Sorry but I’m up to my eyes in exams and I haven’t been able to dedicate one single moment to my blog. But I promised I’ll try to publish some more role-plays and I won’t go back on my word. So here’s a new one: At the train station. Click here if you want to see the instructions about how to study with this video or if you are used to them , stay on the blog and just watch the video. I have introduced a new feature: the role of the examiner, which you’ll clearly see as it is being introduced by the photo of a teacher. I hope this helps!
Tag Archives: speaking
Talking Photos: Fotobabble
What a great tool this is!!
The Certificación exam is just around the corner and bumping into this little tool right now got me thinking whether some things happen by sheer chance or by some divine intervention. Choose the one you feel most comfortable with .
Now, as you know , in the oral part of the exam you’ll be asked to describe a/some picture(s) in three minutes. Well, here’s a good tool to help you rehearse for this part of the exam. It’s called Fotobabble and it looks promising.
This is what you have to do to use this app:
- First, sign up. Don’t worry it’s free and it only takes a few seconds.
- Upload a photo from your computer.
- Record your voice using a microphone
- Listen to your recording.
This is quite OK as far as you are concerned but I’d like to see what you are doing , so why don’t you send me your fotobabbles ? No idea how to do it ? Click on the link below and in a video and in Spanish I’ll explain it all to you. No excuses now!!
http://www.screencast.com/users/cristinacd/folders/Jing/media/a9ed9e6f-4356-468f-82d9-8c10558a9a8b
Lesson Plan: At the doctor’s
Let this post be written in memory and as my tribute to my father, if not a good (I’m not the one to say), at least a well-respected doctor among his colleagues and patients. Let this post be a far too late explanation of why I didn’t choose to become a doctor when I/ we knew that it had always been my father’s dream.
During my childhood and adolescence I lived surrounded by scalpels, syringes, pills,… several rooms in my house were dedicated to my father’s private practice (there was not a Seguridad Social center ). I have seen too much blood and bleeding to last me a lifetime and it certainly took its toll on me. I’m going to save you the gory details but one of my earliest memories is knowing there was a piece of frozen lip in the kitchen freezer from one of my best friends’ brother ( a dog had bitten him). My father always dreamed of one of his children following his line of work but we all disappointed him. I wouldn’t like to be a doctor and the reasons are several.
• All my life I have seen my father being woken up in the middle of the night and leaving home in a hurry
• All my life I have dreaded the telephone ringing in the middle of our Christmas’s dinner and even sometimes we opened up our presents while my father was away healing somebody else
• All my life I have seen my father being verbally assaulted in the streets by patients who didn’t understand that he was not working and he, having the patient of a saint, answering all their doubts and above all, listening.
• All my life I have seen my father worrying to death about a patient
• All my life I have heard people criticising doctors for making mistakes, not prescribing enough pills or too many pills, seeing patients too fast or too slowly. I have seen my father cry over the death of a friend when he, who presumably, had the power, could do nothing to save him. Dad!! You were not God!
There’s a long etc of why I have never considered being a doctor but all my life I have seen my father dedicated to a job that he loved. A good doctor is more than academic excellence, it requires more than brain and skill it is also about compassion, kindness, humanity, tolerance, sensitivity and I like to believe that my father possessed all of them.
Here’s a lesson about Going to the doctor’s I have prepared for my pre-intermediate students. You’re warmly welcome to do it.
Guess who
I owe this idea to my colleague, Mº Jesús Balán who has an excellent blog ESL Bloggers.
Ready? Time to put into practice everything learnt for picture description. Click here and here if you need to brush up .
Look at these pictures. The exercise is quite simple. Choose someone from this collage and write a description in as much detail as possible.
You’ll never forget how to pronounce “would”
Learning and mastering English pronunciation can sometimes feel like a daunting task. I have been marking heaps of exams lately and now it’ s time for the oral test and if you want to know the truth… I ‘m dreading it!! Students insist on mispronouncing words they have heard a thousand times, like the word “since”, which they insistently pronounce as /sains/ and the “l” in words such as: walk, talk, should, half .… and would, when I’m well aware they know the “l” in these words is never pronounced.
By the time you finish watching this video, I bet you won’t forget how to pronounce “would”.
This clip from the movie “The Pink Panther” is probably one of the funniest I have ever seen and Steve Martin is at one of his best performances
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