Christmas rap

A group of students from 3rd ESO has created a Christmas rap. This is what we did:

First of all, we translated the Christmas Catalan song: "Hi ha d'haver un caganer", then we chose a few lines from the resulting song and we finally sang them along. We used the app Smule AutoRap to remix the lyrics with the melody of Ganghan Style. 

The final tune is a bit crazy, especially since we had to translate the word Caganer in English, a term not always easy to explain.

Anyway, here we share the hit, hope you like it, or at least makes you laugh ;-)

Christmas Deco

Here we have all the deco we've been making in class to wish you all Merry Christmas 2014 and a 2015 full of happiness.

Jingle Bells rap!

We've been trying to create a Christmas rap in class with the 3rd-ESO students and tomorrow will be the day we're going to record it. We'll share it with all of you very soon. Meanwhile, here's an English teacher who uses rap to teach the language as well as to wish Merry Christmas!

Advent Calendar 2014

A new edition of the ESL Advent Calendar is here! We'd better start today!!

Christmas deco

You know how important is for people in USA and UK to have their homes and work places decorated for Christmas. Everybody gets involved in the process and helps to make the season the most special one. We are going to decorate our classrooms and school soon.

Here are some ideas you can borrow to get inspiration from! Be creative and have fun ;-)

Follow Monica Vallin's board Christmas stuff on Pinterest.

The Scarlet Letter

These days we’re working the universal literary masterpiece The Scarlet Letter created by the north American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here’s a word cloud resulting from this famous novel. In class we’re going to talk about the main ideas you’ve come up after reading the story and these words might help us.

Wishing you well!

Before we started Christmas holidays the students from SO2n created what we called "Wish Trees". We cut out coloured cardboard strips and we wrote a general wish on the front side, on the back we wrote a more personal wish and a resolution for the New Year! Here's is the result.

Dragons don't write, knights do!

Here I leave the presentation we saw in class to get ready for the writing task. Remember the deadline to hand in the assignment, through the online platform, is on December 3rd.

Dragons don't write, knights do! from Mon Vall

A special Advent calendar!

According to Wikipedia ''an Advent calendar is a special calendar used to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas. The days often overlap with the Christian season of Advent.'' The typical calendars we have at home are the ones where we find a message o a chocolate when its windows are opened.

This time I share with you the ESL Advent Calendar 2013, from which you'll be able to practice English by discovering one activity each day!

Click onto the image to get started!

Let's voki again!

This is the fourth year students from the speaking course use voki to introduce themselves! Here's the result, hope you like them!



  

Don't forget we all have a brain!

Source: Google images

You have just read a text about the memory capacity of the human brain and we have worked some vocabulary around this topic. This theme is very interesting, there are numerous studies going on about it in order to try to understand and explain the complexity of the human brain.

Some time ago there was a piece of surprising news about Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic man who has an incredible ability to draw buildings in specific and accurate detail after seeing them just once. In fact, some scientists think they have identified the part of the brain, which if switched off, can stimulate artistic genius.

Watch this amazing case (click the link below the image).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8327199.stm

You can now work some idioms on memory here and when you are ready, do the quiz.

The importance of using a proper punctuation.

Using punctuation correctly makes your writing easier for the reader to understand. Proper punctuation is essential in written English to enable the reader to understand what it is you are trying to say. Spacing with punctuation is also important to make your writing readable. Here you have a couple of links that can help you understand the English punctuation rules.

Simple Punctuation Guide: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/punctuationtext.htm

Punctuation game (for the playful ones): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english/spelling_grammar/punctuation/play/

My favourite punctuation mark is the semicolon. What is yours? Click the link below the image if you want to start using the semicolon properly. 

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

And if you want to practise before you start writing your essays and stories, here’s an interesting page that can help you.

More tales from Shakespeare's (resources)

These are the four adapted plays by Shakespeare we have read and talked about in class. I have included their key themes.

Hamlet:

Hesitation, Corruption, Revenge, Deception, Ambition, Loyalty, Serendipity, Madness

Othello:

Appearance vs reality, All things are not what they seem, Jealousy, Hatred, True love.

Romeo and Juliet:

Love, Tragedy, Judgement, Conflict, Fate.

King Lear:

Suffering can transform a contemptible human being into a good person, All things are not as they appear, Green and lust, Fate, Power.

There are plenty of summaries and resources you can have a look at on the internet, but the best way to get to know Shakespeare’s work is to do your own outlines and work the vocabulary to understand the stories.

