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 .

A FOREIGNER IN AUSTRALIA by Fiona Smith (Ed. Burlington Books)

Burlington Books

This reader is a good way to get to know Australian major touristic highlights through the eyes of two youngsters, one of them Spanish. In the book, we learn about a new form of volunteer work called Wwoofing (this organization also exists in Spain) and, in this way, the two teenagers are able to discover different places and people.

Places so different as Ayers Rock or the Great Barrier Reef or the Daintree Forest and towns such as Seal Rocks or Byron Bay and then, the capital city, Melbourne; apart from the native people, the Aborigines. This is a very special trip for its protagonists, who at the end of the book, decide to go further in their relationship. Will you read their next adventures?

You can listen to all the chapters at Burlington Books website.

So, do you have any questions? Have you already finished reading it? Tell us, did you like it?

Jack-o-Lantern

Picture by @AnaGarciaTeacha

Today, a great student from 1st Bachillerato  explained the story of the Jack-O-Lantern, that is the pumpkin that we carve at Halloween. She told us that it has to do with the story of a man who was very miser with money and used to drink a lot. He also played tricks on the devil and got his way on not giving his soul to the devil. When he died, he could not go to Heaven because he had not been a saint and he could not go to Hell because the devil had freed his soul, so he was condemned to wander around the world holding a lantern, which was a turnip with a burning coal from Hell.

This story was brought by the Irish to the USA, but the Americans thought that pumpkins were easier to find and to carve, so they started using and carving pumpkins to remember the story of this man.

"Filibustering" or "marathon speech" in the USA's senate.

The Guardian

"Filibuster" is a word that comes from Spanish and means "robber, pirate", but in the USA it has come to define a process that some politicians use to stop some Acts or Bills being passed or the naming of an important person in the country. This process or strategy consists of speaking for a really long time so that the decision has to be postponed for another session. They usually talk about nonsense or read books or even the Declaration of Independence!
President Obama is trying to set a health insurance system in the USA which reaches the majority of people, that is, more similar to the one we have here in Spain, and there is a part of the country, especially the Republicans, who think the system is not and is not going to work. This is the reason why Ted Cruz has been speaking for 21 hours. But there was a senator that talked for more than 24 hours, of course, other senators who think the same way help them asking long questions so that they can rest and breath.
Did you know about this?
Do you think this also happens in your own country?

Getting ready for September... before going on holidays.

Página Moodle del IES Tartessos

Before we go on holidays, I want to introduce you the new page that the English Department at the Moodle platform. My mates have been working hard to upload the activities you can do during the summer to review English and pass the exam in September. They have already uploaded activities for 1st and 2nd ESO (both at the 1st ESO section of Moodle, just follow the link on top). When you enter the page, you have to register to get access, but it is very simple and in Spanish!
If you want to know the dates of the exams in September, you can also have a look at them at the official website of IES Tartessos, you have a summary of the English dates, all of them on the 2nd September:

	1st language	2nd language
1st ESO	10h00	11h00
2nd ESO	11h00	10h00
3rd ESO	10h00	11h00
4th ESO	11h00	10h00
2ºPCPI	11h00	X
1st Bachillerato	8h00-9h45 (Hz 1&2)	9h45-11h30
2nd Bachillerato	9h45-11h30 (Hz 3&4)	X

All the ESO exams will last one hour and will be held in the SUM of the school. The bachillerato exams will last longer and will be held in Haza.

