Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

So you think you can dance?

Imagine 400 dancers in four countries choreographed to the same song at the same time on the same day. That's what EF Education First accomplished Saturday.

Working with Ambra Succi from Bounce Streetdance Company, a popular Swedish dance company, EF coordinated dancers in Copenhagen, Denmark; Helsinki, Finland; Oslo, Norway; and Stockholm, Sweden, to simultaneously break into the same dance routine at precisely 1 p.m. December 19.

So you think you can dance like that? The flashmob performance is promoting the EF Dance Off contest, sponsored by the EF Language Travel division of EF Education First, the world leader in international education. To learn more, visit the official site at www.ef.com/dance.

To see more videos, visit the official EF Dance Off channel on YouTube.

What are you doing next summer?

EF's experienced group leaders will be cruising the Norwegian fjords, swimming in the Dead Sea, experimenting in a Tuscan cooking class and exploring the Great Barrier Reef. And it's not too late to join them.

There is still time for EF Group Leaders* to enroll on EF's Teacher Convention Tours for next summer.

EF's Teacher Convention Tours, offered through our Global Rewards program, give experienced EF Group Leaders unprecedented opportunities to explore the world's most amazing destinations with fellow educators.

The summer 2010 tours still open for enrollment are:

Focus On: European license plates

If you find yourself in a tour bus on a highway somewhere in central Europe, looking out at the license plates of the cars passing by, you might think Europeans have devised a public way to grade drivers.  

There are cars whose license plates bear an "A"; presumably they are the best drivers. Then there are those license plates marked with a "B"; good drivers still, one supposes, but could be better with more road practice. Before you know it, license plates marked "D" and even "F" pass by—with drivers either oblivious to their poor grade or defiantly refusing to let it bother them. 

Suddenly, as you wonder why you haven't seen a "C" driver all morning, an "E" drives by. An extra rung on the ladder of shame before hitting "F," perhaps? Then a "P." A driver graded on a pass/fail basis, maybe? Then an "NL." Not Listed? No License? 

If the grading-system hypothesis is beginning to feel like a stretch, it's because it is. The letters represent the country the car (and driver) is from. "A" is Austria. "B" is Belgium. "D" is Germany (Deutschland). "E" is Spain (España). "F" is France. "P" is Portugal. And "NL" is the Netherlands.

Group Leader Spotlight: Mike O'Neal

Mike O’Neal, a seventh- and eighth-grade social studies teacher from Kirkland, Washington, never wanted to be the type of person who one day would reflect upon his life and say, “Coulda, shoulda.”

When it comes to traveling, he certainly has accomplished that goal. Mike has taken more than a dozen EF tours and traveled on five Teacher Convention Tours. From Kenya to Russia to the Galápagos Islands, Mike has explored six continents with EF!

Mike (pictured above at a Turkish market) took a few minutes to talk about how travel impacts his students, planning and recruiting his tours and watching the pelicans and sharks in the Galápagos: