The European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme offers teachers in school or adult education the opportunity for their development.If you are a teacher and would like to attend a course for your professional training you can apply for a course organised in Malta in Summer 2011. This course involves a significant change in the role of the teacher due to the ever increasing role of Information and Communication Technologies in Education. Teachers are eligible to apply for funding that covers all participation costs including travel, accommodation and course fees. All kind of information can be found at this web address: http://www.smartsolutionsmalta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=54
Do you want to learn about the culture in Malta and changes in the role of the teacher? Don't miss this opportunity. Contact them as soon as possible.
33 Chilean Trapped Miners Hugs,Cheers and Tears
The rescue operation has already started 69 days after 33 Chilean miners were trapped in a collapsed mine a half-mile underground in SAN JOSE MINE, Chile.
Here’s their plan to rescue them: There is a narrow hole that's only wide enough to fit one man that will take a rescue worker down in a 13-foot-tall escape capsule. The rescue worker will then start the operation, and the miners will be hauled back to the surface one at a time in the capsule he rode down on. If everything goes well, it could take as little as 11 minutes to as long as half an hour or more. During the possibly long trip back to the surface, the miners will have a hands-free phone to communicate with rescue workers.
Rescuers began pulling 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom at last on Wednesday, using the missile-like escape capsule. It was specially created and designed by an American technician. They were pulled to the surface from their underground prison nearly 2,300 feet /700 meters below to laughing rescuers, to hugs , cheers and tears.
Five men were pulled out in the first five hours of the apparently problem-free operation in the Chile's Atacama desert. Up to now 7 miners were rescued and the last one was a 19 year-old-miner Jimmy Sanchez.
Florencio Avalos was the first rescued miner, who wore sunglasses to protect him from the glare of bright lights. He smiled broadly as he emerged and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, Bairon, and wife, then got a bearhug from Chilean President Sebastian Pinera shortly after midnight local time.
A second miner, Mario Sepulveda Espina, was pulled to the surface about an hour later. His shouts were heard even before the capsule surfaced. He hugged his wife first, Elvira, and his daughter then he handed rescuers souvenir rocks he brought from his underground prison nearly 2,300 feet (700 meters) below.Then he jumped up and down as if to prove his strength before the medical team took him to a triage unit.
Espina said later in a special interview room set up by the government,"I think I had extraordinary luck. ... I was with God and with the devil — and God took me."
He praised the rescue operation, saying: "It's incredible that they saved us from 700 meters below." He thanked all the rescuers and said, “Love is the most beautiful thing.”
The photo taken from: http://dvice.com/archives/2010/10/a-special-escap.php
[has/have + past participle-verb 3]
Examples: see- saw- seen
You have seen that video many times.(affirmative)
Have you seen that video many times? (question)
You have not/haven't seen that video many times. (negative)
She has just written the article.
Has she written the article yet?
She has not /hasn't written the article yet.
USE Unspecified Time Actions Before the Present Time
The Present Perfect is used to express an action happened at an unspecified time before the present time. Specific time expressions such as: yesterday, one year ago, last week, when I was a child, when I lived in Japan, at that moment, that day, one day, etc.cannot be used with the present perfect tense. You can use unspecific expressions such as: ever, never, once, many times, several times, before, so far/ up to now, already, just, yet, recently/lately, since, for etc.
Examples:
I have watched that video ten times.
I guess I have met him before.
There have been many earthquakes in the Marmara.
People have traveled to the Moon.
He has already done the homework.
Have you read the book yet?
Nobody hasever learnt that secret.
How long have you lived here? I have lived here since I was born.
We have done 3 units so far.
Have you listened to Metallica recently?
He has just gone out.
The Passive form of the Pres. Perfect tense is: Three exercises haven’t been done yet.
I like purses, shoes and belts. Who doesn’t? They are the most important accessories of women. I remember once a friend said.”My shoes are so important they should look gorgeous so i polish them each time i put them on, well, i may forget to brush my hair but never my shoes.
But when it comes to spending lots of money on them, my brain stops. Ok, it is a big industry to produce shoes and purses and maybe a sort of "Art" as well, but when it is extremely expensive, it means it is luxurious and I am against any kind of luxury. Do you think I need to make sort of emphathy to the richies? Oh, no. When you think of lots of hungry and jobless people all over the world, you cannot spend that huge amount of money on a purse.
