Friday, September 25, 2020

European Day of Languages 20 Years : Celebrate at school or at home ! New resources & activities











European Day of Languages
European Day of Languages 2021: 20 years celebrating linguistic and cultural diversity.

Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans are represented in the Council of Europe's 47 member states and all are encouraged to discover more languages at any age, as part of or alongside their studies. This stems from the Council of Europe’s conviction that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent. Therefore, the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe. 

At the Council of Europe’s initiative, the European Day of Languages has been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26 September - together with the European Commission.




European Day of Languages
https://edl.ecml.at/

The European Day of Languages gives us an opportunity to value and promote all languages and cultures in Europe. This year we are putting a special focus on inclusive language education, which supports all learners to reach their potential and play an active part in diverse and democratic societies”

It is estimated that there are over 225 indigenous languages in Europe, without even including languages which have arrived on the continent through migration.


Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić


The specific aims of the EDL are to:

  • raise awareness of the importance of language learning in order to increase plurilinguism and intercultural understanding;
  • promote the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe;
  • encourage lifelong language learning in and out of school.



European Day of Languages

https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanDayofLanguages/


  • Education:


A dedicated website, which is available in 41 languages (some partly), provides details of the hundreds of events taking place in celebration of the Day, as well as a wide variety of resources and activities for everyone interested in languages and language learning.


New! Activities :




 
https://edl.ecml.at/Portals/


Poster :  "20 things you might not know about Europe's languages"


In 10 languages. 




App: The secret agent’s language challenges app

The challenges and quizzes contained within this app encourage learners – future international agents – to take advantage of the plentiful opportunities available to practice or learn more about a language beyond a classroom context. 
By passing through a series of levels you can rise from a lowly agent in training to become a master secret agent. 
Students can compete with friends and schoolmates in achieving challenges, identifying countries and languages and completing quizzes. 
The challenges go from the easy, such as, “count from 1-10 in 3 different languages within one minute” to ones that are a bit more demanding, “together with a friend, write the words to a song/rap in a foreign language.




Join EDL's 20th Anniversary Great Bake-Off 


This year, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its inauguration, the European Centre for Modern Languages invites all of you to participate in our EDL's Great Bake-Off.

The goal is to collect birthday recipes from different parts of the world and in different languages to then include the 20 most original (and tasty!) desserts in a special 20th-anniversary-edition recipe book

If you would like your birthday dessert to be included (after a rigorous selection process!), please read the instructions and get ready to bring out the chef in you!

Submission deadline: 30 September 2021


Lara's language journey across Europe:

During this short journey, students will discover lots of similarities. European languages largely fall into three main categories: Slavic, Romance and Germanic, the languages within each group have the same roots – however, over centuries they have developed in their own distinct directions. You will also find out about their differences: the variety of alphabets (such as Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian and Georgian), often using artistic scripts; how they deal with creating words for new inventions and their sometimes mysterious origins. All have a unique identity and their own story to tell! 
Download book here


hybrid learning cartoon
https://edl.ecml.at/



Struggling to find ideas for a ‘socially-distanced’ event for this year’s European Day of Languages? In these uncertain times, it can be challenging to organize events which are both safe and are attractive to a large number of people. 

Here 7 ideas to get the creativity flowing:





Suggetions involving social distance

Materials:

Posters, flyers, figures, wrist bands, stickers, logos, handbook & so.

Teachers and students can download here and here




screenshot Languages Challenges app

 https://apple.co/

App: The Secret Agent's Language Challenges app

An app, created specifically for the EDL, encourages users to carry out a series of language challenges, thereby developing further competence and confidence in using different languages.



The app offers a wide range of challenges to keep language learners motivated – in particular during a prolonged period away from the ‘physical’ language classroom. 

The app can easily be used by students/children independently or together with teachers and parents. Lots of fun and in more than 15 languages!

iOS: https://apple.co/3mq7qfz
Android: https://bit.ly/3hFp2QG






Facts & fun:

"According to a research at Cambridge University, it doesn’t matter in what order letters in a word are written; the only important factor is that the first and last letters should be in the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without any problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole."

  • Languages facts
  • Language games
  • Languages fun
Here the page to learn, gaming and having fun.

Well, if you couldn't include yet the European Day of Languages into your school curriculum, you can do it next week. 

We are living different times, you are teaching in different times. Difficult times. So, be cool! Teachers can use the activities in different ways and propose them to students in the classroom when they think it will be important.

Be safe! Don't forget your mask and ask your students to use their masks as well. And out of school, always respect the social distance.

We will be all right!

G-Souto

25.09.2020
update 26.09.2021
Copyright © 2021G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Schools: European Day of Languages 20 Years : Celebrate at school or at home ! New resources & activities ! bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

 

Friday, September 11, 2020

Schools : July in Review : Women in science & Youth Skills Day ! Yes ! Day of Friendship !





credits: Elyx 


Back from my summer break, Yes! Summer break, lovely time and traditions, remember? Here I am. Well, Summer finally arrived at the end of the month, here in the north of Portugal! First weeks of August were a bit foggy. 

We had the Perseids meteor shower and after that, weather has changed. Last two weeks, Summer time is back. And my holidays. Beautiful time!


Well, no more sandcastlesIt's time to the review of the most popular posts of July.



credits: Incidental Comics

July.Yes, I forgot it. Not so strange, right? The long lockdown. Difficult time to all of us.  Schools closed for months, no students, no colleagues. 

We were sad. My usual readers will forget me, I'm sure. We all suffered.  

Teachers and students.


Here are the most popular posts of the last month:

Schools : Women in science : Nettie Stevens broke gender barriers ?

International Day of Friendship : Sharing the human spirit through friendship !


Science : Rosalind Franklin Centenary : Image Competition & Essay Competition



Some of you are back to school in August and first days of September. Here in Portugal, schools are well prepared to receive students next week, to avoid Covide-19. All the rules are accomplished. 

It's crucial students come back to face-to-face classes. But we must be rigorous with their health security and ours, of course. Following the rules, social distance inside school and classes, masks entering at schools and during lessons, avowing big groups, everything will be all right

Have a safe and good school year in a very different time!

G-Souto

11.09.2020
Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Schools: July in Review : Women in science, & Youth Skills Day ! Oh! Yes ! Day of Friendship ! bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Monday, September 7, 2020

Schools : Literature : Joan Aiken, the writer of supernatural thrillers and charmingly quirky children’s novels.

  



Joan Aiken
credits: Rod Delroy
via NYT
 “Stories are mysterious things; they have a life of their own. Animals don’t tell each other stories — so far as we know! Man is the only creature that has thought of telling stories, and, once a story has been written or told, it becomes independent of its creator and goes wandering off by itself. Think of Cinderella, or Beauty and the Beast —we don’t know where they came from, but they are known by people all over the world."
Joan Aiken, introduction to her stories

Google Doodle 91st anniversary of Joan Aiken
doodler : Kevin Laugh

Google Doodle: 
Google celebrated Joan Aiken 91st birthday 2015, with a Doodle paying tribute to The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, the novel that kicked off Joan’s most beloved series of children’s books. 
"Every so often an extraordinarily prolific author comes along to win the hearts of a generation. Writer Joan Aiken was one of those authors. At the age of 16, she finished her first full-length novel. She was destined for great things."
 Kevin Laughlin, doodler
The Wolves Chronicles include a dozen books published over a 43-year span, following the adventures of several children in an alternate history of England. 



The Wolves of Willoughby Chase 
Joan Aiken, 1st edition 1962
capa: Edward Gorey
Synopsis:

The novel is the first in the Wolves Chronicles, a series of books set during the fictional early-19th century reign of King James the third. A large number of wolves have migrated from the bitter cold of Europe and Russia into Britain via a new "channel tunnel", and terrorise the inhabitants of rural areas. 


illustration from The Wolves Chronicles
Joan Aiken
illustration: Pat Marriott

This a children's novel, first published in 1962. Set in an alternative history of England, it tells of the adventures of cousins Bonnie and Sylvia and their friend Simon the goose-boy as they thwart the evil schemes of their governess Miss Slighcarp, and their so-called "teacher" at boarding school, Mrs. Brisket.
Aiken wrote the book over a period of years, with a seven-year gap due to her full-time work; the success of this, her second novel, enabled her to quit her job and write full-time.



