This blog has been created to share news, projects, videos and everything I may find interesting with my students. I will also upload their work and anything I consider useful for them to improve their English. Everybody is welcome. Formerly known as Englishasbarxas, I have now adopted the name of my new school: IES ROU. PALMIRA CALVAR
Remember! interesting workshops in Moaña Music, theatre, comic, cinema during August. Every morning from 10 am to 2 pm More info Casa da mocidade or Concello de Moaña
"Furious Monkey House" is a band from Pontevedra, Spain, formed by Mariña, Carlota, Amaya, Irene and Manu in March 2014.
The band recorded a five-track demo before recording their debut album between February and March 2015 at Planta Sónica (Vigo), which some of our students from IES AS BARXAS, now in 1 BACH, visited two years ago, and Abbey Road Studios (London), the famous studios where The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and many other groups have been recording their albums.
So what is special about them? Their age! They are just teenagers like those of you who are in 1st or 2nd ESO so they have to go to school, do homework, take exams and on top of that they make great music! SO HOMEWORK FOR THE SUMMER: LEARN THE LYRICS, SING THEIR SONGS. A GREAT WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH.
Hey girl your eyes are full of big fire that voice is screaming in your head
calm down 'cause everything is fine now... Hey girl you're not alone we are back now we're always singing in your mind we're always singing it out loud I miss your face every moment and all the little things that I have lost I have the same dream every morning I fly very high but I fall down
Hey girl your blood is boiling like water and you can fight like a tiger there ain't clouds on that black sky Hey girl stop weeping 'cause you're awesome you are the best thing in the world just close your eyes and please listen up I miss your face every moment and all the little things that I have lost I have the same dream every morning I fly very high but I fall down
I miss your face every moment and all the little things that I have lost I have the same dream every morning I fly very high but I fall down I miss your face every moment and all the little things that I have lost I have the same dream every morning I fly very high but I fall down
When I'm SleepingI look up and I can't breath in my room every dark night I can't dream about happy things
please turn on the light yes There's a picture on the wall and it's looking at me it smiles at twelve o'clock and (it) starts laughing When I'm sleeping in the darkness I find a demon in my closet When I am sleeping in the darkness there are monsters under my bed but I like them
My skin turns as white as snow when I hear the voices the shadows star to dance around and I follow that beat My heart is going more than fast I don't know if I wanna stop it come with us into my room dance with your nightmares When I'm sleeping in the darkness I find a demon in my closet When I am sleeping in the darkness there are monsters under my bed but I like them
When I'm sleeping in the darkness When I'm sleeping in the darkness When I'm sleeping in the darkness When I'm sleeping in the darkness
WE have all been really busy taking exams, correcting, marking, and so on. In this time some bad news have struck us. Yesterday we heard of the British MP Jo Cox shooting and death. A new example of hate and violence. Her husband paid tribute saying things like this. "She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her."
"My excessive act forced my son to have a painful time," Takayuki Tanooka said in an emotional news briefing outside Hakodate hospital, 30km (19 miles) south, where the boy was taken for checks.
Image captionThe boy's father Takayuki Tanooka apologised for abandoning his son
"I deeply apologise to people at his school, people in the rescue operation, and everybody for causing them trouble," he said.
"I have poured all my love into my son, but from now on, I would want to do more, together with him. I would like to protect him while he grows up. Thank you very much."
How Yamato survived
Search teams including the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) have been combing the remote area,home to brown bears, for nearly a week.
Image captionThe seven-year-old boy was abandoned in dense forest by his parents
They had found no trace of Yamato and hopes were fading.
But shortly before 08:00 on Friday morning (23:00 GMT on Thursday) he was found inside a building at the SDF base about 4km (2.5 miles) from where he was left.
Image captionThe base was not far from where Yamato went missing, but surrounded by dense woods
"One of our soldiers was preparing for drills this morning and opened the door of a building on the base, and there he was," an SDF member told NHK.
"When he asked 'are you Yamato?' the boy said, 'Yes'. Then he said he was hungry, so the soldier gave him some water, bread and rice balls."
It appears rescuers came tantalisingly close to finding him four days ago. The SDF said the base had been searched on Monday but no trace was seen of the boy, who says he reached the hut on Saturday.
The soldier who found him was not part of the search team.
NHK said Yamato had told rescuers he "walked through the mountains" until he found the shelter.
