Year of the Snake! Chinese New Year!

Year of the Snake! Chinese New Year celebrations in London!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21394547

Tense Tunisia as funeral of Chokri Belaidi takes place

This afternoon Chrokri Belaidi was buried amid continuing tensions and a General Strike,called by the main trade union in protest against the current government.On Wednesday evening the Prime Minister tried to dissolve the cabinet and form a new one with technocrats but his party rejected his plan.There have been riots in cities thoughout Tunisia including Gafsa and Tunis,where a policeman was killed in clashes with protestors.An ex-student of mine,who lives in Gafsa said she and her family had to stay indoors as the protestors were rioting and looting.click here for more information

Assassination in Tunis!

This morning Chokri Belaid an opposition politician activist was assassinated;he was on his way to work when he was shot in the head and the neck.He was a leading spokeperson against the Islamist-led government,in the past two year since the 'revolution' nothing has really changed;in the south of Tunisia many people are still unemployed.

click http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21349719 for more details.

In the afternoon there was a demonstration in the city centre against the murder,a small group of demonstrators with a car carrying the coffin of the deceased politcian activist,passed along Rue Mohamed V passing the British Council on its way to Avenue Bourguiba,the main street in the city centre.In the south of Tunisia there were riots in Gafsa and also the town of Sidi Bouzid where the revolution first began two years ago.
In Tunis and Sidi Bouzid the police had to use tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Tomorrow the funeral takes place and the opposition parties have threatened to go a General Strike in a continued protest against the assassination.
Will there will  be a second revolution and yet another downfall of the government?

Teaching English Radio programme 3 'Using Group Work with Large Classes'

Hello everybody and welcome back to Teaching English Radio! 

After our adventures in Gafsa we're back in Tunis!

On yesterday's programme,the topic was 'Using Group Work with Large Classes'

In the studio audience were Ridha Maknine,Primary school teacher,Bizerte
Myriam Matmsti,Secondary School Teacher of English,El Kram High School,Tunis

Hayfa Majoub,Secondary School teacher,Ben Arous, Tunis and Ian Smith,Senior Teacher Academic,British Council Tunisia.

Some of the key points of using group work is the importance of the  setting up of group work and  classroom management skills for instance the teacher’s role can change to monitoring, listening and giving advice.Some advantages of group discussion is that it allows students to relax, express themselves and really use the language. It can be very motivating and dynamic.
It can be adapted to suit all classes and different activities.

The studio guests also talked about their first teaching memory,how they felt when they saw their first class for the first time,the advantages and disadvantage of teaching a large group.Ian talked about his first teaching experience in Japan,a class of 45 students and though there's this image of Japanese people being polite;they were actually normal rowdy teenagers;as a young teacher it was an intimidating experience and another problem was that the course book wasn't culturally interesting - pop songs from the 1970's for students from the 1980's! Despite this daunting situation Ian said it was a good learning experience and gradually he developed strategies to deal with the large class and to make the lessons interesting.

One of the disadvantages that one of the Tunisian teachers mentioned was about assessing the students in group work and that it was difficult to assess them individually,Ian said that could be resolved by ensuring that everyone said something in their presentation and he found that the  stronger students made an effort to help the weaker students participate.
Another interesting point that Ian made was about the process of feedback and it was important for the students to do their feedback in their groups before a whole feedback as it helped the students to be more confident and prepared.

The Future?

What does the future hold for humanity?
click here for a view of the future from an artist's perspective.
Will planet Earth end up dry and waterless like the desert landscape below?

' no man's land' exhibition

Today I saw the 'no man's land' exhibition at the galerie el marsa,it's near Safa Safa cafe if you don't know.
Usually when I visit an art gallery two or three works of art catch my eye but not particularly with this exhibition,perhaps if I go another day something might appeal to me. It's nice the art gallery is open again and putting on exhibitions,for a few months last year it wasn't always open.
At least it's a very spacious gallery to walk around and contemplate the works of art.
Do you like this one?

Filming in Bizerte

After a few auditions at Sindbad Production,a local Tunisian film studio company,this morning I finally got to be in a film.A short scene in an episode of the documentary series 'Locked Up Abroad',which relates to Susan Hallam,an American woman ,whose husband,Roy Hallam,was kidnapped in Iraq during the Gulf War.

It was an early departure,8am,from La Marsa to Bizerte on the north west coast of Tunisia.
We arrived at a house on the  outskirts of the town,upstairs there was a film crew preparing for the day's filming.The house was being used as Susan Hallam's home in the USA.

For the scene that I was involved in,a group of us played the part of photographers and journalists turning up
at Mrs.Hallam's 'house' ,we had to bombard her with lots of questions seeking answers to the kidnap situation.

The other people playing the 'Press' were an American woman,a young half-English half-Tunisian girl and three Tunisian men.Richard,the director prepared us with sets of questions which we had to use for the scene,but which could also be adapted so a spot of  improvisation was also necessary.

There were at least five takes for our scene and afterwards we individually recorded our particular lines so that the lines of dialogue could be edited into the scene if necessary.

There were two American guys also there who were going to play the part of FBI agents.

Before we returned back to Tunis I found out from Philippa Day,co-owner of Sindbad Productions that the actress playing the role of Susan Hallam,was an Australia woman -Paris Jefferson , a good name for a future film star!

Today was the last day of filming and one of the final scenes was to be one of Paris Jefferson trying to relax by her swimming pool.However,the weather wasn't co-operating with gloomy grey skies and rain showers.
The sun which earlier threatened to break through those clouds didn't seem very likely as the rain continued thoughout the rest of the day.