Good Bye!

Last week was my last week with you and I'm sorry I had to leave you :-( It's been a pleasure having you all as my students this year and I wish you a very good and successful English course!

As a way of saying goodbye (for now), here you have a very interesting video on how Internet has influenced the way we communicate and how this has also influenced the English language.

English 3.0 from Joe Gilbert on Vimeo.

Best wishes to all of you and Merry Christmas!

From Black Friday to Cyber Monday

As you all know last week Thanksgiving was celebrated all over the United States. Traditionally, the day right after this Thursday in November is the so-called Black Friday, the day in which shops all over the country offer great discounts and therefore make big money, no doubt about it! Don't you think it's crazy? Take a look!

To find out more about this day, you can do this nice listening exercise and you can chose to do some exercises (vocabulary, cloze text, a dictation...).

But let's not leave it just there. We haven't recovered from last Friday's shopping yet and we have ahead of us the world-famous Cyber Monday! The idea of creating such a day was invented in year 2005 and was meant to promote online shopping. Since then it's celebrated the Monday after Thanksgiving.

No Class on Monday!

Hi everyone! Remember we won't be having any lessons at the Casa de las Lenguas on Monday 25th, since we'll be celebrating Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a University holiday.

I'll see you all back in class on Wednesday! :-)

25th Anniversay of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

This coming Sunday we 'll all be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's Fall. It was such an important day in history that I would like us to remember the history behind the Wall and to commemorate the fall of the so-called Iron Curtain. 

Here we have an easy-to-understand video about the Wall, I hope you like it:

I don't know about you, but I can't think of Berlin's Wall without remembering David Bowie's song Heroes:

Talking to People All Over the World

Do you remember the old times when we used to look for the so-called pen-pals in order to exchange letters and so improve our English? Well, fortunately times have changed quite a bit in that sense and we don't need to spend money on envelopes and stamps anymore. Instead we can just click on the name of the person we would like to talk to and then have a real conversation going.

Here you have a couple of nice links where you can find a community of internet-users willing to practice English with you or just to have a little chat in Spanish. Just browse the webs and see if you find something or someone of your interest!

• Verbling
• Busuu
• The Mixxer

Back to School!

It's October already and we'are going back to school! Lessons at the Casa de las Lenguas are starting on Tuesday 14th.

I'll be teaching English 5 and English 7 on Mondays and Wednesdays this year, so I won't see you until Wednesday 15th. If you want to take a quick look at our academic calendar, just click here. For further information on the Casa de las Lenguas, here is a useful link.

I wish you all a very happy school year and tons of fun learning English!

Judging by Appearances?

This past week we have been describing people and talking about whether we judge by appearances or not (she must be a rich girl, he can't be a sportsman, they might be mother and daughter...). We watched this short commercial in class:

Now that you know about the brand behind the commercial, check out some of the comments made by spectators. Do you agree with them? 

And now, just for fun, watch this other video. No offence, boys! ;-)

I want to thank Kearan Donaghy for the idea and the materials and I also recommend you to visit his award-winning web page Film English!

Word of the Year... Selfie!

As you might know, the world-known Oxford Dictionary always choses one word as Word of the Year. This funny election has to do with how popular that word has become or else has attracted a huge interest during the year to date. This year's word (meaning 2013) is the word selfie, whose use has increased by (believe it or not!) 17,000%!!!

Click here to access to the Oxford Dictionary explanation and here to take a look at the Urban Dictionary. Click on this link to watch the most popular selfies! And here you have a nice CNN video on the word:

First and Second Conditionals

Now that we are revising first and second conditional sentences, here you have a very simple and self-explanatory video from the British Council Learn English page:

And if you want to have now some fun with second conditional sentences, just watch this video full of sentences from the TV series Big Bang Theory. Hope you have fun! :-)

This Year's Oscars Nominations

As you all know, we'll soon be celebrating this year's Academy Awards and here you can watch the full video of the nominations announcement:

I've also found quite inspiring this fun speech about cinema awards. Hope you enjoy it too! ;-)

 

No Class on Monday

Remeber! Monday 27th is a University Holiday, St. Thomas Aquinas, so don't come to class, as the building will be closed!

