July '06 Newsletter
 | Hello, to everyone Out There We hope that your July is as sunny and filled with pleasure as ours; here is what we have for you this month: Languages Out There blog discovered (nothing to do with us!) Zeitgeist Out There My Out There - upload your Out There language experience images, sounds and videos Italian translation on website Email of the month - a teacher in Greece writes 'Did they really mean to say that?' Free podcast downloads of DIY beginners German and Spanish Out There with The Guardian Someone has decided, quite independently, that Languages Out There deserves to be discussed in a web log or 'blog'. A friend of ours discovered the blog when he searched for us on Google. The great thing is, they seem to like what we do! Of course, these things being very democratic, we couldn't resist saying 'hi' and letting them know that we wanted to be a part of the debate (as always), why not go and join in too: http://www.omniglot.com/blog/2006/06/22/languages-out-there/ We've been teaching Out There for five years now (our 5th birthday is on the 23rd July, all presents and donations welcome!) but we have recently noticed more and more places where people, not us, are talking about 'real' language and 'real' language learning experiences. In the latest issue of Global Study magazine, the Principal of English 2000 language school in Bournemouth, Kenny Rodia, has an article published called 'Real English - learning a new language does not only happen in the classroom'. Nice one Kenny, we wonder what inspired you, do let us know?! Global Study magazine also has an article, '50 tips for language learners', which we fully endorse. They just make great sense and, rather nicely for us, most of them involve you being outside of the classroom and getting stuck-in to communicating with native speakers in the real world! Check them out at: http://www.globalstudymagazine.com/site/articles/274/ Then there is the opinion piece in this month's Language Travel Magazine, written by editor Amy Baker. In it Amy talks about testing your language skills on local people and finishes up with ..."blending effective language learning methods with real-life opportunities to interact will be increasingly expected in the future". Read the whole article at: http://www.hothousemedia.com/ltm/ltmbackissues/july06web/july06contentsopinion.htm#anchor Finally on the Zeitgeist Out There side of things...we did smile knowingly when the British Council awarded a 2006 'Innovation in ELT' award to Camden College of English in London for their 'English Language Cultural Experience' course (snappy little name that!). You see, although there are no doubt huge differences in their course and ours, the concept of going outside of the classroom in every lesson could hardly be described as 'innovative' this time around, why? Well, we were short-listed for an innovation award in 2004 by...yes you've guessed it...the British Council. For those of you who are interested, we didn't actually win, although the head of the judges thought we should have done, and said so to us afterwards. But we really knew we wouldn't... Why? Because no one came to see what we actually did! However, well done Camden College for joining the zeitgeist. We really mean that, maybe we could have a beer sometime, after all we are only just down the road! My Out There has already had a few students upload their own images to the website. First on there is a shot by Melanie from France who was at the London school a couple of weeks ago, check out: http://www.languagesoutthere.com//what-you-say!.html Also on that page is a great shot of Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips rolling across the crowd in a plastic bubble at a recent gig in Hyde Park, London. Send us your Out There stuff. Thanks! Our unique course message has been translated into Italian and is now on the website, just click along the grey numbers below the text to follow the message, more languages will follow: http://www.languagesoutthere.com//languages-out-there-italiano.html We get emails from teachers around the world and most of them are very supportive of what we are doing, here is one from June, let us know if you agree with him: From: Yiannakis (name and email address withheld) Sent: 13 June 2006 19:11 To: info@languagesoutthere.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Subject: Re:Teaching Languages Hi, Just a short note to say that I teach Modern Greek here in Cyprus in 20 easy to follow lessons based on the main elements of grammar and I cannot agree more with you that using your method of teaching is the ideal one for every language teacher to adopt as this way the student is straight away made to participate in the learning process rather than being a passive recipient of what the teacher through his knowledge and experience conveys during his/her coaching hour. Best Wishes Yiannis. Cheers Yiannis...teachers, keep those emails coming! 'Did they really mean to say that?', a new feature where we find and display people having communication problems. "According to a new study, teachers have the germiest jobs. They have 17,000 germs per square inch on their desk. That's 10 times the germ rate of those in other professions" - Donald Trump. Courtesy of Popbitch http://www.popbitch.com The Guardian and Languages Out There have created some great self-study Out There lesson plans and podcasts for free download: http://travel.guardian.co.uk/audio/languages We got some great press for Spanish Out There with a really big article in the travel section of The Independent newspaper, you can read it here: http://travel.independent.co.uk/europe/article605829.ece Finally, congratulations to Italy on winning the World Cup. I'm sure all of us interested in successful communication would love to know what Marco Matterazzi said to Zinedine Zidane, and in which language. Get Out There ...and learn |