(2) ROCK ´N POP : AT HOME AND ABROAD
After
Omar´s feature presentation at Paratesol, an American colleague working in
Paraguay, Michael Burns, quemaduras30@hotmail.com
wrote to us :
Dear
Prof. Villarreal,
I
spoke to you briefly following your excellent presentation at the
Paratesol
Conference. I can safely say it was the highlight of the
entire
conference. We didn't want to leave, even when you started singing
yourself
!
Not
only was your presentation supremely entertaining and informative, but
it
was so precisely because you modeled techniques that teachers such as
myself
can easily use in the classroom.
I
plan on using these activities immediately both at the Universidad
Americana,
and at the Centro Cultural Paraguayo Americano.
You
have my thanks, and that of many teachers who I spoke with after the
conference.
Sincerely
Michael
Burns
Universidad
Americana
Asuncion,
Paraguay
ROCK
´N POP IN CHACABUCO AND 9 DE JULIO
Next
Saturday 9th September from 9:30 to 13:00 hours Omar will present his
successful seminar in the city of Chacabuco . Here are the details :
Venue : Brighton Bookshop - Primera Junta
73 - Chacabuco
Date & Time : Saturday 9th September
- 9:30 to 13:00
Registration : at Brighton Bookshop- cell
phone : 02352- 15502976 OR
Fee : $ 10
On Tuesday 19th September ROCK ´N POP
will be presented in 9 de Julio
at Instituto Superior de Formación
Docente Nro 4 .
Registration and Additional Information :
personally or by phone at ISFD Nro 4 TE:
02317-422222 from 18.30 a 22.00 hours or whole day by
phone
(3) REBUS
During
the last winter holidays I was teaching my course ROCK ´N POP IN THE CLASSROOM
2000 at Bridge English in Ramos Mejía when the time came to present two
activities with two different forms of REBUS .This is decoding
messages in which some words have been replaced by a picture. Do you
remember the famous picture of a dog plus a rooster that we
read "Cangallo" ? Today we probably would need the picture of a big pear to read
the name of that same street downtown in Buenos Aires.
As
I always do, I clarified
that REBUS is not " un re-omnibus" when somebody in the audience asked
exactly what the word exactly meant. Luckily, a colleague
came
to my rescue and gave a very plausible explanation. That lady turned out to be
Chabela Rodriguez from Resistencia, Chaco who was spending her holidays in
Buenos Aires. Chabela is a lecturer in History of the
English Language at College in Resistencia and is a longtime SHARER.
She writes to us about WRITING SYSTEMS :
"Dear
Omar,
I
had promised to send you some information about the Rebus writing system and
here it is. Sorry for the delay but It took me some time to make a
summary.
The
vast majority of present-day systems are phonological; the non-phonological
systems are mainly found in the early history of writing.
Non-phonological
systems:
PICTOGRAPHIC:
in this system the graphemes provide a recognizable picture of entities as they
exist in the world. (e.g.The Mayas in Mexico used this system). Nowadays it is
used for road signs.
IDEOGRAPHIC:
it is usually distinguished as a later development of the pictographic. the
idiograms have an abstract or conventional meaning, no longer displaying a cear
pictorial link with external reality.(e.g. it was used in India). Nowadays
modern signs that are ideographic are the ones in which you find a diagonal line
used to express prohibition.
CUNEIFORM:
it was used to express both nonphonological and phonological writing systems in
several languages(e.g.used by the Sumerians)
HIEROGLYPHIC:
in Egypt, a from of pictography developed around 3000 BC. The units of the
writing system tend to be written from right to left. The scripts give the
general impression of being pictorical but in fact they contain three types of
symbol that together represent words:
1)
Some symbols are used as idiograms representing entities and notions
2)
REBUS SYSTEM: some symbols stand for one or more consonants (e.g. in English we
might use a picture of a a bee followed by the letter R to represent the word
BEER. Nowadays examples of Rebus writing are YYUR: Too wise you are. ICUR: I see
you are YY4ME: Too wise for me. H&: hand XQQ: excuse. You can also use pictures
instead of words and mix them with words and letters.
3)
Determinative symbols are signs that have no phonetic value but are placed next
to other symbols to tell the reader what kind of meaning a word has. E.g. adding
the drawing of an "eye" to the concept of "Table" meant that the table was not a
piece of furniture but a chart.
