absolutenglish

Bye -bye Orange

Laurence — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:32:00 +0000

Our free web space is now full at Orange, where Absloutenglish-972 was born and grew.
The site will start a new life after five years here with its own domain name

NOW AT
www.absolutenglish.org

BAC 2007: Terminales ES

Laurence — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:11:00 +0000

The 2007 list of texts and downloads for the BAC (2d gp oral exam) in Tle ES is now online (just in case you need them from July 2 to July 4th)

Cyber-langues 2007: Perpignan

Laurence — Tue, 15 May 2007 02:33:00 +0000

Cyber-langues is a French organization of language teachers who use ICT in their teaching practices. It organizes a 3-days' meeting each August in a different city of France, or even outside France.

More about Cyber-langues 2007 here:
http://www.cyber-langues.asso.fr/

This year's Cyber-langues will take place in Perpignan. Come and join us this summer if you teach a foreign language, use ICT and speak French (August 21st- August 23rd).

I will be presenting Stock Potatoes , which I have been using on the local network this year with 4 classes in the multimedia room of my school (using EasyPhp). The results are encouraging. I use it to train and evaluate reading and listening skills.
The students just love to work on it. They usually get good or excellent results if we compare them to the scores they would get in a more traditional classroom situation (teacher/students vs students/computer). The student is willing to do the activity (and to do it again and again if possible), he or she is more likely to concentrate on his/her work, for a longer period of time. The teacher immediately gets the students' scores.

Last but not least, I can spend less time marking reading and listening tests and spend more on writing tasks or essays :-)

Teleworking on my Stock Potatoes

I have a dream

Laurence — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 02:34:00 +0000

HERE is a multimedia presentation of Martin Luther King's famous speech "I have a dream" .
This smil file (synchronized multimidia integration language) synchronizes the video, the sub-titles in English as well as other illustrative images and texts.

CLICK ON THE SCREEN SHOT TO OPEN THE PRESENTATION

You will need Real Player to open this presentation

Download Real Player if necessary.

What's up?

Laurence — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:59:00 +0000

It's such a long time since I last wrote anything on the blog. It's high time I kept you informed of the news, past and coming events.

I had a great time last summer in France visiting my family and meeting my cyber-colleagues at Cyber-langues in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. I made a short presentation of Stockpotatoes on that occasion, but unfortunately, the new school where I was appointed last september is not connected to the Internet, and the multimedia room doesn't work anyway, so I cannot use the platform with my students.

I have developped more lesson plans and activities using my laptop and video projector instead. So I carry about 5 bags at school: my handbag (a typical woman's messy handbag), my school bag with all my papers, my laptop, one bag with the video-projector, and another one with my speakers and wires. I have had back problems, as you can easily imagine, but fortunately, I found a good doctor to fix this!

I really enjoy my new school, Montgérald high-school in Le Marin, the students are nice and well behaved.
The view of the bay is absolutely wonderful. I found this perso site that will help you picture the setting (although the site and photos is not recent).

So, What's new in class?

A lesson plan on the school rules : I found an interesting American video from the 50s entitled : "school rules, how they help us "and decided to use it in class as part of my first lesson plan this year with the 5th and lower 6th formers. The whole lesson plan is based on the Common European Framework ("cadre européen commun" in French) and can be download here [.doc].

We are currently working on Immigration to the USA: we started with a video entitled "immigration ", from the Prelinger archives. We watched the first 2'45'', without sound first to identify the theme, the countries and revise nationalities, then with sound to check answers. We finished with a fill-in the blanks activity where all geographical terms (countries, nationalities, cardinal points, regions, continents, etc. had been erased.)

We are now working on West Side Story, with a study of the first scene to set the background and context and the song "America" to analyse the contrasting views of the immigrants.
I still have to gather all my documents into one to share them

To conclude, I'm still working on the Academy's site here and on a new Absolutenglish (I've almost used all my space) but this may take a while, or even longer.

