Organising a fashion show (Learning clothes vocabulary)

Clothing Kid

One of the funniest ways to learn vocabulary is to use it in combination with the present continuous form of the verb "to wear" as if the students  in the class were in a fashion show, parents can also do this at home.

In this way , we would have a presenter or two who would say what their mates are wearing, "s/he is wearing..." or only presenting the models and have the models say: "I am wearing..." Remember to use the colours before the clothes items and, for higher levels, the clothes patterns.

It is also fun to prepare this fashion show; they have to decide what clothes would they wear, what the order of the models is, how long do these models have to be on stage... in this way, they use the second language for a communicative purpose and also develop other competences such as learning to learn, social competence, mathematical competence...

You can also find many worksheets and activities on the internet, I leave you some examples I have found which I think suit my students, but there are many more:

• Boggles Worl ESL to download directly in your computer.
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• Kids in English
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• My English Printables

Those of my students who send me a commentary describing the children in the picture, will get a reward, so leave your comments!!

School Holidays, a "For and Against Composition"

Many people think that students have too many vacations. It even seems that in Spain they are longer than in the rest of the world. But, should we have less holidays? Is it that the reason why our academic results are so bad in comparison to the rest of Europe?

On the one hand, we have 175 (secondary) to 180 (primary) school days, whereas in Finland, one of the countries that gets better academic results,or the United Kingdom, they only have ten more days. In France or the USA, the number is the same. However, there are countries where the number is much higher such as Germany (220) or Japan (240). 

On the other hand, I do think that, as a result of our climate and the underdeveloped infrastructures in our schools, we do not get a well-balanced calendar having too much time of recess in the summer because of high temperatures and very short periods of holidays during the course. Our  students are very tired  throughout the school year and tend to forget all they have learnt  in summer time.

Some people think that our educational system has to be changed, I agree with that. Nevertheless, I do not think it necessary to get more school days, I think it would be enough if we could just get a proportioned calendar.

What do you think? Leave your comments!!

WHITNEY HOUSTON

Whitney was born in New Jersey in 1963 in a family which promoted her passion for music, especially gospel music. At the age of 20, she was discovered by Clive Davis at a New York club where she was singing and treated her to sign a contract with Arista ( a records company) and she started to make albums which were very popular and sold very well.

She had great hits during her lifetime such as  "Saving All My Love for You", "The Greatest Love of All", "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", "I'm Every Woman" or "I Have Nothing" and "Run to You"... The list is so long, as is the list of the prizes received troughout the world and the number of albums sold. According to the Guinnes Book of World  Records, she is "the most awarded female artist of all time". She also tried her best as an actress with the films The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale or The Preacher's Wife.

Even though her singing and professional career was spectacular, her personal life was more troublesome. She married the also singer Bobbi Brown, who has had several problems with law, and had her only child, Bobbi Kristina. She died only a few days ago and was buried today at the age of 48. Rest in peace Whitney.

CHARLES DICKENS

If life lasted long enough, Charles Dickens would be 200 years old these days. I would like to pay a little homage to this great Victorian author in the second hundred anniversary of his birth.

He was born Charles John Huffan Dickens on the 17th February 1812 in Porstmouth, Hampshire and went to live in London at the age of 10. In the times of the industrial revolution and eldest son to a difficult father who went to prison, he was one of the children who worked hard under hard conditions in one of those new factories that started to develop in Britain at the time. He described these harsh conditions and I think he would be shocked to learn that they continue still two centuries after his death.

A multifaceted married man, throughout his life was actor, parliamentary and newspaper reporter apart from his works as a writer. He wrote in installments some of his most popular novels such as Oliver Twist, he wrote a lot of novels like Christmas Carols, David Copperfield, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations in which he depicts the Victorian times with strong realism.

You can also visit where he lived in London

The weather

Copy of The weather on Prezi

As you know, weather in England is very variable, it changes all the time, and English people love talking about these changes...that is the reason why we are always studying the weather!!!

For my students of st and 2nd of ESO, I have been experimenting with this new tool to make presentations called PREZI. I hope it helps you to revise the weather, you can also revise it at The Yellow Pencil. I'm coming back soon!!!

More games from the British Council

DAN BROWN'S THE LOST SYMBOL

I have just finished reading this long, long book (almost 700 pages) and I would like to write a little about it so that you can comment it with me.

 In the first part of the novel, we are introduced to the new characters (for this is part of a saga) and the magnificent scenery, Washington D.C. The beginning of the book pulls us into a world of intrigue and curiosity, setting the scene for what is about to happen: a vibrating, action-packed set of actions that evolve one into the next without giving us the time to breath, that is, to put down the book. Then, several adventures take place at the same time regarding the different characters in totally different places and fields of the story: science, hackers, the CIA and so on.