LOGOGRAPHIC:
the graphemes represent words. (e.g. the best known case is Chinese ) Nowadays
we use logograms in mathematics (+
- =) and logic.
Phonological
systems:
SYLLABIC:
the graphemes correspond to a spoken syllable, usually consonant-vowel pair.
(e.g. Cherokee and Japanese kana)
ALPHABETIC:
There is a direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. E.g. five
modern alphabets: Modern Roman (the one used by English and Spanish) Arabic,
Greek, Hebrew and Cyrillic (Russian).
The
RUNIC alphabet was used in very old times mainly in Scandinavia. The common
runic alphabet consisted of 24 letters. The earliest English alphabet was
devised by missionaries in Britain who used the Irish forms of the Latin
alphabet. But they run into difficulties for certain sounds and they borrowed
runic letters to represent them. During the Middle Ages the French discarded
these runic symbols and they replaced them by consonants combinations (e.g.
th)
My
intention with this "long summary" was to clarify your douts about the origin of
REBUS (as you can see it was just a part of the Egyptian system) and the wrong idea you have that
runic symbols were part of a pictographic system.
I
send you, Marina and the kids all my love.
Maria
Isabel Rodriguez (Chabela)
Thank
you, Chabela. Now, Could you clarify if a "remis" es una re-señorita
?
(4)
NEWS FROM PEARSON : LONGMAN AUTHOR TOURS
Our
dear friends and SHARERS from Pearson Education announce :
Author
Tour in Argentina - August-November
2000 Prof.
Daniel Fernandez M.A.
Redactor
del Documento de Diseño Curricular
de Santa Fe y Consultor de la Serie Longman For
Polimodal
Let's
Principle our Teaching !
What
does Teaching EGB 3 and Polimodal imply? How can we transfer the theory
underpinning the national proposals to our classrooms? Informed teaching not
only facilitates our work and gives sense to it but is the basis for creative
planning as well. Examples will be taken from Longman for Polimodal and New
Let's Go for EGB
San
Juan
Saturday
26th August - 9:30hs to 11:30hs and 12:00hs
to 13:30hs
Venue
to be confirmed
Registration
:
Librería
Piedra Libre (A.S.J.P.I.)
Mendoza
383 Sur - Tel:
(0264) 4203413
Librería
Florida - Rivadavia
89 Oeste Tel.
(0264) 4216310
Cañada
de Gómez, Santa Fé
Saturday
30th September - 9:30hs to 12:30hs and 14:00hs
to 17:00hs
Colegio
Florentino Ameghino - Centenario
1075
Registration:
Colegio F. Ameghino -Tel:
(03471) 422131
Venado
Tuerto, Santa Fé
Saturday
11th November - 9:30hs to 12:30hs and 14:00hs
to 17:00hs
Instituto
Superior del Profesorado Nº 7 - Estrugamou
250
Registration :
Librería
Crocodile -Castelli
670 - Tel:
(03462) 426267/426845
Prof.
Michael Harris
Speak
for Yourself
Without
doubt, speaking is the most difficult of the four skills to develop with teenage
students. This workshop will look at practical ways in which we can get our
students to deal with some of the features of real communication.
Bahía
Blanca
Thursday
14th September - 18:00hs
to 20:30hs
Colegio
Claret - Paraguay
126
Registration:
Asoc.
de Profesores de Inglés (APIBB)
Chiclana
681 Entrepiso -
Tel/Fax:
(0291) 456-3166 E-mail:
apibb@impsat1.com.ar
Librería
Don Quijote - Fitz
Roy 73
Tel:
(0291) 451-7737 - E-mail:
quijotebbca@infovia.com.ar
Mendoza
Friday
15th September - 18:00hs
to 20:30hs
Universidad
de Congreso - Colón
90
Registration
:
Centro
Internacional del Libro -Lavalle
14 -(0261)-4201266
Rubén
Simoncini Libros -San
Juan 1108 -
(0261) 4202988
All
these events are free of charge.
(5)
CALLING ALL PHONETICIANS AND ELT PROFESSIONALS
Our
great friend and SHARER, Roxana Basso, informs us that ON-SITE registration will
be accepted next Tuesday 22nd August at Professor
Doctor Héctor Ortiz-Lira´s lecture on Lexical and
Postlexical Accentuation to be held at Colegio Nacional
de Buenos Aires, Bolivar 263 from
9:00 to 12:30 hours.