Slavery Project 2006

Laurence — Wed, 17 May 2006 02:04:00 +0000

The 2006 slavery project at "le Lycée la Jetée, Martinique (French West Indies) is coming to an end, it's high time I allowed you, dear visitors, to see what my seconde B wrote (5th form B). The project started on a nice day out visiting a former sugar plantation on the North-Caribbean coast of the island (April 7, 2006)and ended today with the last test based on an extract from Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The blog2la2b is the teacher and the students' writing area. The students' posts will be evaluated for this academic year's last term.

Note that the class work in the "class log" section of the blog is written in French (the students' native language) by the teacher for all parents and students to understand clearly what was done in class.

Jacqueline Julius joins the blogosphere

Laurence — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 23:19:00 +0000

Nathalie Cadot, an English teacher at "Jacqueline Julius" junior high school in Fort-de-France has recently created a blog for her students which focuses on the skills as described in the Common European Framework. Join them and see how my colleague has already adapted the CEF and portfolio to her teaching practice.

Super Size Me

Laurence — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 00:58:00 +0000

I was looking forward to offering my students and visitors more activities online based on video.

A new series of activities adapted from a CBS video news report on Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me is online here.

eStat.com

Laurence — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:45:00 +0000

Each time I take a look at the statistics for my site, I am amazed to notice that an average of 200 people visit absolutenglish-972 every day and that they connect from all around the world

And just for the pleasure to travel now and again, I wouldn't unsuscribe from estat.com (in spite of the ads on the main page).

Be my Valentine

Laurence — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 21:58:00 +0000

Get ready for a wonderful Valentine's day next February 14! Study a poem by Robert Burns "Love is like a red red Rose".

Robin

Laurence — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:19:00 +0000

You left too early, we will miss you very much.
You were so generous, so devoted, so passionate, so understanding, so funny.
You left too early, we had so much to learn from you.
Robin, I wish you all the best where you are.
Your students think you're gone because the angels needed a musician and a great English teacher.
It may be so, but nobody can replace you down here.

Robots

Laurence — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:56:00 +0000

The "robots" lesson plan is back with my "secondes" and I added this new listening activity on the movie iRobot starring Will Smith as a homicide detective seeking a murderer among androids.
The students do the listening activities on their own in the lab and we talk about the scene during the following lesson, using reported speech to try and rebuild from memory the scene and the dialogue.

Hopefully, we may proceed to Ask my Bot, a web-based activity where students chat with a virtual robot and have to report the conversation they had.

In the meantime, we also study a text from their book ("Irish Robots Happy to do the Chores" Wide Open 2de, Hachette) and we learn/revise how to introduce a text (genre, title, author, date, main subject) and concentrate on reading comprehension + the expression of ability (can, be able to, be capable of, allow,...) . On their second session in the lab, the students try this quiz on how to express capacity/ability and may do this vocabulary search exercise and they also record their oral presentation of the text "Irish robots..." in mp3.

Eventually, the students will be capable of writing an article about an imaginary robot project (that they may design or draw.... as some students did a few years ago)

the article could be organized as follows:

Intro - presentation of the team and of the project (name, aim)
§1: historical background (the robot's skills int he past)
§2: the progress of technology: robotics today
§3 : The new project: What the new robot will do

(express capacity in the past (§1) , present (§2) and future (§3)

Faites vos jeux! is BACK

Laurence — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:14:00 +0000

Faites vos Jeux is back , for beginners. Thank you very much Marie-Annik Durand and Catherine Baldit-Dufays, (not only e-colleagues but also friends - almost old friends?) for these two great books that should definitely help everyone, young and not so young to revise and learn more basic vocabulary! Order you copy NOW from HERE

A very happy new year to all visitors

Laurence — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 23:48:00 +0000

I wish you all, dear visitors, a very happy new year 2006 (click to view my personal moviecard and to make your own...).