At the end of the novel when all the pressure has been released, this  well-known and best-selling American writer tries to give unity and truthfulness to what has been explained through the book about the masons and the  lost symbol not very convincingly from my point of view.

I enjoyed the reading even though I was a bit disappointed at the end, but there are two things I would like to point out from this book: the first one is its high filmability, that is, the capacity of this novel to be made into a film; and the second one is a quote about knowledge that I share with the author and hope my students will also share. It is on page 420 on my edition (Corgi Books, 2010) and says: "Knowledge grows exponentially. The more we know, the greater our ability to learn and the faster we expand our knowledge base".

To learn more about the symbology of the novel or what surrounds the book, you can have a look at Dan Brown's official site

CERVANTES MEETS SHAKESPEARE by Ramón Ybarra Rubio (Ed. Burlington Books)

In this book, an American girl moves to the UK and starts learning about Cervantes and Shakespeare to find out that they will be her guides to adapting herself to her new life by appearances through which they will give her interesting and useful tips making use of their own experiences in life.

Throughout the book we will also learn about how it is sometimes difficult to adapt to new circumstances and also about how important writers made their living in the 16th century, besides learning about the historical background of the time and puritanism in England.

You can get the audio to listen to this book as you read it at the Burlington Books website.

MULTICULTURALISM

We are dealing with multiculturalism as well as immigration in class these days. As we all know, immigration has been a powerful force to help raise countries such as the United States of America or  Germany, here in Europe. Spain has also been a receiver of immigrants, in addition to being a source of  immigrants to many other countries in South America and , more recently, to Germany or other European countries as well.

As we have also seen in class, American immigrants arrived to this island called Ellis Island at which you can have a curious look here. I have chosen this part of the film Hitch because it is really hilarious; Will Smith (Hitch) and Eva Mendes (Sara Melas) are having a look at the original document in which the landers on Ellis Island had to register to get into the USA. If you haven't watched the film, I recommend it to you, I think you can have a great time.

I have used several connectors of additon and example, if you spot them, send me a comment please!!

THE IRON LADY

Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925, from a worker's family. She started quite soon in politics and was the first and only female candidate in 1952's general elections. She first became a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1959 and continued to be so for most of her life.

Her first really important job in UK' s political sphere was Education Secretary from 1970 to 1974 when she became the leader of the opposition from 1975 to 1979, and then, she became the first female Prime Minister (PM) of the UK.

She had to deal with many problems such as inflation and unemployment and also with the problem of Europe (belonging to the European Community or not); and due to the harsh treatment she gave to these and other issues, she won the nickname of  Iron Lady.


She continued for a long time to be an active politician and someone important in British society, nowadays she is again in the news thanks to the film première about her in which the American actress Meryl Streep plays her role.

If  you go and watch the film, don't forget to tell me about it!!

A SENSE OF DANGER by Tracy Simmonds (Ed. Burlington Books)

( Burlington Books)

This reader by Tracy Simmonds is an interesting story about a pair of Australian teenage twins that have to move to Spain because of their father's job. They don't know how to speak Spanish and they haven't got any friends in Spain. 

When they get to Spain, there is a mistery related to their father's job that they have to solve. Jonathan has special mental powers and always feels a sense of danger. Jody falls in love with a handsome Spaniard. Mistery and love at the Fallas in Valencia, I hope you like it.

You can download the complete reading aloud of the pages of this book at the Burlington Books' Student's Zone.

You can also tells us what you think about the book. LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS!!

THE WANTED "Glad You Came"

For me, literature is important, I studied it for five years at university and love reading literature. We sometimes have a strange image of what literature is, as something boring or obscure. But the truth is that literature is a form of  art, and therefore, should make us feel better.

WHY HAVE I CHOSEN THIS SONG?
I think literature surrounds us, while I was listening to this song, I thought, "I like the rhythm, I feel like dancing", but when I listened to the lyrics it struck me that they have a strong and powerful literary device called anadiplosis.

WHAT IS ANADIPLOSIS?
According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, it is a device in which the last word or phrase of one clause, sentence or line is repeated at the beginning of the next. We can find it in several poems but also in the chorus of this song :

Turn the lights out nowNow I'll take you by the handHand you another drinkDrink it if you canCan you spend a little time,Time is slipping away,Away from us so stay,Stay with me I can make,Make you glad you came.
If you want to learn more about this British group, you can find more information at their official website.

The Borrowers by Mary Norton (Ed. Burlington Books)

Ed. Burlington Books

In the second term, we are going to read this book about a small family of three little people who live in a big house which doesn't belong to them and they take what they need from it, that is, they "borrow" things.

At Burlington Books Online, you can find a set of activities and games to review what you have read and also the complete listenings of the chapters in the book. You have to download and execute the link in Activities.