Don't be afraid of being who you are!

Today I am presenting you with a  new blog which will be written by my 1st Bachillerato students.
In your entries you have to look for one thing you are very good at or you think you may be good at and use that as a blog entry answering the question:

  What are you an expert in?

The blog post should be from 100 to 120 words, not longer and it should include:

1. When and how you discovered you were good at what you are talking about.
2. What you are doing now to get more experience in that field.
3. If you think you will be able to work on that and how do you see yourself in the future (relating to your expertise, not other things).

In this way, you will be able to use all of the issues that we have been working in class throughout the year, besides all your knowledge about editing a text in a blog. You should post it before the end of May and make use of an image or video which is appropriate with the topic you are dealing.

As always, you can ask me as many questions as you like via Twitter or leaving comments here or asking me in class. I hope we all like this experience!!

Don't be afraid of telling what you are good at!!

Learning vocabulary: Animals' descriptions

Knuthenborg Safaripark, Denmark

In order to improve our vocabulary, one of the best ways is to use new words or expressions in context. There are many activities to do so, I am going to present you one I like doing in my classes.

 When talking about animals, we can teach all the vocabulary related to where they live (geographical features, countries, continents...), what they eat (smaller animals, plants, insects...), the parts of their bodies (beak, tail, wings, legs, arms, feathers, fur, colours...), what they can or can not do (swim, jump, crawl, fly...), their colours and special features (endangered species, use for humans, superlatives ...) and then make our students use it in context.

 I really like to play guessing games with short descriptions of animals; that is, first you give them a model to write a short description of an animal. It is important to let them choose the animals. Then you give them some minutes to choose an animal and write down a short description following the model, then students read out loud and the rest guess the animals.

 

Model composition for oral expression game:

It is a/an (amphibian, mammal, bird, reptile, fish).

It is (colours) and it has got (parts of the body).

It lives in (place).

It can/ can not (verbs).

 

Do you know what is the name of the animal in the photo? Can you make a short description of it? Please try and send your description in a comment!!

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!!!