Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Parable

A man dreamed that he was taken on a trip to the afterlife. First, he went to hell. There he saw a lot of people gathered around a large kettle. A delicious smell emanated from the kettle, it was full of a delectable stew. But everyone was starving and unhappy. You see, each person had a spoon attached to his hand, but the handle of the spoon was too long, and no one could put the spoon to his mouth. So everyone was moaning and complaining and unable to get anything to eat. It was sheer torture.

Then the man went to heaven. He saw exactly the same situation with the kettle and the spoons, but this time everyone was happy and obviously well fed. The man asked one of the people how they could be happy when they couldn’t put the spoon to their mouths. The person replied, “It’s easy. You see, we feed each other.”

Robert Farrell

Sunday, November 21, 2010

What's your level in English?

What is your level in English? No one but you really knows what you are capable of doing, so the best way to determine your level in English is to go to :
http://www.emea.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Other/2010/03/WC500075218.pdf
Answer the questions honestly and you will have a good idea of your level in the four skills:
Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. When preparing a CV, use the European standards to designate your level.

How do you improve your level? Your level in Writing depends upon your level in Reading. If you read frequently, choosing texts that are easy to read, your level will improve and your Writing will improve. If you listen often to songs in English and to films in VO, your speaking will improve.

The secret to learning a language? Comprehensible input. Which means listening to and reading things that you understand at least 90% of. When teachers ask you to produce, that is to speak and to write, we are measuring what you have learned, but we are not teaching.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

November 13, 2010

Here’s a Woman Fighting Terrorism. With Microloans.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, LAHORE, Pakistan

An old friend of mine here fights terrorists, but not the way you’re thinking. She could barely defeat a truculent child in hand-to-hand combat, and if she ever picked up an AK-47 — well, you’d pray it was unloaded. Roshaneh Zafar is an American- educated banker who fights extremism with microfinance. She has dedicated her life to empowering some of Pakistan’s most impoverished women and giving them the tools to run businesses of their own. The United States should learn from warriors like her.

Bullets and drones may kill terrorists, but Roshaneh creates jobs and educational opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people — draining the swamps that breed terrorists. “Charity is limited, but capitalism isn’t,” Roshaneh said. “If you want to change the world, you need market-based solutions.” That’s the point of microfinance — typically, lending very poor people small amounts of money so that they can buy a rickshaw or raw materials and start a tiny business.

Roshaneh grew up in elite circles here in Lahore and studied business at the Wharton School and economics at Yale. After a stint at the World Bank, she returned to Pakistan in 1996 to start her microfinance organization. She called it the Kashf Foundation. Everybody thought Roshaneh was nuts. And at first nothing went right. The poor refused to borrow. Or if they borrowed, they didn’t repay their loans. But Roshaneh persisted, and today Kashf has 152 branches around the country. It has dispersed more than $200 million to more than 300,000 families. Now Roshaneh is moving into microsavings, to help the poor build assets, as well as programs to train the poor to run businesses more efficiently. She is even thinking of expanding into schools for the poor.

Microfinance is sometimes oversold as a silver bullet — which it’s not. Careful follow-up studies suggest that gains from microloans are often quite modest. Some borrowers squander money or start businesses that fail. Some micro-lenders tarnish the field because they’re incompetent, and others because they rake in profits with sky-high loan rates. Microfinance has also generally been less successful in Africa than in South Asia.

Yet done right, microfinance can make a significant difference. An outside evaluation found that after four years, Kashf borrowers are more likely than many others to enjoy improved economic conditions — and that’s what I’ve seen over the years as I’ve visited Kashf borrowers.

On this trip, I met a woman named Parveen Baji, who says she never attended a day of school and until recently was completely illiterate. She had 14 children, but five died. Ms. Parveen’s husband, who also never attended school, regularly beat her and spent the family savings on narcotics, she says. The family’s only possessions were four cots on which they slept, crammed three or four to a cot, in a rented apartment. “One night all my children were hungry,” she remembered. “I sent my daughter to ask for food from a neighbor. And the neighbor said, ‘you’ve become a beggar,’ and refused.”

Then Ms. Parveen got a $70 loan from Kashf and started a jewelry and cosmetics business, buying in bulk and selling to local shops. Ms. Parveen couldn’t read the labels, but she memorized which bottle was which. As her business thrived, she began to struggle to learn reading and arithmetic — and proved herself an ace student. I fired math problems at her, and she dazzled me with her quick responses. Ms. Parveen began to start new businesses, even building a laundry that she put her husband in charge of to keep him busy. He no longer beats her, she says, and when I interviewed him separately he seemed a little awed by her.

