Writing and Speaking : A Biography

19 Junio 2013 — Cristina Cabal

It’s with great pride that I  show you the work of two of my students;they are  twelve and thirteen-year-old students  who, with a lot of effort on their part,  have managed to overcome the difficulties of speaking and pronouncing a different language.  My Congratulations and Thanks  to Patricia Alonso and Juan Fernández for their effort and contribution to this blog. Keep up the good work!

Patricia has written and recorded  Marco Polo’s Biography  and Juan has done the same with  Fernando Alonso.Ladies first!

Posted in Create your own stuff, Speaking, Students' Corner, Writing. No Comments »

And the Winners of the I Recorded Short Story Contest Are….

9 Junio 2013 — Cristina Cabal

……(fanfare of trumpets) María López ,Montse López and Claudia Seivane in no special order. It has  been a tough decision to make and though my original intention was to give just one prize , I’ve been totally unable to make a fair decision. For this reason, I asked some of my colleagues to help me decide and they faced the same dilemmas as me as  the three of them deserved to win for different reasons . María and Claudia are hard-working  thirteen-year-old students with a promising future in languages  and Montse , though older, was up to her eyes  with exams and still found the time to write a long short story. My thanks to the three of them for trying so hard and to the rest of my students who have also participated with more or less fortune. Many thanks to them all.You all deserve your prize!

Here are the winners and their stories:

Claudia Seivane Otero : Falling in Love in 1955

María López Valdés: Surfer’s Paradise

Montse López Fernández: The yellow Flower

Below these lines are the rest of the participants with their short stories. They all deserve to be published !

Click on the icons to listen to their short stories and to see their names

And Last but not Least…

Lidia’s short story : Hello Ann

Ruben’s short story

Ainhoa’s Short story

Estela’s Short Story : The Small Pirate

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Resources, Speaking, Students' Corner. 2 Comments »

When I Grow Up

3 Junio 2013 — Cristina Cabal

“When I grow up I’m going to be a flight attendant” I used to tell my parents when I was in primary school. That was really my dream!  I used to dream of going to far away countries , meeting amazing people and learning to speak different languages . I dreamed of holidaying in Indonesia and swimming in the Pacific Ocean … but my parents never liked it and very soon tried to put me off the idea by telling me flight attendants were just waitresses in a plane , but still… I dreamed!

Even now, if someone should ask me  if I ever wanted to be a teacher , my brain automatically associates ” wanting to be” with “being a flight attendant”. For better or for worse , I’ve got a friend who is a flight attendant and when she tells us about her travels I always turn green with envy. I cannot help it but that’s called rubbing salt into wounds, isn’t it?

Anyway, this is the question I asked my students and these were their answers. I thought it could be fun to take their picture now so that, in the future ,they can look back and see if their dreams came true.I hope so!

 

Posted in Pictures, Slides, Students' Corner, freeware. No Comments »

I Recorded Short Story Contest

10 Mayo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

Welcome to our I Recorded Short Story Contest. Open to all my students until May 31st!
Are you willing to try your hand at writing a short story in English and then reading it? This could be your chance to be internationally known; who knows who might be visiting the blog and listening to your stories and , well, you might end up being a well-known writer !!!
Yeah! I know !, Probably too far-fetched ! But ,what is undeniable is that this activity can help you improve writing and pronunciation, and this  is what  really matters!
As in every single contest of some importance , there are RULES. These are mine:

♥Entries must be in English
♥They must be recorded using the online tool Sound Cloud (Tutorial in Spanish , here)
♥Recording should last up to three minutes
♥Stories must be entirely your own work and must be previously unpublished
♥Only one entry per person
♥There is no set theme
♥Closing submission date: 31st May 13
♥Top three prizes to be determined
♥Winner will be announced the first week of June ,online and in this blog
HOW TO SUBMIT A SHORT STORY
♥First, you need to record yourself using SoundCloud.
♥Then , go to the comments section in this post
♥Write your full name
♥Write the name of your short story
♥In the Share box of your recording Copy/paste the link provided by soundcloud (starts with https)

Good luck !! Some pictures that might inspire you ,below!!!

I got this fantastic idea from the wonderful blog -MCargobe’s Blog-Room- written by a colleague from the EOI Valencia, which I highly recommend if you are willing to practise your English. Click here to see her blog.

