Ibrahim’s Blog

Though not long ago I have taken TOEFL paper based test once again I tried to take TOEFL IBT (Internet based test). It is a test that measures your ability not only to write, read, speak and listen in English but also requires good vocabulary. The maximum IBT score is 120.

For those who wish to study in English speaking countries, here is a link where you can find out more about TOEFL test www.ets.org

Яке аз талаботҳои таҳсил дар макотиб ва донишнгоҳҳои хориҷӣ ин донистани забони англисӣ мебошад ва барои ин донишҷӯе, ки забони модариаш англисӣ нест бояд санҷиши TOEFL супорад. Дар Мактаби Байналхалқии Душанбе воқеъ дар кӯчаи Бофанда метавон маълумоти пурра дар бораи TOEFL дастрас кард ва ё ба супоридани он номнависӣ намуд.  Мактаби Байналхалқии Душанбе

Hornby Trust Scholarship 2008/9

The British Council invites applications for the above scholarship.

The Hornby Trust Scholarship is provided by A.S.Hornby Educational Trust in the UK and is administered by the British Council in Uzbekistan.

The objective of the scholarship is to provide teachers of English with an opportunity to pursue a Masters degree in the United Kingdom relevant both to their own career development and to national priorities of the Republic of Tajikistan. Candidates must therefore be able to share their knowledge and expertise, which may be in areas such as Curriculum Development, Syllabus Design, Materials Development, Teacher Training or Testing, on return.

For the academic year 2008/9 one Hornby Trust Scholarship has been allocated to Tajikistan.

Applicants should have:

·         A Bachelor’s degree in English language, or equivalent, with an excellent academic record

·         At least 4 years English teaching experience

·         English proficiency to IELTS 6.5 level (selected candidates will be tested)

Please email a full CV together with completed application form to Jamila Nasridinova at the address below by 3 March 2008. Applications received after that date will not be considered.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview in Dushanbe in mid-late March 2008. Final selection will be made by the Hornby Trust in April 2008.

11, Mirobod Street.

Tashkent 100031

Tel:      140 06 60

            140 06 61

Fax:     140 06 67

E-mail: jamila.nasridinova@britishcouncil.uz

The CALL Interest Section of the international TESOL professional association is pleased to offer the
opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village Online (EVO) 2008 season. This is a professional
development project and virtual extension of the TESOL2008 Convention in New York. The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL 2008 participants and those who can participate only virtually.

You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in a free, six-week, wholly online session of the EVO, Jan 14 -Feb 24, 2007. Please visit our Announcement page to select one or two among the various offerings.

http://evo08session scfp.pbwiki. com

Jose Antonio, an EFL instructor living in Brasilia, Brazil like blogging and using other ICT tools to get to know people and make my students learn in a more connected, interesting way. He says, he is a great fan of using ICT(Information and Communication Technology) for teaching. He also like movies and talking to his friends on the Internet, or face to face (f2f).

As part of their week of environmental awareness project last semester Jose’s students came up with a powerful image that can be seen at their project website.

Some children pray this grace: “Earth, who gives to us this food, Sun, who makes it ripe and good, Dearest Earth, dearest Sun, We won’t forget what you have done.”

He asked his students the following questions: Can we make this prayer our own? What can we do to care for our home planet? So his students could comment and write their own ideas and thoughts.
You can learn how Jose’s students answered to these questions by reading their comments at Caring for Earth

Хосе Антонио, омӯзгори забони англиси дар Бразилия ки рӯзноманависи ва ё веб-блог ва дигар фанновариҳои технологииро барои шиносои бо дигарон, ва дар як вақт хонандагони худро бо роҳи навовари ва шавқовар дарс мегуяд. Ӯ мегӯяд, ки хеле Фанноварии Иттилоотиро дар таълим дӯст медорад. Барои вай тамошои синамо ва бо дӯстон тариқи Интернет бо алоқа будан ва ё рӯ ба рӯ вохӯрдан писан даст.

