SOME FUNNY VIDEOS FOR THESE HARD DAYS

If you want to have some fun, click here. A glogster will be opened and there you can watch different funny videos. Enjoy it!

WHO YOU ARE

A nice story that I have found in a new discovery, storybird, a collaborative storytelling site: it's called Who You Are. Click on the title to read it.

"SWING VOTE" FORUM

Following the links you can have access to the Swing Vote Forum. Remember you have to participate in two of the three posts.

Opinion

Topics

Characters

"NOTTING HILL" FORUM

Following the links you can have access to the Notting Hill Forum. Remember you have to participate in two of the three posts.

Characters

Topics

Opinion

A NEW BLOG

Terrassa, viewed from the High School, at 8 o'clock.

Due to some problems with the Intranet, the Foreign Languages Department has decided to open a blog to post everything which is necessary to work in class. You are welcomed to participate and visit it any time you feel like doing it. To visit the blog, click here

COMPARATIVE & SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES

To practice a bit more, click on the following links:

Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Exercise 4
Exercise 5
Exercise 6
Exercise 7
Exercise 8

THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

Have a spooky and terrific Halloween

VOCABULARY 1st TERM

photo taken by J. Dalmau

Click here to open a document with the vocabulary for the 1st term. Leave a comment if you have any doubt.

Click here to open vocabulary related to a description of a place.

Click here to open the vocabulary from Unit 3

Click here to open the vocabulary from Notting Hill

photo taken by E.Deitg

WEEKEND ACTIVITIES

Click here to open the vocabulary and the listening page.

Do activities 1 and 3 from the Vocabulary Section.
Do exercise 4, 5, 6 and 7 from the Listening and Reading Section.



Here you have the listening from the page to do it. Make sure you write the answers in your notebook before we correct.

SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

A good site to practise school vocabulary


http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-topics-school.htm

PAST SIMPLE & PAST CONTINUOUS

Click on the sites to practise on past simple & past continuous


http://english.baladre.org/sedaviwebfront/pastSimpCont.htm
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex02
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex03
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex04
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex05
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex06
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex07
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro/exercises?ex08

SOME, ANY, MUCH, MANY...

Some exercises on these quantifiers


http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/mengen.htm
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/CET/flashactivities/much_many01.html

WELCOME BACK!

It's not as if I had left the blog alone, because I looked for things to bring you during the summer, but for those who know the blog and for those who arrive for the very first time: Welcome!!

A new course has started and new challenges will appear during the year. For me, a new school -though I worked there before- and new students, new levels. Time to work quite hard!
Hope you have a nice year, too!!

WORDMAP

A new tool for creating vocabulary wordmaps, as suggested by Ken Beare. Its name is Wordle and you can create things like these:

WALTZING MATILDA

One mobile phone company in our country is using a choir of children singing the song "Waltzing Matilda". Asked by my mother about the song, I looked for it on the google. As a good freak, I discovered a different story from what I'd expected. Because of the title, I thought about a dance and a girl. But the truth is that the song talks about carrying your goods in a bag while travelling on food. This song is considered as one of the unofficial Australian anthems and is used in many sporting events, especially those related to rugby. I found the following video on youtube, which talks about the plot and mentions vocabulary which is specifically Australian, and some of these wordsa are old-fashioned, too. There are some typical symbols from Australia as well.

Some of the vocabulary you can find:
swagman: Swag is a bed roll which bundle the belongings of a man, the swagman, who travelled the country looking for a job
Waltzing means to travel while working as a craftsman
Matilda is the swag, in a metaphoric way, giving it the name of a woman, since it was the only companion of the swagman.
billabong: a pool of deep water
billy: a little tin for boiling water.
Jumbuck: a sheep
tucker bag: a bag for carrying tucker, which means food.
squatter: big land owner
troopers: policemen

Can you tell me what's the plot of the song?

FIRST MOON LANDING

In 1969, the NASA achieved a dream: the first human beings arrived to the Moon. A competition against Russian government that was fulfilled with Armstrong's famous sentence: "One small step...". Can you complete it by listening to the video?? be honest and do not look for it on google!

