Tue 31 Jul 2007
Teacher Halima Bobokhonova (School #1, Isfara, Sughd, Tajikistan) shows a PowerPoint game created by her students.
One student, Kombiz Sahobi, developed this PowerPoint show about the workshop we had in Isfara, in the north of Tajikistan.
An excellent project activity for students. Check it out…
Tue 31 Jul 2007
At the 2007 CATEC Conference (Central Asian Teachers of English Conference) I attended a workshop in haiku writing by Ludmila Shirmina from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
First Ludmila had us brainstorm in groups. We wrote down anything we wanted on the topic of spring. (See the photo). Then we put together our 3-line haikus following the pattern:
Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables
What’s cool about haiku is that they can just be images, or small little thoughts. They don’t have to be complete sentences even.
Here is the poem I wrote with my partner, Natalya Shiripova from Turkmenistan.
Under night’s white stars
such a delicate theme
two crickets kissing
I turned this into a 27-second song. (I added the article “the” in the first line. But, hey, haikus don’t have to be so exact.)Â
Check out the video.
Tue 31 Jul 2007
Here’s how to do a Rotation Dictation. It’s a lot of fun.
1. Put students in teams of three or four. One person will be a Writer. The others will be Runners.
2. Explain about the audio they will hear. A Rotation Dictation is a short piece of audio—in this case 45 words. When it reaches the end, it begins again. The audio features a woman named Venera from Tajikistan, and she talks about herself. The audio will repeat several times, for a total of about 2 minutes.
Play the audio quietly in a corner of the room, or even a bit outside of the room. A single Runner from each team will approach the audio player and listen.
They shouldn’t listen too long. Their job is to take a piece of this audio—several words or a whole sentence—and bring it back to their team. The Runner then tells the Writer what she heard.
Meanwhile the next Runner can go to the audio player and listen. Only one Runner per team can leave home base to listen.
The team will try to rebuild and reproduce the enitre audio text, writing it down.
At the end of two minutes, or more if necessary, teams will compare to see who has written the text most accurately.
Beforehand, or during (by writing them on the board) you could introduce students to these terms they might not get aurally: “shooting,” “skirmishes,” “civil strife,” “break out.”
Text: My name is Venera. I used to be a high school English teacher.  But then the civil strife broke out, so we had to stay at home for a couple of years ’cause there was much shooting, skirmishes. It was very dangerous to go outside.Â
Tue 31 Jul 2007
I interviewed ten people at CATEC (the Central Asian Teachers of English Conference) in Issyk-Kuhl, Kyrgyzstan, and asked them to give me one adjective to describe the conference. In the brief audio you’ll hear 10 adjectives.
See if your students can write them all down. It’s just a 16-second audio.
Answers: impressive, large, incredible, riveting, awesome, creative, useful, international, effective, perfect
Wed 4 Apr 2007
FEELTA (The Far Eastern English Language Teachers Association), based in Vladivostok, is the only teachers association in the entire world with its own theme song. I am very proud to be a lifetime member.
You can listen to the FEELTA theme song below, and at the same time test your knowledge of the geography of the RFE (Russian Far East).
You can play also play or download the movie/slideshow version. It features music, lyrics, and photos.
Feelta Theme Song [1:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (63)
Feelta Theme Movie [1:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (645)Thu 8 Mar 2007
Listen for the 15 missing vocabulary items in this text. They are all short, but even so, you may need to listen several times to be able to write them all.
Yeah, (1) ________ a little story about my first International Woman’s Day or (2) ________ Day–I’m not sure which (3) ________ it is—in Russia. It was a Thursday that (4) ________ , like it was in 2007, and I (5) ________ trying to get some teachers to (6) ________ and do some work—a class or workshops—on Friday. They said, “No, we (7) ________ do that because (8) ________ a holiday on Thursday.” “Yeah,” I said, “it’s International Woman’s Day. It’s (9) ________ one day, right?” And (10) ________ said, “Yes, but Friday (11) ________ also be a holiday. And (12) ________ I said, “Okay, (13) ________ . Well, what about Wednesday?” And they said, “No, that’s the day (14) ________ International Woman’s Day. And I said… “Okay.” So, really, International Woman’s Day is in Russia (15) ________ three days long. One day is three days long.
Sun 3 Dec 2006
Here is a song by an American who spent four years in Russia. He was impressed by the variety of ways in which places—shops, offices, and so on—could be closed in the middle of the day. So he wrote this song. Listen and read the text. One Russian word is missing at the end of each stanza.
You go to some café
you’ve been to many times before,
but it’s mysteriously empty and dark
You see bricks and dust on the floor
and a sign on the door.
It’s clear you won’t get the meal you want
That’s …You go to a store –
you just want some кагор
But they’ve locked the door
You see the clerks inside;
they don’t even try to hide
because on the window is written
a simple note:
That says…You got to the library and find
it’s not open at this time
But if they unlocked the doors,
people would track mud across the floors.
You see, it’s keeping us out that
keeps the place clean.
That’s what you call… You go to some office
to get a document signed.
Everyone’s eating cake and drinking wine.
One thing is for sure:
you won’t get your signature
Especially when it’s…You go to a shop
Guess what? The door is locked
You can’t see anyone inside
Are they doing important repairs?
