Student’s Corner: My hometown

Students' Corner, , , ,

It’s always a pleasure to share with you the work of my hard-working students.

The task was either talking or writing about their hometown and I have to say that I was gladly surprised when most of my students, who had never ever given a speech in English, decided to give a beautiful speech about their hometown. I had some beautiful contributions in written form (like Rodrigo’s and Carmen’s )  but  most of them were given orally and sometimes even accompanied by slides like the one just below, given by Manuel.
These were the guidelines they had to follow and necessarily include in their presentation.

  • Name of their hometown
  • Population
  • Why it is famous
  • Good places to visit
  • Places to eat and relax
  • The best/worst about their hometwon.

To publish Rodrigo and Carmen’s work I have used Issuu

And Manuel’s beautiful presentation of Avilés shared in Slideshare.

Thank you guys! Well done!

Video: Pickpockets

Listening, , , ,

Are you learning about crime and legal vocabulary? Then, you might be interested in watching this video and seeing how a gang of Romanian pickpockets work in Barcelona.

Task: Watch the video Pickpockets Performing the Ronaldinho and then answer the questions .

Level: Intermediate/upper-intermediate

Anwers here .

1. What do crime statistics say about Barcelona?

2. When the gang commits a crime…

Johnnie is the …..

Danny is the …

Mario is the ….

3. Why have they named this tactic The Ronaldinho?

4. Where do they sell the laptops, cameras and phones?

5. What do they prefer to steal?

6. How does the gang feel about committing this crime?

7. The reporter agreed to be robbed. Why was he surprised?

Speaking: Describing a Dish

Cooking, Lesson Plan: Elementary, Speaking, , , , ,

Happy New Year to everybody! I am back!!! Hard to get started once again after this longish holiday. It’s been eight days now since we have let 2014 in and it is time we get down to some serious work, don’t you think?

Talking in class about food related things after some huge binge eating and drinking is not precisely what appeals to me most, but unfortunately I cannot choose.
This is an activity I am going to do with my Elementary students after some serious work practising food vocabulary.

The activity is simple. The students are sitting in pairs, one student facing the board and the other with his back to the board. Using the OHP, a picture of a popular dish is displayed. Now, the person seeing the picture has to describe it in as much detail as possible, talking about its ingredients and the way it is cooked and the other person has to guess the dish. Allow them two or three minutes and then display another picture for the other student to do the same. Below are some slides with the  dishes that I am going to use.

Some useful vocab they are likely to use

Nouns: pan, cinnamon, olives, tuna, blood sausage,

Verbs: to beat eggs, to fry, to boil, to add,  to stir with a spoon,to slice (apples)

Happy, happy Christmas!!!

General

Now , guys, here it comes again! This time of the year when I feel torn apart between my desire to celebrate all the good things life has given me and all the things life has taken away from me (shall I say “people”?).
So I can never guess what my mood is going to be like when I write my Christmas post ; sometimes it is a tearjerker ( most of the times) and sometimes I am just the biggest fan of these holidays.
But this year I feel  my mood is going to be quite festive and I have even promised myself I’ll try my hardest to wear my sweatpants only when going to the gym and to dress up in sequins whenever the occasion demands it ; to be nice , polite and kind towards everybody, to struggle not to speak my mind even though the occasion might require it and to try to understand  that though everybody has a table and chairs at home to rotate the family gathering , it is me everybody loves and that must be the reason why year after year everybody decides to celebrate all the gatherings in my blessed house where ,it goes without saying, my dear mother gently suggests that I use my best wedding presents to decorate the table even though she knows I won’t be able to put them in the washing machine and I’ll have to spend hours washing everything up!!
So, after so much giving and giving I’ve decided, these holidays, to treat myself to some getting and getting. (prompt… this is where you need to watch the video ) and this is where the photo of my kitchen window applies.

Christmas is a mere four days away and I want to wish you the best of Christmas and advise you to treat yourselves once or twice during these holidays. You deserve it, don’t you?
Happy, happy Christmas!!! And please, enjoy every minute because life … is just this!

Word of the Day: Selfie

Word of the Day

Did you know that the English language doesn’t have a Real Academia de la Lengua? Well, if you don’t know, it might be an excellent idea to read a post I published about four years ago on this subject. Here.

The word “selfie” has been chosen as WORD OF THE YEAR by Oxford Dictionaries. The word, research shows, has increased its frequency by 17,000% in the last year and it was added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in August although you might not find it in any printed dictionary right now.

I am going to share a little secret with you. It was my birthday yesterday. I am not going to tell you how long I’ve been around (that’s a most private matter) but I feel good. I feeeel goood!!! Whoa-oa-oa!! Well, there might be “some” things ( to be honest, the word “some” falls somehow short) I’d like to change about me but, all in all, I am not complaining.
Now, to commemorate my birthday I wanted to upload a new selfie to my social networking site. I took like ten pictures with my mobile only to realize ( I was utterly devastated!!!  🙁 ) that even  though I might feel as fit as a teenager -in an adult’s body- sadly, my age shows on my face. As wisdom comes with age,  I have decided to stick to the one I uploaded in the summer. I know, I know … not so long ago but there’s a huge difference between a fresh image enjoying the warm open air and one taken under the freezing air of December. I am sure you’ll agree!

So, what’s a selfie?

Selfie is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”.

Now, how often do you change your selfie ?