ELPAIS.com - in English

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Irregular verbs

Sooner or later, everyone learning English has to learn the Irregular Verbs.

Here you have several links to help you.

1. A list of all irregular verbs grouped in a way that makes it easier to learn them.

2. A flash card solution with most of the verbs you need to know. Here there are 10 verbs to learn. You can find the rest here. You need to scroll down. It's after exercise 37.

3. A game of Snakes & Ladders to practice the verbs you learn.

Enjoy!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Reinforcement - Dialogues 1 & 2

For reinforcement, here you have our initial dialogues:

DIALOGUE 1

A: Hola!

→ Hello!

B: Com estàs?

→ How are you?

A: Estic bé, i tú?

→ I'm OK, and you?

B: Estic bé. A on vas?

→ Fine. Where are you going?

A: Vaig al gimnàs. Vols venir?

→ To the gym. Do you want to come?

B: D'acord.

→ OK.

A: Som-hi!

→ Come on / Let's go.


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DIALOGUE 2

A: Bon dia.

→ Good morning.

B: Bon dia. Qué vols?

→ Good morning. What do you want? / What would you like?

A: Vull una coca-cola i una pizza gran.

I want / I'd like a coke and a large pizza

B: Vols la pizza de carn o de formatge?

Do you want / Would you like your pizza with meat or with cheese.

A: La vull de formatge.

I want / I'd like it with cheese.

B: Vols alguna cosa per postres?

Do you want anything / Would you like something for dessert?

A: Sí. Què teniu?

→ Yes. What do you have?

B: Mira. Són a dins de la nevera.

→ Have a look. They are in the fridge.

A: Ah, d'acord. Vull un gelat de maduixa.

→ Ah, OK. I want / I'd like a strawberry ice-cream.

B: Aquí tens.

→ Here you are.

A: Gràcies.

→ Thank you.

B: De res.

→ You're welcome.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Reggae music in context, a presentation

Last week, we covered Gothic art through the ages with our students in 4th ESO A.

Today, we are looking at reggae music with our 4th ESO B students.

It was a bit of a short session, and that shows in the different degrees of concision we can see on the different slides.

Take a look and feel free to add your comments.

To see the presentation, please click here.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Gothic art through the ages, a presentation

Some of the students in 4th ESO A have been working on this presentation this morning. With a little help from the teacher, this is the final result.

It is a useful way to understand how a presentation needs to be made:
  • Clear
  • Simple
  • Easy to read

Please understand that the majority of the text is NOT on the presentation, but on the notes and words expressed by the person presenting the topic.

A presentation is not a text, it is a SUMMARY which can complement the basic information with images, videos, audio, graphs, etc.

We will be making some more. For now, this is the work we did today.

Enjoy and learn the origin of this love of the dark...

Click here to go to a Presentations server and watch the presentation.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Series we are watching: Heroes (4th of ESO)

Our 4th of ESO students are watching the hit series Heroes.

Here you have some useful links, read and learn some more about this contemporary TV hit.

1. Wikipedia entry for Heroes
2. Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) entry for Heroes
3. A dedicated fan page:

Series we are watching: Fame (3rd of ESO)

Our 3rd of ESO students are watching the 80's hit series Fame.

Here you have some useful links, read and learn some more about this TV classic.

1. Wikipedia entry for Fame
2. Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) entry for Fame3. A dedicated fan page

Watching subtitled videos is a good idea

As part of the course, we have joined a project that is trying to prove that watching subtitled videos improves our learning of a foreign language.

It belongs to the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission and it is called: "Subtitles and language learning" and you can see its home page here: http://sublanglearn.utu.fi/







Our way to participate consists of watching a series throughout the year at a rate of one chapter (45 minutes) every two weeks. We watch it in the original language (English) and use subtitles in Spanish.

The core idea is this: watching videos in the original version with the help of subtitles we can understand easily is a good help to our learning of the English language.

Simple, and true. And fun.

How to install and use Audacity

INSTALL

In order to install Audacity, you need to download the program and some extra files.

1. Go to Audacity's web page (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/) and click on the "Windows" link.

2. Click on "Descargar" (download).

3. Click on the "Instalador" file corresponding to your Operating System.

4. Select "Guardar archivo" (Save file).

5. When the download operation is complete, double-click the downloaded file (audacity-win-unicode-1.3.12.exe, remember the numbers may change if the file has a newer version) and follow the normal install steps.

6. Your Audacity is correctly installed. Now we need to add one little file that is really useful.

7 . Go back to the "Descarga" (Download) page on step 3 and click on "Codificador LAME MP3", and follow the instructions until you find this file: audacity-win-unicode-1.3.12.exe (remember the numbers may change if the file has a newer version). Download this file.

8. Double-click the file and install it.


USE

9. Now you have Audacity AND you can export Audacity files as MP3.

10. Start Audacity and record a sample of your voice. Click on the Record button and start your sound. When you finish, you can click on the Stop button.


















11. Now you have a sound track. You can listen to it by clicking Play. The other buttons (Pause, Home and End) allow you to "navigate" your recorded track.

12. To save a track, click Archivo (File) and Exportar (Export). Save your file with the MP3 type.

You can now record sound as many times as you want.

Enjoy!

Home recordings

We have been working with our voice in the English Classroom. We use the Audio CD that comes with our book. Like this:

1. We hear the audio version of our text, so we listen and read. We pay attention to difficult words.
  • We use Windows Media Player (or other player you have)
2. We record our voice reading a small part of the text.
3. We play back our voice, so we listen and read. We verify the quality of our performance.
  • Once again, we use Windows Media Player (or other player you have)
4. We repeat steps 1-3.

After several attempts, our reading performance improves and we can move on to a different section of the text.

Murder at Coyote Canyon, by Gina D. B. Clemen

Our 4th year students are reading "Murder at Coyote Canyon", by Gina D. B. Clemen. Below you will find some useful links:

- Murder at Coyote Canyon

- California

- The Chumash people

White Fang, by Jack London

Our 3rd year students are reading "White Fang", an adapted reader based on an original novel by Jack London.

Below you can find links to pages about:

- Jack London


- White Fang: