Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas is here!!

We have closed another term. How did it end so fast? Well, Christmas is here, so I leave you with some interesting Christmas videos and links if you want to stay in touch with English over the Xmas Break.

First, read some FUN FACTS AND TRIVIA about Christmas.

Now, why don't you visit the NORTH POLE? You'll find stories, games...You can even write an email to Santa!!

What's this? WHAT'S THIS? There's magic everywhere...Discover the moment when Jack Skeleton finds Christmas Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton):




Do you know the famous story by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol? We have it in our library, available for you. Here you have the trailer of the film that has recently been released:





TO ALL OF YOU, READERS AND FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG, MY BEST WISHES FOR THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON AND FOR THE NEW YEAR. MAY IT BRING YOU HAPPINES AND JOY, AND MAY YOUR WISHES COME TRUE.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Writing workshop - 1 Dec 2009

Hello everyone!

Our last workshop of the year was about writing. As we have been doing so far this last month, when we have been introducing the different skills, we have seen the basic steps that should be taken when writing a text. Please find a basic outline below. Surely you'll find this extremely interesting!!

To support and expand this, click on the work SKILLSWISE. You'll find yourself drawn into the wonderful world of the excellent English-learning website of the BBC!!

One of the steps in this writing process is brainstorming. We cannot start writing right away. We have to dedicate some time to thinking and to coming up with ideas that afterwards will be organised into paragraphs. Sometimes, having some kind of GRAPHIC ORGANISER helps. Here you have one example:


And finally, we talked about punctuation, which is essential in the correct organization of our ideas in a text. Click on the words BASIC PUNCTUATION for some basic rules and practice.

Write on!!

Speaking, pronunciation and phonetics workshop - 24 nov 2009

Speaking, pronunciaton and phonetics workshop:

We introduced this workshop by playing some scenes from the film "My Fair Lady", the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" about a phonetics professor who bets that he can transform a girl from the gutters of Cockney-speaking London into a lady by teaching her to speak properly. It seemed only appropriate for this workshop, didn't it? Please take time to watch the following videos:









We also talked about the SPEECH ORGANS involved in the process of producing sounds of speech:





And we recommended some books to work phonetics at home:



We also had a look at the phonetics resources on this same blog. TAKE SOME TIME TO CHECK THE BAR ON THE RIGHT!! There you'll find interesting websites to practise your phonetics and pronunciation!!


Enjoy!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Christmas Party 2009 - PLEASE JOIN US!!

Dear students,

Christmas is coming, so why don't we celebrate it together, while we have something to eat and drink, and have some fun?

PLEASE JOIN US NEXT THURSDAY 17 AT 7 P.M. AT THE SCHOOL.
There will be activities, Christmas carol singing and more...
Remember that THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PARTY IS...YOU. Don't miss it!!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Listening workshop - 17 nov 2009

Hello everyone,

It's been quite busy, this last month, so I haven't been able to inform you about what we have been doing in our 2ÂșNB workshops. But here we are, ready to tell you "what we've been up to"...just in case you might find it useful.

Listening workshop:

We talked about the steps that have to be taken in order to face a listening comprehension test with one or more listenings and one or more exercises.


For some guidelines on LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS, click here.
And to practise what we had been talking about, we watched a video of a short piece of news and answered a few questions about it. Please find the video and the questions below:




Give it a try!!