guest+speakers

Today the seventh and eighth graders were lucky to have Lydia Sanchez, a student at EGHS come to their class to talk about her experiences as a student in Argentina. She spent a year in La Riojas, Argentina as an exchange student. The kids were mesmerized as she told many funny and informative stories about the linguistic and cultural differences between the U.S. and Argentina. I learned many interesting things as well. Chango in Mexico - hair elastic, chango in Argentina is boy. Lydia found that out when she asked for hair elastics in una farmacia. Also instead of De donde eres ( Mexico) they say De donde sos? Her presentation was so interesting and the kids really seemed to enjoy it!

My sixth grade World Language learners also had a guest speaker, Marilyn Cooney who teaches at the Gospel School for the Deaf in Fiji. This tied in nicely with our study of American Sign Language. The students were especially fascinated by the fact that Fijians only stopped the practice of cannibalization less than 160 years ago. She explained to the class that among the Deaf populations there are different types of sign language. For example ASL uses one hand while in Fiji the deaf population uses both hands.

I hope to do as great a job presenting about my trip to Costa Rica as these two did!

My classes registered at collaborizeclassroom today- I will be using this web site in addition to the wiki as a tool to post questions and homework assignments while I am in Costa Rica. The students chose their screen names and gave themselves passwords. I have posted the first question/homework assignment- Would you like to visit Costa Rica? Why or Why not? The students will need to answer this question after they view all of the Costa Rica projects - which are due tomorrow!!!!!!!

I am still working on the technology aspect of my trip tp Costa Rica - I hope tobe able to post videos taken on the flip cam on the collaborize class site.