Please Visit English in Guía

Hello everybody. This is going to be the last blogpost of this blog so far. From now on, we’ll be pleased to receive you at English in Guía, the blog where we will be concentrating the articles of all levels.

See you soon!!!

Exámenes finales 2010 (Básico 2)

Queridos alumnos de Básico 2,

Aquí les paso la información de todos los exámenes finales:

1- EXÁMENES FINALES DEL CURSO (a la hora de clase):

2ºA
Lunes 17 de mayo: Writing.
Miércoles 19 de mayo: Reading y Listening.
Lunes 24 y miércoles 26: Speaking (los días anteriores se inscriben, como siempre, en el día y hora que más les convenga)

2ºB
Martes 18 de mayo: Writing.
Jueves 20 de mayo: Reading y Listening.
Martes 25 y jueves 27: Speaking (los días anteriores se inscriben, como siempre, en el día y hora que más les convenga)

2- PRUEBAS DE CERTIFICACIÓN (Recuerden traer DNI):

Viernes 4 de junio a las 15:45h: Reading, Listening y Writing.
(La fecha del Speaking está por determinar; la comunicaremos en cuanto se sepa)

Nota: RECUERDEN que, según la legislación vigente, ustedes pueden justificar su ausencia en el puesto de trabajo para realización de exámenes oficiales. Si así lo solicitan, la Escuela tiene que emitir el certificado correspondiente.

Más información sobre las pruebas de certificación en www.eoiguia.com o en la normativa publicada hoy en el BOC.

Love stories

picture by monjazz

My dear students,

At last, I have managed to compile all your love stories into a book online.

I want to thank all of you for all the effort, work, imagination and LOVE you have put into these stories. You are great!

Click here to see the book.

If it’s too small for you, you can always click on the magnifying glass (lupa) at the top.

I hope you like it. THANKS for writing it!

Near the end

My dear students,

We’re getting near the end of the course and the final exams are just round the corner. I thought you might like to practice a little bit before them.

For that reason, I would like to recommend 2 blogs written by a teacher in a nearby School of Languages: Arucas.

In these blogs, you can practice what we’ve seen in each unit of the book, Oxford New English File. I hope you like them:

– Level Básico 2

– Level Básico 1 (to revise what you saw last year)

Enjoy!

Let’s celebrate St. Patrick’s day!

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, the patron saint of Ireland. Do you know something about this festivity? All around the world people feast this event.

This year there are many events happening in Dublin, for example. Would you like to have a look? Then click here to visit the official St. Patrick’s Festival 2010. For an extraofficial website, click here or here.

Are you interested in the origins of the festival? There is a wonderful website to learn all about it: it’s called History.com. It contains all sorts of videos and short texts that you can read at home.  I recommend you to click here to read a bit about it, or here to watch a video that explains some amusing facts.

Chicago is famous for its St. Patrick’s celebrations, did you know that? They even dye the river green! Click here for a great photo gallery of last year’s event from The Sun Times.

Finally, to take a quiz on “All things Irish”, click here. The quiz was taken from The holiday Spot.

Are you going to any St. Patrick’s party yourselves? Have you ever been to any? Tell us about it!

A Day in Town

Hi everyone!

Our colleagues from Asturias have developed a very interesting unit online where you can practice all we’re seeing in class these days:

Taken from English Language Lab Asturias

– In this exercise, you have to listen to your English landlady giving you directions to find the bus stop.

– In the next exercise, you have to speak to the bus driver.

– Next, you’re in a pizza restaurant, ready to order.

– Why not go on to a pub later? Here you have a reading quiz about pubs.

– There is also a pub quiz! Participate here and test your general knowledge.

– If you want to practice writing, here you can write an email to a friend, telling him/her what you did on your first day in town.

Enjoy!

Where is the beach?

Hello everyone, I hoped you enjoyed our lesson today. We were practicing how to ask for directions and how to give them properly.

