Holidays, at last!!!

On my way to work

This is a photo taken in a hurry from my car this morning, I had seen the rainbow as soon as I left Seville heading to the village where I work every day. As you can see, the sky was very dark, grey and brownish blue; it almost hided a beautiful rainbow. It made me smile.

Even though I was really happy to go to work because it is the last day before our little break for the Holy Week -and I reeeeeally need to rest a little, I do need this break. I am also a little sad because it seems that it is going to rain during this week. You may think it is not that awful, just a little rain, but the truth is that if it rains many of the events happening during this week in my city, Seville, cannot happen: during the Holy Week (starting on Palm Sunday, 24th March this year and finishing the next Sunday, 31st March), the life of Jesus Christ is represented  on top of beautifully carved wooden structures (pasos) held by men who carry hundreds of kilos on top of the backs of their necks. Besides, magnificently dressed Virgin Marys accompany their child on top of another structures usually surrounded by candles and flowers that fill our streets with wonderful scents. These "pasos" are accompanied by hundreds, if not thousands, of people; some of them belong to the brotherhood that takes care of the images, many other accompany them, sometimes in religious or artistic fervour, others just to enjoy the ambience and get hooked on the beauty of the images mixed with the smells and the magnificent music of the walking orchestras. 

I hope it did not rain... 

I want to seize this opportunity and invite all the people who read this blog from all parts of the world, to come and visit Seville, this is the best time of the year to do so. To my students, get a little rest too, you are going to need it to finish the course!!! Have a nice holiday!!

MODEL COMPOSITION: Describing a place - SEVILLA

sevilla.org

We are starting to make compositions in 1st of Bachillerato classes and, one of  the first things we do, is organising the information into paragraphs. In order to write a composition describing a place, we have said that we are going to use three paragraphs: introduction, body and conclusion. 

In the introduction, we are going to include the information related to the name of the place, its location and its population, besides from saying why we have chosen to write about that place if we have been given the opportunity to choose. In the body, we can write about many things, mainly the history of its people, their way of life, sightseeing highlights, activities that can be done  particularly in that place and any other thing that we would like to write about. In the last paragraph, we should write about our personal opinion and we could also add a recommendation to visit the place with the reasons to do so.

An example composition about Seville, our city:

Seville is one of the biggest cities in Andalucia, the south of Spain. Its population is of about 700,000 inhabitants.

Seville has been a city for a long time, and many different peoples have lived here, such as the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Moors among others. All these peoples have left many remains of their living here, so we have a great historic city centre with the Cathedral and  the Alcázar, which are part of UNESCO's World Heritage.  Seville is also famous for its impressive Holy Week processions and fantastic April's Fair. Sevillians are people who are used to enjoying life and love doing so in the streets of their magnificent city.

Seville is a great city to visit and walk all year long except for the summer, come and enjoy it.

This composition has got 133 words, which is 13 words more than what we usually ask for (100-120 words); this can be used as a model for you (both students and teachers). Try to get some information about the place before writing and do not copy directly from the source (internet, books...), allow yourself a little time between the reading and the actual writing.

I hope this is helpful for you. Please write comments if it is!!!