Green Eggs and Ham 2010 Spring

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seusss is a great vehicle for pronouncing American English vowel sounds. It also provides a good excuse to have a party. Green eggs and ham, anyone?

American Sabor

On February 9, students from both ESL classes met at the Bob Bullock Museum for the American Sabor exhibit. The bilingual exhibit demonstrated the influence of Latino rhythms on rock music in the U.S. It showed major Latino influences in the music of New York, Miami, San Antonio, and Los Angeles with videos, interactive listening and mixing booths, and rhythm instruments to try for a real hands-on experience.

Translate It

I've added a link to the ESL links on the right for Google Translator. You can Copy and Paste any text or website address into the translator box, choose your language, and have a pretty good translation of the text or website. Try it with this message:

1. Drag the pointer across all of the text to select it.
2. Right click, and choose Copy
3. Go to Google Translator
4. Right click, and choose Paste
5. Choose languages to translate from and to
   
6. Click Translate

Now try it with the whole blog. Paste http://esol4u.blogspot.com in the translator text box and see what happens. Be patient. It's a big blog, so it may take awhile.

The 12 Days of Christmas 2009

Southwest Key


South Austin Campus

Food, glorious food!

ESL classes are punctuated regularly with parties for all occasions, culminating in the end-of-semester gastronomic celebration of friendship.

A Night at the Museum

Tonight the SWK class was able to take advantage of an invitation from the Bob Bullock Museum to see their educators' preview of the new quilt exhibit. After the tour, we went upstairs for a film, Crazy Texas Weather, complete with special effects for the audience to give us the "feel" of hurricanes and tornadoes.

Friday the 13th—good luck for us!

In the US, Friday the 13th is considered a bad luck day, a day when one has to be careful to a avoid accidents and misfortune. There's even a word for it: paraskevidekatriaphobia! Here's a website that explains the word and the superstition.

However, my SAC students from Mexico told me that in their country, Friday the 13th is a "social day"—a day to visit friends and enjoy the company of others. I think the Mexican tradition prevailed in our classroom because we were fortunate on that day in at least two ways: (1) everyone in the class was present and (2) Brandon, a new teacher to ACC, came to observe our class and volunteered to serve as photographer. Thank you, Brandon, for our new class photo. Friday the 13th was a lucky day for us!