Earth Day 2013

Yesterday, I watched this film on TV. It is called "Ultimátum a la Tierra" in Spanish. It is a science-fiction film in which an alien comes to the Earth to tell us that we should take better care of it because we are about to destroy it.

It is an American film, of course, but  I think we should rethink about what we are doing to our planet and I think young people have the key to make things better. So, as I am in a challenging mood, I throw you another one (this one is easier), all you have to do is finish the following sentence with possible solutions:

If I could heal the world, I would...

With all the answers here in the blog and in Twitter, I will try to make a digital poster in Glogster or any other, I admit suggestions ;-)

Earth Day 2012

Simple past and Shrek

In order to practice the simple past, we are going to listen to and sing this song which appears in the film Shrek. It is a very good song because you see many past forms and also the past of can, the modal verb could. 

I am going to write here the lyrics to have them at hand and work with them in class, but the best part of this lesson is that you get to sing a very funny song:

I thought love was

Only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else
But not for me
Love was out to get to me
That's the way it seems
Disappointment haunted
All my dreams

Look well for your Valentine!!!

Tomorrow is the 14th February, Saint Valentine's Day. I like to use this date to remind my students how important it is to recognise if our love mates and us make a healthy couple. Since many of them are starting to be in relationships, I would like them to think about what roles each of them have and how this affects the couple and will affect their future lives.

There is a very good guide by an expert called Juan Ignacio Paz Rodríguez called Relaciones y Parejas Saludables. 

I hope you all have a Happy Valentine Day!!!

Past simple: the beginning.

This week we are starting with the past. We use the simple past mainly to talk about things that happened in the past and are finished, that is, for narratives. We will  only be working on the affirmative form of the simple past of both regular and irregular verbs. When talking about the simple past in English, it is important to highlight the fact that there is only one form, no matter what the subject is.

Students find it more complicated to learn the irregular form of verbs, but for me, it is also important to be able to learn how to pronounce the regular verbs' suffix  -ed (or other spelling counterparts such as -ied - for words ending in consonant+y, -d -for words ending already in -e, or double consonant+ed - in words mostly of one syllable ending in short vowel and consonant). I like this video very much because it explains it very well.
At the MacMillan dictionary website, you can find their brilliant MacMillan irregular verbs learning wheel, to practise all irregular verbs in all their forms.
You can also practise them at Verbbusters, choosing your own level.
This is a nice game which we will play in the class, if you want to pratice it at home, you will win when the time comes. This one is a domino: Kubbu.
If you have any questions, I hope you leave a comment!!

Sergio Ramos, olé!!

I want to wish my students and all the people who read the blog a  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with  Sergio Ramos' video and I have some good reasons to do so. I know many people are laughing at it because his English is not perfect, but I want to highlight how brave and generous he is.

He wishes the Christmas to all the children of the Real Madrid Fundation school, he says:

"Hi, I hope you all had a good time playing football at the Real Madrid Fundation school. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"

He does it in a way that all the people can understand him. When we talked about the video in class, some students said that he should not have done it, that someone else should. I told them I did not agree, I think a language is to communicate with people and he achieves that, I always encourage my students to talk even though they do not do it perfectly, that is the only way to get better; as Einstein would say:

"It is not that I am so smart, it is just that I stay with problems longer"

I encourage you to keep trying and you will get better.
Merry Christmas and A 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!!!

Modern Classics: The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are a Californian group that started back in the 19690s. They are famous for being one of the first rock vocal groups. They talked in their lyrics about the beach, surfing and having fun, so their songs made people have a good time and forget about their problems. Just like the Beatles, they are part of those modern classics that changed music into what it is today.

They were so famous at their time that groups were created in Spain to sing their songs in Spanish, these are called tribute bands, such as The Summer Boys. They even have their own official fansite in Spain called The Beach Boys Spain. The Beach Boys are actually celebrating their 50th anniversary singing on tour.

Did you know them? Do you like them? 

