35 Modern Words Recently Added to the Dictionary

The Oxford Dictionary Online is a warehouse of over 600,000 words. Despite this large arsenal, we continue to coin, clip, and blend new words into existence, and the Oxford folks pump some of these new words into their dictionaries. Here are some more recent additions with their official definitions.

1. Bling (n): Expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewelry.
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2. Bromance (n): A close but non-sexual relationship between two men.
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3. Chillax (v): Calm down and relax.

Read the full text here:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/136111#ixzz2FIWQ8UJv  

Bringing languages to life: teaching tips, tech and ideas

I have loved using music to bring languages to life in my language classroom. Music videos are a great way to introduce students to the culture of French-speaking countries and develop speaking/writing projects. For this particular project, I used French rap and encouraged groups of students to write about chosen common themes. We used mind maps to explore the links between ideas and the sounds of the key words, such as the 'tion' 'isme' words.

Students used online rhyming dictionaries and wrote their rap around the main rhymes with the support of a dictionary and a sound file with a beat. The text was then uploaded to a text-to-speech software http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/ to allow students to practise their pronunciation independently.

Some students needed more support and I recorded myself saying their text using Audacity for them to practise listening, reading and saying the text on their own. They could then try to say the text, record themselves and decide if they were ready to perform it.

The performance was recorded into a PowerPoint presentation with pictures and the words in French and English. It was shared with the staff and other classes and it is still used in school to promote languages. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2012/nov/07/languages-teaching-tips-technology-ideas?CMP=email