Dear Teacher,
The school year is about to begin – I hope you all feel refreshed after the summer break.
The all-new Tune Into English Roadshow is currently in preparation, and I would be delighted to visit your school to present it to your students. A letter with full details has been mailed to Italian schools – this is online here. You can watch a 45-second video of the show here, as well as a presentation of the Primary show.
This month, as always, there are three exciting new additions to the Downloadable Worksheets section of the Teachers’ Area of www.tuneintoenglish.com.
August 30th was the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. The first new worksheet, submitted by Mena Bianco from Naples, is based on Sting’s They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo) and U2’s Mothers Of The Disappeared.
Thirty-five years ago, on the 12th September 1977, black South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko died in Pretoria prison. Peter Gabriel recorded the protest song Biko as a tribute, and this is the inspiration for this month’s second worksheet, also written by Mena.
The final worksheet is also of a political nature – Talkin’ ’Bout A Revolution by Tracy Chapman. Its author, Mariella Leone from Naples, comments: “I was thinking of our social and economical situation and realised we really should start a revolution”.
Thank you to all teachers who have contributed to the website – I look forward to receiving your future worksheets. Don’t forget that we will be publishing a worksheet for Tune Into London, a short video documentary based on album cover locations in the UK’s capital city. Can you think of any exercises to help improve your students’ English based on the video? Send them to us before 8th October. All published activities will receive a Tune Into English t-shirt.
The 26th of this month is European Day of Languages, and we continue our series of Italian worksheets. Prepared by Caterina Ziliani, based in Houston, Texas, you can access the worksheet to Mi Ritorni In Mente by Lucio Battisti (who passed away on the 9th September 1998) on the Tune Into Italian page of the site.
You can sing along with the UK Top 10 Charts on the Speak Up site – updated weekly, there is a link on the Tune Home page too.
The Karaoke page of Tune Into English now features over 8,200 songs as well as all of this summer’s top hits – why not organise a classroom singing session with your students to ease them into the new year?
I look forward to meeting you and your students in the coming months,
Best wishes, and indeed Buon Lavoro!
Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English
www.tuneintoenglish.com
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Edgewater College, in Ireland, is running a 2 week Teacher of English Refresher course in August 2013. Teachers are eligible for an EU Comenius grant!
The course includes modules on Using Music & Song and a lesson on Irish culture.
Full information here.