He was taken to hospital by a medical helicopter. A doctor later said he was in very good condition, despite only having had water during his six-day ordeal.
At Yamato's school in Hokuto, near Hakodate,his fellow pupils shouted for joy when it was announced at assembly that he was safe, the Japan Times reports.
10 writers and thinkers are writing letters to Great Britain before the referendum to decide whether they stay or leave the European Community giving their opinion about the issue.
Choose a couple of them and see if you understand the message.
Javier Marías
Spain
Dear Britain,
As Spaniards born under the Franco dictatorship (especially those of us who belonged to families on the losing side of the civil war) we were always aware that we might one day have to leave our country and go into exile. Whenever I imagined this possibility, my chosen destination was never France or Italy or some Latin American country, but Britain. This was perhaps because, early on, I acquired a reasonably good knowledge of English, but it was doubtless also because I had read so much British literature and seen so many British films that Britain seemed to me a familiar place and as undeniably European as my home town of Madrid. Indeed, I partly owe my vocation as a writer to...click to go on reading
Let me share with you today this idea and the video that comes with it. It is a commercial, a very good one. Can you guess what kind of company is behind? Don't forget to click to have the subtitles in English. You will find it easier to understand. Have a nice weekend!
I would like you to be a chef for a day and share your favourite meal with us. Watch this video of the popular Spanish chef José Andrés and do something similar with a recipe you know well. Well, not quite as similar, don't burn anything!
Yesterday was Aidan's last day at school. We are all sad and will miss her a lot but happy for her because she can start enjoying the summer. She deserves a rest and some time to spend with her family after a year abroad.
It was great to have her. She was a super assistant always wishing to learn and ready to help students.
In her last class yesterday we organised a farewell chocolate fondue party. It was delicious!
British historian and academic Mary Beard has won this year’s Princess of Asturias award, one of Spain’s top honours, in the field of Social Sciences for her "outstanding contribution to the study of the culture, politics and society of classical antiquity".
And this is what she wrote about the moment she received the good news in her blog "A don's life", from THE TIMES LITERARY SUPLEMENT
I had really good news this week. I was in my Faculty office on Tuesday at about 6.15 pm packing up to bike home, when the phone rang from (as the display flashed up) for a Spanish number. It turned out to be an extremely nice man from the Princess of Asturias Foundation to alert me that the jury had just decided to award me the 2016 Princess of Asturias Foundation Award for Social Sciences. It was to be announced the next day at 12.00 and I was to keep mum until then.
I knew something about these prizes before and was obviously extremely chuffed (you dont get phonecalls like that very often -- and I cancelled my decision to make it an alcohol-free day). But I hadn't quite realised how very grand it was until I looked at the previous laureates in my own and other categories, from David Attenborough, Tzvetan Todorov and Mary Robinson in my own category to Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen and Leonardo Padura in literature (that's Padura arriving above), Michael Schumacher in Sport and J K Rowling in Concord. That was all a bit humbling.
The award comes with a nice cash prize, but that wasn't what mattered most this week (I know people always say that, but it is true). It was the fact that people, not on your back door step, have recognised what you do. If I have had a 'project' over the last few years it has been to continue doing top flight specialist academic work, while also sharing the fruits of that with a wider public. I hate with a vengeance the kind of popularising history (or popularising anything) that assumes that that wider public can be fobbed off with some over-simplified, dumbed-down version of what academics really talk about. It has always seemed to me that you can remove some ofthe jargon, talk clearly and capture precisely the issues that are those under debate. So I was particularly pleased when I saw these words of the jury, referring to my 'talent for making specialized knowledge both accessible and relevant to the general public'. That's exactly what I have wanted to do.
It was also nice (an unworthy confession is coming up!) actually to win something. Now, I have been absolutely delighted with howSPQR has gone down with critics, and with the buying punters. I cant really imagine how it could have done better, thanks in part to the big efforts of others (it's a good book, I immodestly say, but lots of good books dont get attention or find buyers). And I have also been delighted that it has been shortlisted for all sorts of literary prizes. To me, shortlisting matters the most. It's a real vote of confidence in the product, after which the final winning choice must always be a bit random and depend on the unpredictable personal preferences of the judges (to put it another way, you could almost guarantee that a different group of judges would choose a different winner -- and that's certainly been the case on the panels I've been on). That said, I was beginning to get a bit of an 'always the bridesmaid' feeling and to wonder if, bauble as it was, it wouldn't be nice actually to win something one day.
