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!!!

Victoria Connelly's "A Weekend with Mr Darcy".

This is a great book to read during the holidays: nice, easy, comfortable and cozy if you are a fan of Jane Austen. This book is what they call "fan fiction", and this means that it is fiction based on the fiction of a very famous author, in this case Jane Austen which is one of the greatest female novelists in the United Kingdom. In this type of fiction, the novel recreates the characters or the places and what could have happened to them or has new characters who are fans of the books or the famous writer whose relationships depend on the fiction of the famous writer.
 This is the case of this book, it takes place during a Jane Austen weekend conference and two female characters who love Jane Austen's fiction and think about the world in terms of what  Austen's characters would do or say. Jane Austen is famous for being able to show how the society of her time (end of 18th century) acted and how the love relationships were established. She usually wrote happy endings though it took their time to the couple to eventually get to understand they were the right couple.
 Many films and books have been filmed and written after her work, to just get a glimpse of that, go to the Jane Austen Centre page. If you browse around the Austen world in the Internet, you find that there are still places in which there are recreations of the Regency period balls and manners, just have a look at the blog The Secret Dreamworld of a Jane Austen Fan. This is what Victoria Connelly also does in this novel, in fact, the book is part of a trilogy.
The truth is that, although I enjoyed the book, I do not think very highly of it, it is just (and that is a lot) a good romantic novel; the good thing is that I have started to feel like reading more of Jane Austen's novels (she only wrote six because she died very young), so I am going to start reading Persuasion.

Did you know Jane Austen? What do you think of "fan fiction"? Do you have a favourite writer or novel? Tell us about it!!!!

Xscape in Glasgow

This summer I went to Scotland, as many of you already know. It is a very special city, one of those in which you may think: "I would like to live here". It was a highly industrialized city and now it is changing its path. The town centre is really like a big shopping centre where you may find all of the main shops.

Learning vocabulary: Cooking with Jamie Oliver

In this unit, we are reviewing food and how to talk about it. We are also introducing the vocabulary you need to talk about the process of cooking (add, bake, boil, chop, fry, grate, grill, mix, peel, pour, put, season, slice  and wash).

 Many of these words appear on this video by Jamie Oliver, one of the most famous cooks in the UK at the moment. He has done many  TV programmes and is famous also for promoting quick healthy meals almost anyone can do in less than half an hour.

What verbs of the bold list does he actually say?

Do you think it is an easy dish to do? Would you like giving it a try?

If you want to read about how to talk about quantities and food go to this and this post.

Union Street by Pat Barker

I have just finished reading Union Street by the British author Pat Barker. She is very well-known for her trilogy on the effects of World War I, called Regeneration ( after one of the three books, the other two are called The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road), I strongly recommend these too. 

This is her first novel, published in 1982. The novel is set in Union Street, street home to the seven women who are the protagonists , neighbours, and each of them, name to the seven sections of the novel:

• Kelly Brown: preteenage girl who is raped.
• Joanne Wilson: factory worker pregnant before marriage to a boyfriend who would not marry her.
• Lisa Goddard: pregnant to her third unwanted child married to an alcoholic man that beats and steals her.
• Muriel Scaife: married to a young dying husband whom she loves.
• Iris King: mother to all of them,  has her own teenage daugter taken to get an abortion. As all mothers, is both loved and hated.
• Blonde Dinah: old prostitute.
• Alice Bell: 80-year-old lady who leaves her house on a winter day when she is about to be taken to an asylum for the sake of dignity.

As you can see, it is not light reading nor chick lit, the novel is set in a Northern British city during the miner's strike in the 1970s. It represents the harshness of life in a city beaten by poverty and unemployment. Through these women, she represents society and also how social hierarchy was established at the British homes at that time without victimizing. For me, it has been emotionally exhausting, because of the issues that it treats. Nevertheless, she is a great author and you should read her once in your life.

Did you know her?

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!!!!!