Once while I was on a trip with my students on the 5th Avenue in NYC, one of the girls came near me and said,” i wanna buy a Gucci bag from the Gucci store here . Can you help me?” “Sure, i can.” i said and went into the store together. Is it the main, "number 1" store of Gucci in the world ? Hell, dunno. She liked one of the tiny miny purses like an envelope with Gucci initial amblems on the cloth-like part so i guessed only some band parts were made of leather. We asked the price and learnt that it was $700 and she said OK. She counted $700 right in front of my wide opened eyes without letting me say,”Are you sure?” She said she had entered the Gucci website the nite before and chose that one. May you be happy to use it, my girl!!!
Anyways, I got pics of the world’s 5 most expensive purses for you.
( I got them from the link:http://www.beyazgazete.com/haber/2010/09/28/dunyanin-en-pahali-5-cantasi.html)
I should accept and confess that they are very cute. They are awesome. Out of this world! Kind of pride to have one of them. However, I am not so sorry that I can't afford to buy one. Yet, they can be considered a good investment with lots of precious stones on them, comparedly, a second hand ordinary leather purse cannot be sold while this one has got a better price than the original. Here you go :
1.Rose shaped purse with expensive stones:
Price is 135.000 TL/ USD 93.44515
There is 10106 brilliants (diamonds) of 42.56 carats,1116 pink sapphire stones, and 800 tourmaline stones on it.
Gorgeous, right? I still prefer having the admired eyes on me, not on my purse.
2.Lana Marks Cleopatra Purse: Price:147.000 TL/ USD 101.758
On it, there is 1500 black and white brilliant stones and white gold of 18 carats.
What if you leave it at the restrooms????
3. A purse with black crocodile leather : Price is 177.000 TL/ USD 122.525
4. A classic Chanel purse ornamented with brilliants(diamond) named “Diamond Forever”:
Price is : 385.000 TL / USD 266.510
It has 334 brilliants of 3.56 carats and white gold of 18 carats on it.
5.Ginza Tanaka, platin purse:
Price: 3 Trillion TL/ USD 2.076.699.452.385
It has 2000 brilliants on it .
The hardest part of Comenius projects starts with partner-finding. It is hard but not impossible . You should be very patient, though. Never yield even if you can’t get any answers for a long time. Keep up searching and sending emails explaining your intention to as many schools as you can. We hope that schools in existing European partnerships will add new partners for a new Comenius application.
There are some ways that can be useful for finding partners :
Contact seminar
Contact seminars across Europe are run by all the national agencies and they are intended as partner finding events. Funding is available to cover your travel by your national agency. Moreover, contact seminars are really fun to attend, you meet 20-30 or more colleagues from different countries who come to the seminar to find project partners. You are usually given a corner to show posters, souvenirs, pictures, etc., to introduce their country, school and mostly their Project on the exhibition and they lobby and also discuss their Project plans after a kind of ice-breaking party. You also have a chance of city tour for sightseeing and dinner- parties so you have a nice time with fun and work together.
Global Gateway
This is also for international partnerships. If you register on the Global Gateway and include details about your planned Project and put Comenius into the keyword search, you will see that there are always schools looking for Comenius contacts, global partners.You can be one of their Comenius Contacts.
Personal contacts
You can search new partners and contacts if you, your family, friends, colleagues or admins know teachers abroad. Local or regional authorities may also have some other close contacts with other European Schools and provide you to be in touch with them.
European Schoolnet
This is an active forum where teachers in the EU advertise for project partners. It is possible to get lots of ideas right across the curriculum, many are for Comenius partners.
This is a popular program in the UK because eTwinning website hosts a forum for teachers looking for eTwinning partners - project based European partnerships between two schools. There are project templates and good support available.
eTwinning is a good way into Comenius - suitable for initial projects before you decide to apply for Comenius funding, and a very useful project space to help run your project. If you find your Comenius partners on eTwinning, you will have funding available to arrange a Preparatory Visit to meet your partner schools. www.etwinning.net
Comenius Projects are part of Lifelong Learning (LLP) programs of European Union for Preschools, Elementary and Secondary Schools.
Comenius 1 is for school partnerships.You share your project ideas and plans with other schools of EU in order to find at least 2 or 3 partner schools to carry out the project which will last 2 years. Preparation period is almost a year.Your National Agency will provide you financial support if you are the coordinator school and if you are a partner school of the project.The fund they give is based upon the type of your project and the number of mobilities. The rules and principles may vary in 3 years' time period in general so you should follow the updated news at www.ua.gov.tr ( or your "national agency" website address) if you are a Turkish partner. Although Turkey is not a member of EU, its partnership was accepted in 2004.
The main objective is to improve the quality of education. Partner Schools learn a lot from each other in terms of modern techniques of teaching and learning, language and cultural differences, being tolerating and moreover, getting pleasure of diversity.