Bruno Mars: When I was your man

Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now

Our song on the radio but it don't sound the same

When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down

Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name

It all just sounds like oooooh…

CHORUS: 

Mmm, too young, too dumb to realize

That I should 've bought you flowers

And held your hand

Should 've gave you all my hours

When I had the chance

Take you to every party

Cause all you wanted to do was dance

Now my baby's dancing

But she's dancing with another man

My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways

Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life

Now I never, never get to clean up the mess I made, ohh…

And it haunts me every time I close my eyes

It all just sounds like oooooh…

CHORUS

Although it hurts

I'll be the first to say that I was wrong

Oh, I know I'm probably much too late

To try and apologize for my mistakes

But I just want you to know

I hope he buys you flowers

I hope he holds your hand

Gives you all his hours

When he has the chance

Take you to every party

Cause I remember how much you loved to dance

Do all the things I should 've done

When I was your man

Do all the things I should 've done

When I was your man

Preparing ourselves for the holidays... I chose this song by Bruno Mars which contains the perfect modal "should have" that makes part of the only unit we have not seen this year, you can learn more about modals in this post and enjoy this song as much as I do.

Do you like it?

What I call "TIMELINE" -guide on how to choose the correct verb tense.

When we write or speak, we use all the verb tenses, not one at a time. However, we tend to follow a coherent TIMELINE, that is, verbs that are at the same level of sentence organization, tend to have the same verb tense, unless there is a marker ( adverb, time complement...)

Issues to take into account:

• When we speak about general topics (which are the same in the past, present and future), we use the simple present.
• When we are talking about the time of speaking or an extended time of speaking (that is, not only now, but these six weeks in opposition to the next or past six weeks), we use the present continuous. Markers: now, right now, at the moment, this term, this year, this week...
• When we are talking about things that are finished in the past, we use the past simple. Also when we are talking about things that happened one after the other, or actions that interrupt another action in progress (this one in the past continuous) Markers: ago, last week, last year, in+year, in a time clause when the main clause is in the past coontinuous...When we are talking about simultaneous actions in the past, we use the past continuous, as well as if we want to describe a scene in a narration. We use the past perfect simple when we want to talk about something that happened before something else in the past. Markers: ever, never, already, just, still, yet, for and since, also with the first time... When we are talking about routines or habits in the past, we use the structure used to, we can also use the modal would if we talk about actions and not states. If the action we are talking about started in the past but is somehow related to the present we have to use the present perfect. Markers: already, just, still, yet...if we wan to emphasize the progress, we use the present perfect continuous.
• For the future, we also have several uses which you can see in this post.Markers: tomorrow, next week, next month

In order to practice all this, go to these places:

• Complete revision, tenses chart and exercises at English page
• .Exercise at Dave's Esl Café
• Verb tense quiz 1 and 2 at Efl.net

I think this is enough for the moment, remember, if you have any problems, you can always contact me, write  down your doubts while doing the exercises.

The passive for #Bachillerato

The passive from Ana Garcia

As I promised, here you have more information on "The passive". Links to the exercises you are waiting for are linked inside.

I hope it helps! Tell me if it does ;-D

Football vocabulary

British Council

We have already seen the difference between football and soccer in this blog. Today I present you with a great collection of games and exercises on football vocabulary. Many of my students are great football players so I recommend you to learn this new vocabulary on the field, the players, the clothes, the equipment, the vocabulary the referees use in the field, the one used by the supporters, cup competitions or even the English teams to which you may go in the future.

Do you like football? Then, give it a try!! ;-))

How would you travel around the world?

Forbes

These days we are reviewing the different means of transport. My mind flew back to the book Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. In this novel, Phileas Fogg takes a bet on travelling around the world in only 80 days at the end of the 19th century. Have you read this book?
I was wondering, how would this English gentleman do his trip nowadays? What countries would he visit? What forms of transport would he choose? How long would it take him to do this trip?
 I have a challenge for you: Imagine what his travelling plan would be and present it with a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation or, if you prefer, an infographic (you can do one with Piktochart) When you have done it, link it to Twitter and write my name @AnaGarciaTeacha in the tweet. I will choose the best and present them here in the blog. Remember to use the preposition "by"to introduce the means of transport and the different verbs that express movement in any of these transports.
 If you have any questions, do ask in the comments or in class. This hard work will be gratified in the final marks, of course.

