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.

Teacher's Appreciation Day in USA

My notebook By Ana García

In the USA, they celebrate a whole week to ackowledge their teacher's work. It is called Teacher's Appreciation Week and the first Tuesday of a full week in May, they celebrate their National Teacher's Day.  They have a hashtag to thank a teacher that you want to say Thank You #ThankATeacher. I have had many English teachers I could say thank you to, I remember deeply my primary teachers (also the English one, who would be with us for two hours per week, not more). But I remember a lot my Spanish Literature teacher, Rosario Carreras, who made me read many books and developed in me the thought that I could read whatever I wanted and, consequently, do whatever I wanted. Thank you Rosario.

Even it is not the day to do this, I also want to thank my students, for listening to me and teaching me while I am teaching to them. I feel lucky to be a teacher, love this work and enjoy it everyday.

Have a look at this funny teacher's Harlem Shake:

So, tell us, what teacher do you want to say thank you to?

Motivation: Validation by Kurt Kuenne

Validation (2007) is an optimistic short film and love story by Kurt Kuenne. It only lasts for almost 16 minutes and was released on the YouTube platform, making it clear that things are changing in the film business. I really like this story because it shows how you can focus on the nice part of life and not on the bad and the world would be better. As a teacher I try to do this with my students and I think this really helps people to feel better and more motivated to produce and create.

I recommend you to watch it, it will cheer you up!!

What do you think of it?Did you like it?

Worker's Day, Why today?

On 4th  May 1886, in the city of Chicago, workers were demonstrating to make working days last only up to 8 hours. Amongst them, someone threw a bomb (the first dynamite bomb in the USA)  and the police thought it was a reaction to them -they were trying to dissolve the demonstration- and started shooting to the strikers. This was called the Haymarket Affair, Massacre or Riot.

For this affair, eight anarchists were blamed and sentenced for conspiration, this was understood as an attack to the working movement. The trial was soon argued because some of the accused were not even at the place!!

As a commemoration of this strike and other movements organized among others by Lucy and Albert Parsons, the 1st May is the day to ask for better working conditions in many parts of the world and it is even a holiday in many countries. In USA and Canada is widely celebrated in September.

Did you know this? 

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!! ;-))

Describing photos: New image of the blog

Photo and composition by Ana García

I wanted to change the looks of the blog and I decided to use this photo I took last summer at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) Art Lab in New York. In this museum, there is a place for families in which people are allowed to touch things and, in this particular one, they had some things displayed so that you could choose and make a composition. This was my own composition in which both New York and Paris are represented, we also see shells and butterflies, which represent elements of nature that I like.

In some official oral tests, you are given a photograph you have to describe, I think this one would be a difficult one to describe. We should try to develop the skill of describing a photo with our students. There are some expressions we should use, such as "at the top, at the bottom, in the middle, on the right side, on the left side" to place our discourse of the description. Other useful expressions are: "we can see, we perceive, we distinguish..." We must always remember to use as many modifiers as possible, like adjectives, prepositional phrases, noun phrases, nouns, relative sentences and so on...Always remember to add your personal opinion in the end, if you like it or not and why.

So, do you feel like describing this one? 

Give it a try! Leave it in a comment!

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

Modern Classics: Paul Anka?

Have you heard the famous song My way? Well, maybe you have not heard about Paul Anka, but he is the songwriter of this famous song and many others. This Canadian artist knew since he was very young that what he wanted to be was a singer and songwriter, so he started to do so as soon as he was 13 years old. 

His first hit Diana is a very well-known song and many others followed, the first few sung by him, the rest sung by others. His most famous hits are Put your hand on my shoulder, , Lonely Boy and Hold me till the Morning Comes, great love songs. He also wrote a song together with Michael Jackson which was released after Jackson's death, it is called This is it.

If you like melodic music, you will like him, give it a try and tell me what you think!

More Modern Classics: The Beatles, Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys.

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.

Model composition: Who was Sara Montiel?

Sara Montiel together with James Dean (photo taken from Rohmerin's blog)

Just five days ago, two very well-known women (for different reasons) died on the 8th April. The two of them may be quite unknown for our students, one of them was Margaret Thatcher and the other was Sara Montiel. We can take advantage of this and practice the past simple to talk about life events, as we did with Jane Austen or Frida Kahlo.

Sara Montiel was born as Mª Antonia Abad in Campo de Criptana in 1928. When she was just 15 years old, she took part in a talent show and won. She started making films in Spain and, very soon, she decided to go to America to start making films there. In 1954, she made her first Hollywood film called Veracruz with  very big actors like Gary Cooper. She came back to Spain and became a great diva and star.

At the beginning of the 1970s, she decided to stop making films in Spain and dedicated her work to singing. She has been married four times, the first in California, the second in Rome, the third in Palma de Mallorca with her great love, Pepe Tous, with whom she adopted two children and the fourth a few years ago with a Cuban men much younger than her.

Sara has sung together with her own son and other Spanish artists and has conducted two TV programmes in Spain. She wasn't ill and her death took everybody by surprise even though she was 85 years old.

Did you know her? Have you seen any of her films?

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