ゴールデンウィークにポールのお父さん＆お母さんが来日していました。
とても目立つ方々なので、見かけた人もいるはず！
この２週間は、英語漬けの日々でした・・。
ポールの英語になれている私も、おとうさんの英語はさっぱり分からず・・。
いつもジョークばかり言っているおとうさんの＜おち＞にも＜？＞顔で
失望させてばかり・・すいませんおとうさん（涙）たとえ笑えないジョークでも
｢それってどういう意味？｣なんてバカな質問をして悲しませないように
次の来日までには英語勉強しておきます！
イギリスといえばブラックユーモアですが、イギリス人は
ときどき私もそれは言いすぎだろぉ～と思うようなウィットに富んだ？ジョークに
大笑いします。日本人の私には皮肉丸出し、人種差別じゃないの？と思われる
ようなこともしばしば・・。でも内容が濃いというか深いというか・・。
政治や人種・歴史・最近のニュースのなどみなさんよくご存知で、それをジョークにする
のでレベルが高いな～と感心することも。

お笑い流行の日本ですが、１年で忘れ去られてしまうような使い捨てジョークでどこまで
行けるのでしょうねぇ？お笑いならおもしろければいい？そうかもね♪

ちなみにウチの息子はチャップリンの映画に笑い転げております。

Of course a s every Englishman or woman knows St.George's Day falls on the 23rd April. Well maybe not, a recent survey showed that only 1 in 5 knew the correct date of their Patron Saint's day. And I bet that most of those 20% were former boy scouts, who were made to parade through the centre of town every year. As I was...

Despite the lack of enthusiasm amongst the population of England any story that involves a dragon, knight in shining armour and a beautiful maiden is sure to be a winner with young minds. As well as giving us a chance to change the signboard and generate a bit of interest in the locality. So this week we've spent class time playing with these great masks from SparkleBox to act out the story of St.George slaying the dragon.


Although one student did call St.George a cowboy...

春休み最後の日、鶴巻町でフリーマーケットが開催されます。

ところで、フリーマーケットの＜フリー＞ってどういう意味か知っていますか？
＜自由＞？　＜ただ同然＞？ or　＜ふるい＞？

いえいえ、フリーとは　＜flea＞・・蚤のこと！！
蚤が湧くほど古い物が売っているということらしいです Σ(@_@)
だ～か～ら～　日本では　＜蚤の市＞って言うんですね☆
えっ！？知らなかったのって私だけ？

明日は小学校＆中学校の入学式ですね☆
新入生の皆さん、Congratulations！

Today we celebrate Hina Matsuri in Japan. Typically families with young daughters will display sets of (very) expensive dolls. They'll also have some kind of celebration meal...

...but enough of that, because I want to tell you about the 3 CD's pictured above. It all happened about two weeks ago on a cold Saturday morning. I was checking the internet for some ideas to use in my real young learners classes when I was lead in the direction of a You Tube clip. The clip showed a rather energetic lady leading a group of kindergarten kids through a version of a Hello song. So what? I hear you ask.
Well the song was so catchy and packed full of actions that the kids couldn't help but move around and smile. I decided then that this was something that I needed to have in my classes. A quick web hop later to supersimplesongs.com and I was able to listen to short samples of all their songs.
Ordering couldn't have been simpler and a few days later the CDs arrived.
I'd pretty much given up on using music in the classroom as teaching the lyrics would usually seem to be too difficult or where a song had been adopted for an EFL setting it was mind numbingly dull (think Eric from kids NHK.) Well the songs that Devon and his team have put together manage to be simple and fun at the same time. I've just loved seeing our students smiling and laughing along to the them. And as they leave the class they're still singing!