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Students' Corner, Writing, freeware. 16 Comments »

A Film Review: Two Wonderful Presentations

25 Abril 2013 — Cristina Cabal

These two presentations I am publishing today remind me of a poster that is hanging from one of the walls of my classroom. The poster says” The expert in anything was once a beginner” (quote by Helen Hayes) and these two elementary students are taking the necessary steps to very soon become experts at English ; so, my congratulations to

 Marta Rodriguez and Claudia Seivane from 2ºESO for these wonderful presentations of a film review.
Nice job, girls! Keep up the good work!

Presentation given by Marta Rodríguez

Presentation given by Claudia Seivane.

Posted in Students' Corner. 1 Comment »

WeekCamp: March 18th-20th

22 Abril 2013 — Cristina Cabal

Enjoy!!

Posted in Students' Corner. No Comments »

Winner of the I Caption Writing Contest

17 Abril 2013 — Cristina Cabal

And ….(fanfare of trumpets) we have the winner of our I Caption Writing Contest , Aitor Marqués , from 2nd ESO , who will be awarded a free homework pass to keep or maybe to give away as a present to someone in the class. One never knows when this pass can come handy, not that Aitor needs it very much as he surely is a hard-working students, but…one never knows.
Ok, let’s not beat about the bush and here, below these lines , is the winning caption . There were some very good ones, which you can read in the comments section, but my reasons for choosing Aitor’s caption have been the following:
♥Lack of  grammar or vocabulary mistakes
♥Witty and ironic at the same time
♥Very hot issue nowadays in Spain
Keep posted as there will be a II Caption Writing Contest, and you might be the lucky winner next time!!

Posted in Students' Corner, Writing. No Comments »

Caption Writing Contest

9 Abril 2013 — Cristina Cabal

Surely you have seen lots of cartoons and pictures with a caption . Wouldn’t you like to  see your words winning this Caption Writing Contest? Well, here’s your chance! I  found this funny picture via Pinterest and I am willing to give away a Free Homework Pass to the winner of this Writing Contest.What on earth could these two dogs be saying to each other? Give me  your craziest, sarcastic, most creative, thoughtful or memorable  caption to go along with this picture and enjoy !! Be original and witty!! Deadline: 15th April (example below)

Some Things to Bear in Mind when Writing your Caption

♥It can be in any form of literary expression-prose , poetry.

♥It can be one word, a sentence, a word play

♥You may enter as many captions as you like

♥Captions have to be written in English

Some Help

When writing a comic , it might be helpful to know some common English interjections. Click here to see some of the most common

How to enter a comment

Click “Comment” and write your name, email address and your caption for the contest in the comment box, in English . Don’t forget to copy the Anti-Spam Word. Click Submit Comment.

Now this is the photograph. Good Luck and Happy Captioning!

Posted in General, Students' Corner, Writing. 25 Comments »

Acapela.tv: converting text to speech in a funny way

27 Marzo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

This site is plain fun ! Acapela .tv is a new site that has a lot of potential for the language class.
Choose a real character or a cute cartoon and make him speak. Choose from a range of voices that interpret and read content with meaning and emotion. This text to speech tool is great to do dictations or revise vocabulary among other things.

HOW I’M PLANNING TO USE IT

♥I think it might be funny to divide the class into two groups -the class I have in mind, right now , is a small class of nine students; with larger classes I might need to divide it into three or four groups.

My aim with this activity will be to make sure students revise some vocabulary related to money for their next test. So, the class is divided into two groups. They need to listen to their cartoon speaking, write down the words the character asks them to revise and be able to explain them to the other group. Each character will say the same number of words and you know the rest… don’t you?? A competition , as usual, something that I , a very competitive person, just love.

A nice memory of a former student from Denmark , Patrick, who helped me teach English . Hope you like it, Patrick!

♥My next step will be asking selected students from different courses to do the job. The volunteers will need to go home , register and create a character to revise vocabulary . Obviously, they’ll need to copy the link provided and send it to me so that I can display it when playing the game in class.

What do you think? Will they like it?

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Funny Stuff, Games, In the Computer Room, Resources, Students' Corner, Vocabulary, freeware. No Comments »

Traditional Recipes from Asturias

20 Marzo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

.”Better late than never” or so they say.
This booklet with Traditional Recipes from Asturias was written with lots of love by my former students from the bilingual stream at IES Cesar Rodríguez and with great memories of these amazing students I fulfill my promise . I only hope you are still reading this blog, one year later!


I have used the highly recommendable tool issuu . Click to enlarge.

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