Christmas carol project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxKE308POP8

Ever Never Just For Since Still Already Yet

Helpdesk2den

My first of bachillerato students have asked me for a chart to have a clear view of the time expressions used with the present perfect tense. Here it goes:

	CONTEXT	SIGN	POSITION IN THE SENTENCE	MEANING IN SPANISH	Examples:
ALREADY	Affirmative sentences.	+	Before the past participle.	“ya”	The train has already arrived.
JUST	Affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences.	+, -, ?	Before the past participle.	“justo” (acabar de hacer algo)	I have just finished my work.
STILL	Affirmative and negative sentences.	+, -	Before the auxiliary verb	“aún, todavía”	Mary still hasn’t started eating.
YET	Negative sentences.	-	At the end of the sentence.	“todavía”	My dad hasn’t come yet.
YET	Interrogative sentences.	?	At the end of the sentence.	“aún”	Have you finished your homework yet.
EVER	Negative sentences.	-	Before the past participle.	“nunca”	I haven’t ever been there.
EVER	Interrogative sentences.	?	Before the past participle.	“alguna vez”	Have you ever been to Paris?
NEVER	Affirmative sentences.	+	Before the past participle.	“nunca”	I have never been there.
FOR+ period of time.	Affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences.	+, -, ?	At the end of the sentence.	“durante”	My sister has lived in Paris for two years.
SINCE+ point in time.	Affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences.	+, -, ?	At the end of the sentence.	“desde”	My sister has lived in Paris since 2015.

I hope it helps them to study better this unit.

There are some exercises they can do to practise this point:

• The British Council.
• All Things Grammar
• ESL Lounge.

Tell me what else do you need, and I will try to keep up. Cheers!!

The Ghost of the Green Lady

The Ghost of the Green Lady tells the  mysterious story of a teenager who goes to live and study at a boarding school and there is this legend about a Lady with a green glow that appears in the lake nearby. It is well written and keeps the attention up till the end.

This reader will help my students of 3rd of ESO develop their reading comprehension and improve their vocabulary. As a teacher, I really like Burlington Books readers because of the stories they choose -normally they are close to my students likes- and because of the materials they offer to the teachers. If you want to listen to the book as you read it, you can do it in this link to their page.

I hope my students like it and I hope you leave your comments if you have read it.

Reviewing the verbs "to be" and "have got"

My FPB students have learnt a lot from last year, more than they and me expected, especially in what refers to listening skills. But summer is very long, so they have forgotten quite most of the important forms of verbs and their use.

In order to review them, I have searched for videos I can use to revise these forms which are simple but are not on my own voice so that they get different voice listening practices. These exercises are quite simple but I want them to develop oral expressive skills.

Hope it does!!!

Malala

This is the speech Malala Yousafzai gave at the United Nations Youth Assembly in 2013. She was shot by the Taliban just because she wanted to study and is reknowned for being an education activist.

This is the topic used in one of the PAU English tests that we are going to start working in class, not only because my students will take a similar one at the end of the course, but also because they work on reading comprehension and writing compositions which are basic to develop a good level of English in a class of too many people.

We are going to start with a test based on Malala's speech. It is a very easy speech to understand, she speaks an almost perfect English with a lot of accent. In order to be able to understand the texts that appear in this type of tests, it is important to know the background of the text; that is, it is much easier to understand the text if we know about Malala and have heard her speech. 

There are many PAU tests on the Internet and many of them are solved, but remember, you won't have to take the one on the Internet so, they are good to practice the reading and writing skills, but not to memorise!!!

If you are one of my students of 2nd of Bachillerato, please leave a comment .

Halloween'14

I know it has been a very very very long time and I want to say thank you to the over four thousand people who still come back to this place even though there is nothing new in it. It has been a time of really hard work, but I am glad that it is work that is well done and starts to be seen.

This week we are going to celebrate Halloween and this year my courses need lower levels, so I am going to use this great page by English Exercises to learn new vocabulary and practice. Before that we will warm up with a great picture exercise at ESOL Courses and this great quiz from the BBC.

I hope it helps! Leave your comments and tell me!

Book Day 2014

Today we are celebrating the International Book Day. My students know that it is so because we also commemorate the death date of two of the greatest writers of all times: William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. We are also about to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth date and I came across this blog that shows how Shakespeare's Twitter would be today.

 I think that we have a lot of quotes and funny sentences that come from Shakespeare's works that fit into 140 characters, we can try and look for some. You can leave them in a comment and I will publish them in my Twitter account. 

Have you thought of any??If it is difficult for you to remember any, you can find Shakespeare's works online in English and in Spanish (for example, his sonnets). Have a look and choose your best!!!

Celebrating Easter in the first cycle of ESO

My first ESO students do not really know that Easter is not celebrated in all parts of the world in the same way. That is the reason why we are going to watch this great video to see the differences between Spain and the UK. Topics such as the Easter hunt, the Easter bunnies or the Easter eggs are unkown to our students, so we will be working on that through the use of different worksheets found in this page called Activity Village

I hope you all have a Happy Easter!!!

Learning about Jane Austen through the use of PBL

Jane Austen by people from 3rd ESO.

I have always loved the English language and especially reading in English; one of the things that normally stay out of the curricula is learning about literature in English and Project Based Learning offers us a great opportunity to learn about literature and keep track of the curricula at the same time.

My third of ESO students (congratulations to them) have been working for two weeks answering the question: What important literary figure is going to appear in 10 pounds notes from 2017? With a bit of motivation at the beginning and a good deal of work in investigation, writing and especially cooperation among themselves, we can see one of the examples of the great works they have done. For me, one of the most important things apart from the obvious is that they now know who Jane Austen is and what she is important for.

If you are a teacher and want to give an opportunity to this project, you can read it or download it at Scribd.

If you are one of my students, you can say what you liked about the project and what you did not like in a comment.

Present Perfect.

Last Wednesday, I wrote a post which contained a video, its title is  "Have you ever really loved a woman?" and I told you I would be writing on the present perfect soon, well, here it is. You can see the form of this tense in the picture above, it is really easy.

The use is said to be somewhat informal; basically, the action always starts in the past and has a strong relationship with the present, there are mainly three options:

1. the action is not finished, example: I have lived in Málaga all my life.
2. the action is finished but still has consequences in the present time, example: I have eaten too much. (My stomach aches).
3. the action finished recently, this tense used in combination with the adverb "just", example: I have just written my last post on the blog.

One of the main differences with the simple past is the fact that we do not usually mention a given time with the present perfect and, also, the action may be repeated. We normally use the present perfect with the time phrases that start with for and since. It is important to remember that we often use "been" as the past participle of the verb "go" when we are talking about past experiences with the present perfect.

If you want to practice this tense, have a look at this pages:

• On for and since: rules and exercise.
• On present perfect: Englisch-Hilfen, this one too.
• English on 2nd Language (explanation and one exercise)

I hope it helps, if you have any doubts remember you can always ask or comment!!

Have you ever really loved a woman? by Brian Adams

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I know that Women's Day was just a few days ago and I wanted to post this video and song in which Brian Adams sings about how to love a woman and I agree with him on most of what he says (lyrics in English and Spanish). I also like this video because we can also see and listen to the wonderful Spanish guitar "maestro" Paco de Lucía (RIP). The video was recorded in Málaga, very near to where I live.

It also uses the structucture "Have you ever + past participle?" that we are currently learning at the 3rd of ESO, so I did not want to miss the opportunity to use it as a preamble for my next (and I hope it comes soon) post of Present Perfect.

You might think I am being lazy because I haven't been writing on the blog lately, but I do have been blogging, you can check my Spanish and teacher education topics at Formación docente (fuera de horario), my other blog.

Do you like the song? and what do you think of the video? 

Typical Spanish, isn't it?

Just for fun