Eventually, Ms. Parveen started a restaurant and catering business that now has eight employees, including some of her daughters. She bought a home and has put some of her children through high school — and a son, the brightest student, through college. She has just paid $5,800 for a permit for him to move to London to take a health sector job. Ms. Parveen tried to look modest as she told me this, but she failed. She was beaming and shaking her head in wonder as she watched her son speak English with me, dazzled at the thought that she was dispatching her university-educated son to Europe. “Microfinance has changed my life,” she said simply.

That’s an unusual success story. But the larger message is universal: helping people start businesses, create jobs and support education is a potent way to undermine extremism. We Americans overinvest in firepower to defeat extremism and underinvest in development, and so we could learn something useful from Roshaneh. The toolkit to fight terrorism includes not only missiles but also microfinance and economic opportunity. The antonym of “militant” is often “job.”

Taken from The New York Times

Saturday, October 9, 2010

A Gap Year

A gap year is a time out, a breather, a chance to recharge your batteries or to try out a different way of living and maybe a different way of learning. Students have many reasons for temporarily wishing to stop their studies.

Sometimes they just want to hit the pause button. After years of studying hard and feeling the stress of exams that seem never-ending, some students just want to have a year to relax, reflect and think about the future.

Others may not be certain that they are on the right track. They want time to look at other possibilities and decide what is the best future for them.

Other students may feel that their chosen path requires skills and experience that can be learned better through hands on training than in a classroom. A year spent living in a different culture, speaking a different language is always a plus on a cv.

If you are interested in taking a gap year, here is a link that may interest you: http://www.gapyear365.com/activity/art-drama-music

Saturday, September 25, 2010

"When will my apprenticeship begin, Sir ? »

“It has begun,” said Ogion.

There was a silence, as if Ged was keeping back something he had to say. Then he said it, “But I haven’t learned anything yet!”

“Because you haven’t found out what I am teaching,” replied the mage.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

A contest!

MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX.COM lets you make your own comic strip. They are sponsoring a contest. If you are one of the winners you will receive a free book.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

What goes around, comes around


Very easy

A poor farmer heard a cry for help. He ran and there was a terrified boy in the bog*. The farmer saved the boy from death.
The next day a nobleman introduced himself as the father of the boy the farmer had saved.
"I want to repay you," said the father. "You saved my son's life."
"I can't accept payment," said the farmer.
The nobleman saw a boy.
"Is that your son?"
"Yes."
"Let me give him the same education as my son."
The farmer's son attended the best schools and graduated from medical school. He became Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin.

Many years later, the nobleman's son had pneumonia. He was saved by .... penicillin.
The nobleman's son was Sir Winston Churchill.
**************
The same story

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools
and ran to the bog.

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father
of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.
'I want to repay you,' said the nobleman. 'You saved my son's life.'
'No, I can't accept payment for what I did,' the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.'Is that your son?' the nobleman asked.
'Yes,' the farmer replied proudly.
'I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.' And that he did.
Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of
Penicillin..

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill .. His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.
Someone once said: What goes around comes around.

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
It's National Friendship Week.

*bog = marécage

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Strike

Yes, I am on strike. I am on strike because it seems to be the only way I can protest the government's action in education. Where other governments are attacking the economic crisis by investing in education with more and better paid teachers, France is reducing the number of teachers, policemen and hospital personnel. Five years ago in our lycée we arranged for all the English classes in "seconde" to be taught in small groups. Students got more attention from their teachers and more opprotunities to practice and progressed. But year after year the number of hours diminished and the program could not be continued. Is it honest to call reducing the numbers of teachers and increasing the numbers of students a "reform"?

Monday, September 6, 2010

Right brain or left brain?

If you use your left brain more than your right brain, you are good at mathematics and very verbal. You act with logic and are well-organized. You understand grammar rules and enjoy doing excercises.

If you use your right brain more, you are visual and creative. You hate grammar exercises because they seem pointless to you, but when you are in a foreign country, you quickly pick up the language. You are often guided by your emotions.

Of course these are generalizations and very few people are extreme cases of right or left brain dominance. Most people switch sides depending on the situation. Knowing which side of your brain is dominant can help you find the most efficient way to study a foreign language.

If you google "Right Brain Left Brain" you'll find questionnaires to help you discover which side of your brain you use the most.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

illustration pour vos t-shirts

Bonjour,

j'ai été chargé par Madame Judith Dubois de faire une illustration pour les t-shirts réservé à la vente afin de récolter des fonds pour accueillir les américains.
Étant donné la masse de travail que j'ai à effectuer dans mon école, je n'ai pas pu fournir un travail convenable dans les temps, j'ai donc demandé à Nicolas Werbrouck, un ami illustrateur, de vous prêter une illustration qu'il a déjà réalisé pour le magazine Esprit Métis dédié au USA.


Je vous laisse apprécier son travail. Pouvez vous en mettre un t-shirt de coté pour Nicolas?
Merci! bon courage pour la suite!

Kellie
(je vous invite à venir voir le court métrage que j'ai réalisé en équipe sur mon blog)