My first scones

Yesterday, as the long week-end we have enjoyed was coming to its end, I decided to try and cook something that I love since I went to Ireland. What you see in the photo is what they call scones and it is a bun half bread half sponge cake. They usually have it at tea time with jam or marmalade, but we also had it at pubs during lunch, accompanying their fantastic soups.

I followed this recipe I took from the BBC, and I must confess they don't taste like the ones I had in Ireland; even though it was eight years ago I can still remember their flavour. I think the problem is I didn't have self-raising flour so I used baking powder instead and I guess I didn't put enough quantity because the buns didn't raise, so they are a bit stale, too stiff to be eaten nicely : ( Though the flavour is Ok, and they look good, don't they?

Next time, I will try adding more baking powder or try to buy some self-raising flour!!! If they are good, I'll try the cheese scones!!

Have you ever tried scones? Did you like them?
Do you have a better recipe? If you do, please let me know!!!

Learning vocabulary: Jobs

British Council

One of the best ways to learn vocabulary is by using it in context. We have been talking about professions and the work clothes and the equipment required to perform the different tasks.

I find that this game by British Council , a non-profit organization to develop British culture and language around the world, is a great opportunity to put in practice all this new vocabulary. 

The game consists in "dressing" the character with the clothes according to the information given in the red square, we also have to guess the character's job. This part maybe a little easy for our 2nd year of ESO students, but they love it!! The second part, which is not so easy and we could add as follow-up in class or at home is that they write a little description similar to the ones in the games and their mates have to guess the job. 

You have many different ways to practice jobs online:

• English Exercises
• A crossword at Learn English.
• A multiple-choice game at Woodward English.

It is a great opportunity to put the vocabulary in context and develop writing, reading and listening skills. What do you think of this idea? Do you like it?

Do you have any ideas for follow-up activities?

Thanksgiving already!!!

A year ago, I started this blog with a post about Thanksgiving, one year later, I am still here trying to teach you and learn from you through your comments. In this video (first part of two; you can watch the second part when this one finishes), you can see Charlie Brown and his friends telling the story of the Mayflower and the first pilgrims.

As you already know (because you have read my first post), Thanksgiving takes place on the 4th Thursday every November and it is a holiday, which normally becomes long week-end and it is a very familiar celebration. It appears in many soap operas and TV series; you can watch  some "Thanksgiving dinners" in my favourite one: Friends (very funny!!) and in many others, choose your favourite and check out at YouTube.

Even though this is mainly an American celebration, the Black Friday tradition is getting to Spain, have a look at the leaflet I found today in my mail:

Can you tell me what is this tradition? You can check in the first post or at Wikipedia..

 Leave your comments!!!

5th November: The Gunpowder Plot

Blog de TIC en lenguas extranjeras

We have ben talking in our 1st Bachillerato class about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, we do not have much time in class so, for me, it is a great pleasure to see that the Blog de TIC en Lenguas Extranjeras, offers a great article by Mª Jesús in which she makes a link to a fantastic webquest that she has done called Bonfire Night. The Gunpowder Plot.

Guy Fawkes was the head of a catholic plot against king James I, the attempt was to explode the Houses of Parliament and have a catholic heir in James I's daughter, if you want to know more, do the webquest.

Go and have a look at the blog and the webquest I am talking about, then, come back and leave your comments!!!

The Beatles

Close your eyes and listen to the song. Have you ever heard  it? Yes! It's on TV! This is one of many of the songs that The Beatles sang; probably you have heard many more without knowing it.

The Beatles revolutioned the world with their music, but not only the music world, they influenced many other aspects of life, especially in the 1960s, that changed some of our world. To start with, apart from music, they created new styles in clothing and hairstyles: men had not worn long hair for a very, very long time. Something that they really changed was how people behaved at concerts, that is, the fan phenomenon started with them: many security and first-aid  people had to be hired because women shouted and did not want to sit down while listening (as they usually did in concerts before then) and many even fainted.

