I feel at home in 1ºESO

The Key Ingredient

Those of you interested in cooking will probably love Key Ingredient, a website where you can share, download or add food recipes from around the world. In order to use the site, you just have to register (you can do it through Twitter or Facebook if you prefer).

If you do join Key Ingredient and discover some good recipes, please don't forget to post about them in the commentaries :-)

Being polite

I found this German page with a listening exercise and activities on how to be polite when in Britain. Maybe you won't understand everything, but try it anyway :-)

(As always, thank you, Cris) ;-)

Prospero's Books

In Shakespeare's famous play The Tempest, the main characters land (actually their ship wrecks) on an island where magical things happen. There is a savage creature -or a monster- living there who is subjected by Prospero, a magician and man of science. Prospero's power comes from his books.

Christopher Marlowe was another English playwright. One of his plays, Doctor Faustus, is about a man who uses his knowledge to sign a contract with the devil. When the time for judgement comes, he cries, "I'll burn my books", but it is too late, and the devil drags him to hell.

Both The Tempest and Doctor Faustus are excellent works of art. In both of them books are shown as powerful instruments for their owners. It is logical that in Shakespeare's and Marlowe's times (when lots of people could not read) books were considered so important. But it is also true that 400 years later books are still the main means of cultural transmission. Just think.

This week we celebrate the World Book Day. So please, don't burn your books ;-)

I still have a dream

Due to the Easter holidays this year we have not been able to reflect on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination on 4 April 1968. He was a preacher and a fighter for African-American civil rights in the USA, where there was still racial segregation and discrimination. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for his activities in 1964 (the youngest person to receive that prize until then), and was murdered in 1968 when he was protesting against poverty and the Vietnam war.

There is another post about him on this blog. I am linking again to his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, this time subtitled. If you click on the Martin Luther King tag on the left, you can read the old post, too.

Kirsty's secret

I have found the Kirsty's Secret video on the internet. The page is slow loading and it's full of adverts, but if you can't stand the suspense follow the links to the different episodes:

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

On this other page you can even take a short test to see if you understood the film.
Enjoy yourselves!

Three Days Grace

I'm posting a couple of YouTube videos of the songs by Three Days Grace we will be listening to in today's class.

The first one is Wicked Games:

And the other one is Never Too Late, this time with lyrics:

I'm still open to suggestions about what songs to work with in class, so send them in (use the comments or just tell me).

More about food

Just a short posting to thank the three "Ámbito" students who came to our 2ºESO class and invited everyone to a delicious home-made anise cake with soda. We were all hungry and thirsty, so your visit was very welcome.

We must cook (or bake) our own recipy some day soon, don't you think?

Kitchen- and food-related words

Our last classes have been dedicated to food and meals (not the same thing).
If you want to learn new kitchen-related words, try this link. There you can learn the meaning and pronunciation of some useful objects we may find in every kitchen.

If you prefer to practise with food vocabulary, you can try this other one.

From the same website you can get access to lots of vocabulary pages and videos, like this one, where you practise words for vegetables:

Welcome Lisa!

We've already enjoyed the company of our conversation assistant, Ms Melisa Right.
We have introduced ourselves and talked about our interests, what we like and what we don't. I hope we can have lots of interesting chats about everything in the near future :-)

If you want to comment on our last class you may do so here.

Point, Hop, Toe!!!

The following video shows Ciara Sexton, a world famous Irish dancer, demonstrating her skills and talking about her training routine.

And here is one photo of yesterday's show at the IES. Three happy students follow -very attentively- Bea's explanation on how to dance like a pro.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I was able to take. Quite probably a cranky leprechaun had played one of his tricks on me...

I had brought my camera, so I assumed the picture card was in it. 'It must be inside the camera,' I thought. 'Perhaps I should have checked to see if it was there but I didn't. I mustn't make that mistake again. Actually I didn't use to forget things like that. When I was younger I would double-check everything  till I got things right.'

Anyway, when I tried to shoot my second picture, I got this awful 'Out of Memory' message. 'It can't be true', I said. 'I may be getting too old for this job...'


And now for the BIG question:

What grammar point am I practising in this post?

If you guess it right, you will have won my unending respect for the rest of today (Students who wear glasses will win extra points).

Choose one:

• Countables/uncountables
• Conditional sentences
• Modal verbs

Think green, he said...

It's March 17, which means people everywhere are celebrating Ireland's patron saint, namely St Patrick.
We are having a show at the conference room in our school right now, with teachers and students dancing, singing and watching videos about the event. I will upload some photos when I can, but meanwhile you can learn how to celebrate St Patrick's Day like a real Irish. Just watch this video, and enjoy yourselves.

Ana's English Activities

I have discovered this blog. You may find it interesting if you like to learn English --I know you do :-) There are special sections for business English and technical English.
If you think it is nice, leave a comment with your impressions about it.

Just for the record...

Isabel has asked me to take  some photos of the exhibition we set up for Dickens' anniversary, to which she contributed so enthusiastically  (as always). I imagine she wanted to see them published just for the record, that is, only as a  proof that we really did it. So here they are.

In a few days, however, we'll be dismantling the exhibition to make room for a new one (if you think green you may guess what it will be about).





Meanwhile, I'd like to ask you if you have read anything about Charles Dickens apart from at school...


Don't worry, your answers will be kept strictly off the record :-)

New Materials (kind of a test, really...)

Need to practise your Reported Speech?

Here's a link to some GoogleDocs for you to download. I have also placed the link in the Classroom materials section for easy access.

International Women's Day

There are so many international days that sometimes we forget some really important dates. One of them is the International Women's Day (IWD), a day -8th march- when we celebrate women's achievements in different fields throughout history.

Even if you are a man, please remember that half the world's population are women, and they share with you the right to be respected as human beings and treated on equal terms.

Do the activities on this site and practise your reading... You will find crosswords, quizzes and also send E-cards from there. Surprise your colleagues --or better still, your teacher!!!

English with Cris

This post should actually be in the links section, but I think Cristina's English blog deserves to be mentioned here because of its freshness and general quality (even though she says she's just "starting"). I am sure that I will visit it very often, and you too can improve your skills if you browse it regularly.
Check it out!

Dickens, Dickens, Dickens...

It is everywhere: on 7th February 2012 (that's tomorrow) we will be celebrating  the 200th anniversary of his birth in Portsmouth, England.

Charles Dickens was (and still is) one of the most famous English writers, and his books are among the best-known in all English literature. You certainly know Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, but other titles such as Little Dorritt, The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities are considered masterpieces of 19th century book writing and sold by the thousands even today.

He had a special fondness for poor people, and he himself suffered hard times in his early life. His novels describe the Victorian age better than many history books and are a good source of knowledge about that period. The best way to celebrate his birthday, then, would be to read some of his works.

You can also visit any of the many websites that are dedicated to Charles Dickens. The official anniversary website is here. You will find lots of links to TV and radio shows there, for example.

And here there are activities suitable for students.

You can read the full Spanish version of A Christmas Carol here.

Enjoy your Dickens day :-)