The  Wolves Chronicles
Joan Aiken

The Wolves Chronicles include a dozen books published over a 43-year span, following the adventures of several children in an alternate history of England.

The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase received immediate acclaim both in Britain and the United States, where Aiken also has a devoted following. She continued the series with other titles, including Black Hearts In Battersea (1964), The Whispering Mountain (1968), for which she won the Guardian children's book prize, and Dido And Pa (1986).


The Whispering Mountain
Joan Aiken
Aiken books are rich in atmosphere and intrigue. They also include memorable characters, such as the resourceful Cockney heroine Dido Twite and the wicked governess Miss Slighcarp, who is every bit as dangerous as the ever-lurking wolves themselves.



Joan Aiken
credits:  Joan Aiken Estate
via The Guardian/ Children's books

Some biographical notes:
Joan Aiken was born as I wrote, on 4 September 1924, em Rye, East Sussex. Daughter of the American poet Conrad Aiken and Jessie MacDonald, graduada pelo Radcliffe College.
Her father the poet Conrad Aiken, Pulitzer Prizewinning poet, and later her stepfather, the English novelist Martin Armstrong, surrounded her by conversations about the technique of crafting a short story, and what were the key ingredients of a good ghost story - both genres in which she came to excel.
She was encouraged to write by all the family, after all, but it was the latter who provided the particular starting point.
Julia Eccleshare, The Guardian, Books




Joan Aiken, at 9
credits: Joan Aiken Estate
Having completed her formal education, she turned to writing children’s novels and fiction stories at a young age. 
Joan didn’t go to school, she was taught at home by her mother and collected her stories in a notebook she bought at the village shop when she was five.



Joan Aiken, note book
credits: Joan Aiken Estate
via The Guardian, Children's Books
By the age of sixteen, she had already penned her first full-length novel and the following year, had her first short story for adults printed in a publication. It was in 1941 that her first children’s story was broadcasted on the BBC’s Children’s Hour.
From 1943 to 1949, she worked for United Nations Information Centre in London as a librarian.
In her lifetime, she had penned more than hundred books, which include a dozen collections of fantasy stories, plays, poems, historical novels and modern tales for adults and children.




The Shadow Guests
Joan Aiken

She is noted for penning spine-chilling thriller novels for children such as ‘The Windscreen Weepers’, The Shadow Guests, ‘A Whisper in the Night’, and ‘A Creepy Company’. In the same genre, she wrote an adult novel as well which was known by the name ‘The Haunting of Lamb House’.
In her lifetime, she wrote on various genres including magic, fantasy, adventure and thriller. In total, she came up with almost 92 novels including 27 novels for adults, as well as plays, short stories and poems.
She had an unusual ability to write for all ages with such a fine sense of the differences between her audiences that she could match the content and the style exactly to the reader. 


Joan Aiken at The Hermitage, her home, 1984
Joan Aiken produced more than a hundred books. Aiken wrote in all genres - poetry and plays - as well as having a particular gift for stunning short stories. Here, she was just as much at home with fairy stories, as in A Necklace Of Raindrops (1968) and folktales collected in The Kingdom Under The Sea (1971), as she was with such horror stories as A Bundle Of Nerves (1976).
Not many know that this established children’s short story writer and novelist who is credited for the novel, ‘The Wolves of Willoughby Chase’ was a lifelong fan of ghost stories, particularly those of M. R. James, Fitz James O'Brien and Nugent Barker.



