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Pigeon: Impossible

Posted by Anne on February 22nd, 2010

Pigeon Impossible, the silent animated film by Lucas Martell released on 9 November that took 4 years to make, passed the 1 million views mark on YouTube after less than 2 weeks online. The film is set in the neighborhood of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where two of my nieces and I [...]

Crying in my coffee

Posted by Anne on February 20th, 2010

Writing can be a lonely and frustrating business. Writing for online learners of English as I do is particularly tricky: I don’t get much feedback from my readers. As my employers are very busy, asking them to review and edit my work is not always possible. But that means that any errors I make and [...]

Jean-Paul Nerrier’s Globish

Posted by Anne on January 26th, 2010

This is a comment on a great post by The Tesla Coil on the Graddolization of EFL. David Graddol honored MELTA with a visit last summer. Thanks, Tony Watt for the Globish link:
Only 4% of the people communicating with each other today in English are both/ all native speakers. Jean-Paul Nerrier wants to “make it more [...]

Question: Inspired by a fault?

Posted by Anne on January 24th, 2010

Django Reinhardt was born 100 years ago yesterday. He lost the use of the third and fourth finger on his left hand when the family caravan caught fire, and as a result developed his own unique style of guitar playing.

Seriously inspirational, that is. Can you remember any other artists in any genre who became who [...]

Question: Can you learn from a robot?

Posted by Anne on November 14th, 2009

I had great fun last week, exploring what it is like to talk to a chatbot. It was Shelly Terrell who originally put me up to it, advising me when I was gathering ideas for a Spotlight Magazine article edited and coauthored by Jo Westcombe on ways English learners can use the Internet. I spent [...]

Question: Do you believe in learning styles?

Posted by Anne on November 8th, 2009

In my profession there’s a hot debate going on about “learning styles”. You know, finding out whether you are a visual learner and need to see things to understand them, or an auditory learner who prefers to hear things, or whether you are a kinethetic learner and have to do things to really get them. [...]

Question: What do you need to create flow?

Posted by Anne on November 1st, 2009

Flow is the state when all systems are go and you just do and forget about time. It’s when you feel completely involved and concentrated on whatever you are doing. Even if the task involves a strong challenge, you feel that you are able to meet it. You’re in control, yet not pushing anything. And [...]