Happy spring!

Spring is a great season which I love so much! Unfortunately, last time I didn’t spend a lot of time outside. But now, it’s spring again! After winter, everybody likes sunshine, green grass, and appreciate more a beautiful world around us! Now, we have an extra hour of daylight so we can enjoy a longer day. Things feel less gloomy and more hopeful. Going for a walk after work is a great idea of spending time. Being outdoors and aware of the world's beauty can make us feel energized and alive. Moreover, It is the fastest way out of a bad mood and our mind is clear and fresh. Happy spring!

The beautiful and relaxing video about the spring

Two weeks of holiday!

I hope it’s not too late for this post… I was really busy last time… My work at the university and in the  lower secondary school in Poznań, my pedagogical training  of French it's really too much for me. But, I can’t  complain  because it was my choice. Anyway, I love what I do. But unfortunately, I don’t have enough time for all my activities. And obviously first of all,  I should have more time for my family, especially for my kids. Why a day doesn’t have more hours? May be, I have to think how to be a better time manager, how to organize my day? Here, we are some tips: (from the site: http://www.wikihow.com/Organize-Your-Day:)

1. Write down what you do each day.
2. Write the events in order.
3. Decide when to wake up and go to sleep.
4. Copy your list into your agenda or day planner.
5. Keep the list up to date.
6. Incorporate errands into your agenda.
7. Prepare the night before.

May be, I will think later about organizing my time… At the moment, me and my kids, we have two weeks of holiday. I don't know if we will go anywhere but it’s not so important. We will enjoy spending time together and just get some rest.

Some remarks on numbers…

Are numbers important for the people? Yes, of course end not only for mathematicians who think: “God made natural numbers; all else is the work of man” (Leopold Kronecker - a German mathematician). As you know the natural numbers are those used for counting ("there are six apples on the table") and ordering ("this is the third largest city in the country"). In mathematics, a natural number is either a positive integer (1, 2, 3, 4, …) or a non-negative integer (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, …).

Do we know how to say and write numbers in English? I would like to write something about saying 0… 

So, depending on the context, we can pronounce zero in different ways:

2-0 (football) = Two nil

30 – 0 (tennis) = Thirty love

604 7721 (phone number) = six oh four…

0.4 (a number) = nought point four / zero point four

0C (temperature) = zero degrees

Do you agree with me that in English zero is more interesting than in Polish?

But, it’s also truth that often the numbers are too important for us : “Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?". They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him.” As you surely know this is a quote from the famous novella “The Little Prince” written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in 1943.

Son, song and English...

My eldest son likes sports and music very much. His favorite sports are: football, volleyball, handball, tennis, swimming and cycling. I’m glad that he spends a great amount of his time practicing sports instead of using his computer all the time.

Apart from that he enjoys  listening  to the music and singing as well. One of his favorite songs is “The Fox”.

If he likes a specific song he looks up the lyric for this song on the Internet. I noticed that the memorizing the lyrics of a song is quite an easy task for him. Obviously, he doesn’t understand all the words but he often tries to explain their meaning. Sometimes, I ask him:

-        -   Don’t you spend so much time of listening to the music instead of learning  something for the school?

 But he answers me:

-         -  “Mum, I’m just learning English!”

What do you think about this way of learning a foreign language?

In my opinion, it’s a good idea to learn English or French trough songs!

By the way, his favorite song in French is “Papaoutai”.

Christmas time!

I’m sure that you recognize this beautiful Christmas song of Cliff Richard

“…

It's a time for giving, a time for getting,

A time for forgiving and for forgetting.

Christmas is love, Christmas is peace,

A time for hating and fighting to cease.

…”

I love the magic time of Christmas when we are more kind and generous to one another.  We also try to forget all our problems, quarrels and just enjoy being together.  The preparation of the Christmas always reminds me my happy childhood, my mum, my dad, my brother and  my grandma. Unfortunately, my mum and my grandma aren’t already with us and  I miss them so much. Now, I have a big family and I’m really enjoying spending Christmas with my four wonderful boys: my husband and three sons. This year one of the best present was the Monopoly Olympic Games Edition.

Me and my children, we love playing games and we have a lot of fun of playing all together! It’s really joyful time for everybody!

Amara and a beautiful film.

Hello, 

This week, I’m working with the Amara software which gives a great possibility to overcome accessibility and language barriers for online video. Thanks to this free and open source we can make the work of subtitling and translating video. It’s a useful and powerful tool for the foreign languages classes, for example. I don’t want to write only about Amara, but I would like to encourage you to see some beautiful film which my teacher of Amara showed us at the beginning of the online training course using the platform Moodle. I don’t know how I have to download this film from the Vimeo servis so I give you only a link (I couldn’t find it in YouTube) http://vimeo.com/29531643. This film tells a story about life, love, and … sugar packets.

A boy working at a coffee shop notices an old man repeatedly stealing sugar packets. The boy attempts to solve the mystery of this man’s strange behaviour. But the answer isn't at all what he expected… You must really see this film!

Starring: Ian Hyland, Bill McHugh and Tom Everett Scott

Director: Brian McAllister

Screenplay by: Rebecca Sue Haber

Producer: Robert Cammisa

Director of Photography: Dennis Donovan

Music: Jarkko HietanenExecutive

Producer: Jim Mayzik