The
organizers : Instituto
de Investigaciones en Humanidades "Dr Gerardo Pages" - Universidad
de Buenos Aires , Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires request
all interested parties to arrive at least half an hour
earlier ( 8:30 hours) to
comply
with the usual enrolment procedures. Over this long weekend, you can enter your
regisdtration form via
e-mail to vicetm@cnba.uba.ar
.
The
event is absolutely free of charge. No doubt a golden opportunity to see one of
the most renowned figures in the Phonetics and Phonology scene today.
(6)
UN LENGUAJE UNIVERSAL PARA COMUNICARSE POR INTERNET
The
following is a transcription of an article written by Àlex Barnet and published
in "La Vanguardia",
the Spanish newspaper on 13th August 2000. We accessed to this
interesting piece of news through Ing. Eduardo Cosso, Secretaría
de Extensión Universitaria ,Rectorado
de la Universidad
Tecnológica Nacional.
"
El sistema está concebido como una lengua intermedia para ordenadores
que
elimina
ambigüedades y su acceso será gratuito.
El
UNL es un idioma para ordenadores que reduce las ambigüedades en
el
significado
de los textos y permite la traducción automática a cualquier lengua.
La idea de una máquina de traducir automática ha atraído a muchos investigadores
en las últimas décadas, ya que abundan traductores automáticos
plagados de errores. Hiro-shi Uchida, director del proyecto UNL de
la United Nations University de Japón, es uno de los científicos que
lucha
por aproximarse a esta herramienta. Su propuesta se llama UNL (Universal
Networking Language) y se presentó hace unas semanas en Barcelona.
"El
gran problema de los sistemas automáticos de traducción es que no pueden
luchar contra la ambigüedad de cada idioma, en el que hay términos que
significan una cosa totalmente distinta, según el contexto", explicó.
Uchida
considera que los sistemas directos de traducción pueden funcionar sólo
entre dos idiomas y no se pueden utilizarse universalmente. "Pero el
UNL
usa un lenguaje que permitirá comunicarse sin barreras", sentenció.
Desarrollado
por la United Nations University, que depende de las
Naciones
Unidas,
el UNL está concebido como una lengua intermedia de uso para
los
ordenadores
y que tiene la ventaja de eliminar ambigüedades. Su funcionamiento
es sencillo. El usuario escribe un texto en su idioma nativo.
Por Internet, el sistema UNL lo traduce y lo visualiza mediante el grafismo
del inglés (gato será "cat", por ejemplo). Automáticamente, el sistema
formula en el idioma nativo del usuario las preguntas necesarias para
eliminar las ambigüedades. Esto se traduce en un listado en pantalla
en
el que aparece gato como animal y como herramienta para cambiar la rueda.
El usuario marca la opción correspondiente y a partir de ahí se crea
un
texto en UNL.
El
grafismo en inglés es una convención y no implica que los usuarios sepan
este
idioma porque aparece por un proceso automático. Y el buen resultado
final
del sistema de traducción se basa en la existencia de un gran diccionario.
El UNL es sólo un intermediario técnico entre la lengua inicial
y la traducida. Un traductor universal informático con aspiraciones universales
para manejar 100 idiomas necesitaría 10.000 programas, ya que cada
idioma necesita una traducción específica para cada lengua. El UNL rebaja
este coeficiente exponencial y puede manejar 100 idiomas con sólo 200
programas. "Este año abriremos al público las primeras direcciones de
Internet
en las que se podrá utilizar el sistema", apunta.
Existen
ocho sistemas locales (español, ruso, inglés, japonés, indonesio, tailandés,
árabe y portugués) y dentro de poco se espera que se llegue a quince
idiomas. Según Uchida, las pruebas realizadas han dado una fiabilidad
del 90 % en textos de tipo general. El UNL está concebido como un
sistema público que los usuarios podrán usar gratis. El departamento de
Inteligencia
Artificial de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid ha puesto en
marcha el Centro de Lengua Española de UNL y abrirá la primera web en
España
para su uso."
We
would like to remind all SHARERS that the accepted languages for publication in
SHARE are English, Portuguese and Spanish.
