Feelings and emotions

How do you feel about the way you express your feelings in English?

Willing to learn some more adjectives and expressions about feelings and emotions. This is your post to expand your vocabulary and what's more: you'll become more self-confident with your English emotions. 

Prepositions

Christmas around the world

The Three Wise Men according to Wikipedia. Christmas is coming and I'd like to know how you celebrate this festivity. There are many different traditions all over the world and that's nice. So, let's discuss about different traditions at Christmas.

How do you spend Xmas at home? Anything special? Please, let us know and leave a comment about your customs.

Youtube videos about Christmas

For further information about Christmas time, click on here.

   Now, let's sing some Christmas Carols. Would you like to sing a special Christmas Carol? Which one? Have a look at: It's Christmas now below.  For carols click:    More Carols 

Last Christmas by George Michael (Spanish lyrics) Is this song really about Christmas? Well, it isn't. Actually, what is it about so? You could write your answer by leaving a comment for this post below. What about this Xmas song? Do you know any other artist who sings the same song?

Christmas vocabulary (1, 2, ), special dates and traditions. Christmas vocabulary doc Christmas Flashcards Xmas wordsearch (1, 2) Christmas board game for Basic 2 (poster) Christmas Winter Quiz for Basic 2 Santa Questions about Xmas for Basic 2 Winter questions_Christmas for Basic 2

How to make Christmas Crackers

How to make a Christmas pudding How to make Christmas Brownies

Would you sit on Santa Claus' lap like this?

Have you ever received candy coal at Christmas?

Come on! Let's join a Christmas Quiz! Yes, why not?   Now it's time for some current songs about Xmas:


And finally, here are my Christmas gifts for all my dear students. Some Xmas cards. Enjoy them! Happy Christmas!

TESTS & Exams

Basic considerations before starting any English course or test.

First of all, let's find out your exact level of English.



Test your English by the

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Grammar, vocab and pronunciation TEST Beginner File. Answer sheet. Answer key.
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4 Skills TEST File Beginner. Audio. Answer Key. 
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However, this is very best Test or exam ever!:

Where shall we go? Let's go on a trip! USA, UK, Ireland, India. Where?

Listening skills

Here's your listening section to master your language skills all day long.

How often do you listen to music or any kind of audio in English?

What was the last film you've watched in English?

Are you really doing something for your listening skills? Come on! Be honest with you.

If your answer are never, hardly ever, no film in English or something like that, you're in trouble. Yes, absolutely! Ok, it's time for doing the opposite, don't you think?

Listening tools: 

How to write in English

I always encourage all my students to drop some lines in English. 

No matter the topic to write about. 

Then, I normally have a look at their writing, which they hand in quite regularly, and I leave a comment and several writing tips for them, together with the necessary corrections. Feedback and results may vary to a greater extent, but I just wonder if they are truly aware of my enormous effort to make them write real English.

Please, leave a comment about your English writing experiences.

Writing tools:
language mistakes at the 4th ESO

Connectors and linkers

Connectors, linking words and phrases

How to write a review

Writing a film review

What to read today

What to read in English?

Well, just a question of liking.

What would you like to read about?

News Horrors / thrillers

Novels Myths and legends
Short stories Magazines
Comedies Signs
Fairy tales Articles
Adventures Fiction
Fictional Detective


For more ideas and reading, please click on our What to read section.

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
These days we're dealing with this reader at school. There'll be a test on reading comprehension and understanding of the plot. However,  rather than reading through these stories by Oscar Wilde, we could analyse some basic literary questions, so that we can understand the main events throughout the different stories more easily and what's even more important: trying to play the main characters' roles and distinguishing their personalities.

Classroom language

As you can see, this is a very important section for all of you. We need to understand each other, don't you think? So, time for starting up and let's set the classroom rules and instructions.

Any questions so far?

