Van Morrison

In one of the exercises you did in Module L1, there was a question "Who is your idol?", and while you were all doing the exercise I got to thinking about what my own answer would be. So I don't think I really have an idol, but if I did I suppose there would be several candidates: from the field of spirituality/psychology, I'd have to say Ken Wilber; from that of mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn; from that of literature, James Joyce; and from that of popular music I'd have to say Bob Dylan or Van Morrison.

So today I'm going to write a little about Van Morrison, I've written about Dylan, Joyce and Wilber elsewhere, but not so much about Van the Man! Much like Dylan's work, Van Morrison's music has come to represent something of a soundtrack to my life over the past 27 years, ever since a friend introduced me to his music during my first year in Spain. By soundtrack, I mean that over the years I've followed Morrison's career and listened to his music at many times, in many places, with many different people... And looking back and replaying events from my past - the first friends I made on coming to Ourense; family road trips across Spain and Europe; falling in love with María - when I replay the movie of my past in my mind, it's easy to set such significant events to a background of music by the "Bard of Belfast."

What is it about this body of work that inspires me? Recently Morrison has published a book of selected lyrics from his 50-year career, entitled "Lit Up Inside" and I think that title sums up what he transmits for me - an integration of poetic, numinous words and different musical genres (jazz, soul, blues, rock and roll, Celtic folk etc) that evoke the muse, the inspiration, the inner flame that lights him up inside and kindles a similar response in those of us who appreciate his work. Surely this is what great lyrical art does - it transforms leaden words into luminous gold in our souls. And if ever a singer deserved the epithet of alchemist, that singer would be Van Morrison.

Anyway, I'm not sure writing about songs can ever really do them justice, so here's a song from my life-soundtrack of Van Morrison music that brings back warm memories for myself and for María - it's called "Warm Love" and you can read the lyrics on YouTube, below the still of Mr Morrison that appears as the music plays: I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do:)

CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning

What is CLIL? As you can read in the title it´s "Content and Language Integrated Learning", a concept describing both learning another subject through the communication in a foreign language and learning a foreign language by studying a content-based subject.

I find this methodology very interesting since my main goal in teaching is that children and adults, change their vision about the English language. With this change, I mean to motivate them in such a way that they understand English as a way of communication and not just as a subject to pass at the end of the term. This is a difficult task due to the languages culture in our country (I´m talking as well about coofficial languages in Spain), because the curriculum establishes the languages as simple subjects, it doesn´t integrate them in real communicative situations.

Last week I carried out a Science experiment in one of my lessons with 5th and 6th grade children. When I told them what we were going to do, their first question was, "In English? how can we do it in English?". They are not able to connect that they can communicate in English in any situations of their lives, therefore they thought this experiment was impossible to do.

Afterwards, I explained them that we were going to inflate a balloon without blowing and we needed a plastic bottle, bicarbonate and vinegar. Easy words that they perfectly understood.
The experience was very rewarding for both, me and the students and I think this has helped them to understand that English is a language, not a subject.  I hope so!

 I leave you some links where you can read a little bit about CLIL.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teacher-training/clil-essentials

http://www.ub.edu/filoan/CLIL/teachers.pdf

http://clilforsuccess.blogspot.com.es/

Learning strategies

Learning strategies are the way through the teacher teaches and the way through the students learn how to learn for themselves. We can also say that it’s the process by which the student choose, observe, think and apply the method to choose an end.

THE TYPES OF STRATEGIES ARE:

• Test Strategies: This type of strategy is based on repetition of the contents either written or oral. It’s an effective technique to use the way of repetition as a reminder base. We read aloud, copy material, take notes, highlight...
• Development strategies: This type of strategy is to create connections between the new and the known, for example, summarize, make free notes, answer questions and describe how the information relates. Writing is one of the best memory reinforcement techniques. 
• Organizational strategies: This type of strategy is based on a number of modes of action consisting of group information to make it easier to study it and understand it. Learning in this strategy is very effective because with this techniques: summarizing texts, diagrams, underline... perhaps learning will be more long-lived. 
• Comprehension strategies: This type of strategy is based on achieving track strategy being used and the success of them and adapt to behaviour. Understanding is the basis of the study. Supervise action and thinking of the student and are characterized by the high level of consciousness required. 
• Support Strategies: This type of stratey is based on improving the efficiency of learning strategies, improving the conditions in which they happen. Establishing motivation, focusing and concentration, time management... The student with their teacher's dedication will be important to their development.

HOW TO TEACH LEARNING STRATEGIES?

 - When the teacher evaluates, he/she needs to improve the ability of the student, watching their progress and processes.
 - The teacher should create an ideal environment for students.
 - Not create indifference.

Chi Kung

1- -What Qi Gong is?

Chi Kung or Qi Gong is a Chinese therapy that bellows to the same group as other spiritual therapies like Taichi or Reiki.

All of them come from eastern tradition and have the intention of channelling in a correct way the vital energy through the different meridians that go over our body.  

2-       Translation of the term.

The literal translation of the term is: “work of the breathing”.  Why? Because this method insists in the idea of our breath should be conscious and it must accompany each one of our movements and thoughts.

3-      How can we practise it?

To have a correct state of health we must have the ability of control our own mind and body. Furthermore, it’s very important the equilibrium between them. To do this we should practice meditation and take the control of our breath.  

We have to synchronize the three vital processes of humans that are: BODY, MIND and BREATH. How? To do it, we must take the control of our bodies à  Relax.  

We have to relax, in this order, the mind, the breath and the body to make the energy flows. The following step is regularising the breathing until we get how to do it of constant and calm form.  In addition, this practice has a typical and own vocabulary which represents the eight ways of breathing to achieve our objective. These are some of that we offer to you:

Calm, soft, deep, long, continuous, uniform, slow and delicate.

The last step is the control of the mind or heart. This level is intrinsic to the two other previous stages. So, if we get relax our bodies and our respiration in a succeed way, our mind and our heart will be in peace together.

Finally, the practice of this healthy therapy might be realized in a static way or in movement. The really important thing in both cases is that our body must be well supported. In the second case, some teachers of this practice advise to imagine that we are trees anchored to the floor with roots.

Now we would like you to see this video and try to practice this interesting therapy: