Fishing and mushroom picking in Sweden
Some big things we had in Sweden: the biggest house we as a family ever lived in, the biggest fish I ever caught, the biggest mushroom my daughter and ever picked up.
Kids, dogs and people with disabilities
Germany is a very comfortable place for kids and their parents. Many shopping centres and courtyards have playgrounds for kids.
Small shops have TV sets with cartoons for kids.
Germans are allowed to take dogs everywhere: malls, supermarkets, museums etc.
In all public places you can see people on wheelchairs. There are special toilets for them, buses equipped with special seats
Russians in Germany
We were riding on a bus in Bremen - my wife, 2 our daughters, our friend and host Farida and her son, Arthur. At some bus stop a woman who was sitting behind my wife leaned to her and asked in Russian when she should get off the bus to get to some Strasse. My wife said that she is a visitor here and recommended our friend Farida as an advisor. As Farida started to explain her in Russian a passenger man who was sitting behind the first woman interrupted Farida and said she was a bit mistaken. A woman sitting next to him agreed with him and together they exlpained the first woman when she should get of the bus. All of them were speaking perfect Russian. Finally a young woman on the other side of the bus laughed which showed that she understood the conversation and apparently was Russian too.
Half of the passengers on a random bus in Bremen turned out to be Russians
edunation
We have visited two great museums Klimat Haus in Bremerhaffen and Universum in Bremen. It is difficult to call them 'museums' - because they are more like popular science enternainment centres. Klimathaus is focused on interactive representation of different climatic zones crossed by the 8th longitude (where Bremerhaffen is located). The Universum reveals how modern science interprets the worlds of human body, earth and cosmos through various multimedia interactive exhibits.
Designing Text-Based Tasks
While designing a task based on a text, the teacher should aim at encouraging natural and efficient reading/listening/viewing strategies, focusing initially on searching for sufficient relevant meaning for the purpose of the task.
I've been reading a book that gives some great advice on designing different tasks (incliding those based on texts). The book is called A Framework For Task-Based Learning by J.Willis. I decided to make some slides based on the information from the book and share it with everyone who is interested in designing meaningful tasks. I hope you'll enjoy it.