GIVING UP MY IPOD FOR A WALKMAN

The gap between my students' generation and mine is present in this article I found from the BBC. I couldn't live without my walkman and my tape (and a bic pen), and they can't imagine life without the Ipod or an mp4. Read and enjoy it!

When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.
He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade - a bland grey.

LISTEN UP TEENAGERS... THE CLASSIC WALKMAN EXPLAINED
1: Clunky buttons
2: Switch to metal (that's a type of cassette, not heavy rock music)
3: Battery light - usually found flickering in its death throes
4: Double headphone jack (not to be found on an iPod)
5: Door ejects - watch out for flying tapes and eye injuries

So it's not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.

From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: "No-one uses them any more." Another said: "Groovy." Yet another one quipped: "That would be hard to lose."
My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked.
In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
“ I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down 'rewind' and releasing it randomly ”
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.

Digital relief
Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player.
You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.
Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis.
Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Having said all that, portable music is better than no music.
Now, for technically curious readers, I've directly compared the portable cassette player with its latter-day successor. Here are the main cons, and even a pro, I found with this piece of antique technology.

SOUND
This is the function that matters most. To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod.
When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.
The warbling is probably because of the horrifically short battery life; it is nearly completely dead within three hours of firing it up. Not long after the music warbled into life, it abruptly ended.
CONVENIENCE
With the plethora of MP3 players available on the market nowadays, each boasting bigger and better features than its predecessor, it is hard to imagine the prospect of purchasing and using a bulky cassette player instead of a digital device.
Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those?), which added even more bulk.
As well as this, the need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.
Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?
"I remembered it fondly as a way to enjoy what music I liked, where I liked," he said. "But when I see it now, I wonder how I carried it!"

WALKMAN 1, MP3 PLAYER 0
But it's not all a one-way street when you line up a Walkman against an iPod. The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter.
Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you're not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stmPublished: 2009/06/29 10:10:27 GMT© BBC MMIX

A CIVIL SERVANT

As some of you know, I've been taking the exams to be a civil servant, particularly a teacher of La Generalitat de Catalunya. Today I've got my results and I'm in! I'm quite excited, though I don't know yet where I'm going to work next year. I hope to achieve the second step and work in any of the two high schools I have as first options. New students, some old and new workmates, new levels, new challenges, but knowing that I can start and end the course. That kind of stress at the end of the month has finished, though stress is a word, believe it or not, that is part of us. I wanted to share this piece of news with you, the ones that know me and have support and suffer me throughout the year!
Yuhuu!!!

IMAGINE A CLASS LIKE THIS!

I have to confess it: I was looking for an easy way to study The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer, for my exam. I was looking for a kind of project where I could find everything I have on my mind better organized. But what I found was this teacher, making a rap of a part of the tales in middle English. I'm a freak, you may think, but I love it! And now, back to the papers to study!

ANY TIP FOR SELECTIVITY EXAM?

The end has come and we are all getting quite nervous. In a few days, we are going to take a very important exam. For you, selectivity; some of the teachers, to obtain our place in a high school. In a way, we are all going to be doing the exams together. It's a year work what we have to show in few hours, where we have fought together for some common goals. I know that pieces of advise here can sound a bit funny: you have to do it on your own and calm is something people tell you to experiment when you don't feel in the mood. So the only thing I'm going to say to all my students is to do their best. I'm sure you are going to do it.

If you want to practice for the exams, hear the listenings from previous years, click here

Good luck, guys!

JUST IN CASE

For those of you who are not going to do selectivity, but you want to do a GS, it's time to enroll. Enrollment is from 25th May till 11th June. Do not leave it till last minute. Remember you can do a registration form in case your exams are not as good as you thought. If you need more information, check the Education department site.

NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA

As some of you know, one of my best friends, Sandra, is living now in Melbourne. She's got a blog where you can find some of her experiences living upside down. You may find some videos as well where you can listen to real Australian accent. It is not Strine, but can you spot some differences with British or American English? click on the links to discover it!

A Tea advertisement

Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation

ALBA & LAURA PRESENTATION

The artistic meets English

E4E PRESENTATIONS

Raquel, Francisco & Yoselin presentation

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Sandra, Lara and Marta Cazorla presentation

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Elisabet & Marta Toribio presentation

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Presentacion Marc,Carlos Solsona,Alex

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HAPPY ST. GEORGE'S DAY!

