Seeking Oneness via Twitter?

Most teachers would probably argue that nothing good will come out for our students when they engage in the microblogging service Twitter....some would state it is just another annoying platform - like Facebook or MySpace and the rest - that hinders the student to appreciate written language...they fear that what gets expressed within Twitter's 140 character frame will be the profane and not the profound...

I have not tried it myself but I would go along with the embedded cartoon - Twitter seems to be just another "form giving" tool whose constant "in-form-ations" distract students and retirees alike...but then I had a second thought:what if Twitter messages ( tweets ) get rushed out of my electronic device or onto any of my chosen screens in such a rapid sequence that it would create an almost permanent reporting link between myself and my "friends" who would share my entries all so very fast that the feeling of a networked ONENESS could suddenly pop up in a logged-on user??

Just as the early pioneers who experimented with basic flying devices were bicycle riders - they had a sense or intuition that if only they were able to pedal fast enough and achieve a certain speed they would eventually have lift-off!So if a given medium is accelerated beyond a certain point ( a grounded bike with extended wings on it ) something completely new is created: an airplane.

If the tweets are blogged and read at an ever faster rate by a circle of users - the previous sense of being separated and isolated may suddenly be transformed into a knowing and feeling as being ONE with the others....if Twitter achieved that liberating and sought after felt-sense of ONENESS in our students it would radically change the current meaning and experience of our present competition based educational system for the better and turn even sceptical teachers into supportive twitterers.

How to write a perfect pro and con comment (essay)

Soon our final English test for this semester will come up: it will again have two major parts: part A: Grammar and this section will most likely again cover the following topics: reported speech;if sentences; passive constructions and hopefully also the ability to recognize and name any given tense in i.e. a newspaper text.

Part B: Writing..here the students will be asked to write a pro and con comment or essay on a given topic using a minimum of about 250 words or so.

In class we practised our very first steps by using a Time article about the first baby steps the Obama administration may want to or should initiate to carefully lift the legal restrictions that presently govern the use of marijuana in the US and in most parts of the western world.So far we phrased the topic,listed the pro arguments,stated the arguments against the free use of pot and next we will have to develop a catching introduction and also our concluding paragraph.

While researching essay writings in pro and con style I came across this informative entry on youtube.com and I want to share it here....don't be mislead by the narrator's voice: this is NOT comedy....this is actually a genuine teaching video about how to write an great essay on the topic of outlawing fast food restaurants like McDonalds.....maybe we should have used this topic instead of the marijuana one!!?

Fighting back

While I was vacationing in beautiful Spanish Andalusia we stayed at a very popular hotel that tried so very hard to meet the expectations of its customers...every morning P. W. the Assistent Manager of the hotel would greet the guests for breakfast and sure enough P.would be there at dinner time and "work the tables" making sure the guests were satisfied and happy....

I am sure that his hard working style will eventually promote him to a higher position within this well recognized Spanish hotel chain ( just as it happened to our class text hero Mr. Horst Schulze )....and then one morning something really "bad" happened and I first informed the receptionist - she ran out to inform P.W....... he then gave his orders to undo what had happened but when evening came the damaging evidence was still there and after I had informed the Assistent Manager once again serious action was undertaken and the spook was finally taken care of!

I now wonder what would have happened to that hotel and its reputation if I had filmed what I had witnessed and had put that clip up on YouTube - just as two workers had done in North Carolina recently at a Dominos Pizza place?

There apparantly one of them put some cheese up his nose before placing it onto the sandwich that was destined for a customer...his female co-worker filmed the prank and provided the narrative...the damage must have been so intense that the top manager of that major US pizza system felt the urge to go on camera and to make the following statements......

The meaning of all of this will make great material for further discussions and maybe even writings in our class...and I wonder how I or my college or the Spanish hotel would be able to "fight back" if some of the students decided to post something similarly damaging onto the web and later retract it by claiming: "we are sooooooo very sorry"! We are living in very interesting and challenging times indeed.

Here is Dominos video based "defense":

BBC Listening comprehension exercises

Not long ago I brought a listening comprehension test to class...it was part of the larger TOEFL (Itp) procedure.The students listened to thirty short campus related conversations and tried to mark the correct answer on their answering sheet....the results were interesting: the student who had exposed himself to watching most of his DVD based films in English and not in the 'dubbed - in' German version had trained his ears in such a way that he scored the highest of the rest...great job Karsten!

And you wonder why the lobby of the English teachers in Germany ( if there is such a thing )is still not able to break the monopoly of these have-to-dub companies!?

Other countries like Holland and Sweden never dub their films - not even in their cinemas...I recently saw the film: MILK about the gay movement in San Francisco in pure Amrican English while chewing on popcorn in a Swedish movie theater....

So here are some more interesting and up-to-date listening exercises to improve our listening skills... they involve the ears and the eyes and the computer mouse.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/london/unit1/listen1.shtml

How to write and structure a characterization

So far we have read two great short stories by Roald Dahl in class.The coming test requires us to get involved with the writing of a characterization...and we are practicing it by using the logical levels a la Robert Dilts as our structuring tool.That means the text will be structured as follows: introduction; the environment of the main character ( where and when );the behavior ( what );the capabilities ( how );the values,attitudes and beliefs of the character ( why );his or her sense of identity ( who );followed by the conclusion....

I hope this scheme will will help us to compose a well-rounded and well written text about i.e. The Landlay or The Man from the South or My best friend

And then this short sentence that anyone of my students could say to me - came back to me - it was used by Robert Dilts himself when he taught us ( in Hamburg ) about this elegant model: I can not do this here - do you see the beauty of the example? I - identity;- can not beliefs;- do capabilities;- this behavior;- here environment...thank you Robert.

From wellness to Oneness

This early morning while I was out jogging this idea came into my head:some years ago it was important to have a good health.Today you can hardly open a travel brochure that does not try to lure you into booking trips that offer the experience of Wellness - and there are always these seducing pictures that go with it...somebody does something gentle to another person - like dripping warm oil across someone's forehead etc.

So, I assume wellness means more than just being in good health...and as I jogged along it became clear that the next higher experience might just be about getting a felt-sense of ONENESS.

Maybe I should contact a patent lawyer....in a few years the deep experience of ONENESS with All Life ( most likely a virtual and software based undertaking ) may just be more sought after and life changing than any spa, cruise or visit to Disney World!! could ever achieve.... MONEY! BIG MONEY!??

yes we can...the real one.

While I was trying to find a good joke about folks who copy and use the works of others ( see entry below ) - I came across the real "yes we can" video at www.funnymalaysia.com - we surely do live in an interconnected world! I hope my students - and you - will read or sing along with these powerful words.






"It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --

Yes. We. Can."

Celebrities featured include: Jesse Dylan, Will.i.am, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon