What on earth is a palindrome?

The English language, ,

What’s a palindrome?
Although you might not have realized yet what a palindrome is what you cannot deny is that the word is beautiful. It comes from the Greek “palin”= return and “dromes”= path; but this won’t probably enlighten you as regards its real meaning.

All right, I know you are all on tenterhooks waiting for me to tell you but first of all, I’m going to give you an example … or several to make you rack your brains. I know, I know you’ve nearly finished exams and they have been hard enough but we don’t want you to put your mind at rest just yet, do we? Enough of beating about the bush …here’s the example: “no lemon no melon”.

Can’t see it? Not a clue? Really? Ok, I’m going to give you another example. It is said that the first sentence uttered by a human being was a palindrome. First and second human being? Adam and Eve. So when they met for the first time the gentleman in Adam said to Eve: “Madam, I’m Adam”. Although some people think that Adam was more talkative than this and that what he actually said was “Madam in Eden, I’m Adam”.
Now the penny’s dropped and you know!

A palindrome is a word or a phrase which is the same when read from the start or the end. Mystery solved!!


Can you think of any palindromes? Please do and then send me a post … you can even write a song. You think this is far-fetched? Have a look at this video

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How do you say 2010?

Córcholis or it is raining cats and dogs

I am feeling generous

Unusual jobs

ELLA: English Language Lab Asturias

Audio, In the Computer Room, Listening, Resources, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing, , , , ,

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to recommend you this wonderful site , but …better late than never!
This site has been created and is maintained by three colleagues from three different EEOOIII . On their own they have been awarded different prizes and together they have created this wonderful site. My admiration and thanks to you three: María (from EOI Oviedo), Carmen (from EOI Mieres) and Javier (from EOI Luarca).

Now , for you my dearest students and because I can guess that right now you must be frantic (exam is on Monday) looking for new listening comprehensions to do, I am going to link you straightaway to the listening section of ELLA. The link will lead you to a page with all the listenings , find the ones for you level…. ADVANCED.
http://web.educastur.princast.es/proyectos/ella/?cat=17
If you like the site , don’t forget to send them a post. It is always nice to hear that all you effort has been worthwhile !

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Understanding “some” Spanish

Audio, Funny Stuff, Listening, Resources, ,

What I’m about to show you is a good example of why English, after all, should not be considered such a difficult language to understand, especially if you compare it to understanding some Spanish native speakers.
Have fun!!!

No kidding now!!If you need to improve your listening skills, why don’t you visit this site? You won’t find any comprehension questions after the audio but you might consider it interesting and useful. The site belongs to the New York Times and it’s a collection of stories of people from New York. Click on the image and it will lead you straight to their homepage.

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Playing with images: Bookr

Create your own stuff, Resources, Vocabulary

Playing? Working? Teaching?Let’s not beat about the bush and call a spade a spade …yes , I am playing , playing with images . It is my firm conviction that when you see something you remember it better. That’s why , once again, I have used the same tool I used when teaching Food and Cooking : PimPamPum . This is a version called Bookr , and as its name suggests it creates photobooks using Flikr images. The photobooks are very simple to create, you just need to type in a key word to find the images you want and then drag them onto the pages and add what you need to be taught and illustrated.
I think this a nice way to teach parts of the animals and I’ve also added some idioms containing animals that need to be studied. 

Animals by Cristina

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Subtitling Videos: a nice way to practise

Audio, Listening, Resources

So, let´s imagine that lately you ‘ve been having some problems with understanding listening comprehension and all of a sudden ,you realize it’s May and you’re taking your listening test in about a week or so. In that case, there are so many good websites I would recommend that I could keep you busy for the whole year. Today ,let me show you something that I bumped into quite by chance.
It’s a place where you can find subtitled videos and what’s more, you can even request for some videos to be subtitled too. This place is called SubPLY .
As we are learning about food and cooking I tried searching the site by writing the word “food” and I found quite some interesting videos where you can revise vocab.
Why don’t you try it and let me know what you think? Now, click on the image and it’ll link you to their website and ,from then on, you can do your own search.

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