They were called Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon and started as a group in the British city of Liverpool before their twenties; the last one to come into the band was Ringo Starr. Each of them had a strong personality and lots of creativity, not only in the musical field, but also on other grounds. Together, they composed and sang up to 17 albums and featured in more than seven films. But when the 1960s ended, the band took separate ways too.

People were crazy about them, so crazy that one of them even killed John Lennon at the entrance of his house, next to Central Park where there is a mosaic ordered by her widow Yoko Ono, just across the street. I visited it this summer while in New York City, there was a rose on it; many people still remember not only John Lennon but all of the members of the band with real love. There is even a Beatles Day (10th July) which is celebrated  mostly in Liverpool and Hamburg -where the Beatles worked at the beginning of their career.

Do you know the ad I am talking about? Do you like the Beatles?
Tell us!! Leave your comments!!

Hahaha...Halloween!!!

All Famouse Wallpapers

Halloween has its origin in Ireland, it was a Celtic celebration of the end of the harvest time and the beginning of the winter, it was also thought to be the Day of the Dead, so people used to dress up to scare the ghosts and spirits. Nowadays, it has more to do with a children's holiday. Children and youngsters dress up in creepy, scary ways and go from home to home saying the famous "Trick-or-treat" and getting candies from strangers and neighbours. It used to be a celtic, then British and mostly American tradition, in these days, it has almost overcome the Catholic tradition of All Saints Day, even in the rest of the world.
 If  you want to learn more about this celebration, you can do so at History. If you want to practice some games or vocabulary, you have a great collection at the blog Think in English, and also at the British Council for kids page.

I want to thank my mate Carmen for all the information on Halloween she gave me. Thanks Carmen!!

Do you like Halloween? What do you do to celebrate?
Tell us!! Leave your comments!!

Tom Sharpe's Wilt

Lope de Vega's theatre in Seville

Yesterday I went to the theatre to watch Wilt, the crime of the inflatable doll, an adaptation on a novel by Tom Sharpe. Tom Sharpe happens to be one of the most humorous and funny British novelists. He is well-known for writing a series of novels whose protagonist is a burnt out teacher in his forties, Wilt, who is long-married to a woman, Eva, who is always scolding him. The turning point of the play, adapted from his novel by José Antonio Vitoria and Garbi Losada, is the fact that his wife meets a fake rich woman who makes her rethink her life with her husband, so she leaves with them for a few days. Meanwhile, Wilt, who is a bit fed up with his wife, decides to plan his wife murder and rehearses it with a life-size sex doll, someone sees him and he is accused of the killing of his wife. It is a hilarious comedy, we had three or four great guffaws and kept smiling throughout. There is even a film based on it.

I guess it also touched me how he is a teacher who is not happy with his job, I felt sadness for him and wished he learnt a way to enjoy his profession, even though his students did not care about the literature he was trying to teach them.

The actors and actresses were great; as you can see, we saw on stage: Ana Milán, Fernando Guillén Cuervo, Ángel de Andrés, Koldo Losada and Aitziber Garmendia, the last two play four roles each.

Have you read anything about this author?
Do you like going to the theatre?
Please leave your comments!!!

Bend it like Beckham: Watching a film in class.

 I want to recommend this film for educational purposes, Bend it like Beckham is a film which came out in the year 2002 by the female British director Gurinder Chadha. This film won some minor awards and was nominated for Best Film (musical or comedy) in the Golden Globes of the following year. Gurinder Chadha is of Indian origin and that background also appears in the film.

What is the plot of the film?

Jess (Parminder Nagra), a Hindi girl who lives with her parents and elder sister in London, loves playing football and is very good at it. During the process of engagement of her sister, her dream of becoming a professional footballer  (just like her admired Beckham) is about to be fulfillled. In the way, she finds problems because of the traditions and customs her family has about what a girl should be and act like. She finds herself in the middle of two worlds, her family's and the one her new friend Jules (Keira Knightley) and her trainer  (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) represent.

Why in a class?

There are many reasons to watch this film in a class, first of all, it is funny, students laugh while watching it, there's a love story and there is football too!! Also, the setting is London!! Besides, it is a good way to open up discussions about some topics we may come across in our classes, like:

1. Cultural contrasts.
2. Masculine and feminine roles in society.
3. Discrimination.
4. Parents-children relationships.
5. Effort enhancing.
6. Homosexuality.
7. Inmmigration.

Watching it in English?

I think that this film can be watched by students from 1st of ESO to 2nd of Bachillerato (if we had the time!!)  . Watching it in English in lower courses would be difficult because of the Hindi (especially) and British accents. With lower courses I recommend watching it in Spanish and may be taking only two or three scenes in English to work deeper with.

Have you seen this film? At school? Did you like it? Do you agree with me?

Leave your comments!!!

P.D. James after Jane Austen

One of my favourite English writers is called Jane Austen, she lived in England from 1775 to 1817 and wrote only 6 novels in her life: Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. She usually wrote about middle-high class families and most of her novels centre on the worry families have to marry women at that time. They are called novels of manners because they show the conventions of the society of the time.These novels usually have happy endings because the protagonist (female) gets to marry in the end.

Another of the greatest British writers, P.D. James has written a novel which continues the happy ending that Jane Austen gave to her novel Pride and Prejudice, one of her most famous due to the TV series featuring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, which appears constantly in the Bridget Jones' Diary. Even though P.D. James has continued in the mode of Jane Austen, she is a mystery writer and at the beginning of the book there is a murder which makes the complete happiness of the Darcy family tumble down.

I'm willing to get the book in English and read it,  you can read all the six novels by Jane Austen (you have a link in Pride and Prejudice) and I hope you enjoy them as I did; they also made me aware of how the life of women has been under male's control and determined by social conventions more than feelings or thoughts.

Have you read any of Jane Austen or P.D. James novels? Did youlike them?
 Leave your comments and tell us!!!

Olympic games in London 2012

from yo y mis circunstancias

The day before yesterday, the Olympic games came to a start with the ignition of the Olympic flame in a beautiful ceremony that you can watch at the BBC. It  is the starting point more than 70 days  before the London 2012 Olympic Games begin, and it is a way to link the ancient Olympic Games and the modern ones in a ceremony full of rituals.

Now the Olympic flame travels to England  where it will be fired on the opening celebration at the Olympic Stadium in London on the 27th July 2012, (unlike previous flames which went throughout the world, it will fly from Greece directly to England and will only go abroad to Ireland; this way, 95% of the British population would have been able to be just 10 miles away from it).

Believe it or not, the photo you can see with this post is (a joke-collage of) the Spanish official equipment.It was presented some time ago and designed by some Russian company who made it for free-as you can see!! Taking into account that we have very good fashion designers, I wish even a low-cost Spanish design company, such as Zara (who offered money to design it), would have done it; at least we would be laughed at ...consistently.

If you are willing to see the Olympic games, be it because you like sport  or because you want to see our sportspeople wearing these clothes, you can be informed of everything at the official website London 2012.

What do you think of "our uniform"? Do you like it? Would you wear it? Leave your comments and tell us!!

Black Comedy at Teatro Alcazar in Madrid.

Photo taken by Ana García

Last weekend I went to Madrid and I was lucky enough to get tickets for Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy. Peter Shaffer (1926-) is a British playwright and screenwriter especially famous for his plays Equus and Amadeus which were later made into films with his own help. Many of her works were represented for the first time at the National Theatre in London and in 2001 he became Sir Peter Shaffer.

The cast of the play was excellent, as you can see in the photo, and included Gabino Diego, Aurora Sánchez, Paco Churruca, Diego Molero, Ramón Merlo, Ana Arias and Eva Santolaria who did not act that night but was sitting in the stalls watching her mates.

