Tag Archives: speaking

Want to learn English through music? Lyrics Training helps you

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Do you want to learn English and/or French, Italian, German… through music? Well, if this is so, this is your place. This cool site is called Lyrics Training and it’s just amazing and hear this ,free to use!

This is how it works: at the bottom on the right-hand side you can see some lyrics, choose according to your level. There are three: easy, medium and hard. Then, when the window with the song you’ve chosen opens up, choose your mode; again, there are three, beginner,(fill in the blanks10%), intermediate (25%) and expert (full lyrics).

Now, this is what you’ll see if you choose  the song Tell him  in the beginner mode.  One of the best things is that if you get to a word and you can’t understand it or if it goes too fast, it will stop until the blank has been filled. The song literally WAITS for YOU!!!

But there’s even more. If you click on HELP at the bottom you can see what else the programme can do for you. Let’s imagine that you want to listen to the same line again, press Backspace, and if you are still unable to understand the word, don’t worry, just press TAB and the word will be written for you. Aren’t you dying to give it a go!!

In Spanish

Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, , , ,

Como seguramente sabeis,Photopeach ( la herramienta que utilizo para hacer los role-plays) ha decidido hacer limpieza general 😉 justo ahora , por lo que los videos creados antes del 6 de junio no se podrán ver durante algunos días. Pity!!

Ahora mismo, de los publicados solo podeis ver :” at the train station” y estos que acabo de hacer.

At the police station  .

At the Antiques Market

 

Your passport , please!!

Role Play: at the train station

Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, , ,

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!

Talking Photos: Fotobabble

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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

Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, , , , , , ,

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.

Click here