Here you have the links to the plays by The Reduced Shakespeare Company for a laugh J

Romeo and Juliet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVyqiskpMk&feature=related

Othello: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC-f0drvdmM

Hamlet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvPdWcCHkxM&feature=related

About King Lear I have found Act 5 Scene 3, when the King realises how wrong he was, by the Royal Shakespeare Company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvA_gUDGKik&feature=relmfu

Remember you should rewatch the video about Shakespeare’s biography to understand his historical and personal background:

You have here another shorter video about the Elizabethan age:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=h24zZETMzR8&NR=1

Do you like maga comics? Well, here you have the summaries (PDF) of the plays in manga version:

Hamlet: http://www.mangashakespeare.com/synopsis/HAMLET_plot_summary.pdf

Romeo and Juliet: http://www.mangashakespeare.com/synopsis/ROMEO&JULIET_plot_summary.pdf

Othello: http://www.mangashakespeare.com/synopsis/OTHELLO_plot_summary.pdf

King Lear: http://www.mangashakespeare.com/synopsis/KING_LEAR_plot_summary.pdf

These resources are meant to help you, I hope they help you, but it is you who must decide which are useful. Feel free to look for other links or options to prepare the test.

#Dickens2012

Charles Dickens was born in England on 7 February 1812, so there are already numerous international celebrations going on to commemorate the event.

We’ll do our bit by tweeting a quote of the author or info about his biography. The activity is very simple. You just have to surf on the net to find a short quote or some facts about the universal writer, you can also post a photo or image, or ever better, why don't you do the three options?

Iknow, you won’t, but don’t forget to bring your smartphones to class on tuesday! And have your tweets ready to post!! We'll display all our tweets in cool way! I hope you like the surprise!

We’ll include the hashtags #Dickens2012 and #tmeng to our tweets. Here you have three examples of possible tweets:

Short history of our calendar!

It's the year 2012. We started a new century and a new millennium not long ago. We can't even imagine what the next thousand years will bring, but if the last twelve years are any guide, the rest of the third millennium will hold changes and hopefully wonders!!

We often depend on the calendar to plan our daily routines. We also use it to plan our future: work, meetings, appointments, holidays, birthdays and all of the other events in life. Most of us write them in our diaries so that we won't forget.

Here’s a video of a short history of the modern calendar that explains in a graphic way the origins of our system of organizing our schedule in days, weeks, months and years.

Happy 2012!

Nice message for this still baby year!! Happy 2012 2U all ㋡

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You're simply the best!

This week I’ve been showing all the class groups the Cadbury viral campaign to support British athletes in the Olimpic Games held in London next summer. This time swimmer Rebecca Adlington is swimming while a few stereotyped characters sing the great Tina Turner’s song "You’re Simply the Best" under the water: there are workmen, a royal guard, a dinner lady, a butcher, a uniformed boy, a shepherd ... as well as an eccentric pop group.

This video is part of the campaign which encourages Britons to record their own words of encouragement. You can find all the details clicking here. They have not needed to include their brand’s name, there’s just a touch of purple throughout the ad, a very subtle and elegant way of getting publicity

The video is indeed encouraging and spreads positivism. I hope all of you get infected by this cheerfulness and think that you can also be the best. Enjoy it!

Halloween's here!

Today’s a great day in USA, Britain and other countries around the world. Halloween (a contraction of All-Hallows-Even) is celebrated. So here I’m sharing all the activities that we did in some classes at the end of the week.

First of all we watched a video where the origin and symbols of this holiday were explained. We also did the quiz at the end of it.

Then, we started the activity we liked best: making ourselves a monster with an awesome tool I found on Twitter:

http://www.getgrossedout

There are hundreds of amusing Halloween activities and videos on the web! It’s a pity we didn’t have much time to devote to this festivity. I’d like to share with you a video about the art of carving pumpkins I found at geek's room.

And finally, do you want to play with pumpkins? Click here and have fun!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Are the English aliens?

We’ve been working stereotypes in class. What ideas or things first come to your mind when you think of English culture or the English? Here are a few that students mentioned:

- Tea.

- Sarcasm (a particular sense of humour).

- Red double-decker buses.

- Red phone boxes.

- Big breakfasts.

- Different timetables (early suppers, continuous school days).

- Fish and chips.

- The Beatles (and all the English pop groups).

- Pubs.

- Beer.

- The Queen and Royal Family.

- James Bond.

- Mini, Aston Martin (cars design).

- Hats and the peculiar English fashion.

- Packed lunches at school.

- Bad weather.

- Driving on the left.

To complete the activity we’re going to work the Sting’s song “Englishman in New York”. First listen to the song and do the vocabulary and grammar activities enclosed on the following page: Sting – Englishman In New York

You can also play karaoke and work the spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation going to: http://www.lyricstraining.com/play/7924/sting/englishman_in_new_york

SING, LEARN AND HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND ;-)

Steve Jobs tells students three stories.

By now, all of you have heard about Steve Jobs’s death last week. And perhaps some of you have also seen the Commencement speech he gave at Stanford University in 2005. We watched it at the speaking class on Thursday and the small group of students seemed very interested in it, so here I embed the two parts of his message to the new graduates of the American University. He explains three stories that marked his intense life in one way or another. It is worth listening to a man who made such an impact in our everyday lives.