The House of Hawley...

Hello peeps...what is a happening in Robb Hawley land? Well it was a long weekend and i decided to take a southern end of the Valley road trip...yup Old Man Robb hopped in the auto and took a drive all the way down to Yarmouth...first time since 2006 that i had been there... of course with it being Good Friday and all i had forgotten that all would be closed, but it was fun none the less...took the scenic route all the up through the French areas of Clare and Meteghan, through Digby, Annapolis Royal and back to Middleton again... it was a good way to spend a day off..sadly Saturday i had to attend a funeral of a family friend with my Mom and then Sunday we had a family dinner... it was a nice weekend, but it went way way too fast....

Of course the following was my favorite sign of the weekend...

Who would have thought?

I also visited the First Acadian Cemetary in Clare...it is a national historic site..a little creepy, but was definitly something to see..notice the name on the second pic...it threw me off when i saw it at first...

One more thing about my trip...pictured down below is The Yarmouth Sports Hall of Fame..i think it would be neat if Acadia took all there historical sports paraphernalia and put it into one building instead of having it all spread out all over the place...maybe at the rink or downtown Wolfville.. it would be pretty neat to see and admission could be a donation to Acadia Sports or to a good cause.. just an idea....perhaps convert that building that used to be a gas station/ restaurtant that is just sitting there...

Its really too bad that Lawerencetown lost out on Hockeyville...me and Blair were here with a case of Keiths and watching the Habs-Sabres game (Habs are on a 2 game winning streak now..) and then the Oilers- Coyotes when they announced the winners.....that Ontario vote is so huge and the other thing is this...if the Lawerencetown Rink closed, there are rinks not too far away in Middleton and Bridgetown... sometimes distance is a factor in deciding the winner of these contests...if we had only know that George Laraque was going to be in Lawerencetown on Saturday night we would have gone down... it was advirtised on the radio and on the website but with not being home Friday and busy with other things on Saturday we had no way of knowing.. i wished that had sent a mass message on the Facebook group or something.. oh well..

PS- Now that Gainey's gone, shouldn't George have been called up and asked to come back? C'mon he does have playoff experience with the Oilers and Penguins..would have been nice to have in the line-up...

How is my course going? Well im into module seven which is on "The Changing Face of Listening" Listening in language classes used to be perceived as a way of presenting new grammar to students. The only type of listening practice for new learners was listening to dialogues on cassette tapes. One of the problems is that no one could follow what was being said....truer words were never spoken..i remember being at EPJH and having to take French class and i used to find those cassette tapes annoying and then years later last year teaching in South Korea i had to use CD's for the kids and those were annoying as well, you have to find your spot where you last left off, you waste time, your frustriated, the kids are bored...restless etc etc... Some teachers are deterred from using this exercise by the difficulty of finding the right places on the cassette. We tend to test listening, not teach it. What is wrong is not what we do, but how we use the results. The whole situation of listening to a cassette in the classroom is artificial. People are argued that listening to language cassettes is unnatural because in real life one only gets one hearing.

The foreign language occurring in a real life situation is very different from a scripted passage. In real life, listening to a foreign language is a strategic activity. Non-native listeners recognize only a small part of what they hear, they have to make guesses. New learners need practice and guidance. Students need to be encouraged to take risks based on the words that they have managed to identify. Checking their guesses against new evidence that comes from the lessons, students have to be told that making guesses is not a sign of failure.

Spoken language is not written language spoken aloud. It is no wonder that students find it hard to understand unedited speech or real-life interactions. Students should be given opportunities to be exposed to real life listening input; there are differences between what is written and what is spoken. This awareness must begin in the classroom. Listening materials that are provided for students are often artificial in order to suit the level of the students. These materials do not have hesitations, repetitions, no loose organization and or incomplete sentences- it does not reflect real conversation with another person.

And Cassettes and CD's are killing learning in the classroom...

One of the strangest cases i have ever heard of life imitating art is happening in Johnstown, Pennsylvania where the Johnstown Cheifs this past Saturday played their final ECHL game and are moving to Greenville, South Carolina..its weird because in the movie "Slap Shot" which was based on the Cheifs Paul Newman came up with a ruse that the Charlestown Cheifs were moving to Florida so that he could motivate his team. I guess "Slap Shot" according to what i read is a big part of what kept the team alive in Johnstown as long as it did. The team adopted the name and many fans have come to check the area out, pay homage to the fictional "Cheifs" its too bad..but i guess just like in the movie, the mills closed, major retail stores closed and the people left with them...its too bad...i hope they get another team and keep the "Chiefs" name...

So what else is happening? Well this weekend Dressed2Kill: A Tribute to KISS is playing at the firehall in Hantsport Saturday night..im thinking about going to check it out, they put on a decent show at Doolys in New Minas in January, its from 9-1 so it be a good long show and they always play a few hidden gems in the KISS catalog as well..sometimes they play Shandi..would be cool to hear something off "Music From The Elder" a real shocker that would be...

Of course over the weekend some news for Wrestling fans in the Valley... on Friday, April 23rd MSW Wrestling returns to Windsor at the War Memorial Community Centre..its always a riot to watch wrestling there, small venue, close proximity to the fans and the interaction between fans and the wrestlers is always fun as well...however on Sunday, May 2nd UCW Wrestling is coming to Canning and well the line-up has to be seen to be believed! The Honkytonk Man! Bushwacker Luke! Doink The Clown! Highlander Robbie! Rocker Marty Jannetty and .....get this..... JAKE "THE SNAKE" ROBERTS!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Craig said he would love to get down and see the show... well for people that moan and bitch that wrestling never comes around here there are two shows to choose from right there! It would be sweet to see big crowds turn up for the show...a good turn out= more shows..always...

Well that is all for now folks! Have a good one!!!