Here you are a few more exercises to practice at home:

1. You can revise some basic vocabulary here and  here. If you want pictures to help you with the meaning, the best site to visit is this one. You’ll be able to listen to some phrases in this video too.

2. Do you want to do some practical exercises and listen? Then visit the following:

• Directions through town (1)
• Directions through town (2)
• Directions through town (3)

3. Do not miss this whole lesson plan from the BBC about Helen, a reporter who tries to find her way around London.

4. Finally, why not watch this funny video? It might help you consolidate the language.

We are in Facebook!

It is a group for students, teachers and anyone who wants to share our news, links, etc.

Come and join our group here.

We are waiting for you!

How perfect is your present?

Hi everyone!

Long time no write… We have all been very busy with the exams- I have to admit I’m really looking forward to coming back to regular lessons. What about you?

In the meanwhile, let’s revise a recent grammar point: the present perfect.

I recommend you to visit the following websites:

1- A whole explanation of when to use the present perfect. If you scroll down the page, you’ll find many exercises too. For example, what’s the difference between past simple and present perfect? Click here and here to find out.

2- A brief explanation in Spanish.

3- More exercises at the bottom of this page.

4- Finally, why not watch this interesting video?

Happy holidays

Hi there everyone!

Time goes by so quickly, doesn’t it? Christmas is just round the corner! If you want to see the English department Christmas card, please click here.

And remember: if you want to revise English during the holidays, there are some things you can do:

– Participate in the social network here.

– Read the Listening and Speaking tips in the photocopies that I gave you on the last day.

– Do the Self-Assessment handout (“What can you do?”) for File 3.

– Catch up with the Workbook exercises.

– Or just enjoy some songs and videos here! (includes quizzes for different levels)

What will you ask Santa this year? This is my wish-list:

Taken from Matt Glover.

Grammar revision

Hi there! Are you enjoying your holidays?

I just wanted to remind you the grammar we’ve studied so far. If you want to revise it, you have several options:

1. Do the exercises in the Workbook up to File 3.

2. Read the rules and do the exercises on the grammar book Essential Grammar in Use (Cambridge). Which units? Don’t worry, if you click here you will find the units that you need to study.

3. Go to Oxford’s website and do the corresponding grammar exercises.

4. Use the CD-Rom that came along with the book when you bought it!

Thanks for your work.

See you soon!

Listening practice

Hi everyone! One of your classmates told me that she needed some more listening practice. Is this true for you too? In this post you will find a couple of interesting websites you can visit these days.

• Ello:  Here you have audio and text together. You can choose to show or hide the text while you listen. There is a great variety of topics! For example, Tai Chi, living a long life, how to break up a relationship, expensive cities, etc.
• Real English for beginners: in this website you have lessons with videos, examples and exercises. It’s very interesting! They are all native speakers of English, and you can also speak yourself.
• AudioEnglish: in the beginners section you have mainly pronunciation practice with audio, but there are also some tests.
• Masion Inglés: again, a lot of listening exercises divided into different topics and levels. Both British and American English accents!
• Cyber Listening Lab: you have listening exercises of different levels (easy, medium and difficult). Click on any, listen to the text and test yourself. If you click on “Quiz Script“, you can also read the text at the same time. Finally, you have Vocabulary Activities at the end of each exercise. Very complete!

Enjoy your listening experience!

Pronunciation of the past

Hey there!

I know some of you (and myself) are concerned about the pronunciation of past verbs. No need to panic! I’ll organize the info in 2 parts:

1. Pronunciation of irregular verbs: go to the following websites:
   • This is the list I gave you in class.
   • Fun videos: listen and repeat.
     • Part 1
     • Part 2
     • Part 3
     • Part 4

2.  Pronunciation of regular verbs (-ed):

• Short interactive lesson here.
• Our mate Saro Rosales wrote a nice post about the subject. Worth a look! I specially liked the audio presentation.
• Extra explanation here.

I hope you find these help useful!

