Have Fun with English! 2

A blog for me and my 5th and 6th grade students (2005-2007) in Parede, Portugal.

Rodrigo (6.C) has a blog

    Hi, kids and all our friends!

Rodrigo (6.C) or "Rodrigo the second" is my second student with this name in 4 years and is also an enthusiast of these "toys" we call new technologies. A week ago today he showed me a list in Portuguese of different Air Force ranks and I told him (= disse-lhe) that English dictionaries have lists of all the ranks in the different branches (= ramos) of the American and British Armed Forces. He was suprised. He also told me that he wants to be a pilot in the Portuguese Air Force (I believe has a double nationality, Brazilian and Portuguese), that's why he created that list. That afternoon we met by chance in the school library and I showed him the dictionary. He liked those lists.

The following day he "surprised" me in a comment in our blog with a URL to his FAP blog (please click the image).

This blog is about his passion and his dream: to enter the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) and become a pilot. He has nice photos of different aircraft and their characteristics.

First curiosity: it's in Motime, just like our "Have Fun with English! 2" and the background is blue, just like "our" blog, though blue is also the color of the Air Force uniform.

Second curiosity: his classmates started leaving comments at once, in English.

Third curiosity: when Rodrigo wanted to insert a Clustr Map (though he called it a Frappr Map), he asked me for help. I sent him the instructions and this is his enthusiastic reply: "THE NEW BLOG HAS FRAPPER MAP ON THE CORRECT PLACE!! I DID IT!! Thank you for your instructions" (25Jan07). This is the beauty of these social tools, such as blogs. We keep in touch all the time. BTW, we haven't used email at all. Just today when he sent me his photo.

I consider Rodrigo's blog an "off-shoot" of our two blogs. This comment of his to me in his blog illustrates that: "Your CALL Lessons are so funny, and I learned a lot! =D" (27Jan07). It is very gratifying to see that I am getting across to some students not only regarding English - his blog is in English! -, but also regarding computer literacy and e-literacy.

His blog and his comments "made my weekend"! It's a pleasure to teach students like Rodrigo. 

posted by: teresadeca at 01/31/07 18:50 | link | comments (1276)

An "international star" in our school

    Hi, kids!

Rodrigo, who is now an 8th grader in our school and was my most enthusiastic student in 5th and 6th grade, is an "international star".

A teacher-friend of mine in Washington. D.C., Christine Meloni, asked me to find 2-3 students to complete an interview (= responder a uma entrevista). I emailed Rodrigo and two other former students. Rodrigo answered immediately and his interview was published in the January 2007 issue of an American online newsletter, "The NCLRC Language Resource", a joint project of two well-known American universities, Georgetown University and The George Washington University, together with the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Here is Rodrigo's interview.

Congratulations, Rodrigo! What a way to start the year!! You'll go far!!!

"Thank you" for collaborating with me and my friend!  

posted by: teresadeca at 01/21/07 18:14 | link | comments (1229)

What we did in class

    Here's Daniela (6. E), a student from Moldova, telling us about what we did in class in the first two weeks of the 2nd term (Jan 3-11)!

In the last two weeks we studied the Present Continuous with vocabulary about sports, and we had CALL lesson 5. We read comments from teachers and students, and we wrote and recorded a message.

posted by: teresadeca at 01/20/07 11:02 | link | comments (9)

Food

    Hi, kids!

Guilherme and I have been talking (= temos estado a falar) about food this past week. Plese read the comments in the Jan 8 post. I know that he likes soup, grilled ham and cheese sandwich (= tostas mista), spaghetti bolognese. And what do I like? Go read the comments and find out (= descubram)!

So... I think it's a great time to continue talking about food. We all like to eat, don't we??!! Why don't you tell us about your favorite food. You can start with breakfast and then tell us about lunch or dinner. Remember to use the dictionary!

This is going to be fun and yummy!  

posted by: teresadeca at 01/14/07 11:36 | link | comments (25)

Happy Birthday, Pedro!

It was Pedro's (6.D) birthday last Saturday, Jan 6. It was my grandmother's (on my mother's side) birthday on that day and it's a first cousin's birthday. She was a wonderful lady and he's a wonderful man. So... I told Pedro that he must be a good boy too! 

We all sang "Happy Birthday"! I think he was happy! Click the image (top left) to listen.

posted by: teresadeca at 01/08/07 17:36 | link | comments (17)

2nd term starts tomorrow!!! :-)

    Hi, kids!

It's back to school tomorrow for the beginning of the 2nd term. I hope you had nice and restful holidays and are ready and eager (= desejosos) to get back to work!

There's a lot to do, many new things to learn and more CALL lessons, of course.

Be prepared to work much more and enjoy our English lessons!!

See you tomorrow morning with a big smile on those faces!!!!  

posted by: teresadeca at 01/02/07 20:52 | link | comments (20)