Classroom language Listening 

Still lost with vocabulary, try this basic vocabulary for ESO

Handshakes

To learn a new language, you need someone to talk to, and often you'll meet someone new. More than anything else, you've got be relaxed in the classroom. So, let's break the ice and have a look at the different ways of greeting.

When saying hello & good-bye for the first time, what do you normally do?

When people meet, they should shake hands, smile and say: I'm ... (name). Nice to meet you.

or

Hello (name of the person)

Nice to meet you again. How are things?

Hello

Hi

Pleased to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

How do you do?

A handshake

A hug            

Kisses

Tap on one's back

Make eye contact with the other person

Hold the handshake for a few seconds

Smile

- Hello
How are you?

- I'm fine thank you. And you?
- Not bad, thanks.

- Goodbye!. Have a nice day.
- See you this morning!

- I'm sorry I'm late.
- I'm sorry.
- Excuse me!
- Don't worry.
- That's ok.
- Really?
- It doesn't matter.

As you can see above, you've got plenty of examples to practise all through this post. So, now it's your turn to grab a classmate and put your greetings into practice. Let's get it started!

You've nailed it!

-"Hey! teacher, you've really nailed it!"

-Today's lesson was all the same: students doing nothing but talking to each other, and not in English. So far, nothing strange, however, there was a question that I'd like to clarify. Not just because of the question itself, but simply because of someone's comment and composition. You know what: students wanted to catch me. Oops! I think I nailed it. So, the question is as follows: Can you write usually at the beginning of a sentence?

Yes, absolutely. Here's an example:

Usually we are melting snow or ice so we don't bother, but this trip could see us near stagnant water.


This example above was taken from the British National Corpus, which is like the Spanish Real Academia de la Lengua, but in the UK. You can also have a look at more examples like this one, clicking on here and here for further practice on Adverb order. So, do you still think that I was wrong in class? Of course, NOT. 
-"You've completely nailed it, teacher."

Describing people and appearance

Today's lesson is about how to write a short description of people’s clothes, but let’s first set an everyday situation: Imagine that you are thinking about the clothes that you’ll be wearing on the coming Friday party with your friends. So, you need to go through some typical expressions and vocabulary about the same topic. Here’s a document for that, and please feel free to leave your comment with your ideal way of dressing, whenever you get together or even go clubbing on a Friday night.

Language correction

Welcome to another post of our blog! 

Today's issue is about correcting language mistakes and fossilized errors. 

Do you remember your first words in your own language? Of course, you don't, but please ask your parents and you'll probably find out that your first words were  mamá or papá in Spanish. You've been brought up by listening to your parents' language corrections. So, now it's time to do so, but with some English correction for a change. 

Here's your document for you to have a look right before you write any essay, composition, letter or something like that.


On the other hand, I'd like to present an English teacher from London to all of you. His name is Luke and he'll help us with his podcast about Common errors and typical mistakes below: (Luke's blog section about mistakes)


Enjoy his excellent explanations and learning tips!

A man is playing the violin at the metro station

 A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.

Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station

was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty?

Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Ok, please do not panic: this is not so complicated. I know that the words above are more difficult than the English that you normally read about. So, here’s the Spanish version of the same piece of news, but written by a different journalist.

And now it’s your turn. What do you think about this experiment? Is our society changing? Please, do not hesitate to post your comments to answer these two questions above about our famous violinist, Joshua Bell.

Writing a film review

Today, our school writers have just started to work on a film review.  They need to think about their favourite movies, but, first of all, they are supposed to talk about some writing tips on the same topic: how to write a film review.


Thanks to the following web page on Film criticism, we'll be able to read through a professional film review, which was written by a film critic. Although we are not  writing experts, we could do our best. Let's see our writing talents.


Finally, we could get more inspiration by watching this classical:

Working for free

At school you may say that you don't like working for free, but actually you probably mean that you are not going to do any extra homework unless this will considerably improve your marks. Well, fair enough, however, let's discuss about it. Before doing that, you can watch these two videos first: