Encuentro Hispanico

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Today I was on a long training course for Spanish teachers. It's the first one I've been on for a while and I came back feeling totally energised and ready to go again.

First there was a talk on Spanish politics from a renowned professor. I was a bit worried but managed to follow and understand for the full hour.

Then came the first workshop on vocabulary training. It was just the right balance of talking and doing and of theory and practice.

Lunch was provided and various publishers were advertising their Spanish books and we were offered a 50% discount so I got a Spanish grammar book for my classes.

In order to get good value for money and get more involved in Spanish again, I joined the DSV (a committee for Spanish teachers in Germany). Their meeting took place after lunch and it was interesting to hear about the situation for Spanish in Bremen.

Then came the second workshop on mediation. This was really practical and interesting again and as with the morning workshop can be applied to Spanish or English.

Finally was an information session about exchanges with Spain and Mexico which is something our school is also interested in.

All in all, a great day!

Rory's Story Cubes

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My friend Loreto recently introduced me to these little gems when she bought me a set of the original dice (the orange box above).  They are brilliant!  We happened to have them on a training day we were at so got lots of ideas and tips on how to use them with classes and I've already started putting them into practice.

Basically, the pupils or students use the images on the dice to give them speaking ideas.  It can get very creative!

I was so impressed with them, I bought us the green (voyages) and blue (actions/verbs) sets.  Can't wait to use them too.  

My pupils always know when I've been on a good training day because I come back with balloons and new games, I hope they enjoy this one too!

Whiteboard course

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 Last week, I achieved the first of my March goals by completing the Promethean Whiteboard course that our deputy head has been pushing us to do since August.

I've worked with Whiteboards before in England, but with different software so it was good to get to grips with this properly.  The courses were interesting and to be honest, not very difficult, but very time consuming.  

In order to not be glued to the computer, I plan to build up my resources slowly but it the meantime, my new certificates are on the wall!

Memory Lane

This week, I'm remembering my very first solo trip, the very first time I came to Germany alone - September 2005.  I flew to Cologne and caught the train to Altenburg to take the training course for teaching assistants.  It was a beautiful sunny week.