And indeed, as I have discovered this week, it is nice. I am so very grateful to the judges for picking me, and really looking forward to going to Oviedo in October to receive the award. The aim for this summer has to be to get some conversational Spanish under my belt. I can just about read the language (especially when it is about Roman history), but I need to do a bit better than that in the autumn.
If you are still interested in some of her works, here you can watch the documentary about Pompeii. Her English is very clear and easy to understand andI have includedthe subtitles so it will be really easy to follow.
If you find it too long, watch a few minutes and in any case let me know what you have learnt. If you really like it, there a few more.
I totally agree with him. We should spend less time with grammar. We should encourage our students to watch everything in English. My experience tells me you tube is becoming the best English teacher ever.
Where’s the pub? “¿Dónde está el bar?”. Estas cuatro palabras, según Paul Seligson, conforman la frase más útil para aprender inglés. El profesor británico, que lleva más de 30 años dando clases y charlas sobre enseñanza de idiomas por medio mundo, de Brighton a Río de Janeiro, considera básicamente que el modelo de aprendizaje está equivocado. Le dedicamos demasiado tiempo a aprender gramática “y rellenar huecos” y muy poco a usar “las orejas”, escuchar y hablar. De ahí la necesidad de buscar un bar, señala con sorna británica. Seligson defiende que es más lo que nos acerca que lo que nos separa al idioma de Shakespeare. “Para aprender inglés hay que pensar en español”, asegura.
Este mes ha pasado por Madrid para dar varias charlas a docentes. Aprovechamos su visita para preguntarle por una de las últimas promesas preelectorales sobre su materia. El presidente en funciones, Mariano Rajoy, quiere que en 10 años ningún universitario español acabe la carrera sin un nivel B2 (intermedio alto). Este especialista lo considera una propuesta “optimista” para la que habría que poner en marcha muchos cambios. Apenas un tercio de los ciudadanos españoles (35,5%) asegura hablar bien inglés, según datos el Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). Vivimos en un país al que distintos estudios internacionales sitúan a la cola de Europa en esta tarea.
Pregunta. ¿Por dónde habría que empezar para que todos los universitarios españoles salieran de la carrera con un buen nivel dentro de una década?
Respuesta. Preparando bien los niveles más elementales, como A1 y A2, y haciendo menos caso a la gramática. Los españoles que salen de las aulas con un C1 (avanzado) no hablan en realidad con ese nivel. Deben enfocarse mucho más en escuchar.
P. ¿Considera que es viable?
R. Es optimista. No me voy a meter en políticas, no sé de eso. Pero Colombia, que es similar en tamaño a España, se comprometió a lo mismo en 10 años con el horizonte de 2020 y ya se ve que no lo va a conseguir. Para intentarlo de verdad es necesario dejar de doblar películas, permitir a los alumnos escuchar más inglés, cambiar la forma de enseñar gramática y centrarse en la formación de profesores.
Los que nunca han escuchado en inglés nunca van a pensar en inglés dando cuatro horas a la semana
P. ¿Por qué no terminamos de aprender bien inglés los españoles?
R. Hay muchas razones. No es tan evidente. Es difícil adquirir una segunda lengua estudiando a tiempo parcial. Dedicamos de tres a cinco horas por semana y, solo con ese tiempo, puede llevarnos años y años. Cientos. Además, la pedagogía ha sido bombardeada, está herida. En lugar de buscar enlaces, te fuerzan a pensar en inglés aunque los lazos con el segundo idioma son siempre de la lengua materna. Hemos importado un modelo que obliga a separar los dos idiomas, aislar el inglés en lugar de buscar las palabras comunes. Y ambos tienen una base común de latín del 58%. Muchas palabras se parecen. Pero, en vez de pensar que los alumnos hablan español, catalán o gallego, lenguas romances, miramos al alumno como si fuera chino o árabe. Para aprender inglés hay que pensar en español.
Seligson habla español, francés y portugués con fluidez. Es autor de múltiples manuales como English ID, un método de seis cursos publicado por Richmond(sello de Santillana, integrada en el Grupo Prisa, editor de EL PAÍS) que se centra en enseñar a aprendices cuyo idioma materno es una de las lenguas románicas: portugués, castellano, francés, italiano, catalán o gallego, entre otras.
