Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Thank you, Andalucía. I'm going to miss you!!!

Dearest students and readers of this blog,

This is a special post. The last post of the year. As you know, I traditionally wish you a happy summer and that's all. But this time, apart from that, I'd like to say goodbye and thank you, because this will be my last post as a teacher of the Official Language School of Mairena del Aljarafe.


Next year I am going to work in a city in the north of the province of Cáceres called Plasencia. As you know, I'm from Extremadura, and, much as I've been welcomed and happy in Andalucía, I've always been homesick, somehow. So we could say that I'm going back home.



Here you have a video of the city, in case you don't know what it's like:





That doesn't mean that I'm going to disappear, of course not!!! I will still keep this blog, and I'd love it if you continued to use it, and to comment on my posts. I'd also love to know how you are doing!!


And I'd love to say a big THANK YOU, to my fellow teachers and my students, in Huelva, Jaén and Mairena. You have all made me feel passion for my job. And I feel privileged because I've felt welcomed and loved in Andalucía.


I wish you the best of luck. Don't forget me! And keep it up with English. It's a beautiful language, the living image of an extremely rich culture. It just takes hard work, perseverance and a belief in your capacities. It all will be worth your while!


HAPPY SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!



Sunday, May 8, 2011

1º NB (A1) Of houses and furniture - There is/are

Dear students and readers of this blog,

Unit 6 deals with the vocabulary of the house, its rooms and its furniture. Why don't you take some time to have a look at this? You will surely find it useful.




First of all, we need to practise THERE IS/ARE a little bit, don't we?



Now read the description a 10-year old English boy makes of his house:








1. The kitchen
2. The living room
3. The bathroom
4. The bedroom
5. The garden



Why don't you visit our VIRTUAL HOUSE ?


Tuesday, May 3, 2011

NI (B1) - Rumour has it...REPORTED SPEECH

Dear students & readers of this blog,

As you know, there are two ways we can transmit what someone said: by quoting the exact words (DIRECT SPEECH) and by giving an approximate version of them, with some changes (INDIRECT & REPORTED SPEECH).

Right now we are studying the reported speech in class, and we could use some extra help, couldn't we?



So click here to learn about the grammar of the reported speech.

Or here...

Now, some practice:


Do you like gossiping? Do you usually believe what people say? Read the lyrics of the song we are going to listen to in class. RUMOURS, GOSSIP... As soon as I learn how to upload the audio file of the song to this blog, I'll do it. Promise!


And to finish this post, the last sensation of British music: RUMOUR HAS IT, by Adele.



Friday, April 29, 2011

Ready for the Royal Wedding of the year?

The event of the year in the UK is finally coming along. At this same hour, Prince William & Kate Middleton will be celebrating a state dinner with their guests and spending their last hours as single people. Probably when you read this, they will already be man and wife. And on such important occasion, bearing in mind that we are fans of "All Things British" and we just LOVE happy endings, we had to be there. Why can't we practise our English while witnessing THE event? Let's take a break of so much football and speak about something else. Surely, even if you don't care at all about it, you've got something to say.

If you're planning to watch the wedding, why not watching it in English? Watch in live on bbc.co.uk

Other than that, here you can check:


Play the Royal Wedding game: take the William & Kate challenge!


Maybe YOU want to have your say on this. What do you think? Are you going to watch the wedding? Are you a royal wedding fan? Do you enjoy get-togethers with your family and friends to comment on the ceremony and guests' attires? You couldn't care less about it? Do you think events like this are ostentatious and unnecessary? WRITE A COMMENT!


After the wedding takes place, we'll update this post! HAVE FUN (...or not)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

WRITING SKILLS - BASIC PUNCTUATION

One of the skills that is usually more difficult for students of English as a foreign language is writing. When we write, all that we have learn comes together and shapes up in a text: our grammar, our vocabulary. We mistakenly tend to assume that the way English speakers punctuate sentences is the same as in Spanish. But this is not true. There are different conventions as regards the use of the full stop (.), the comma (,) or the question mark (?), just to name a few. But before having a look at some basic punctuation rules in English, let's learn the name of the main punctuation marks:


. full stop (US - period)
, comma
? Question mark
! Exclamation mark
: colon
; semicolon
( ) parenthesis
[ ] Brackets
- dash
... ellipsis
"" quotation marks
/ slash
- hyphen

Now, let's see some basic punctuation rules. Click here. (source: BBC skillswise):

Basic puntuation quiz

Games

Basic punctuation worksheets


Why don't you also have a look at:

capital letters

making sentences


Spaniards have a hard time with learning how to use commas in English, so here you have some help:


using commas


Saturday, April 2, 2011

NI (B1) Passive voice

Dear students and readers of this blog,

Still in our Intermediate level class, we have been studying the passive voice.

The passive voice is a grammatical construction (a "voice") in which the subject of a sentence or clause denotes the recipient of the action (the patient) rather than the performer (the agent). So with it, we put the emphasis on the action itself, and not on the person or thing that did it. Remember i is much more frequently used in English than in Spanish!

Here you will find some help:

Active voice/passive voice from Englishclub.com





Allow me to recommend you the videos below. It is a simple, but clear and helpful way of explaining the passive voice. Enjoy!




NI (B1) My wish list

Dear students and readers of this blog,

Do you have a with list? Do your wishes come true?


In our Intermediate level class we've been talking about wishes, and how to express a wish that something would change or a regret for something we would like to be different. For that, we have different options. Here you have some interesting links:







Wishes

by Rose Fyleman

I wish I liked rice pudding,
I wish I were a twin,
I wish some day a real life fairy
Would just come walking in.

I wish when I'm at table
My feet would touch the floor,
I wish our pipes would burst next winter,
Just like they did next door.

I wish that I could whistle
Real proper grown-up tunes.
I wish they'd let me sweep the chimneys
On rainy afternoons.

I've got such heaps of wishes,
I've only said a few;
I wish that I could wake some morning
And find they'd all come true!

Friday, April 1, 2011

1º NB (A1) The woderful world of the past simple tense...

Dear students and readers of this blog,
Welcome to the wonderful world of the past simple. You will have no time to get bored; there are lots of things to learn. Here you have some links and videos I'm sure you will find useful. Enjoy!











Forming the past simple:



Forming the negative:



Some irregular verbs:



If you want to pronounce the regular -ed forms of the past correctly, watch the video below: