God of the day

These days it is hard to believe that people in ancient times were consumed by religion. Each single conduct had its own religious meaning. Daily chores were soaked with rituals. Nothing stayed without it as ancient tribes lived in a world of fear of massive number of unexplained events and unforeseen nature phenomena, for instance: a simple river flooding could be interpreted as a sign from beyond. An Ancient Norse protected their households from lightning strikes by gathering acorns since the oak was the symbol of Thor. Other societies were also extremely superstitious. The Ancient Romans believed that both animate and inanimate objects were hosts to numina (divine presence). Therefore, it is quite obvious that also between Tigris and Euphrates rivers people’s lives were revolving around pantheon of gods.

Czytaj dalej God of the day

Hyperpolyglots – linguistic demigods of our time.

The confusion of languages at Babel Tower is a bible story that everybody knows. Basically, Babylonians built an extremely high tower which served as visible from a long distance landmark, or in other words, an external point of reference for nomadic troopers and navigators. Since the tower helped people to find their way back or through the terrain it was a deal breaker for god who wanted people to be scattered all over the world, and not gathered in one city or a place. To avoid this problem in the future, god confused builders languages (source: https://bible.org/book/export/html/4838).Maybe if Babylonians hadn’t bragged so much about the tower, they wouldn’t have drawn god’s attention to it. Who knows?

Czytaj dalej Hyperpolyglots – linguistic demigods of our time.

Discover Canada

French navigator and explorer Jacques Cartier let 3 expeditions into what is called today Canada. He was sent in 1534 by King Francis I to the New World in search of treasures and a new route to Asia. Unfortunately, those expeditions failed the king who expected gold and diamond but he was given worthless tombac and quartz. The expeditions were suspended up to the 1604 when Samuel de Champlain, called also a „Father of New France”, was granted to explore those lands one more time. He established Acadia – the first permanent French settlement in New World. The settlers, however, moved to a more sheltered harbour because of severe winter experience. New place named Port Royal was situated in area which is called today Nova Scotia. By 1607 there was established one more French settlement called the St. Lawrence River which allowed France to lay claim to those lands. Then the old Haudenosaunee village was transformed into Quebec from Algonquian word „kebec” which meant „narrows”.

Czytaj dalej Discover Canada

How to teach to actually teach? Effective teaching mini guide.

Early stage English teaching involves primarily active games because preschoolers are energetic by nature and their attention span is quite short. Approximately, the three-years-olds can concentrate only for 7 to 9 minutes, four-year-olds about for 12 minutes and the five-year-olds for 14 minutes. It has been my observation that these values vary depending on the group, the frequency of attention span exercises or even the weather. In order to take full advantage of the attention span and learning time each active game should be preceded by detailed instructions. Then a teacher has to make sure that all children understand the rules to avoid unnecessary conflicts and arguments during a game. The chaos outburst can be disheartening for the next play. Let us remember that preschoolers’ attention scatters in a heartbeat and only a full control of the teacher guarantees to bring the game to an end.

Czytaj dalej How to teach to actually teach? Effective teaching mini guide.

Learning through play

A variety in language internalization process through games and activities enables school children to acquire English in a more enjoyable and understandable way. Play is the medium through which every teacher can enter the children’s world and make them unconsciously assimilate new skills with a smile from ear to ear.

Czytaj dalej Learning through play

The hardest thing is to finish language course.

Pie crust promises?

Every year before New Year’s Eve night each of us during this whole shopping extravaganza and preparations for the party happens to slow down for a while and summarize the past twelve months events. We analyse what could we have done better, more precisely, whether it was possible to omit some of our mistakes.

The beginning of new year is the best possible opportunity to plan the next steps in your career. The injection of energy, new prospect and new opportunities motivates us to take an action. Nevertheless, you need to act quickly because once jotted down New Year’s Resolutions are often forgotten after a few days later.

Czytaj dalej The hardest thing is to finish language course.

Fine language makes fine impression

Language is like a song – it has its rhythm and melody. When you listen attentively to other languages you may notice that some of them are rather quick like Chinese or Spanish and others stretch like a spaghetti because of phonetic lengthening which is present for example in Italian in Sicily. It is said that people with good ear for music are able to articulate foreign sounds more efficiently. There is a lot of truth in this claim. One can guess our cultural, social or educational background after the way we pronounce different words. A particular word can be articulated in several different ways, for instance Cracow inhabitants lengthen phonetically word endings and Koszalin inhabitants their middles. Ways of articulation depend on the phoneme resources which are present in a given language or dialect.

Czytaj dalej Fine language makes fine impression