Adverbs of degree

wordle

These adverbs are normally used to add some degree of emphasis to the adjectives, adverbs or verbs they accompany. They are usually placed before the main verb (and after the auxiliary verbs in complex tenses); however, some of them can be placed at the end of the sentence (you will find them underlined in the chart):

Small emphasis	A Little A bit Slightly
Medium emphasis	Rather(+ negative) Quite (+positive) Pretty (informal) Fairly (formal)
Greater emphasis	Extremely Completely Absolutely Really Very Totally

If you want to practise some exercises go to The Grammar Aquarium or AutoEnglish.org
What do you think of the post? Was it useful? 
Leave your comments!

Practising English with Apps 5: Irregular verbs Sergeev Sergey

Google Play Store

Today I want to present you another app related to the learning of the irregular verbs, I have thought that this one is better for students of Bachillerato, rather than the other one I presented which is for younger students, or even for adults who want to review them.

This app has a much more serious interface and many more verbs, we can start reviewing verbs right away or we can open the menu in which we have 4 possibilities:

1. Word groups: we can set the app to work on different types of groups of verbs in terms of difficulty or different  coincidences in the forms of the verbs.
2. Word list: you can choose the verbs you want to work on.
3. Preferences: you can set limits of time or number of questions and other settings.
4. Additional: here you find additional information on the author and about the paid version.

The dynamics is very simple, when you start, a verb in Spanish appears together with three gaps for the base, the simple past and the past participle forms; you can type directly the answers, however, you can also listen to it, choose from 4 different options or directly check the answer of a particular form. At the end, you are given a percentage of right answers.

What do you think of this app? Do you prefer this one or the other one (Irregular verbs 2)?

Leave a comment and tell us!

Practising English with Apps

Back to school with Friends!

I was thinking wether to write about the famous British rowing competition in which Oxford and Cambridge crews fight to win (this year Oxford won) or about tomorrow's celebration of April Fool's Day in the UK (always on 1st April).
However, as I wish my readers, mostly students, to get strenght to finish the course, I decided to include this video of my favourite TV comedy show, which, as you probably know, is Friends. There are 10 series with many episodes and it would be a hard task for me to choose one or other scene, so, I choose this compilation of bloopers.
A blooper, gag reel or outtake is a part of the recorded material which is not finally included and not normally shown on TV because it includes mistakes of the acting team or any other incident which makes it not appropriate to be broadcasted. Even though it is completely in English, most of them are easy to be laughed at and understandable.
Are you a Friends' fan like me? Did you like the video? 
Would you like to watch it in class?

How to improve listening comprehension

Oxford's Owl

These days, finishing the second term, we have been talking in class about how to improve the listening and reading comprehension skills. In order to improve listening, we have said that we could try to listen to songs in English, and, if possible, try to look for videos in the Internet (You Tube, Vimeo...) which have the subtitles of the song in English, so that we can sing at the same time that we read them. Another good way to improve both listening and reading comprehension is to read audio books in English, above you have a link to an ebook library which has free audio ebooks for native speakers of English starting with 3 or 4 years up to 9 to 11 years old. You will have a permanent link to this library at the bottom of the blog, as you can see in the picture.

Summing up:

• Listen to songs in English.
• Watch for English karaoke version videos.
• Read audiobooks while listening to them.

 Have you tried any of these? 

Future tenses for Bachillerato

What will the future bring?

As I see it, the present and the past belong to the level of reality, whereas the future is a much more diverse and loose time as it has never happened, that is, it does not belong to reality. This is the reason why I think Spanish speakers find it so hard to speak properly about the future in English, because it depends on what the speaker thinks and not a given time, with its corresponding time expression.

