Zwei Kleine Wölfe

New mission of the month: learn to sing this song in German

Zwei Kleine Wölfe

Zwei kleine Wölfe gehn des Nachts im Dunkeln.
Man hört den einen zu dem andern munkeln:
"Warum gehn wir denn immer nur des Nachts herum?
Man tritt sich an den Wurzeln ja die Pfoten krumm.
Wenn's nur schon heller wär (pfeifen)
Wenn nur der Wald mit Sternenlicht beleuchtet wär.

English translation from Google translate:

Two little wolves go at night in the dark.
You can hear a whisper to the other:
"Why always we going around only at night?
It's paws occurs at the roots so crooked.
If it would only ever brighter (whistle)
If only the forest would be illuminated by starlight. 

http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Liederbuch/_Zwei_kleine_W%C3%B6lfe

I love the tune and it is really very fun and easy to sing, we had tried to sing in 3 canons in a group! One flow chasing another one...

Websites for German studies

Websites that are good for German studies:

Dictionaries: 

• http://www.duden.de/
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
• http://wordreference.com/deen/

Info: 

• http://www.dw.de/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/

Phrase of verbs

http://www.boredpanda.com/clever-pun-illustrations-nabhan-abdullatif/

I think this could turn into a fun teaching activity.

List a bunch of phrase of verbs, and have students brain storming, what are other ways to use it.

Ex: make up.

Or show them the photos and have them figure out what the original meaning is. (or give them a list of phrase of verbs with meaning and have them search for that?)

And follow an activity that give them a chance to use this phrase of verbs in a sentence. Or try to see if they can use all the verbs in a paragraph. 

閱讀困難症 中英文有別

國家科學院彙報網路版7日公布的研究指出，根據從小閱讀英文或中文，閱讀困難症(dyslexia)影響兒童不同的大腦部位。這項發現可能意味治療師需尋求不同方法，以協助來自不同文化的兒童。
研究主要作者、香港大學語言學教授譚力海表示，過去研究顯示大腦對不同語言可能使用不同的神經細胞網路，但從未顯示大腦部位的結構不同。
研究員發現，使用字母(例如英文)的閱讀困難症兒童，其大腦造影顯示在以下區域有不尋常的功能與結構：與字母轉成聲音有關的左顳頂區(left temporo-parietal areas)；與語音分析有關的左中上顳葉皮質(leftmiddle-superior temporal cortex)；可能具有迅速辨認字形系統功用的左下顳枕腦迴(left inferior temporo-occipital gyrus)。
但對有閱讀困難症的中國小朋友進行類似造影研究發現，受影響的是不同區域：左中額葉腦迴(left middle frontal gyrus)
閱讀像英文的字母語言與閱讀中文所需的技巧不同，中文較不依賴聲音表徵，而是使用符號來代表字詞。例如說英語的兒童學習字母的聲音和如何結合字母形成詞彙，中國兒童則默記數百個代表字詞的符號。
譚力海指出，研究顯示治療說中文的閱讀困難症患者，也許可使用工作記憶任務和與感覺運動技能有關的測驗，目前治療說英語的閱讀困難症患者，則著重於字母轉成聲音和音韻覺識(sound awareness)。

【2008/04/08 世界日報】

Hello, My name is Amy Walker...

An interesting link I got from Eno tonight.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/02/21-accents/#comments

For a period of time that my ear-phone didn't work it that well, so I basically were just staring at her mouth and her big white teeth. Unfortunately I can't say it's charming in return.

However, it was indeed another impressive performance; nonetheless, it shows again how stereotype can be formed so easily. But I will still give her kudos on imitating few really distinctive parts!!

What accents can u catch then?

I guess I sort of getting the one from Calif. (even though not quite sure of the southerner part), the Brooklyn one might be a little bit off, but u know, I guess you can still kinda guess.
I agree with few comments from the same site that some parts of them sounds quite the same.
The German and the Czech part is not too bad, at least I think she manages to capture few essences of the language features. She can't be a parisian, but she can barely pronounce the word "Paris" right.


Final guess? where is she from?? ;)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/feb/20/zhaou.youguang.pinyin

Helping China learn to read

February 21 2008: Zhou Youguang is the inventor of Pinyin, a romanisation of the Chinese lexicon used by millions to learn the language

FW: Abolish bilingual education, Gingrich urges

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/31/gingrich.bilingual.ap/index.html

Abolish bilingual education, Gingrich urges

-->POSTED: 4:58 p.m. EDT, March 31, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.
"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.
"Citizenship requires passing a test on American history in English. If that's true, then we do not have to create ballots in any language except English," he said.
Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, which supports bilingual education, said, "The tone of his comments were very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto."
He said research has shown "that bilingual education is the best method of teaching English to non-English speakers."
Spanish-speakers, Zamora said, know they need to learn English.
"There's no resistance to learning English, really, among immigrants, among native-born citizens," he said. "Everyone wants to learn English because it's what you need to thrive in this country."
In the past, Gingrich has supported making English the nation's official language. He's also said all American children should learn English and that other languages should be secondary in schools.
In 1995, for example, he said bilingualism poses "long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation" and that "allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous."
Bilingual programs teach students reading, arithmetic and other basic skills in their native language so they do not fall behind while mastering English.
On voting, federal law requires districts with large populations of non-English speakers to print ballots in multiple languages.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.


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It just a total absurd feeling for me to read an article that has such different point of view toward bilingual education. It is a very biased and not constructive way of saying. ( or at least I hope that he knows what he says)