Out and about in Europe - self-isolating solution!

My young learner student has been reading Heidi - a graded reader version. We've enjoyed the story, and talked about friendship & jealousy, healthy lifestyles and loneliness. We also learned a lot of good new vocabulary - there's a Quizlet set for this particular version of the story (OUP Dominoes series) right here. Tip for teachers or any creative types out there, the Pro version is free for the time-being. Get into it!

One of the projects for after reading, was to read up about the Matterhorn and fill in a table with data about the mountain and its location etc. Good detective work, focusing on detail.

But the funky part was GOING there, having a look around and describing what we could see. How can we do that, with only an hour together in our classroom, not to mention the lack of flights/inability to travel around Europe at the moment...? Hello Google Expeditions! Popped my phone into a cardboard viewer (cheap but does the job!) and "Wow, it's beautiful!" from my quiet little learner. As she swiveled around taking in the 360 view, prompts galore:

• Can you see any people? What are they doing?
• How's the weather? What season is it?
• What's behind you? Can you read the sign, please?
• What's under your feet? Is it easy to walk here? Why/why not?
• What clothes do you need to go for a walk here?
• What would you put in your bag?
• How are you feeling, if you walk up here?
• Who would you like to visit here with? Why?
• Are there places like this where you live? Which is colder?
• What would you do after this walk?

Follow up projects to this could be:

• sending a postcard (real, or imaginary eg from Heidi to friend in Frankfurt) - good opportunity to use a variety of tenses...what you did yesterday, what you are doing now, what your plans are for tomorrow or the weekend.
• Do some research on another mountain, nearer to home (for us, Mount Fuji was the obvious candidate) and make a nice poster, exploiting some key new vocabulary eg summit, ridge, volcano. Get funky with an app to make it a digital one?

We also decided to compare two towns near the Matterhorn, Zermatt in Switzerland and Cervinio in Italy, strolling around in Google Maps, using Street View. We talked about the different kinds of shops and what we could buy, which was safer to walk around (Zermatt has no cars!), if people were dressed the same, where a group of kids might be going etc. And which we would like to visit, when we can travel more freely again (and which looked like the nicest hotel!).

So, gentle reader - send us your (isolated) review of a mountain large in your life, and let us post it here as well?

Exploring guide to Azumino/Hotaka launched

Avid readers will remember I taught a few classes very early in the spring, up the road in Hotaka, for the Azumino City Tourist Association. I was not the only one! There were also classes given in Chinese & Korean - younger, prettier, better teachers they were too...

Wednesday evening was the wrap party, but actually a lot more importantly it marked the launch of the English, Chinese & Korean language Exploring Guide. While the teachers hogged the limelight, the very hard work of a few local people seemed to go largely unnoticed. Step forward Whitney Conti in particular, who I know has been burning the midnight oil getting maps properly annotated, photos properly proportioned, full stops in the right places (been there done that, with Matsumoto & Norikura already!). Check out the good work here

Now, no matter the hard work of well intentioned volunteers & neo-natives, if the locals don't get their act together & get the basics sorted? I mean, the super simple stuff like menus, credit cards, sign posts? After that, even a little bit of imagination would go a long way - you know the social media dimension...get a fan club on Facebook, or Twitterise themselves? Think about Google maps & Doublesquare...

Something better than nothing? Yes, for sure. Late entries? Absolutely. Shinshu's best kept little secret for discerning travellers? Could be.