@abaconet.com.ar
Summer
Courses/2002 - NLP in Spanish
Do
you know people who would like to learn about NLP but who would prefer to do so
in Spanish rather than in English?
Inform them about the introductory course in NLP to be held in Capital
Federal in January and February. The
meetings will be weekly and of a duration of two hours. This series of workshops is open to anyone
who wishes to develop in their lives or careers and will have a more general
focus than purely education.
The
special fee for this course is $40 per
month and they will be held on Thursdays at 8.00pm.
For
more details please contact Laura Szmuch who is co-ordinating the workshops at lauraszmuch@aol.com or on (5411) 4641-9068
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8.- WEB JOURNAL FOR THE TEACHER OF ENGLISH TO ADULTS
TEFL
Web Journal is a free, Web based forum for adult level teachers, teacher
trainers and researchers world-wide. It is an inclusive journal that aims to give English teaching professionals
the opportunity to share their research
and teaching practices with the international, academic teaching community. This peer reviewed quarterly
publication also provides the means for
those same teachers to access
information about appropriate materials for classroom and research use.
The
target audience is the professional teacher of adults in either ESL or EFL inclusive of all pertinent interest
areas. The second issue of the TEFL
Web Journal is now available at: www.teflweb-j.org
Further
information from: Kevin Schoepp - http://www.kevinschoepp.com
403-244-6921 - Calgary AB Canada
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9.- SEMINAR ON INTRODUCING ELT TO YOUNG
LEARNERS
Our
dear SHARER Teresa Fernandez from the British Council Office I Buenos Aires
sends us this information:
The Management of Introducing ELT to
Younger Learners
17-22 March 2002 - York - Directed by
Annie Hughes
English is being introduced to younger
learners in many countries world-wide. This introduction of the earlier
learning of English raises serious issues in many pedagogical areas including:
curriculum change; teacher development and training; materials development and
publication; assessment and evaluation procedures and the management of
transitional changes throughout any new programme.
This seminar will explore all of these
issues through structured group focus sessions and presentations by well-known
specialists in the young learner field. This seminar will be intensive and
there may be one or two evening sessions.
The main topics will include:
* Managing changes in teacher development ·
* Managing changes in materials provision ·
* Exploring the field of TEYL: the issues arising from change ·
* Managing changes in teacher training ·
* Managing curriculum changes ·
* Managing changes in assessment and evaluation procedures
Each day, within the topic focus, the
seminar will look at case-studies, compare participant situations, issues,
problems & solutions and create strategies for addressing some of these
issues.
This seminar will be of interest to senior
decision and policy makers, budget-holders and those whose responsibilities may
include the management of change within the ELT field, including members of
education ministries, advisors, trainers, examiners and materials publishers
and providers.
This seminar has been timed to end the day
before the beginning of the annual IATEFL conference which will be held in York from Saturday 23 March to
Wednesday 27 March 2002. For further Information please look at the website
www.iatefl.org <http://www.iatefl.org>
Please note that a full prospectus is also available for this event at
http://www.britishcouncil.org/networkevents/2000/0123p.htm
For further information, please contact:
Diana E. Delamer
Education Information Officer
info@britishcouncil.org.ar
The British Council - M. T. de Alvear 590 - 4° C1058AAF Buenos Aires
Tel +54 (0)11 4311 9814 /
Fax +54 (0)11 4311 7747 / www.britishcouncil.org.ar
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Time
to say goodbye. Again we we wanted to leave you a message which might accompany
you through the week. It was sent to us by our dear SHARER ,
Mónica Silakowicz :
Hasta hoy, Señor, he hecho bien. No he murmurado, no he perdido mi dominio
propio, no he sido ambicioso, egoísta o travieso. Me alegro de esto.
Pero en pocos minutos, Señor, me voy a levantar de la cama, y de ahí en
adelante, voy a necesitar mucha ayuda. Amen.
HAVE A
WONDERFUL WEEK !
Omar
and Marina.
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is no longer operative.
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