I'm going to try and simplify the different uses we see in 1st of Bachillerato with the corresponding tenses or modals used: 

Uses	Tense/Modal/Periphrasis	Form
Timetables&schedules	Present simple	V/Vs
Long-term predictions            Spontaneous decisions            Offers            Promises	Will	Will+infinitive (V)
Closed plans	Present continuous	To be+gerund (Ving)
Short-term predictions            Intentions	Be going to	Be going to+infinitive (V)
Action happening at a given time in the future	Future continuous	Will be+gerund (Ving)
Action finished at a given time in future	Future perfect	Will have+past participle (Ved)

If you want more practice on these uses, you can visit the following pages:

• Mixed future at English Exercises
• Future perfect at Englisch-Hilfen.
• Will vs. be going to at English Page.
•  Or many others at this blog by an English Teacher: El blog de Isabel Carballo

I hope this is helpful for you! 

Have a nice weekend!!

How to write a composition (basic guidelines)

The first draft of this post (Ph. by Ana García)

When writing a composition, we may feel scared of the blank paper, that is, a white paper in front of us which we have to fill with 100, probably 120 words. That is the reason why I always tell my students to write a draft beforehand. There are some questions that can help us get started on our composition:

• What is the composition about? What vocabulary will I need?  Do not hesitate, write down all the words or expressions you may remember on that topic, maybe you won't need them all, but you will be able to choose and have a more varied vocabulary.
• What time-line should I follow? Is it present, past or future, or maybe a mixture of all?  Try to figure out what the real time of the composition is, for instance, if you have to narrate something that has already happened, it will be in the past (past simple and continuous, past and present perfect, used to...); however, in the conclusion we may use a future (to say that we will never do something again because we have learnt from it). If possible, draw the time-line and remember the verb tenses and expressions used.
• How many paragraphs should I write? What should each one contain?   Depending on the type of text we are dealing with, we may use three or four paragraphs (probably not more if we have to write only 100-120 words). Normally texts have an introduction (1st paragraph), a body (1 or 2 paragraphs- like in "for and against" compositions) and a conclusion (last paragraph). In the introduction, the topic -person, action, setting- is presented. In the body, we find the more specific information, in "biographies" we normally find different events in a chronological order; in "for and against" compositions, we find one paragraph with reasons for the main topic and another one for reasons against the topic and so on. In the conclusion, you should support a decision for or against the topic or say why you have chosen a particular person, so as to round up the text. Take notes.

Now you have something on the paper, it is time to put it all together and start writing, that will be your first draft, once you have finished, I recommend you to:

• Read your composition slowly and look for grammar or vocabulary mistakes.
• Revise repetitions or redundancies, that is, you do not want to get less marks because you have repeated the same word once and again, look for a different one, you probably know it. Besides, if you have said the same thing twice, try to take it out, it will make your composition redundant and you will miss words to talk about something else which will make your composition richer.
• Try to add connectors, now that you have finished, see if you can make your composition more coherent with the help of connectors of addition, of sequence, of contrast, of reason, of result, of example, of purpose...

Now you are ready to rewrite it in a clean way and hand it in. Was this useful for you?

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend.

Burlington Books

This is an adaptation of the funny and entertaining novel by Sue Townsend, a British writer who knows and depicts very well the British society and institutions. Adrian Mole is one of her best known characters and has featured many of her novels. In this one, we learn to know him at the age of 13 and 3/4. It starts at the beginning of the year with his New Year Resolutions and a complicated family life.

I hope one of your New Year Resolutions is to read this short and funny book for your English class;  to get the most of it remember that you can download the mp3 recordings of the reading of the book at Burlington Books; you can also answer the questions at the end of the book and send here any comments or questions.

Happy New Year!!!!!

A narrative: James Blunt's Stay the Night.

We are already finishing the term, so we are going to relax a little with this song by James Blunt, a British singer and songwriter with a really special voice.  I have chosen this song because we have been treating past tenses (past simple, continuous, present and past perfect, would, used to...) to talk about narratives.