The new year means "back to school" for me, after a nice break due to the birth of my baby Paul! But the students miss me (is that really so?) and I'm back to le lycée du François on January 3rd with a new lesson on Computers (there had to be one new lesson, at least...).

Do you need help with resolutions? Visit this page

Right Tracks n°4: the West Indies

Laurence — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 03:09:00 +0000

Right Tracks the French magazine for EFL/ESL teachers dedicates its issue n° 4 of October 2005 to the West Indies. Discover the West Indies and the Caribbean.

Buy online
or call the CRDP in Martinique (Tel : 0596 61 70 30)

Portmanteaux

Laurence — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:03:00 +0000

A new lesson plan was added: it is about portmanteaux...
What is a portmanteau??? what is your favorite portmanteau???
Check it out
CLERE (click here)

Drag and Drop generator

Laurence — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 05:06:00 +0000

This activity The United Kingdom: Drag the cities to their appropriate location on the map was created using Genetiket, a drag and drop generator

This free tool and many others can be downloaded on GenETIC, an project by Pascal Grosjean, a Maths teacher in France.

I really appreciate Genetiket : at last, I can create drag and drop exercises with maps, which Hot Potatoes does not offer.

Happy Halloween

Laurence — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 07:14:00 +0000

Are you looking for Halloween links? All the freaks are here

US civil rights icon Parks dies

Laurence — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 02:29:00 +0000

On July 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black American woman, refused to move from the white section of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The event caused a boycott of local buses by blacks knwon as The Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped set in motion the US Civil Rights movement.

Rosa Parks on Wikipedia.org

BBC News' Article "US civil rights icon Parks dies", October 25, 2005

Cartoons on Cagle

Video on Rosa Parks

online activities:

How I fought for civil rights

Breaking News English:Easy

Breaking News English:Hard

Soccer

Laurence — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:49:00 +0000

There's a new resource page on soccer to prepare for the World Cup 2006, or just for the fun of it!

Describing People's appearance

Laurence — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:41:00 +0000

Describing people is often part of the first English lessons on a new academic year .

Here is a very usefull site to revise some very basic vocabulary on appearances.

Viv@ is back

Laurence — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:46:00 +0000

The virtual interactive village in Ardeche, France, is back with a brand new programming. Teachers and students are invited to join the village HERE

VIV@ is a virtual space where students can write about issues that interest them, invent characters and write stories about their interaction. Since students at different sites in France, in Poland, in Ireland, in Italy and elsewhere will be participating in the project over the year ahead, they can build on each other's stories and carry on conversations with their different partners, both in their native language and the target language that they are studying in school.

Learn more about the project on the main site or on The English Multiverse

Welcome Back to School Revisions

Laurence — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:03:00 +0000

Every new academic year is the same, we all need to refresh our memory, it's been so hot last summer!

Here's a very short list of some very basic revisions:

Interactive matching exercises in English - French to revise your classroom English
Worksheet on the vocabulary of instructions
Interactive multiple choice exercises to revise irregular verbs in context:
Interactive jumbled exercises to revise word order in questions
100 interactive activities to revise the most basic grammar points:
Interactive activities with audio to revise dates
Interactive matching exercises to revise the grammatical category of words: can you recognize a verb from a noun?

If this is not enough for you, take a look at this page, there is a large selection of exercises to choose from, for all levels

To the families who lost loved ones

Laurence — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 22:52:00 +0000

Heartfelt condolances to the people who lost loved ones in the tragic crash in Venezuala yesterday.
Martinique is such a small island for so big a tragedy.
Our blue sky is full of pain and sorrow today, the sea is full of tears, the birds and flowers mourn the 152 people who will not return to see their family and friends.
We think about the victims and about the people who are grief-stricken in their heart and soul.

VOA News on JAZZ

Laurence — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:55:00 +0000

Don't miss these 2 "Special English" programmes on JAZZ from VOA News

Part 1 : Birth of Jazz: How an American Musical Form Came Into the World

Part 2 : Late 20th-Century Jazz: New Beats for a Changed World