Dear Teacher,
Tune Into English is now on facebook! This is the ideal forum for like-minded teachers and students to keep in contact and to share their experiences of teaching and learning English through pop music. The page has a large selection of videos and photographs from over three years of The Tune Into English Roadshow, so if you feel any of the material on the page infringes on your or your students’ privacy please let me know, it will be removed immediately.
To become part of the community click on the badge on the right hand column of www.tuneintoenglish.com, and become a fan.
The Tune Into English Roadshow began its tour on the 26th September to celebrate the Giornata delle Lingue – thank you to all in Castellana for the wonderful reception the new show received (the photos are on facebook, and yes, I know I need a haircut!) The tour’s Autumn schedule is filling up, and I would be delighted to visit your school.
For those of you who prefer to avoid facebook, you can see a short video filmed by a student in Sassari in May on the Roadshow page of the Tune Into English website.
The first of this month’s additions to the Downloadable Worksheets section of the Teachers’ Area of the site is a tribute to Patrick Swayze. Submitted by Mena Bianco from Naples, Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes’ (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life was the theme to Dirty Dancing, the film that made Swayze a household name. Unchained Melody, from Ghost, is also available for download.
Ironic by Alanis Morissette caused some linguistic controversy when it was released – the worksheet for this, written by Valentina Ambrosio of Recanati (MC), is this month’s second addition to the site – you can also watch a comedy sketch about the song by Ed Byrne.
The third worksheet is taken from a short course I recently did based on the life and lyrics of Bob Dylan. Like A Rolling Stone has been called the greatest song of all time, and is rich in vocabulary (thanks to Mena Bianco for preparing this worksheet). You can read about this course on the Roadshow page of the website.
Other worksheets you may find appropriate for this month are U2’s October, and, with Hallowe’en approaching, both Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Skeleton Song by Kate Nash.
The Karaoke section of the website continues to grow, with over 2,600 songs including most of those mentioned in this newsletter as well as the complete soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. The site is now very complete, with a bookstore with over 60 titles for those of you looking for alternative reading material for your students, as well as details of language courses abroad.
Finally, for those of you in Naples this weekend, Tune Into English will be presenting a tribute to Michael Jackson and a karaoke session at Disco Days, it would be great to see you there!
I look forward to meeting you and your students in the coming months,
Best wishes,
Fergal Kavanagh
Tune Into English
www.tuneintoenglish.com