WELCOME BACK! Fechas de comienzo de clases

Hello everyone and welcome back!

Did you have a nice summer? I hope so.

I’m very glad to remind you that we’re meeting next week: for those who have signed up for a Monday-Wednesday class, lessons will start on Monday 14th.
For those belonging to the Tuesday-Thursday class, lessons will start on Tuesday 15th.

Are you happy to be back? Me too!

See you next week.

Summer ideas to keep your English alive

Hey everybody! Do you remember me? I’m Laura, your ex-teacher! I’m a bit worried because I don’t want you to forget your English, so… Here you have some ideas to keep it alive:

1- Sign up for an online course with Livemocha or Busuu. You have exercises, lessons and also the possibility of finding an exchange with a native speaker!

2- Watch short videos and do exercises in the Lingual website.

3- Read comics and watch videos to revise your grammar with Grammar Man.

4- Test and expand your vocabulary here or here.

5- Go to Randall¡s Listening Lab to do short listening exercises. Explore this website because you will also find the transcripts to all the texts!

6- Go to Learn English Today and revise  vocabulary and grammar.

7- Finally, why don’t you revise the older posts of this blog and do the exercises that you didn’t have time to do during the year?

And of course: go to the beach, play, go for a walk, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Have a great summer.

General Revision

Hello there!

Today I discovered a very nice website where you can revise the contents of this year. It’s located in “Contenidos Educativos Digitales” and is hosted by the Junta de Extremadura. They rule!

If you click here, you can have access to several exercises to practice. It’s very easy:

1. Select the content you want to revise and click on its corresponding picture.
2. Listen to the story. You can read the subtitles at the same time.
3. Do the exercises: you have to click on the numbers below to change exercises.
4. Click on the lampost on the left to revise the grammar.
5. Click on the sign below to check the vocabulary.
6. When you’re finished, click on the flowers on the right to check your score.

Why don’t you start with the revision of “GOING TO”? Click here to access the activities.

Final exams

Hi there!
Here you are the dates for the final exams. Don’t miss them!

PRIMERO CON LAURA
Lunes 25 de mayo: Listening, Reading and Writing exams
Miércoles 27 de mayo: Speaking
Lunes 1 de junio: Speaking
(Recuerda apuntarte en clase al examen oral en el calendario de horas)

PRIMERO CON ESTELA
Martes 26 de mayo: Listening, Reading and Writing exams
Jueves 28 de mayo: Speaking
Martes 2 de junio: Speaking

SEGUNDO CON CAROLINA: Prueba de certificación
Viernes 5 de junio a las 15:45h: Listening, Reading and Writing exams
(La fecha y hora del oral se comunicará el viernes 5 de junio)

Revision of basic mistakes

Hi everyone!

Here you have a presentation with mistakes from the last written exercises  in class.

Would you like to play a game? Then try to guess the correct sentence before you click to see the next slide! Good luck.

Past of irregular verbs: pronunciation and more

Would you like to pronounce the past of irregular verbs correctly? Then try the following ideas:

1. First of all, here you are a list of the most common irregular verbs with their phonetic transcription. You can print it and put it on the door of your fridge!

2. There are many games online to revise the form of irregular pasts. In this game, you have to spell the past of the verb suggested. This is a concentration and matching game; if you want to play with someone else, you can try this game.

3. Finally, here you are a short video where they pronounce the present and past of some irregular verbs. Do you find anything “strange” about the pronunciation in this video?

Other blogs for Basico I and Basico II

Hi there all!

I found a couple of blogs that can be very useful for you. They are both written by a teacher from Cartagena, Sergio Viñals:
– English Basico I
– English Basico II

For example, in the first one you can find the following posts, all about practicing the past simple:

– Revision of units 5A and 5B
– Extra activities and games to practice the past simple (5C)
– Unit 5: Revision of past simple (regular and irregular verbs)
– Listening: what did you do yesterday?

I hope you like them. Enjoy!