Friday 13th

Today is Friday 13th; English-speaking people regard this date in the same way as some Spaniards think of Tuesday 13th so…is it a good / bad or ordinary day today?

No Tobacco Day 2014

Tomorrow is May 31st, No Tobacco Day; the theme of this year´s celebration is "Raise taxes on tobacco". Do you think it is likely to work? Why (not)?

March 8th: Women´s Day

March 8th is International Women´s Day  (IWD)

Here´s to all the remarkable girls out there (Girl Power):

 

2013 Girl Power Edition from Ines Almeida

The video below, I Am a Princess, is a Disney one - not that I am much of a Disney fan but the values it mentions (to be brave, to be kind, to be generous and compassionate) are certainly those that girls (and boys) should be learning to be decent adults. But since we are celebrating women´s day today, this is for all the future women.

Valentine´s Day 2014

February 14th, Valentine´s Day

What is love?

Celebrate this day with a love song: Close Your Eyes by Michael Bublé. The first video is the official one. 

And this video includes the lyrics for you to sing along ( and the translation in Spanish)

Caption Contest

Would you like to win a t-shirt? Make Use Of, the online technology magazine,  is giving away one to the writer of the best caption for this cartoon; here is what you have to do:

Got a caption? Give us what you’ve got! Submit your captions in the comments section — we’ll pick the best one and award a free t-shirt! How hard can it be?

Click here to be linked to the comment section so that you can write your caption.

You will let me know if you win, won´t you?

Review of 2013

Just a few things to remember 2013:

• Pope Francis was chosen person of the year

•  click here to be linked to Flocabulary and their Year in Rap 2013

• This is Reuters review with their pictures of the year

• the video below is JibJab´s review (JibJab is a digital entertainment studio from California) ; click on the captions to get the lyrics

glitter-graphics.com

Getting Ready for Christmas 2013

Learn how to say "Happy Christmas " in several languages: 

Barack Obama´s version of "Jingle Bells"

Christmas humour:

The first cartoon pays homage to the word "selfie", word of the year

10 tips and tricks for your Christmas holidays: 

Comments by ZingerBug.com

Halloween 2013

The musts for Halloween: 

• Halloween-related humor:

• "trick or treat": we have all heard about it as a game for children but, if you want to go trick-or-treating as an adult, you may consider following Mr. Forthright´s advice: 

• Halloween ornamented houses: bearing in mind the price we pay for electricity in Spain, there is not a chance we will see anything like this near us:the lights all over the front of a house changing to the sound of Ylvis´ song  The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?

pranks: in "the human chair prank", magician Rich Ferguson scares shoppers:

 

Test Schedule First Term 2013-14

TESTS FIRST TERM

1ºBAC, GROUPS “A” & “F”

	October	November	December
Grammar / Vocabulary / Writing / Reading Comprehension	Friday 25th	Friday 29th
Listening	Friday 18th		Friday 13th
Compulsory reading: Dancing with Strangers	Stories 1 & 2:  Monday 28th	Stories 3 &4:  Monday 18th WRITTEN TEST: Friday 22nd
Oral			Starting on 2nd  December

1ºBAC, GROUP “B”

	October	November	December
Grammar / Vocabulary / Writing / Reading Comprehension	Thursday 24th	Thursday 28th
Listening	Thursday 17th		Thursday 12th
Compulsory reading: Dancing with Strangers	Stories 1 & 2:  Tuesday 29th	Stories 3 & 4:  Tuesday 19th WRITTEN TEST: Thursday 21st
Oral			Starting  on 3rd  December

2º BAC, GROUPS "B" &"F"

	October	November	December
UEE	Tuesday 29th		Tuesday 3rd
Listening		Thursday 7th	Thursday 5th
Grammar & Vocabulary		Thursday 28th
Compulsory Reading: Speak (novel)	Tuesday 22nd: 1st Marking Period	Tuesday, 19th: 2nd Marking Period Thursday 21st: WRITTEN TEST
Oral		Starting on November  5th

                        

And, finally, a message for teachers and students from Kid President (turn captions on; he speaks too fast)

Back to School 2013, Go!

Read the following story, make sure you understand it and get ready to make a difference at school this year

Make a Difference by rosaperezparapar : originally published by David Deubel in EFL2.0

In the following video, learners from around the world express their feelings in relation to English, would you like to do the same? Write on the board below:

Both the video above and the board below have been published by our colleague Esther Martínez in her great blog, My English Scrapbook. Have a look at it; it is full of interesting activities for English learners

Created with Padlet

Back to School 2013: Steady...

Dear students,

I do hope you are in a good mood to come back to school, expecting something positive, interesting, appealing...

In the last weeks we have seen quite a few examples of the bad use of English  by some important people from Spain, but don´t think you will get away with something like that; we do encourage speaking in our classes and we will do some practice with speeches as well.

Click here to read an analysis of the pronunciation mistakes made by Ana Botella in her real speech.

I want to welcome all of you to both this new school year and my classes in a very enthusiastic way so please, watch this video as if it were meant for you: Nick Selby is a sophomore at  Georgia Institute of Technology and this is the video of his welcome to the freshman class 2013 (click on the captions to read his message because it will probably be a little bit fast for you)

I wish you were all lucky enough to have only great teachers at school; I always do my best to be one but life is hard, you know, and one does not always achieve his/her goals. I´ll do my best, though - I can promise that much... (by the way, what are you willing and able to promise in relation to our classes?)

Infographic taken from Visually.

See you soon!

World Book Day 2013

To celebrate World Book Day this year I have chosen a video about a moving piece of news related to books. In order to understand it better, spend a couple of minutes thinking about an answer for these questions: 

• If you were told you could only read one book for the next twelve years, which one would you choose?
• What do you know about Nelson Mandela ?
• What do you know about William Shakespeare?

In this video we will see how W. Shakespeare´s work inspired South African anti-apartheid prisoners who had been incarcerated on Robben Island.

When the video us over you should be able to explain what the Robben Island Bible is.

Optional homework: Choose one of these pictures and explain its message