 It's 72 degrees outside, zero chance of rain

 It's been a perfect day 

We're all spinning on our heels, so far away from real In Californ-i-a  

We all watched the sunset from our car, we all took it in 

And by the time that it was dark, you and me had something, yeah! 

Chorus:

 And if this is what we've got, then what we've got is gold 

We're shining bright and I want you, I want you to know 

The moon is on it's way, our friends all say goodbye

 There's nowhere else to go, I hope that you'll stay the night 

 Wooooah, you'll stay the night, wooooah yeah 

 We've been singing Billie Jean 

Mixing vodka with caffeine 

We've got strangers stopping by 

And though you're out of tune 

Girl you blow my mind, you do

 And all I'll say is I don't wanna say good night and if there is no quiet corner to get to know each other then there's no hurry I'm a patient man

 As you'll discover, ah! 

CHORUS

Just like the song on my radio said, 

We'll share the shelter of my single bed

 But it's a different tune that's stuck in my head 

And it go o oes... 

CHORUS

First listen to the song and read the lyrics, then try to picture the time line, that is, try to figure out and tell me which actions happen first and which ones after and send me a comment. I hope you enjoy the song and the video with all its heat!!!

Improving reading comprehension in secondary education(ESL)

@AnaGarciaTeacha

We are having our Reading Comprehension tests next week, I know, it is such a pain!!! But I am going to give you some tips to work on them.

What should you do first?PREDICTING!!!
Have a look at the title and any pictures that accompany the text, also count the paragraphs. The title normally tells you the topic of the text, pictures give a lot of information which is not in English!!!! Each paragraphs brings up a new idea on the main topic. Now that you have some information, think about what ideas will come up and better than this, what words, expressions, even grammar and textual features...

What should you do next? UNDERSTANDING!!!
Read the text one paragraph by one and try to understand the main idea of each one and how it relates to the main topic (understanding a text has a lot to do with understanding what it is talking about, that is the world to which it makes reference). Don't worry about the words you don't understand, try to figure them out; two good ways are: trying to relate it to a word you know (whether in English or Spanish) or trying to fill the meaning gap - this can be fun, teachers should practise this in their classes more often. It is also important to take into account textual references such as those of personal pronouns and others.

What should you then? GET DOWN TO WORK!!!
Now it is time to read the exercise you have to do in order to show that you have understood. What do you have to do? There are different types of exercises which go from the fill-in gaps to the question answering or from multiple choice questions to finding synomyms or opposites... Depending on your level, your teacher will ask you to do different tasks. Many teachers ask students to answer questions, so it is important that you know your wh-words!!! Go back to the text and look for the information you need.

You can get deeper information on how to develop reading skills in your own language and others if you go to How to improve reading comprension. You have many corrected instances at English for Everyone.

Will you follow these tips? 

Fighting against gender violence.

Dragonslippers

Today is an important day, not only for woman, but also for men. For me, it is a day to be aware of what kind of relationships  we have with our partners and to weigh if it is a healthy one or not.

 The other day with my students when we were talking about gender violence, I told them that the first time he hits you, it is too late. Today, I am leaving you the link to a comic by Rosalind B. Penfold, a woman who went through the horror of an abuse relationship. Her way out was drawing this comic that she later made into a book. You have an excerp of it here, but you have the link to the complete comic where she talks about the signs that make you see that you can be in danger:

• He wants to go too fast.
• He makes you think being with him is more important than anything else.
• He makes plans for you without your agreement.
• He talks badly about your friends and family.
• He makes you feel less than others in public.
• He doesn't want you seeing anybody.
• He mistreats you and then quickly goes back to treating you too well.
• He abouses you and then makes as if it had never happened.
• He says your behaviour is your fault.
• He is too jealous.
• He wants to know everything you  do and where.

Please, have a look at the comic and take it into account!!!
If you want to learn more about the author, you can read an interview with her at El Mundo.
What are you going to do to balance gender roles today? Tell us!!!