So many amazing ways to tell a story!

Happy Holiday!

When the news is filled with the horrid events in Toulouse, France, it is so heartwarming to see this video.

Lauren Ornstein, an awesome teacher and musician who works with both Jewish and Arab students as an EfL teacher and counselor, is also a Music in Common volunteer in Israel.

This is their latest workshop video “Peace -Shalom – Salaam”, a song written and performed by both Jewish and Arab students. They also participated in video-taping the project.

If you listen carefully you will hear her in the background.

The funny thing is that I’m reading this fantasy thriller about a lost island where highly dangerous animals have evolved completely differently, as a direct result of reading Bill Bryson’s book about Australia a few weeks ago.

As you know, I like to tell anyone who is willing to listen about what I read. Which means my husband and sons get full updates. When I was reading about Australia we discussed the part about the damage done by the rabbits brought to Australia. I had heard about it (I knew the term rabbit-proof –fence) but hadn’t really known that it had all started with so few rabbits and that the damage was that extensive.

Anyway, when my eldest heard about the rabbits he pulled the book “Fragment” off his shelf and said: “If you thought that was interesting then you must read this“. My other son chimed in that I should read it too. The book begins with very real factual information about the damage done by species from one environment invading another (interestingly though, the author doesn’t mention the rabbits in Australia). My husband then read the book (quickly, it is a thriller!).

So now I’m reading it too.

It is well written, very fast paced, with lots of amusing and intriguing details. You could have discussions on issues raised in the book! Think a modern, really up to date version of Jurassic Park but with no dinosaurs. However, I don’t like horror tales and skip a bit of the descriptions of how people met with their death. The book seems to be made for the big screen and I’m surprised it hasn’t been made into a movie yet. Though I probably wouldn’t watch it – reading about things is one thing, watching them is another!

Yes, I’m squeamish but I certainly recommend reading the book!

I wonder what Bill Bryson would say…

Well, it seems that I’ll be following the Glasgow IATEFL conference from the comfort of home.

The competition has ended and I made it to second place!

I wish Nahla_Shaw all the best! Her posts were great!

I’m actually disappointed and relieved at the same time. I want to attend an IATEFL conference, both for the sessions and to meet my PLN face to face!

On the other hand, I found that just thinking of the logistics I would have to deal with in order to go during the school year (with our vacation beginning a few days AFTER the conference) to be quite stressful.

So, perhaps Liverpool, or maybe Harrogate will be the venue where everything comes together and you will see someone running around with a picture of a puffin on her bag!

Today was the first warm sunny day in almost  a month. So off we went to the Judean Desert.

Life is old here.

We saw what’s left of early monasteries (6th century) and the gorgeous spring that sustained them (it is very quiet there, even today!).

We saw the route where my Biblical namesake Naomi, along with her daughter in law Ruth, is believed to have travelled from Edom to Bethlehem.

And we just saw the beauty of nature and enjoyed the sun!

Here are a few pictures, all taken by my son, Omri Epstein:

This is another competition post!

You can read in on the competition site but I would be delighted if you left comments here, at my very own HOME blog!

As I have said before, “blogging” and “competition” aren’t terms that go together very well.

Through blogging you meet new people and begin sharing information or experiences with them. That tends to make one (well, me at least) LESS competitive, not more.

So, I’ve recently decided to focus many of my competition posts on “spreading the word” about some awesome projects people here on blogosphere are involved in.

Here’s what I’ve plugged so far:

* The 30 goals project

*(Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas

* Eltpics

* Take a Photo and…

I  have no idea how many people read the posts – the only information I have is the number of comments.

Spread the word and see what happens! That is my motto at the moment!

I have a five year old nephew whom I’m trying to get interested in dinosaurs. When our boys were younger they were crazy about dinosaurs.

I’ve got to get a hold of this book for him. It is perfect for this age – a simple story about a boy and a dinosaur who decides to step out of the museum and play with him. Funny but also (odd as it may sound) grounded in reality. A fairly old book, but it lodged itself in my brain!

For older children and adults, there are the FANTASTIC “Dinotopia”  books, which I posted about when I just began this blog, here.

Let’s get one thing clear right away, I’m not talking  about blood dripping gore! That is out of the question as far as I’m concerned!

(Epstein Family Photos)

My first reaction to Sharon Hartle’s recommendation to the lesson and slideshow about 10 inventors killed by their own inventions on The Lecturer’s EFL Smart Blog was: Wow, I have some 17/18 year old boys who would be interested in this. I can make an activity out of this slideshow.

But then I started thinking about how I would scaffold this for different levels. And for different pupils. I started thinking about how I would deal with vocabulary items such as gangrene and strangled. Although the person who wrote the titles for this slideshow was really careful with the language and did not go into gory details, I can see possible mine fields having to explain what is meant by “had five pieces of his anatomy removed”.

Am I being stereotypic in thinking that many teenage boys are interested in this kind of information while many girls are not?

When I was a student teacher I had to design and teach a lesson using the Jigsaw method we had just learned. I used a story with a scary ending called            The Yellow Ribbon . The version I had was in language even more simple than this, which suited my pupils. My thought that it would add some WOW factor to have a story with such an ending. The lesson took place in the mid 1980’s and I don’t remember any particular reaction of interest or revulsion from the pupils. However, I’ll never forget the horrified reaction of my teacher-trainer when I handed in the paper describing the lesson and the story itself!

How far would you go in bringing scary or gory stuff into a teenage classroom?

Not only does the delightful holiday of Chanukah begin on Tuesday evening, Dec. 20th, a WHOLE WEEK OF VACATION begins the next day!

So when I saw this clip, just had to share it now – why wait?!

Enjoy!