Xmas Homework

• Reading: "A Foreigner in Britain" (Exam on the 13th of January)
• Speaking (oral presentation): My Gap-Year (Oral presentations on the 8th and 9th of January)
• Listening + Writing: TED "Do schools kill creativity?"
• Grammar & Vocab: Workbook 5C (pages 80-81)

Happy Christmas and happy learning!

TEACHING CONVERSATION: The understatement of the year

Well, it wasn't exactly .....

Look at the pattern below:

A:   So, what did you think of Switzerland?
B:   Well, it wasn't exactly the friendliest place I've ever been to. 

Now respond to the following with an understatement. The words in brackets will help you.

1. I hear it was pretty difficult.   (easy)
2. Was it very expensive.    (cheap)
3. I suppose he's quite old now.    (young)
4. So, your car is pretty old.    (new)
5. He's the most stupid person I've ever met.   (intelligent)
6. Hasn't the weather been awful?    (fantastic)
7. It's just so small.    (big)
8. You must have been really angry about it.   (pleased)
9. Isn't it a little cold in here.   (warm)
10. This wine is much too sweet.    (dry)
11. Parisian waiters are so rude.    (polite)

Now try adding some of the following endings to the responses above:

.... I have to admit.

.... that's for sure. 

.... it's true.

Teach girls bravery, not perfection

My Gap-year

1. 

If you could travel to 11 countries in 44 days, which countries would you visit?
What would you do in each country? 

In groups, talk about what your epic trip would involve.

2. 

You are going to watch a short one-minute video called MOVE which shows clips of 11 countries visited by Andrew Lees in 44 days.

Try to name as many of the countries as possible. The clips are very fast,  you can speculate about which countries are shown using modals verbs of speculation. 

The countries are Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Brazil, USA, Thailand and Birmania.

3. 

Have you been to these of these countries?
Would you like to go to any of these countries?
What are they famous for?

 

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

 
EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

If money was not an issue, and you could take a year off, .....

• Where would you go?
• What would you learn?
• What would you eat?

Keep dreaming and practice English!

_____________________________________________________

Some useful language you might need:

2nd Conditional:

If I had a gap year and enough money, I would go to.....

Modal Verbs:

I think I should really learn to .....

Once I'm in the States, I must meet........... and tell him/her how much I admire ....

I might also enjoy a good ride on an elephant. 

Different verbal tenses:

I have always wanted to learn......


Some rethorical questions:
What could be better than this?
Can you imagine what it would be like to meet.....?
Wouldn't we all want to speak English more fluently?

Some nice expressions:

It's a must! 

It's worth going! It's worth it! It's worth trying! 

I don't want to regret anything I haven't done when I'm older. 
An unforgetable experience. 

A Motivational Video

I would like to thank our classmate Mario Maldonado for sharing this video today in class.

It was really inspiring and definitely worth watching.

I will keep it here in our blog so that other students can watch it too.

TV Mini-Debates

DEBATE PROCEDURE

In each group of four:

• Two students have to work out and note down all possible arguments IN FAVOUR of each statement, including defences against points that might be brought up by the opposition.
• The other two students have to work out and note down all possible arguments AGAINST of each statement, including defences against points that might be brought up by the opposition.

1-      Each student is allowed 1 minute to give his/her opinion and support his/her arguments.

2-      The procedure will be as follows:

student for (1 minute)    ->   student against  (1 minute)

student for (1 minute)    ->   student against  (1 minute)

3-      Then the chairperson invites the audience to ask questions or to make statements.

_____________________________________________________

You can volunteer as chairperson for a debate other than your own (personal objective)

The chairperson’s role:

1-    Control time

2-    Take the vote from the class to determine which team has presented the most convincing arguments.

_______________________________________________________

NOTE: Groups to do not need to be divided according to actual opinions. They are divided arbitrarily, so many will find themselves having to argue in favour of something they oppose, or vice-versa.  This is in fact a kind of role-play. 

Now clink on the link below and check where you are. Be prepared for the debate next class. 

TV Mini-Debates

Happy speaking!

Live concerts are the best way to listen to music?

Your favourite singer with your favourite songs at the same place. All the people in the same place for the same reason. Can you imagine?

Personally, I think everyone has his or her own favourite singer depending on their likes.
First of all, there are a whole a lot of varieties of music and everyone has the opportunity to hear it live.
Secondly, being lucky to enjoy that excitement and unforgettable atmosphere is unique if you really like the singer you are listening to.

