Swedes do it over a nice cup of tea - Feb 2010 Out There News
publication date: Feb 10, 2010
|
author/source: Jason West
Languages Out There - February 2010 Newsletter (1)
Hello to everyone Out There
This is the middle of February 'cold
and bored' newsletter*. The one where I tell you stuff that you
couldn't give a rat's arse about (i.e. are not interested in).
I really hope you have more interesting things to do than open this email and read it, let alone click on any of the links.
Fall asleep watching this newsletter online
Sensible Swedes getting it right without any fuss or controversy
NEW - online forum now open
Facebook project update
Feedback from EOT course in China
Old Jokes Home
Listen to me read this newsletter: you can snore and dribble whilst this newsletter is read out on our Facebook fans page, click here (mistakes are left in):
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=337832487787&saved#!/video/video.php?v=337832487787&ref=mf
"You see how happy people are afterwards."
Who better than the Swedes to bring a slightly positive shine to
February. Yes, without fanfare (trumpet salute) or even a gentle but
firm "we know how we learned to speak English so well that we thought
we would now apply it to immigrants to our country who need to learn
Swedish" the Swedes are blazing a quiet yet virtually unnoticed trail
(leading) in the language teaching technique field.
Not the byzantine machinations (out of
date system) of a Swedish language equivalent of the UK ESOL (English
for Speakers of Other Languages) syllabus for them, no, instead a nice
cup of tea and a pleasant chat with a friendly native speaker of
Swedish!
"Usually they do it for a year, and when we need new people we always
find enough," she explains as we make our way to a "language cafe" in
the southern district of Möllevången where immigrants can practise
their Swedish with native speakers."
This information is buried (hidden) in
the article and don't be put off by the headline or the name of the UK
Tory (Conservative Party) leader, read and scroll down:
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum - well,
that's so wrong, because it didn't for us, we just pressed a few
buttons in the moments after we'd torn our longing gaze away from the
blanketing grey skies outside, and the result is that you can now post
your thoughts, tips and tribulations (problems) on the LOT.com website:
Facebook update - Our
new crush (adolescent love obsession) on Facebook has surprised us as
much as anyone. It all began when they got voice and then some of our
EOT friends set up a page here and a page there with our name on them
(search for 'English Out There' on Facebook). If members of our site
want to spread the EOT word with a localised Facebook fan page we will
set it up, brand it and lend support for free. We have a few ideas...
But it also seems that FB, as it is
usually abbreviated, is going to challenge Google for global web
supremacy (first place) and presents something of a slightly different
business model. Your correspondent (me) can't help but agree and didn't
think he would ever be writing this. Here's the tech-head Guardian
newspaper writer's take on the battle to come:
Feedback from China -
Richard Wood of Verge Cross-Cultural Communication Ltd in Hefei has
sent this feedback on how use of our materials is going and some useful
ideas on how to market EOT inside China:
Old Jokes Home:
I went to a casino last night and was stood next
to a guy playing Blackjack who kept having win
after win after win. I couldn't believe his luck,
then saw he was stood on what looked like
a bit of bread.
I asked him, "Mate, what's that under your shoe?"
He said. "Shhh! I'm on a roll."
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason
* applies to northern hemisphere mainly and even then probably only north of 46'