March 25, 2008 – ¡Vámonos!
 

Day: March 25, 2008

Europe Day 08

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I’ve just received notification from Ruth Churchill at CILT of some FREE resources available. Never one to look a gift horse …, I immediately investigated!

Apparently May 9th is Europe Day (I’m afraid this was the first I’d heard of it!) and the European Commission has produced a booklet to promote the day as well as provide information promoting the EU.

Here’s the e-mail:

Representation of the European Commission in the United Kingdom – Passport to the European Union
What do we know about the member states of the European Union? Whereabouts is the statue with more clothes than one would find in any woman’s wardrobe. Did they really use eggs to built a bridge in Prague? Could there still be an island where no female either human or animal is allowed? This and a lot more information on the 27 member countries of the European Union e.g. their size and population, famous citizens etc. is answered in our little booklet “Passport to the European Union” which also includes stickers of coins, flags, buildings and even a map. Children can find places for the stickers in the passport and on the map.

In order to support Europe Day (9 May) activities for young people, the Representation of the European Commission in the United Kingdom is making 100,000 copies of the Passport to the European Union available to UK schools and similar organisations completely free of charge.

You can view the booklet online and then decide if you want to order up to 100 copies per school either from your Europe Direct centre or by filling in a form online. I’m planning on using them for SODA (start of the day activity) and also for incidental work. If every class focussed on a different country, we could share notes in assembly later in the week. Kids love finding things out and with stickers and things too, it’s sure to be a hit (they’ll prefer it to handwriting too!)

So don’t hang around- there are now 100 less copies as my order’s already in!

Here’s a montage of posters used in previous years to promote the day – perhaps it’ll inspire you!

To find out what’s going on in the UK, have a look at the events diary – I like the look of the Giant European Union Pub Quiz in Wrexham! And there’s also a whole page of ideas for how your school might be able to celebrate.

SMS en español

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hla k tal? spro k b. k acs? kntm.

Sbs k digo? My typing skills haven’t deserted me – I’m texting! If you speak Spanish and/or are conversant with the language of texting, all that makes perfect sense.

I must admit that I sometimes get confused by all the abbreviations and double meanings in English – LOL is laughing out loud but also lots of love – and have to explain some abbreviations I use – I thought ROFL was universally understood as rolling on the floor laughing??

I was interested to read a recent post from Spanish.about.com entitled Spanish cell phone abbreviations – Shortcuts make text messages faster.
I wondered how the language of text would vary between English and Spanish. It was interesting to see how Spaniards use similar abbreviations to us:

  • letters and numbers just like us – gr8 = great / 100pre = siempre or salu2 = saludos
  • phonetic abbreviations as we do – cu = see you / aki = aquí
  • initial letters – brb = be right back / npn = no pasa nada

but also have borrowings like pls for por favor, and also sms for texting itself.

I wonder if we could justify texting as a suitable for Primary learning –
it’s definitely Modern, it’s Foreign to many and it’s a Language in its own right. How about it? ;o)

m1ml, b7s, a2

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