Like the reviewers above, I would highly recommend this course, especially if you are trying to organise your trip from another country, before arriving in Mexico City. The pre-course contact and information, payment etc was very professional and prompt.
In addition, upon arrival, the course instructor was very helpful and knowledgeable regarding aspects of Mexican culture, the city, where to eat, accomodation, transport etc.
Content-wise, the course was very thorough. It was a lot of work in two weeks, with plenty of reading, project work and theory. But I would have been disappointed if it hadn’t been hard work, having paid the money, and having expected to come out of it confident that I could teach a class.
I found the thoery to be well balanced with class observation and teaching practice. The course was well structured and the accumulation of knowledge and practice allowed me to feel that I had what I needed by the end of it.
The resources, in particular some of the digital/online content, was excellent and I’m sure I’ll continue to use some of it as a reference when teaching.
Post-course (I’ve only finished in the last week), I have been given numerous contacts regarding work, and am receiving ongoing contact and assistance from the instructor.
Overall a highly positive experience.
Lots of new people in town, so a good time for a meet up for anyone interested.
We're thinking to go to the Franz Mayer Museum, near metros Hidalgo and Bellas Artes...easy to find.
http://www.franzmayer.org.mx
They have a cafe for the meetup and of course exhibits to wander around and see.
Saturday, August 18th, let's say 1PM and onward.
Here's the google map location.
http://goo.gl/maps/SKH4G
Hope to see you there!
The Digital Literacy Coach (DLC) shall, under the supervision of the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) & Special Projects Coordinator, ensure that digital literacy is carefully and appropriately integrated into all content areas. The majority of the Digital Literacy Coach’s time will be spent working with teachers and students to achieve integration between digital literacy and content objectives as well as providing training and support to create a global and collaborative approach to learning. The DLC will pursue instructional change in the classroom through increased duration and intensity of DLC-teacher interaction.
The government of the Pakistani province of Sindh has announced plans to make Chinese compulsory in schools from 2013.
All educational institutions in the province will have to provide Chinese language courses from class six (10-11-year-olds), it says.
The provincial government says that the decision was taken because of Pakistan's close ties with China.
The two countries have been strong allies for more than 50 years.
In May, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani described China as his country's "best friend".
But some critics say the plan is political, will need considerable investment in teaching staff and materials, and further stretch limited resources.
Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq said that the initiative reflected China's growing role as an economic giant in the world and would benefit Pakistan in the long term.
"Our trade, educational and other relations are growing with China everyday and now it is necessary for our younger generation to have command over their language," he said.
Lengthy. Reliable. Talented. Influential. Tremendous.
All of these words we use without a second thought were never part of the English language until the establishment of the United States.
The Americans imported English wholesale, forged it to meet their own needs, then exported their own words back across the Atlantic to be incorporated in the way we speak over here. Those seemingly innocuous words caused fury at the time.
The poet Coleridge denounced "talented" as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described "reliable" as vile.
Ugly and pointless new usages appear in the media and drift into everyday conversation:
Faze, as in "it doesn't faze me"
Hospitalize, which really is a vile word
Wrench for spanner
Elevator for lift
Rookies for newcomers, who seem to have flown here via the sports pages.
Guy, less and less the centrepiece of the ancient British festival of 5 November - or, as it will soon be known, 11/5. Now someone of either gender.
And, starting to creep in, such horrors as ouster, the process of firing someone, and outage, meaning a power cut. I always read that as outrage. And it is just that.
I am all for a living, breathing language that evolves with the times. I accept that estate agents prefer to sell apartments rather than flats - they sound more enticing. I accept that we now have freight trains rather than goods trains - that's more accurate.
Explanations of the AV electoral system tend to resort to analogies. But is this the best way to convey new ideas? The Magazine seeks tips from a teacher, a scientist, a philosopher, a cricket buff and two political boffins.
It's a bit like X Factor - only without the singing, and it doesn't go on for weeks. It's also a bit like choosing your favourite crisps, and then your second favourite flavour, and so on.
Ahead of the 5 May referendum on whether to adopt the Alternative Vote (AV) electoral system, those explaining this unfamiliar method of picking MPs tend to use analogies. But is this the best way to convey a concept to someone who knows nothing about it?
Author and award-winning teacher Phil Beadle says in a classroom, the key to getting information across is breaking it down into small, manageable chunks, checking each chunk has been understood and "grinding repetition". This isn't so easy to do in a three-minute news item, but other key methods are universal.
This includes getting people to see how the issue in question relates to them.
"It's been said about teaching that if you can't get students to see what's in it for them, then you won't take it on," he says. "Good teaching is about contextualising learning, connecting it to experience, finding an appropriate analogy."
Obviously, the larger the group of people, the more general the analogy has to be, hence the use of crisp flavours or reality TV to explain AV. Beadle, a secondary school English teacher, has used hip hop artists to teach William Blake and football in other lessons.
Beadle says there is a school of thought that people learn and take in new information in three ways: visually, aurally and kinaesthetically - through the body. The latter is when you learn by carrying out a physical activity, rather than just listening or watching a demonstration by someone.
"The best way to get people to understand is to use all these three ways," he says.
This three-pronged approach appeals to John Stern, editor of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.
He prefers to explain cricket while watching a match for demonstration purposes, and with a ball and bat to hand so the novice can see and feel how, for example, the seam affects the movement of the ball.
Ways to avoid double dipping
Scenarios can differ depending on your location, your tax status at home and the conditions of the treaty agreement, if any, the country has with Canada.
For example, your foreign income — even if it's a few hours a week serving coffee at a local café — may be taxed at source in that country. In all likelihood, you will also have to report that same income on your Canadian tax return because you are still a resident of Canada.
"In such a circumstance, the individual could be subject to tax in both countries on the same income," Brideau said.
However, there are provisions to help you avoid paying tax twice on the same income if you are earning income in a country that has a tax treaty with Canada.
It crops up in our speech dozens of times every day, although it apparently means little. So how did the word "OK" conquer the world, asks Allan Metcalf.
"OK" is one of the most frequently used and recognised words in the world.
It is also one of the oddest expressions ever invented. But this oddity may in large measure account for its popularity.
It's odd-looking. It's a word that looks and sounds like an abbreviation, an acronym.
We generally spell it OK - the spelling okay is relatively recent, and still relatively rare - and we pronounce it not "ock" but by sounding the names of the letters O and K.
Visually, OK pairs the completely round O with the completely straight lines of K.