Beginning the summer holidays...

The summer holidays are here!!! Even though many of you will be resting yourselves right now, the human being gets tired of everything (I think that is why our civilization has developed so far...) Therefore, although I know that these days you are all doing what Bruno Mars in his The Lazy Song, I'm going to leave you some recommendations to keep up with English during the holidays:

• Follow me in the blog, of course!!! (Even though I may be off  for some days, I need a  rest after the course). I will be posting if it is possible from Canada and New York and will be telling you what I see, so you review your English and increase your culture!!
• Listen to songs in English reading the lyrics at the same time. I know you like Maxima FM a lot, but they don't play much music in English, try others such as Kiss FM and Los Cuarenta.
• Try to watch the TV in English, it is possible now with the TDT; it is difficult at the beginning, but try to stay at least 15 minutes, then you will start getting used to it, maybe watch a TV series you have already watched?
• Many tourists come to where you live or the beach you go to, it is a good idea to meet new people and practice your English at the same time.
• On the internet, you can play funny and interesting games (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation...) at ESL Games World.

I'm sure there are many other things you can do - read books in English (comics if you prefer) or practice the exercises we have seen in class- but I think this is enough;  if you have interesting ideas,
 leave them in a comment!

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!!!

Organising a make-up show.

Mac Cosmetics

The majority of the girls like to make up, the majority of the boys hate waiting while the girls are making up...
In the same way that we have organised a fashion show, it occured to me that a good way to practise  colours and  parts of the face could be to organise a make up show in which boys could be the make-up artists and girls their models; in this way, we could teach them several issues that have to do not only with grammar (present continuous and "going to" for plans, adjectives before nouns...) and vocabulary, but also with education on values.

What values can we promote with this activity?
We can teach girls to make up in a more natural way, help them with their self-esteem besides working on inner beauty as well. We can teach the boys patience and understanding for the girls.
Moreover, we can give a second turn and change roles so that all of them are also made-up in different forms, such as tigers, dinousaurs, skulls, butterflies and so on. Doing so, sympathetic values would emerge.

You can teach students how to paint their faces at the YouTube channel called Face Painting with Karina.

If you want to practise a little more your present continuous, go to Tolearnenglish.com.

What do you think of this idea? Would your class like a make-up session just for a day?
Leave your comments and tell us!!

What a wonderful world!!

Many people celebrate Earth Day on the 21st of March and many others celebrate it on the 22nd of April. It's a day to think about what we are doing with our planet, our home. My friend Ricardo sent me this beautiful video from the BBC and I wanted to share it with all of you.

In this video by Sir David Attenborough, a great British naturalist like other naturalists such as Jacques Cousteau or Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente, who made people aware of nature conservation a long time ago; we can see the amazing beauty of our world. We should never forget how it is and try our best at maintaining it just as magnificently as we can see it in the video.

What can we do to maintain the world in "good shape"? We can do things at home that will really make a change. You can get some ideas here. For example, if you close the tap while you are brushing your teeth, you will be helping our planet. 

Can you write one conditional to help  our planet?

COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME, give it a try!!

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!!!

ADELE: Someone like you.

Adele is a great British singer and song-writer.Born in Tottenham (north of London) lived with her young mother alone. She had a talented voice since she was very young and, even though her economic circunstances were not very good, she went to the Brit School for Performing Arts & Technology. She was discovered by a record company because a friend of her posted a demo by her on MySpace.

I like this song very much and I think that this video is perfect for class use. First, the lyrics can be seen paying attention to the tenses or even filling gaps to use the different tenses (present simple, past simple, past perfect, "will"  future, and also, the imperative or conditional); there are many different tenses and also time lines can be used to explain time referencies and how they are organised in a text. As the video also has the lyrics on, we can enjoy a karaoke version with the whole class or even have the class divided and make competitions between the two groups!!

If you want to know more about Adele, visit her official website.

What do you think? Do you have any other ideas?

Please, leave your comments!!!