02 January 2013 / by Radmila Gurkova

Music to my ears...

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSrdQ8DeaLI

'Happy Birthday' is one of several numbers Cath Gamester, 84, hears on a constant loop throughout the day. The grandmother from Liverpool has musical ear syndrome, where the sufferer has auditory hallucinations...Since it started in 2010, she said she had heard songs including God Save The Queen, Abide with me, You'll Never Walk Alone and Silent Night. She said: ''It just goes on and on and on, one song after another. It's a tenor, a man's voice and it's a nice voice, very strong, loud and there's like a background of music.''
The rare condition affects about one in 10,000 people over 65 in the UK. In the majority of cases encountered, people hear hymns and Christmas carols.

Mrs Gamester believes the songs were triggered by a course of anti-depressants she was prescribed after the death of her sister.

''I went to bed and when I woke up I heard music. I thought to myself it must be next door - he must be playing a record because it was going on and on.”''

-What do you think about this article?
-Do you think this is a serious illness?
-Do you think that this was TRIGGERED by a personal trauma?
-What would you suggest to cure this?
-Do you like Christmas CAROLS? Could you listen to them all day?

 

10

April 2015
Be brainy: Multiple intelligences theory
by Vincent Chieppa
...

07

April 2015
It's never too late to learn how to teach
by Elena Riches
As we grow older it’s all very easy to sit and wonder why we didn't do certain things before it became ‘too late’.  And whenever I hear people say, ‘I wish I’d done this’ my response is always, “What’s stopping you from doing it now?”, a question that usually stops a person in their tracks and makes them think. ...

03

April 2015
How to... set up audio-visual discussion topics
by Vincent Chieppa
...

30

March 2015
What is intonation and why teach it?
by Elena Riches
What is intonation? The term 'intonation' refers to the linguistic use of pitch to convey meaning of a sentence and/or word and during your life as a TEFL teacher you will come across students who will have difficulty using intonation and stress in the correct manner - this means they may not...

27

March 2015
Task-based language teaching: 6 tools for task force teachers
by Vincent Chieppa
...

24

March 2015
'Schwa' - unstressed syllables
by Elena Riches
Before I was taught how to teach English, by Oxbridge TEFL, I had no idea that the word "schwa" existed. Today, I'm writing about the 'schwa', which isn't (incidentally) about the pronunciation of words such as 'Schwartz' and 'Schwarzkopf'...it's about ...

20

March 2015
New teaching techniques: Sparking inspiration
by Vincent Chieppa
The era of “chalk and talk” is over.  We as teachers know that we need to incorporate new teaching techniques seeing that nowadays simply presenting information to our students is just not enough.  Students have to engross themselves in what they are being taught, they need to discover the worth of what we teach them and it is our job to igni...

17

March 2015
ESL - Common Mistakes Students Make
by Elena Riches
In my last blog post I listed a few 'false friends' - English words that students confuse with words from their own language - in this one, I'm going to talk about common mistakes. Every single day, at least one student ...

12

March 2015
Games people play: No-prep ESL games for all ages
by Vincent Chieppa
...

10

March 2015
False Friend
by Elena Riches
For anyone who's never taught English or taken an advanced English course, you could be forgiven for assuming that a 'false friend' is someone who pretends to like you when they don't. However, a false friend is in fact a word or phrase in two languages or dialects (or letters in two alphabets) that look...