Date Time and Weather

 I added to the Contact Page the webcam which is on the roof of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science plus a small weather indicator.  This was really a side-effect of creating a page for lessons, or review, on Calendar, Date, Time, and Weather. Actually, you could call this part of a page. I will probably re-size it appropriately and use it as a small window shared on Zoom along with other screen components. All the components are live, via the web. However the small Calendar, which updates automaticlly via my Google Calendars, simply does not have enough space to totatlly include all the Holiday Names. They are there, but truncated. It's a start, anyway.

The Color Vowel Chart

 The Color Vowel Chart -- what a marvelous invention to teach people our complicated English vowel system!  

Here's a link to the chart at the US Dept. of State.  The page explains how it is used and there are also links to a Teacher's Guide and a Webinar.

Thanks to the Littleton Immigrant Resource Center Volunteer program for providing this among their resources.

I can't stop laughing.

 This is funny even if you don't speak French.

When a Frenchman calls an Indian Call Center : The iRabbit

Languages from the Viewpoint of a Very Young Learner

Students in my online TEFL class have been contributing forum messages about how to inspire very young children to learn a second language.  Below is my recent response to a post in that forum.

For very young learners (pre-kindergarten) I think if you just play with them, using fun games and activities, but do it using your own language (in this case English), they will quickly adapt and use it with you.

My first playmates, when I was 3 1/2, were a pair of slightly younger twins who lived next door.  We had a lot of fun. My mother always asked me to tell her what they were saying.  Some time later she explained that they had made up their own language which the adults could not understand, as twins often do.  But why couldn’t the adults understand?  I had no trouble. Whatever words they were using were certainly perfectly good – words!  And the girls had no trouble understanding me. What words was I using?  Theirs, my parents' or both?  I don't think it mattered. But somehow when I translated for my mother I must have used the words I intuitively knew she would understand.

Lesson for today.

Here's what I learned today from giving a practice lesson to my grandson, David: Be careful not to sit on your headset's mute button!  The next headset I get will have it located in a different place.