A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare

CONDITIONALS

This is the last grammar presentation of the year: Conditionals. A bit of fresh air after the reported speech and the passive. Have a look.

Conditionals

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THE SONG OF THE DAY

I think the sentences which are most used by our students are
1. Are we going to watch a movie?
2. Are we going to listen to a song?

And our answer, most of the days, is a simple no, with that funny face after the third same question. Today, my "Bohemian" students-with all my love- asked me that. And my answer was again no, knowing that I only needed time to look for the right song on the youtube site. Boston's Rock 'n' Roll Band.

SLIDESHARE

The website SlideShare, which I use to upload my powerpoint presentations, has shown my passive voice presentacion on the education community section as an outstanding work during this weekend. Little nice piece of news for today!

PASSIVE VOICE

Passive Voice

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ENGLISH IS ALL AROUND US

English all around us

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This is the English project for Easter holidays: Bring the camera with you and take all the pics related to all the things that surround us in English. Enjoy and click!!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT LISTENING

This is the listening you have to do for the Unit. Answer the questions in your book and submit the correct options as a comment with your name included or an e-mail . Your deadline is Friday, 13th for 2nd D and Tuesday, 17th for 2nd C.

REPORTED SPEECH

The information of this ppt has been taken from Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan, published by OUP, just in case you need to expand your knowledge about Reported Speech. Leave a comment if you have any question.

Reported Speech

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BAGPIPE MUSIC, by Louis MacNeice

A poem I read when I studied at uni. Today I've found it again by chance and I thought on sharing it with you. From one of the poets of the thirties poets - W. H. Auden, Sander, and C.D. Lewis, among others-, Louis MacNiece, Irish and playwright, and a very quite interesting character. I hope you get and grasp the meaning, even if it looks like a light poem, it's not, and includes sharp criticism. What do you think about it?

It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.

It's no go the Yogi-man, it's no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tire and the devil mend the puncture.

The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs. Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife "Take it away; I'm through with overproduction."

It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby.

Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish,
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.

It's no go the Herring Board, it's no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.

It's no go the picture palace, it's no go the stadium,
It's no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums,
It's no go the Government grants, it's no go the elections,
Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.

It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall forever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.

NADAL vs. FEDERER

Not being a great fan of sports, and not understanding a ball from tennis, I saw a bit of the Australia Open Final, as I suppose most of you did. Yesterday, someone made me thought on Nadal speaking in English. Maybe his pronunciation is not the best in the world, but he does quite well. Federer as well -remember he's Swiss-. So, why not to improve our English by listening to them?

This entry is dedicated to my upside-down friend, san.

TO PRACTICE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS

It is important to practice your listening skills, especially those students who have to pass the exam in the Selectivity . Carla asked me about few links to practice, so I'll let you some of them in order for you to start

1. Agenda Web: Listenings with different levels

2. Different Links: Different places where you can go and practice

3. Isabel Pérez: a classical site to check everything you need

4. Yappr: A good site to learn and to listen to real English

5. English as a Second Language Podcast: lots and lots of podcasts

6. English Language Listening Laboratory Online: Several tests

7. Anna Morales' Blog: There are some very interesting links.

8. Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab: another classical site.

If you know any other interesting link, just let me know!!

MODAL VERBS

Modal Verbs

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: modals education)

This is the presentation for the grammar on this unit: Modal Verbs. Do not hesitate to leave a message if you have any doubt. I answer you as soon as I can!

AMERICAN vs. BRITISH ENGLISH

If you click here, you'll visit a treasure hunt about British vs. American English. Please answer the questions and leave a comment with your answers. Make sure you understand all the questions and that your answers have no grammatical mistakes. Please, leave the comments with your names (or your initials and your classroom) , so I can mark them after you finish the activity.

A BIT OF HUMOUR TO START THE YEAR

These are some of the problems of communication between Mr. Fawlty and his waiter Manuel -from Barcelona-. One of my favourite bits from this 70s series. A good way to start the classes again.