About language learning With regard to the chunking approach in the classroom, a grammar specialist warns us not to go overboard. He acknowledges that memorizing essential collocations and fixed phrases is justified to a certain extent, but any language learner will get sidelined if he does not also prioritize grammar, vocabulary and other traditional aspects of language learning. He thinks that people are deluded into believing that with the new chunks method, they could reach a language competence/command similar to that of a native speaker. However, no matter what critics say, data-driven corpus linguistics is here to stay and will certainly be the basis for teaching English in coming years.

Austria Meets Australia “Trüb” is the word our Australian visitor, Mr T. from Sydney most associates with Austria. He did, however, not come in person: As it befits a school with the latest classroom technology, our communication – entirely in English of course - took place via Skype. The contact was established by English teacher Mr G. and so, on this dark and dreary Austrian October morning, the students of class 11B enjoyed an unusual and exciting English lesson on and from sunny Australia. The differences in the climatic conditions were our first topic. We were amazed to hear that - partly due to global warming – Australia had even had to add a new colour to its temperature maps: the hottest day Mr T. himself remembers was 48°C. In Austria, we are often quite squeamish about all kinds of insects or rodents. In contrast to this, it is quite common in Australia even in big cities to come across dangerous animals like snakes or poisonous spiders. Actually, just a few days before two people had died after being bitten by venomenous snakes. Since it has been forbidden to shoot crocodiles, they are everywhere – even at tourist beaches. Australians, however, are very relaxed about dangerous creatures: Taking a selfie next to a shark warning sign at the beach has turned into quite a sport. Austria is currently battling with the impact of the refugee crisis. In comparison, Australia has always welcomed refugees and immigrants from all over the world. As Mr T. put it, ‘everybody comes from somewhere’. He himself lives in an almost exclusively Chinese neighbourhood with many Chinese restaurants and shops close by. Since 1945, almost six million migrants and refugees have settled in the country. Most of us did not know much about the Aborigines and their history which goes back thousands of years. We learned that indigenous people passed down oral traditions from generation to generation through art, dances and songs conveying important information that helped them survive. An Aboriginal song, for example, can be used to direct people to certain places, like a map. According to Mr T., Australia’s public apology 2008 to its indigenous people for destroying their lives and their culture is considered to be one of the most important historical events of the recent past. We could have listened to our our guest much longer, but before we knew it our time was up. We thanked him with big applause and returned to a classroom reality that was not as “trüb” any more as it had been.

Reminiscence A radio programme made him think back to his early school life and this reminiscing led the author straight back to the days when he, as a child, together with his family, arrived in South Africa after a long journey from England. He vividly remembers being extremely nervous about everything the future had in store. He recalls the Scottish lady who then was his teacher, and how strong an influence she had on him and his classmates in this impressionable phase of their lives. However, apart from her outward appearance and the fact that she was always well turned out, nothing about her as a person or her private life has stayed in his mind.

Parents spying on kids Parents have plenty of options if they want to track their kids’ smartphone activities. There is, for instance, an app that alerts parents if their child sends or receives messages with any inappropriate content relating to bullying, alcohol or substance abuse. Other apps use GPS to track the child’s location and some even enable complete parental monitoring. It turns out, however, that kids often are very resourceful in finding a way around these spying methods and then parents are back to square one.

Eigenname im Genitiv Hallo, ich habe eine Frage an alle Grammatik-Spezialisten: Ich wurde kürzlich gefragt, warum es im Deutschen "die Ideenwelt DES Diogenes" heißt. Konkreter formuliert: Warum wird der Eigenname im Genitiv mit dem bestimmten Artikel belegt? Fall jemand die Grammatik-Regel kennt, würde ich mich über eine Antwort freuen! Gruß Christine