How long will they be?
No idea, so you decide to leave
Because it’s…
Activities after you’ve listened to the song:
Group Questions
Work in groups of 3 or 4. Elect a secretary. That person will record key notes for each of the nine questions below. These key notes are the main responses by various members of the group to the questions. These notes will help in summarizing the discussion to the entire class later.
Take your time with these questions. They may offer lots to talk about.
1. What is your reaction to “The Closed Song?†Do you find it more or less true, or a very foreign view? Is it funny or offensive? Describe your feelings.
2. Do you think Americans care too much about business, about “making a buck?†Why or why not?
3. Do you think shop employees should stock and take inventory during business hours or when the shop is normally closed? Why? If you owned the shop, would you be worried about losing business by closing during the day?
4. How important do you think customer loyalty is to a business? Explain why or why not.
5. Should employees be loyal to their employers? For example, if you worked in a shop and there were no customers, what would you do? Read? Sleep? Sweep? Stock? What?
Sun 26 Nov 2006
This song for young folk is sung in Russian. It was taught to me by Vika, a Moldavian I was with at a camp in Bulgaria. Vika now lives in Russia! Simple. Anyway, I’ve been singing the song ever since.
There is a karaoke version to which you can write your own English lyrics.
The Little Hedgehog [1:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (31) The Little Hedgehog, Karaoke [1:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (119)Tue 14 Nov 2006
This song is based on a true story. It’s probably not very funny unless you’ve been to Russia/Ukraine, etc.
If you want to do a quick language activity, listen to the “Brief -LY Clip” from the song. The singer sings seven consecutive words ending in “ly.” Play the clip from the song several times and see if students can write down all seven words.
Here are the words to the song. Teachers interested in using this in class can easily make a gap-fill listening activity. Just copy the text and paste it into a word processessing document. Then remove 15 words or so, and play the audio for the class.”
***
I met an American in Yakutsk
In Russian she didn’t know much anything.
But apparently she thought she heard a word
Because she asked, “Kevin, What’s does pektopah mean?”What does pektopah mean?
What does pektopah mean?
I said, “I’ve got no idea. Maybe it’s slang.
But it sounds about as Russian as the word orangatan,
I really don’t know what pektopah means.â€She said, “I saw it bunch of times yesterday.
On signs when I was walking around.â€
“Well then,†I said, “one thing we can say:
Pektopahs must be popular in this town.â€What does pektopah mean?
What does pektopah mean?
I had to admit that I’d never seen
A word like that on any sign on any street.
I really don’t know what pektopah means.Then she nearly jumped out of her feet
’cause wee saw a pektopah sign on the street
It became clear what was going on
Her pektopah was just a реÑторан.Now we know what pektopah means
We know what pektopah means
It’s easy to laugh but what travel often brings
is a brand new meaning to the the things you think you’ve already seenAnd that’s precisely, indubitably, unquestionably, undeniably, incontrovertibly, incontestably, indisputably… what pektopah means
Here are 4 young Yakutsk ETs who I really liked. Epilologue: none of them ever wrote me.
What Does Pektopah Mean? [2:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (320) Brief -LY Clip [0:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (22)Tue 14 Nov 2006
[Listen or download the audio below]
There are American songs that nearly everyone in Russia (and in countries of the former USSR) seems to know, songs like “Summertime,†and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.†But the composers of these very American-sounding songs had Russian or Ukrainian roots.
Some were born in Russia, and some in New York to immigrant parents. Most were Jews. One thing is certain: 20th-century American music would be a mere shadow of itself—and somehow less American—without the contributions of these Eastern Europeans.
First, take Irving Berlin. He was born Israel Baline, probably in Tyumen, Siberia. Berlin had more than 200 hits on the Top 40 charts. He even wrote “God Bless America,†which, though not the official national anthem, is just as popular—or more so.
In fact, on September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks, it was this song that members of congress began singing on the steps of the US Capital.
Jerome Kern, another American songwriter, said of Berlin: “He is American music.†Some praise for a man born in Siberia!
George and Ira Gershwin were born in New York to parents who had immigrated from the east: whether from Russia, Ukraine, or Lithuania isn’t absolutely clear. George Gershwin wrote music usually, and Ira lyrics. They teamed up with Dubose Heywood for “Summertime,†one of the most frequently recorded songs of all time. The music, written by George, may even have been inspired by the Ukrainian folk lullaby “Oy Khodyt Son†which Gerswhin heard at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1929.
One of the most famous American musical plays is Fiddler on the Roof, based on the stories of Shalom Aleichem, who lived and wrote in Ukraine.
Lyricist Yip Harburg was born to Russian immigrant parents. He would later write the words to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow†from the film “The Wizard of Oz.
Vernon Duke, born Vladimir Dukelsky (on a moving train near Penza!) wrote jazz songs later sung by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, like “April in Paris†and “Autumn in New York.â€
These are some of the names, but they are not all the names. The influence of these Eastern European composers on American music has been enormous.
Photos from Library of Congress www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.htm
Part 1: Slavic-American Music Connection [2:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (92) Part 2: Slavic-American Music Connection [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (70)