(7)
SOCIAL VALUES AND MUSIC IN TUCUMAN
Our
very dear and active SHARERS, Stella Caramutti and Alicia Nasca from
Instituto
de Enseñanza Superior "Lola Mora" in Tucumán, write to us to
announce
a
talk by Ricardo
Sampedro on :
"Music
and Social Values"
Date: August 26th, 2000 - From:
09:30a.m. to 01:00p.m.
Venue:
Salón de Actos - Muñecas 219
- Altos.
Fee:
$10
Further
Information at : I.E.S. "Lola Mora". Muñecas
219 - Altos . Tel/Fax: (0381) 4342730 Email:
lolamo@tucuman,rffdc.edu.ar
We
wish Alicia, Stella and Richardo the very best !
(8)
NEW NEWSLETTER FOR THE TEACHER OF ENGLISH
On
14th August Pierre Stapley launched his new electronic newsletter for the
teacher of English : D & S NEWSLETTER ( after Denis Dunn and Pierre Stapley)This very rewarding
publication contains a variety of sections for the ELT professional as well as
the language lover at large. It includes language tips ( a
very
enlightening section on "Idioms", for example) and tips on Methodology, as
well as film reviews, an enticing "Discussion Junction" and assorted
information.
This
newsletter is distributed free of charge to subscribers.
How
to sign up ? Simply send an e-mail to :
stapley@arnet.com.ar incluiding
the
words
SUBSCRIBE ME in the subject line.
We
wish our dear friend Pierre ( and co-pilot Mr Dunn) the very best of
success.
Haven´t
you visited Dunnand Stapley´s site yet ?: www.dunnandstapley.20m.com
(9)
HEAR THE WOLFF ?
Our
dear SHARER, the talented Betty
Wolff, Executive
Director of BEWENGLISH/HYPERMEDIA
2000 writes to us to invite all SHARERS to her
course
:
El
Negocio del Inglés :
Tecnicas
Avanzadas de Creatividad y
Marketing para Impulsar tu Instituto.
Says
Betty :
Attention
all Educators...Sign up for our last Workshop! Sensitive
and
Sensible
Solutions to make your English Center BOOM. Come to sell more
and better. Remember that 2001 is just around the corner, and it won´t
be easy, mind you! So let's get all together! It is our ninth work-shop
for English teachers.
Saturday
2nd September from 9 am through 8 pm.
at
Juncal 2530.
The
lecturers are Betty Wolff and Marcelo Rodeiro. All material will
be
provided,
snacks are included, and certificates of attendance will be
issued.
The
fee is $ 100, if you are a newcomer. For all other BEWEnglish
suppor-
ters,
just $ 90 for almost 11 hours of tuition all included.
We
are your competitive advantage. It is the first presentation of this
semi-
nar
that will make your competition roll, roll in anger, because they have
missed
it, and all the extra services BEWEnglish/HYPERMEDIA 2000 provides
to teachers who with their will and our wide support are sure to succeed.
We make your sales increase at least 60%. You have our
word.
If
you happen to be interested, pay us a visit at:
Or
send us a message to: betty@giga.com.ar
Phone:
54 11 4 825 0303 - Fax:
54 11 4 821 3572
(10)
IMPLEMENTING CURICULAR INNOVATION
A
dear SHARER, Pablo Toledo, writes to us on behalf of APIBA Committee to announce
a forthcoming
APIBA / AACI event: Implementing Curricular
Innovation, a workshop to be led by Nora Alvarez, MA. in Applied
Linguisticss, University of London on August 30th .
The
presentation concerns the implementation of an innovation in a teacher training
college. This innovation consists of a co-teaching project within the
pre-service training of student teachers in an ELT programme.
Date
& Time: Wednesday 30th August, 2000 from 18.30 to
20.00
Venue:
ISA 2000, Vidal 1838. Ciudad de Buenos Aires
To
register, please call 4811-8743, from 14.30 to 20.00
(Mon.-Thur)
This
event is free of charge for APIBA members and teacher trainees .
Non-members pay
a small contribution of $10.
(11)
IF
I HAD MY CHILD TO RAISE OVER
AGAIN
Our
dear SHARER, Marcela Pena from English Study Centre, writes to us :
Dear
Omar and Marina,
Thanks
for the wonderful space you have created ! I just wanted to share with you this
poem by Diane
Loomans, from the book "Full Esteem Ahead".