P. ¿Cuáles son las necesidades de un alumno español?
R. Escuchar, pronunciar, hablar y deletrear porque el español es una lengua pura, lo que ves es lo que dices. En cambio, les enseñamos gramática, vocabulario o lectura, que es lo que sale en los libros y en los exámenes internacionales. Si ves un texto en inglés puedes entender muchas palabras como principiante español. Se trata de pensar en los idiomas. Pero la ventaja se corta si el profesor te dice: ‘Olvídate del español, piensa en inglés’. En lugar de buscar enlaces, se destruyen. Es ridículo intentar aprender a pesar de lo que ya sabes.
El mejor es claramente un profesor español que sea bilingüe, porque ha pasado por lo mismo que debe pasar el alumno
P. Según su propuesta, llevamos muchos años haciéndolo mal.
R. Sí. Enseñé cinco años en el British Council de Valencia, de 1985 a 1990. Y nos decían: debes hablar solo inglés en clase y te irá mejor. Pero no es cierto. Think in English (piensa en inglés) es un mantra equivocado. Estás castigando a todos los alumnos, todo el tiempo, por lo más natural del mundo. Los que nunca han escuchado en inglés nunca van a pensar en inglés dando cuatro horas a la semana.
P. ¿Hasta qué punto es importante ver la televisión en versión original?
R. En Portugal se habla muy bien inglés porque la tele es en versión original con subtítulos, mientras que aquí está doblada y se nota, como en Francia o Italia, los tres países donde se habla peor de Europa. La lengua entra por las orejas. Ahora está mejorando muchísimo el aprendizaje porque los niños están escuchando más música, miran vídeos en Internet, en YouTube… todo eso ayuda mucho pero el profesor aún no está preparado para formar la parte auditiva.
P. ¿Tan crucial es esa parte?
R. Le diré algo que siempre cuento en mis charlas. Tenemos cuatro habilidades en la vida, ¿cuál se usa más? La parte auditiva se emplea un 45%. Nos pasamos la vida escuchando, un 30% hablando, el 16% del tiempo leyendo y solo 9% escribiendo. Los exámenes de las escuelas oficiales reparten estas habilidades por igual, al 25% cada una. Y en la vida no es así.
P. ¿Cómo sería para usted el mejor profesor?
R. En España hay muchos muy buenos. El mejor es claramente un profesor español que sea bilingüe, porque ha pasado por lo mismo que debe pasar el alumno. Ser nativo no es la solución, no tiene nada que ver. ¿Cuántos alumnos van a ser nativos? Cero. El objetivo es falso, es una obsesión comercial para vender un producto. Yo no quiero un nativo, quiero uno que sepa dónde estoy, que entienda qué errores puedo cometer porque los ha visto antes y que me pueda ayudar lo más rápido posible.
I have had the idea of sharing with you the section Anatomy of a scene in THE NEW YORK TIMES for ages. The day has come. Those who like the cinema may find these videos really interesting and a great way to learn English. The director explains in a couple of minutes some aspects of the shooting, describes the scene, explains the difficulties they went through while shooting and so on. Don't worry too much if you don't understand everything. You can watch it several times and if you like the film, watch it later.
Let's start with The revenantand his Argentinian director, Alejandro G. Inárritu, whose English may be easier to understand.
Yesterday we spent the day in Boiro at the Festival Olloboi, where teachers and students attended different workshops in the morning with great speakers such as Alfonso Zarauza (Os fenómenos), Manuel González, Carlos Ares, Sabela Hermida, and the guys from El metodo sueco. After lunch we went to a shipyard, where we saw the film Crebinsky. Amazing spot to watch the movie and surprise, surprise both main actor ( Miguel de Lira) and director ( Enrique Otero ) were there to talk about different aspects of the film and answer the audience's questions. The last stop of the day was the ceremony in which AS BARXAS got one of the most important prizes: the Zamburriori, which means a recognition to all the video work that has been made at AS BARXAS. It is really a shame more students couldn't come, they would have enjoyed and learn a lot! Next time.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Once you have the structure clear and you have also chosen the suitable linkers, you should read some examples of argumentative essays. ...
Video and explanation of the future forms and uses https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar/intermediate-grammar/future-for...