I have had the opportunity of participating in a lot of Comenius Projects since 2004.Your "letter of invitation" to the partnership of your project or to be a partner of a school's project are the first but hardest steps of this event.
In other words, you have to find a school seeking a partner for their project or you prepare a project subject and present it to look for partner schools.
So your conditions, project theme, target age group, but on top of all, your "word power" are the crucial points to find an appropriate partner school or schools ."Word power" here is your capability of persuasion. It is getting harder and harder to find a partner or coordinator school each year.
At the beginning of my work in 2004 before we were accepted, a group from Denmark came to the private school which I was working for those times and wanted me to be their partner for their Language Project. And wondered if our students were able to do this project in English.I was studying with a group of students to participate in Harvard Model United Nations so I called a few of them immediately and wanted them to see by themselves by making conversations with them .They liked them and told me as we weren't a member of EU we were supposed to wait and gave me their card and went away. A short time after this event I saw Turkey at the end of list of eligible countries who can participate in Comenius projects and madly I looked for the card they gave me.
Oh my Gosh! I couldn't find it. I was so desperate but they sent me an email to give the good news right away. Imagine: they offered me this partnership.They thought Turkey was an interesting country to learn about.
Later in 2007, so many amendments were made. I remember I was writing 30 or more mails to find a partner for my school. I also sent a project plan to draw the attention of candidate partners.
This went on for a long time, no sooner had I lost my hope than I got an offer from the UK.
What I am trying to say is it was easier to find a partner in the beginning, but now it is terribly difficult. However, if you start a job or project ,"consider it done".To start a job means half of it is over. As an experienced project coordinator at different schools, I can say that mobility Comenius Projects really play a very important role to maintain good human relations by raising awareness to be respectful for diversity of all kinds through crosscultural activities. I think I am one of the lucky people who have lived this experience many times.Thanks a lot for all my partner schools in Norway, the UK and Wales, Denmark , France, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuenia and so on.Thank you, my National Agency for giving us this wonderful opportunity.And thanks my project group of students, their parents, teachers and admins.
These are the photos taken in Wales '09 while the students were trying to study life in the ponds.They totally focused on their research. They didn't even notice the cam.
I hope everybody lives this wonderful opportunity and believe it or not, it is far more fruitful than limited lessons in classroom environment.
1) Future actions happen without the speaker's intention (birthday, weather, etc.)
The sun will shine tomorrow.
Tom will be 21 next Tuesday.
2) Predictions, assumptions (I think, I hope, I'm sure, I'm afraid)
I think Sue will arrive in Paris this evening.
I hope you will win the match.
I am sure she will pass in Math.
When there is evidence of some kind , “going to” is used.
Oh Gosh! Black clouds. I think it is going to rain.
She got 3 out of 4 in the final exam. I am sure she is going to pass.
3) Spontaneous actions (not planned)
Hang on! I'll have a word with you.
Come here. I‘ll show you something.
OK. I'll come with you.
4) will-future – Special: Shall/ Shan’t
We sometimes use shall instead of will in the British English in the first person singular and the first person plural.
In spoken (and in written) English more and more will is used in affirmative sentences nowadays.
We frequently use shall in questions as an offer: teklif durumlarında soru şeklinde kullanılabilir: yapayım mı ?
Shall I carry this box?
Shall we... is also an offer and the question form of “Let’s .....”
Shall we dance?/or Let’s dance.
Will is also used for polite requests/offers usually with please:
Will you dance with me, please?
Will you marry me ?
Help me , will you ?
Come here, will you ? ”will you” burada “ne olur/ lutfen” anlamındadır.
We use the will future in written language (especially in newspapers), where in spoken English we often use the going to-future.
spoken:
The headmaster is going to close the old gym.
written:
The headmaster will close the old gym.
Short forms in the will-future
We often use short forms of the auxiliaries. The will-future is formed with the auxiliary will, so short forms are very frequent, contracted WILL(’ll) is not used in short forms.
Example:
-Who will help me?
- I will.
-Give my regards to your mom .
-I will.
Future Time Expressions
Tomorrow, next ...(week ) soon( in a short time), later ,..
Exercises
Put in the verbs in brackets into the gaps and form sentences. Use the will-future.
Example: The weather ______ nice at the weekend. (to be)
Answer: The weather will be nice at the weekend.
1) Tomorrow it in the north-west. (to rain)
2) My friend 12 next Monday. (to be)
3) Hey John! Wait a minute. I a word with you. (to have)