A Necklace of Raindrops
Joan Aiken,1968

For her significant contribution to children and adult literature, she was conferred with two prestigious awards in her life, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1969 and the Edgar Allan Poe Award Best Juvenile Mystery Fiction in 1972 with The Night Fall
She made it to the runner up position for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, after her book was recognized as the year's best children's book by a British subject.
She was bestowed with the honorary title of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1999 for her service as a children’s short story writer and novelist.
Aiken died at home in Petworth, West Sussex, UK, at the age of 79 in 2004. 



credits: Cosia Herbia
via Quartz

Education:

"It therefore seems fitting that her writing life should be framed by two stories for the young. Her first was written as a 16-year-old for the fledging BBC Children's Hour; her last, Midwinter Nightingale, the long-awaited addition to her prize-winning series, which began with The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase, will be published in a couple of months' time."
Julia Eccleshare, The Guardian, Books



Midwinter Nightingale
Joan Aiken

Reading is for many of us and students a regular source of joy, perspective, and ideas, which enables us and them  to grow personally, to younger readers, to develop reading skills and grammar or vocabulary.

It occurred to me that there is a simple pedagogical principle that explains the appeal of very early learning, homeschooling: Reading began at home, with parents since childhood. 

Joan Aiken was passionate about the power of reading aloud, the shared experience of communication through stories, and often talked about memories of her own childhood and the many books that were read to her and her siblings. 

In one of her talks to writers and teachers she became quite fierce, saying if parents couldn’t spare an hour a day to read to their children, they didn’t deserve to have any!

But sometimes this is not possible. There are some poor readers among parents.

So educators are important references to students. We must valorise books and read a lot in the classroom. We can do a better job if we are rich readers.





Arabel and Mortimer stories
Joan Aiken
illustration: Quentin Blake

This act of pleasure of reading must start in kindergarten to be continued in primary, elementary and secondary education.






Arabel's Raven
Joan Aiken
illustration: Quentin Blake


"As she would sometimes say at the end of her stories:
‘There is no moral to this story I’m afraid.’
And nor need there be, what matters is  the voice."

Joaniken A


Reading out loud is a pleasant way that students love the most. Invite your youngest pupils to listen Arabel and Mortimer here

One important point: schools need more time for reading aloud, choosing and sharing the pleasure of reading books and not just extracts. However, teachers can make reading exciting all through the year



Joan Aiken website
Resources:
A website about Joan Aiken offer some interesting resources and activities. Ask your students to visit and explore all the staff.
  • Books by group: students can explore the different books and get interesting information.
  • There is a Letter Dear Reader for all students who love to read. Invite them to read the letter and discuss with students the comprehension of the text and ideas. A lovely letter!



Letters from you
  • If they like communicate with the author about her books, ideas, and different subjects, here Letters from YouThey can write. Here the send by post. Here the address
  1. Aiken and her illustrations - in her own words :  She present and hpnour all the illustrators of her books

Film:


The Wolves  of Willoughby Chase, film
Stuart Orme, 1989
The book The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was adapted to the cinema in 1989 by Stuart Orme.
Willoughby Chase is the grand but remote home of Sir Willoughby and Lady Green and their daughter Bonnie.

"Aiken was the most modest of authors, though she certainly knew her worth. She was one of the many professionals of her time who never courted publicity, though never shunned it either."

96th Birthday celebration of Joan Aiken by her daughter Lizza:




"May All Your Way Be Strewn With Flowers"

For Joan Aiken birthday celebration Lizza proposed a fun story, about the book All You’ve Ever Wanted
"Joan Aiken’s modern fairy tale, All You’ve Ever Wanted  is the title story of her first book published in 1953, and imagines an unfortunate orphan called Matilda, who is showered with magical wishes that will keep coming true. Think of the joys of spring – lovely at first when the garden is busting out all over, but what if it can’t be stopped…?"
Every year Matilda receives a birthday greeting in a pink and silver envelope from an absent Aunt (unfortunately also a witch) invariably couched in the usual poetic and flowery terms:
‘Each morning make another friend,
Who’ll be with you till light doth end…’
Ask your students to read All you've ever wanted - A Joan Aiken wish comes true! And let them discover the story of her wish.

Resources + 

Stories ought not to be just little bits of fantasy that are used to wile away an idle hour; from the beginning of the human race stories have been used - by priests, by bards, by medicine men - as magic instruments of healing, of teaching, as a means of helping people come to terms with the fact that they continually have to face insoluble problems and unbearable realities."
Joan Aiken
G-Souto

07.09.2020
Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Schools : Literature : Joan Aiken, the writer of supernatural thrillers # charmingly quirky children's books by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.