Geoff’s EFL Blog

Wow!

Got a message from Richard Green (JRGreen, Int’l Speech Communication http://nitantiao.podomatic.com/), that his class had posted a Valentine’s Day message at his podomatic site, for us podcasters at the Bardwell Road Centre. There is an audio podcast, and also a video version, in RealPlayer format, which I watched. Here’s the link:
Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone from Brooklyn, N.Y.
http://nitantiao.podOmatic.com/entry/2006-02-14T20_22_08-08_00

I have to say I was thrilled to be addressed by people in an ESL class 3000 miles away, in Brooklyn, NY. You could see the classroom setting, with the kind of chairs with a little desk on one arm, which I’m very familiar with. You could see each student as they spoke, and it was interesting to see that this was clearly an ESL class (immigrants?) of relatively mature learners, whereas my class is a younger class of EFL students, most who will be returning to their countries after a matter of months or so, though a few have hopes of staying on in higher education in the UK. Also included was a musical performance by a man from Togo in West Africa, singing a French song unaccompanied – pretty cool too. (I thought how much freer and more comfortable he looked, standing up, than the others, in their chairs. One of the Mac Geek Gab podcast presenters says he has to walk around while he’s podcasting, can’t sit.)

Of course, I want to respond in kind, in a kind of asynchonous Webcast, and I hope I can show the video, or at least play the audio, to my class tomorrow, in our “computer lesson” hour. Bo Yang is our next designated guest presenter, and he has planned to get his classmates to speak on the subject of “How to learn English”, which is a good subject, and ought to be of interest to an audience of both language students and teachers. But now I’m thinking it would be nice to respond to the Brooklyn students’ podcast, and I’m hoping that my class will want to respond – that they will be inspired to respond – and leave the language learning tips for another time.