Ҳамчун як қисми лоиҳаи донистани муҳити атроф, хонандагони Хосе як аксеро тасвир кардаанд ва ҳамаи талабаҳои Хосе барои он акс фикру андешаҳои хешро бо забони англисӣ изҳор карданд.

Ин кори Хосе метавонад барои муаллимон ва хонандагоне, ки барои Интернет дастраси доранд, як намунаи хуб истифодаи Интернет дар таълим бошад.

Ин пайвандро пахш кунед - Caring for Earth

Today as part of our Virtual Cafe weekly meeting we, teachers - webheads had a discussion about the Copyright. It is very frequent issue that many teachers face while using different sources in their teaching.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Copyright: “Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally “the right to copy” an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is “©”, and in some jurisdictions may alternatively be written as either (c) or (C).”

When we create something, it automatically gets copyrighted no matter we include copyright notice of a symbol of it. And while using copyrighted works like texts, images and other things, we have to clearly cite the resources used and give credits to their creators and ask original author for permission. In case, when there is no author, one has to include url, books and publishers or companies. By doing this, we can express our respect to authors for their efforts to prepare materials and encourage them to create more useful resources. Before using materials check the terms of use whether the licenses allow you to copy, distribute and create derivative works based on the one which you are going to use.

This is huge topic and I will try to briefly and simply write about this issue in my next entries.

For educators who are interested to join our Virtual Cafe meeting on Saturdays, I encourage to click to link to access Moira’s Virtual Cafe for more interesting and informative topics to discuss.

Very interesting acrticle I have read today about “Vanishing Languages Identified - Oklahoma Is Among Places Where Tongues Are Disappearing“.

Do you know the literary meanings of these numbers like 11 and 20 in Paraguayan Lengua language?

Do you know in what language each number can be said 26 ways, depending on what is being counted?

If you are eager to know about these, I encourage you to find these answers by following this link to read whole story and find the treasure.

Now there are more than language to language translating technologies, a system was developed by IBM which is called as SiSi (Say It Sign It). It is said that it may translate the words into British Sign Language from spoken language. What is said can be translated by this system’s animated avatar or character into British Sign Language. You may read an article about it here and even see a demonstration of SiSi  I believe it is just a begining of this interesting and very useful project and I wish soon this system will be developed not only to translate what is said, but also to translate what may be shown by gestures into words or sounds. 

Not long ago I was selected to take Teaching Business English E-teacher Distance course

E-Teacher Program (September - December 2007) e-Teaching Business English course offered by the University of South Carolina. Scholarship granted by the US Department of State Office of English Language Programs.

It is my third E-teacher course that I am taking now. My first and second course were Critical Thinking and English for Law course that I enjoyed much though I had some problem taking the second course due to electricity shortage.

This year I am sure to successfully complete Teaching Business English course that will surely keep me busy till the end of this year. E-teacher course are really helpful and you can do your assignments at night without thinking about the work that keeps you busy whole day.

I found my instructors and fellows very friends and we use the special software called “FirstClass Desktop Cliet“  which looks like as Email Client like Mozilla Thunderbird but has lots of integrated teaching and learning tools inside like Discussions Rooms, Bulletin Board, Conferences, Instant Messaging - Chat room, Calendar, Memos and others under its Desktop. Pretty amazing tool that I didn’t use before except commercial Blackboard and Open source Moodle and lighter Atutor.

My first assignment was to send Introduction protocol and to get to know my fellows. So our course TBE course will last till the end of December. I am so happy to be selected as one of the lucky participants.

Today it was interesting to talk about the usage of English articles (a, an and the) which are very confusing. In order to master, one has to read and write a lot, so by just learning

a/an indefinite article and the is a definite article, it takes time and one cannot use these articles easily where appropriate.

It would nice to hear comments about the English articles’ usage and I found some great resources that could help for those who want to test their knowledge. Please share if you have experienced such confusion or whether have skills to use a/an/the in writing and reading.

Articles: A Basic Quiz

Articles - handout

· Articles, Determiners and Quantifiers

· The Use and Non-Use of Articles