If you want to learn a bit about our patron Saint, take a look at this short piece of video about his life:

We'll resume our classes on Wednesday 29th! Have a lovely long weekend! :-)

New Year's Resolutions

In a way, we all tend to think like Calvin here:

But if you really want to change something this year, don't go crazy with quitting-smoking-going-on-a-diet-exercising-more... just be reasonable and be happier in general ;-)

A Christmas Carol

I'm sure you have heard of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and you have probably even read the book or watched one of the many films based upon this story.

Well, here you have a nicely and slowly spoken version of the story, just for you not to forget your English! ;-)

I wish you all a great Christmas time and a lovely New Year, full of success in your English-learning process and fun in your English classes! :-)

Cyber Monday

In class we have been talking about sales in different countries: Black Friday, Boxing Day, 7th of January... But have you ever heard of Cyber Monday? Well, I guess it's now here to stay!

But what is ist excatly? As I read on The Week, "It is essentially the online equivalent of Black Friday but with less risk of serious injury. It falls on the first Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. Instead of battling with rival shoppers to grab the latest bargains in the shops, consumers head to the internet to spend billions of pounds or dollars on limited-time deals".

Listening Practice and a Game

Some of you have been telling me how difficult you find to do the listening exercises. Well, here you have a web page where you can do very easy listening exercises searching by topic.
You can also browse the British Council Learn English website, with tons of exercises, links, games, videos and much more.
As my recommendations today, here you have quite an interesting video about something I'm sure you'll find interesting - the English language itself!

And also, if you have a couple of minutes to spare, try doing this wordshake game here and then tell me in class how many points you got! :-)

Films in English

The so-called Aula de Cine at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras is currently offering a very interesting cinema programme. All movies are broadcasted in their original languages and many of them were shot in English, so it's a great opportunity for you to enjoy these all-time masterpieces:

All showings take place at the University Library (Salón de Actos, that's the building next to the Casa de las Lenguas) at 4 p.m. Here you can check the programme. 

I hope you enjoy the movies! :-)

Sk8ter Boy

Welcome everyone!

I think music is the best way to start everything off, so there we go with this Sk8ter Boy song we did in class:

We'll be using this blog to share things, ideas, opinions, just anything! And to learn a bit more than just what's on our book. To be able to download materials, please send me an e-mail to carmen.quijada.cl@gmail.com and I'll tell you how to get started. Enjoy! :-)

Good bye!

Dear all!

The school year is over and we are heading for the summer (although the weather doesn't seem to agree...). It's been a great year with all of you and I just hope you keep up with English and you come back next year! :-)

The best way to say good-bye is singing, don't you think? :-)

I wish you all a great summertime! Please stay in touch!

About Fracking

I don't know about you, but I've been wondering what fracking exactly is... And I haven't found a satisfactory and easy-to-follow explanation about the topic yet. Thankfully I found this self-explanatory video, which, I admit, I've had to watch more than once (I won't confess how many times!). I hope you too find it interesting:

And now watch this CNN video, very clear and well-explained too:

 

 

Question Tags

Aaah... Question tags... What a wonderful topic! ;-)

Just to remember what we've learnt in class, take a look at this very complete explanation if you have 8 minutes:

Question tags aren't so difficult to build, after all. We just have to focus on the auxiliary we have to use (or else in the verb be, have or modals) and also check if we should make an affirmative or a negative question tag, that's all. Here you can do some extra practice and here is another exercise.

The problem arises when getting to speak them out... Pronunciating questions tags with a rising or with a falling intonation varies the meaning of the sentence! 

We've been practicing this issue in class and we've been trying to (another difficult task) incorporate question tags to our everyday discourse. Here you have a link to a nice exercise on how to pronounce questions tags correctly. I'm sure you'll enjoy it, won't you? ;-)