Well, I haven't had much time for this blog over the last couple of weeks. Exam time was upon us and it definitely was not the season to be jolly. Good luck to all my students who took the FCE, ECCE and CPE - talk about alphabet soup!
Here's my idea for a class project for advanced levels i.e. post B2 using War of the Worlds radio play by Orson Welles and the mercury theatre (see here for link to free mp3 download of the play and here for the transcript).
The idea is for students to update and adapt all or part of the story to fit in with their local circumstances. This means changing character and palce names, modifying topical references etc.
The original version
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News.
At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity.
Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as, quote, "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun," unquote.
We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York.
The new, improved Greek version
Hi everyone. we interrupt our laiko program to bring you a special news update from ET1. At 7:40 Professor Vritkas of the Thessaloniki university observatory, reports obsrving several large explosions of incandescent gasThe spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity.
Professor Vafopoulos of the Observatory at Athens confirms Vritkas's observation, and describes the phenomenon as, quote, "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun," unquote.
We now return you to the music of Antonis Remos, playing for you in Mouses, situated in downtown Thessaloniki.
The students then record their version using their pc. Audacity has a free to download programme that is easy to use. The more computer literate may wish to post it as a podcast.
If anyone has any suggestions for warm up exercises, please let me know. This is very much a work in progress and I've yet to test it in class.
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