Back in Germany

Hello, I'm back in country. The past week at the conference in Indianapolis was very busy and booking internet time at the hotel was very expensive so I haven't been in touch. I hope your speech/presentation course was helpful and that you've been working hard. See you tomorrow!

Hello Michelle

Fritzi and I haven´t had a chance yet to do the interpretation of the poem. We will do this as soon as possible. :-)
See you on Tuesday, bye Didi

Learning Styles

Here's a learning styles website with several tests for learning, multiple intelligence and an analytical/global thinking test. All in English.

You can take a short test in German here.

Nice little video illustration:

"Watch an example of cultural misinterpretation." This site is also the source of the glossary that was passed out in class.

Intercultural Links

Culturosity - a good resource site with short, helpful articles and links.

Kwintessential is the site of a company that offers training courses. Free services include country profiles and some online tests to see how culturally aware you are (the test didn't work for me, though?!)

An online cultural training course for students who would like to study abroad. Nice photographs and good info!

And here is a link to the results of Hofstede's research on his five dimensions of culture in various countries.

German Ad

Have you seen this? ;)

Mafreldi are ready for the next part

Hallo Michelle,
The oral test was quite o.k. Fritzi and I were together and Manu and Elke were together in the room. Everybody was satisfied with the topic. Fritzi and I had to discuss why and in which situation we like taking photographs. Elke and Manu had to discuss which devices are the most important for humans. But the examiner had a strong poker face. He didn´t say anything at the end, exept "that´s all, goodbye!". And when Fritzi and I were ready we weren´t allowed to speak to the others. The examiners are strange people! ;-)

Team Germany is off to a good start and now it's time for Team Mafreldi to get back down to business! I hope you enjoyed your vacation and are ready for the new week with some special challenges ahead! See you on Tuesday!

Which product of the World Cup fan articles is the most successful?

The question which of the various fan articles is the most popular is really difficult to answer.
In my opinion, the most sold pruducts are the simple and ordinary things like clothes.
First of all, they are not useless like many other products and people can show, that they are thrilled by soccer, by wearing them.
Secondly, a shirt with a flag print can be still worn after the World Cup and peaple needn´t throw them into a corner.
The price of soccer clothes is often quite expensive but I think, you can effort that when you wear them a lot.
Things like a soccer chair, a soccer cow or a peace of the real soccer pitch are sensless and useless because people can´t do anything with them. Such products may not be sold as much as clothes, for example.
I haven´t bought any soccer articles, yet because most of them are really stupid and too expensive and so a waste of money, I think.

What do you think, Frekos?

World Cup Advertising: German Ad Firms Try to Bottle Ballack

Here's that article about World Cup advertising from Der Spiegel's online English edition.

And another on a similar subject. Do you think that marketers "missed the boat" by targeting men more than women?

Spring Cleaning

I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of doing a little "spring-cleaning" on the blog this evening to save space. I reduced the size of the photos in the hurricane post. And I also substituted links for the long lists of information in the posts with the time zones and abbreviations.

Do you notice anything else new? =:)

By the way, since this is a group blog, any of the members can log on and edit the posts. So if you see something that needs to be corrected or changed, go ahead! (Of course, you might want to ask the author first if you think they might not want you tampering with their posts!)

I3CILT

Look what some students of English in Brazil are doing at their class blog: I3CILT

Good news!

I was mistaken about the time limit for the writing paper of the FCE exam. You will have 45 minutes each for two writing tasks. I can hear the *sighs of relief*!

I also found a link that will show you how the oral exam might go.

Happy Easter FREKOS!!!


Didi

Football Jargon

I don't expect that these will be on any of your tests, but the article might be helpful anyway! Do you think there's any chance that Germany will be lifting the silverware?

Movies in English

Link to the Corso Cinema in Vaihingen.

Hurricane Wilma Damage

Here are a couple of photos from the backyard in Florida. The tree fell away from my family's home and ended up leaning on the roof of the neighbor's building without doing serious damage. The second picture shows what was left behind after the stump was removed.

Time for a Power Nap?

Here are the links related to the article we read yesterday about increasing productivity in the workplace:

Siesta

Work-Life Balance Centre

My personal favorite: Metronaps

Hmmm...maybe I should give up my job at Berlitz and start a Metronaps franchise?

Hi Michelle!
Thank you for your greetings. That sounds nice what you have written. The weather here is a little bit windy but it´s getting warmer, now.
Our classes are going well.
Have a nice flight, see you soon.

Didi :-)

From the Sunshine State:

Hello, Frekos!

The weather here is cooler than normal for February but very nice. It has only rained once since I arrived! I'm having a great time and still have a lot to do before my flight on Tuesday.

Blogger isn't letting me upload a photo, so I'll have to show you some when I get back to Germany. I hope your classes are going well. See you on the 21st of February.

Michelle