Some of the questions of the following quiz relate to the reinsurance company hannover re, but not all. Those that do concern HR’s specific company culture.

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Last week we had an interesting little debate about math education. It does happen every once in a while that we talk about maths, and I always find it interesting. I have quite a few mathematicians in my groups and in general like to know a little about my group participants’ fields of expertise. I also used to like maths in school before I had the wrong teachers. And yes, there is no doubt about it: your success in maths has little to do with your brain (or gender) and all with your maths teacher/s. Continue reading →

Every year around 1 000 experts (700 in 2014) from industry, international organizations, government, academia and society are asked to give their assessment of a list of global risks. The results are reported on the WEF webpage, where you can also find the survey itself and graphic analyses of the results.

Here the link to this years WEF report.

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One of my favorite webpages, and one I can strongly recommend to teachers and students of English alike is www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword, and here especially Kerry Maxwells collection of ‘BUZZWORDS’.

Buzzwords are newly formed or created terms that reflect upon different kinds of social phenomena or new fads and trends and thus are great for discussion. Additionally, from a language perspective, they offer insight into word formation processes. On the webpage is a whole list of new words and an archive going back several years.

Every once in a while I choose some I find interesting and believe (or hope) will trigger lively discussions. (see post May 2013) Continue reading →

Last week we watched a documentary from the BBC about an English couple who move to Germany to find out what living in Germany is like: Make Me A German. Justin and Bee Rowlatt, both journalists, move to Nuremberg where he takes on a job with a medium sized company (Faber-Castell) and she stays at home to be a good housewife and mother. The differences to their lives at home in England and the related problems they encounter offer great material for discussion.

See also bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/Make-Me-A-German

… are always a chance to take up the topic of a historical event.

The most crucial anniversary of 2014, at least from a European perspective, is the centennial of World War 1. History books tell us the outbreak of war was triggered by the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, an incident that Nassim Taleb considers might have been a Black Swan: an unpredictable event of large impact. Continue reading →

One of my favorite newspaper columns is Oliver Burkeman’s This Column will Change Your Life that he writes for the Guardian Weekly. The texts are short and poignant, the topics often refreshingly provocative and thus great for classroom discussions.

His column from February 2, 2014 is about our nostalgic tendency to believe in the past everything was better. Depending on the age of the person reminiscing, this could be any decade. What unites them all, according to Mr Burkeman, is that the person praising the respective time (and complaining about how things have changed since ‘then’ – and not to the better) was around seven at the time.

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Last week, a little news item seemed to cause quite some stir. As it was one of the leading articles on the BBC web site, I couldn’t fail to notice it too. There was a warning of watching the accompanying video, as the images could be disturbing:

Warning: The following video contains graphic scene which may cause distress

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On the weekend, I read an article in the German FAZ ( ‘Der Unsinn des Home Office’) about the pro and cons of working from home versus working at the office.

It describes a study with which researchers wanted to find out who worked more efficiently: someone working alone, or people working in a team. They gave a group of students the task of enveloping letters. Some of them were paired up, others worked alone. Those in the team enveloped more letters than those who worked alone. Continue reading →

As mentioned in my last post that eventually took a different direction, I was looking for the article in which I had read about an increasing worry among experts from different realms over possible consequences of income inequality or disparity. And I found it: it was a (German) newspaper article reporting the findings of the annual survey on global risk assessment conducted by  the WEF and summarized in their ‘Global Risks‘ report. Continue reading →

New Technologies and how they have changed or are changing our lives has been a recurring theme over the last years. This year a new term popped up: the google effect.

Last year, we discussed a study that intended to explore the effect that easily available information accessible via digital devices like smartphones might have on people’s mind or ways of thinking and memorizing. Study participants were asked how many countries’ flags had only one color. Continue reading →

Every year around the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year the same topics pop up. Some I love to take up on, others I try to avoid. However, similar to the taboo topics I wrote about in my last post, those I try to avoid most have the tendency to hop up and down in my mind, forcing me to at least mention them in a class. It’s a little like the things we try hard to forget: the harder the attempt the more likely unpleasant moments are to sneak back into our memories. Continue reading →

Should you ever have forgotten your bag with all your teaching plans and materials at home, don’t panic, ask your group if anybody would stop working if they won a substantial sum of money that would exempt them from having to work for a living.

A variation on the theme is to consider how much money would be necessary in order to be able to stop working. And this is where the discussions sometimes get really interesting, and the topic touches upon all kinds of themes related to everyday life (and is thus also great for revising basic vocabulary.) Continue reading →

In the beginning minutes of class meetings, we sometimes talk about the weather  – actually ‘rather often’ would be a more accurate description. But us being in Germany, this might not be so surprising as the weather changes all the time, and not just by nuances (talking about the weather in Florida might be less entertaining). Continue reading →

One of my group participants has just moved to Australia. His wife was sent there by her company. They work for the same firm, but unfortunately they didn’t have a position for him. (However, I heard from his former colleagues that, once there, he found something.) Due to this major change – as I felt – in his life, I took the opportunity to focus on Australia for as long as he was still there. Australia, so far, had been a country I hadn’t dealt with very often. And as in another class a participant was planning to travel there for five weeks, the topic ‘Australia’ pushed itself into focus.

We dealt with several aspects of the country: e.g. historical themes concerning the original European settlement by the British who needed space for all their prison dwellers. Until then Australia hadn’t been of major interest to the British. Continue reading →