Monday, May 25, 2009

So many new websites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every evening when I sit down to read my mail I become so much overwhelmed with amount of new websites opening every day, every hour, even every minute
Two of these free website are the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English and the Cambridge English Language Teaching. Both websites contain very useful material for English language teachers.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The visit to Carlos Rosario Public Charter School


As I started recording my visit to the Sates so was Isabella one of the EFL Educators. She had done a great job of using VoiceThreat to describe our visit to Carlos Rosario Public Charter School.


I just wanted to add three extra points on her description of that visit. First as I attended one elementary class I noticed that the teacher was using 'learning stations' with different activities on listening, speaking, writing and reading. The teacher was timing the lesson so well that all the students passed on all the learning stations. Also one of the most important things I noticed on entering the classroom was a white board with the objectives of the lesson written very clearly. The teacher even asked one of the students to check if they had covered all the objectives of the lesson. One last thing was the slogan of the school 'Literacy is global ' written at the entrance of the school with drawings of students from different nationalities. For me the school seemed like all the world put together working in harmony, to achieve a common objective.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Asking Michelle Rhee

After meeting the Chancellor Michelle Rhee,we had an argument about is she right or wrong about saying she cares only for what goes inside the schools but outside is not her worry. On visiting her corner on the District of Columbia Public Schools website I found a place for questions and comments. I send her the following: "I was one of the EFL educators who met you on March, I was really touched by your dedication to solve the problems facing education. After the visit we had an argument about the possibility of separating the problems of education from other problems in society. how can you educate a child who is hungry,sick and frightened even if you have the best teachers in the class?"
To my suprise Next day I got the following answer from the Chancellor Michelle Rhee, she said " Though it’s challenging, it’s absolutely possible to do. We see it in classrooms and schools across this city. MR"
So I felt that she is really dedicated to her job she even took the time to answer my email, WOW.