Lots
of love from Campana
Marcela
Pena
If I had my child to raise over again
If
I had my child to raise over again,
I´d
finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I
would do less correcting and more connecting.
I´d
take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I
would care to know less and know to care more-
I´d
take more hikes and fly more kites.
I´d
stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I
would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I´d
do more hugging and less tugging.
I´d
build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I
would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I´d
teach less about the love of power,
and
more about the power of love.
Thank
you, Marce for a beautiful and moving poem !
(12) VISIT THE BS.AS. PLAYERS WEBSITE
Our
dear friend and SHARER, Celia Zubiri, Director of The Bs. As. Players, writes to
us :
"Dear
Omar and Marina,
I
would like to SHARE with the SHARERS some good news about THE BS AS PLAYERS. We
are very happy to announce our WEB SITE as from August. The address is www.thebsasplayers.com and we invite
you all to visit it. You will find useful information about our plays,
activities, games, printable material, songs, interesting links, photos and
much, much more.
Hope
you like it!
Sincerely
yours,
Celia
Zubiri
Well
done, Celia ! Congratulations on a beutiful website !
(13)
BERNIEH´S CORNER
Our
dear friend and Internet specialist Bernieh Banega, buck@mail.pccp.com.ar
has
found a site of special interest for Teacher Educators. He says :
Hello,
dear Prof. Villarreal!
I´ve
found this article very interesting, and perhaps you'll find
it
interesting
too. What
about organizing one-day meetings or seminars with student-
teachers, just to exchange experiences and ideas with the rest of their class?
Or
even... why don't make advanced students who are through their teaching
practices have
a meeting/seminar with students from lower years, to discuss their
experiences? You can find the article written by Sarah
Garrecht Gassen and published by the Arizona
Daily Star on Thursday,
13 July 2000 at
The
name of the article ? " Real-world lessons from the trenches - Future
teachers learn what works ". Inviting, don´t you think ?
(14) BEWARE OF THOSE E-MAILS !
Our dear SHARER, Berta Menendez from Asunción, Paraguay
sends us this
"very true" story from real life and warns SHARERS to
beware of
the e-mail technology: .
It's
wise to remember how easily email -- this wonderful technology
-- can be misused, sometimes unintentionally, with serious
consequences.
Consider
the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled
streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was
on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next
day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife
a quick email.
Unfortunately,
when typing her address, he missed one letter, and
his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife
whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the
grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the
monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor
in
a dead faint.
At
the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note
on the screen:
Dearest
Wife,
Just
got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
P.S.
Sure is hot down here.
(15)
NEWS FROM THE "WILD" WEST
Our
dear SHARER Ana María Paonessa, President
of the Círculo
de Traductores
Públicos
e Intérpretes de la Zona Oeste, announces a number of courses for the next few
weeks :
Translation
of Medical Texts
By
T.P. Claudia Tarazona
August
26 and September 2 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Fee:
$ 40.-
Portuguese (No previous knowledge
necessary)
By
T.P. María Dolores Salgado Loureda
Saturdays
from 10 to 12 a.m.
Fee:
$ 60.- per month
German (no previous knowledge
necessary)
By
T.P. Margarita Stecher
Saturdays
from 10 a 12 a.m.
Fee:
$ 60.- per month
French (no previous knowledge
necessary)
By
T.P. Leticia Scavino
Thursdays
from 5 to 7 p.m.
Arancel:
$ 60.- mensuales
Takeovers,
Mergers and Acquisitions
By
Prof. Sergio F. Rodríguez
September
2, 9 and 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Fee:
$ 50.-
Cultural
Issues in Translation
By
Prof. Alejandro Parini
September
9 from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Fee:
$ 35.-
For
further information call 4372-0068 or mail to cirtrad@mail.com
(16)
DEFINITIONS AND SELF-STYLED POETRY
A
dear SHARER from Humberto Primero, Santa Fe, Analía Angeletti de
Berrone
sent us this beutiful poem. Thank you Ana and keep on SHARING
!
Definition
of a Friend
A
friend should be radical;
They
should love you when you're unlovable,
Hug
you when you're unhuggable,
And
bear you when you're unbearable.
A
friend should be fanatical;
They
should cheer when the whole world boos,
Dance
when you get good news,
And
cry when you cry too.
But
most of all, a friend should be mathematical,
They
should multiply the joy,