How to destroy your marriage making a bad "Speak and Spell"

Ok... I didn't quite destroy my marriage. (I did test my wife's patience quite a bit, though.)

Anyways. Some ideas are better than others.

This is a casiotone keyboard that I rewired to speak the phonetic alphabet.

I wanted to make it speak with juggling balls.

HOWEVER... the problem is that recorded sounds are phonetic, rather than phonemic. (they are mere echos, not meaningful chunks) It is extremely difficult to make a real word sound, let alone a natural sentence. Texas Instruments modeled the vocal chords with their "speak and spell" as seen in "E.T" to make something recognizable, if not very human. I can't put the logic units in without attacking the whole sound puzzle idea I had in the first place. (... and spending a lot of time making a 25 kilo speak and spell. Any programmers rise to the challenge of making some software?)

The good news is, I did invent a new musical instrument that I can play with juggling balls that doesn't merely rely on a sequencer to make the music. (Menendez has one like that... it doesn't matter where he hits, the programming only uses one basic trigger. That is for sissies. It looks really cool, but is for sissies. Sissy, sissy, sissy.)

The bad news is that I need to find time to learn to play and program it... and it weighs a ton. (so that the bouncing balls don't move it.)

I am a firm believer that the quality of a show is shown by the amount of good ideas you throw away making it... and this is an idea that is just "on hold" for a while longer.

Next year, Eurovision will be mine.

Artist in Residence Proyecto.

This is the Artist in Residence didactic guide.
Click on it, and use it like a magazine to read it.

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Proyecto didactico para secondaria del espectaculo en ingles, "Perception and Deception."

Here is the project, in Castellano, for the show. Click to see the booklet...

Open publication - Free publishing

Teatro en inglés con estudiantes.Drama... mounting a full stage play (2)

If you are looking at doing a theatre project, and need to make stage props, you can get a look at stage design with an excellent, concise book on Design:

Scene Design: A guide to the stage
written and illustrated by Henning Nelms.

This 96 page booklet gives information on creating professional sets on minimum budget, and avoiding common mistakes. You can order it from Dover Publications who change a bit for the shipping from the US, but who sent my last order (which included this book, and a whack of great young learner stuff) in VERY quickly... under a week and a half.

Their bargain bin has some treasures worth digging through as well for young learners or people doing "teatro en inglés" They also have an excellent magic section, including the Bill Tarr book, which is great for age 8-13 (or even adults looking for a base in Magic.)



Gives

Michael Swan

Here is the convention I missed... but it has MICHAEL SWAN (yeah!!!) on the panel.

Michael Swan is one of my ELT heros, a very profound thinker, and a very human and interesting person.

His "Good Grammar Book" for students, "Practical English Usage" for teachers and "How English works" are useful, concise, and practical.

There very few videos online of Swan, but here you go, here is what I found.
(Any others?)

On youtube...



on google video, the 2008 TESOL conferance

Part 1, Michael Swan et al, panel discussion.




Part 2, Michael Swan et al, panel discussion.

Teatro en ingles...

Image via Wikipedia

Here are some scripts for performing theatre in English (teatro en ingles) , downloadable and free. The site is called education world and there are a variety of levels and possible scripts to use in class...

Worth a look, teachers! "Teatro en inglés" is an activity too good to just be left to professionals...