Black Comedy is a very funny play, special for its lighting effects. Its name is a pun, that is, a play on words because it is about an electric short circuit and supposedly takes place in total darkness. There's only dim light when a match or lantern can be used by any of the characters. As the play starts, all the theatre is in total darkness and in complete normality. All of a sudden, the lights go out  and the stage gets well-illuminated though they act as if they were blind. 

Brindsley, a mediocre sculptor,  and his recent fiancée Carol are preparing a meeting with her father and a billionaire who is interested in some of his work and may buy something. Both are nervous and do not feel confident about Brindsley's furniture, so they have borrowed some from Harold, his art collector neighbour who is not at home. A variety of people come into scene: Miss Furnival, a funny neighbour who "does not drink alcohol" and profits from the situation; the operator of the London Electric Company, who is mistaken  by the millionaire because he knows about art; his former girl-friend,Clea, who wants to come back to him and, of course, Harold who comes before time unexpectedly and forces Brindsley to get his furniture back to his apartment at the same time as they are waiting for the billionaire.

It was an interesting and hilarious one-act play, we laughed a lot and had a look back at London in the seventies.

Do you know any of the actors or actresses? They have acted in some television series... If you recognize any, leave your comments and tell us!!!

Oxford or Cambridge?

http://theboatrace.org

We all know that these are the two most famous universities in England, very near one to the other and very beautiful both of them. Not only Oxford, but also Cambridge are not more than an hour and twenty minutes far from London, the capital city of the United Kingdom.

But today I'm not talking about these two wonderful British cities but of the legendary rowing race that takes place each year and that two crews from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford compete in since 1829, it is one of the oldest sports competition in the world. Many famous people have participated in the race, such as the well-known Dr House (Hugh Laurie) or the Winklevoss twins, who were the beginners of the idea of Facebook together with Zuckerberg.

This boat race is held on the river Thames in London every year (except for the first one) and there is a great excitement around it. Oxford has won 76 times and Cambridge 80. Many of my friends have rowed for many years, some of them are Spanish champions of their cattegories and I hope they like this post.

Which crew do you think will win today?
Leave your comments and tell me!!!


UPDATE:
Finally, after a disturbed race with a person in the river and a broken blade in the Oxford boat, too much for only 6.8 km!! Cambridge has won the 158th boat race!!!

April Fool's Day

Spaghetti harvest, 1957
projectbritain.com

April Fool's Day is celebrated in many countries in the world on the 1st of April every year. It is not a bank holiday but people are used to making jokes to relatives and friends. Also, the television and radio take part in this festivity making jokes to their audience. In 1957, the BBC explained how families in Switzerland picked spaghetti from the trees as you can see in the photo. If you want to see the complete video, you can.

What is its origin?
 The origin of this festivity is not really clear but it has its oringins in Roman times. Nevertheless, the closest to truth that we know may be related to the changing from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar which started in the 16th century but which, due to the bad communications system of the time, wasn't accepted in England until 1752. In the Julian calendar, New Year was celebrated on the 1st of April and in the Gregorian on the 1st of January. It seems that people who started celebrating it on the 1st of January laughed and played tricks on people who celebrated it on the 1st of April on this same day. Even though all of this, there are references to this celebration in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which dates back to the 14th Century!!!

If you want to learn more about this celebration, you can go here. Do we celebrate April Fool's Day in Spain? What date do we celebrate something similar? Leave your comments!!!

Eating disorders

(taken by Ana Gª)

We have started a unit related with eating disorders; in this unit, we are going to be dealing with anorexia and bulimia from a positive point of view, that is, we are going to keep in mind not only waht we should do to avoid these problems, but also to help people who may be suffering them.

These illnesses are related to self-image and self-esteem; they are relatively new illnesses and, even though they were only women patients at the beginning, more and more men are becoming ill of anorexia and bulimia.

Here is some information in English and in Spanish about how to have a healthy relationship with food and with our body. If you want to live well, you have to take care of your body, it's the only one we've got!!!

I hope this can help someone who needs it. If you want to, you can send a comment.