In conclusion, there is a lot of difference between listening to your favourite music in a concert that through headphones without any type of change.

A harmful social network?

Instagram is a social network and an application that has more than one billions users. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October 2010. It is used to share mainly videos and imges with friends.
But many people think that when using this social network there is no harm, is it true?
Personally, I think it is not.
It is true yhat there are benefits, for instance: to communicate for free, to earn money as on influencer ... .
However, there are also risks, specifically addiction. Addiction to this kind of application can cause more than one thousand deaths a year, for example: traffic accidents. Hackers can even scam you or trick you by creating fake accounts. It can also affect the academic performance of those who use it (who are increasingly younger).
In conclusion, abusing this application can cause a lot of harm.

Which do you think is the best sport for a young person to take up?

Personally I think that doing sport is very important, because of the physical and psychological benefits. Especially young people, it's very important that they interact with other people. For this reason, I think that there is one sport better or worse than another. The most important thing is to interact with other people, meet friends, learn from them...

When I was 11 years old, I had played in a soccer team. I was playing in a team for two years. In all that time, I had fun and above all, I learned. One of the best things that I learned is that there aren't enemies in the field, there are rivals.

In conclusion, what I mean by this, is that with sport, you get respect.

Twitter

Within all the apps that have been created, we come upon Twitter, an app made to share all its users' opinions. As a person that uses Twitter almost all of my free time, I acknowledge it.
To begin with, it is, from my viewpoint, the best way to keep informed about the present. I got a better understanding of the world by reading others' Tweets than watching the news. Unlike others, people there do not lie.
To continue, you can find a lot of artists that make incredible pieces of art and contact them to have the drawing of your dreams. You can even contact business accounts and ask about doubts.
Whereas on the other hand, you can use twitter not in a professional way, but a personal one and have a fun day.
Is it true that sometimes you come across comments and images that you didn't plan to see. Maybe some people are too shameless.

All in all, If I had to recommend an app I would recommend Twitter without any doubts.

The teenage years are the most important years of your life

Adolescence is the period where you experiment changes, not only in your body, but also psychologically, this leads to a stage remember.
From my point of view, I agree with the idea that the teenage years are the most important years of your life.
Firstly, when you are a teenager (from 13 to 19 years old) everything changes, you aren’t a child anymore, although this sounds bad, it doesn’t. Why do I say it? In this phase you start to take decisions on your own, you think about your future, you make new friends, you go to parties. Many people believe that they met their close friends in teenage years.
In the same way, the changes in the body are very important, things like the height in boys and girls the arrival of menstruation.
Therefore, what we can say is that it’s a difficult phase.
Secondly, just relaxing and enjoying, adolescence is to make mistakes, to fell (funny, sad, jealous, embarrassed) and to me the most important one: to create memories.
In conclusion, the teenage years are the most relevant part of life due to the interest we show for things and the amount of changes we live through in this phase.

How to change the world

The world nowadays has a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately. In this topic, I am going to be explaining some of the solutions for us to have a better planet and ensure the good life that our grandchildren deserve.

Therefore, there is the main issue. The climate change as it is known by all of us. The planet is having an immense climate change that has risen a lot from past centuries and it is experimenting with its highest peak. The ways to stop it are very, very simple. The main reason for climate change is the fact of people not recycling well and using fossil fuels which emit a lot of CO2 gas, this gas breaks the ozone cape of the atmosphere (decomposing the O3 into O2 and CO).

The ozone absorbs the UV light from the sun and on its destruction it no longer protects the Earth from the dangerous radiation. To solve it, we need to plant more trees and plants, also use an alternative movement which lowers or replaces the CO2 emissions, such as going by bike or by public transport and/or recycling more stuff that we don’t use because the cremation of the trash emits a lot of CO2 as well as dioxins.

We should think more about the future of our planet and its life, not only staring at the present thinking that it will stay as it is forever without consequences.

What would you do to change the world? In your opinion, what are the most important problems? What would you do to solve them?

What would you do to change the world?the world?in your opinion.What are the most important problems?What would you do to solve them?

Firstly, personally, I think that to change the world, we have to look at the negative factors to make a better world.

Personally speaking, i believe that negative factors are pollution, poverty in countries of the "first world",insecurity and corruption.

In my opinion, pollution is an important factor because it is something that affects the world,Therefore we have to take care of the world because currently pollution has increrasen even more.As an example and inspiration we can look at Greta, she's a young girl like us that inspires and works to help decrease pollution in the world.From my point of view we can decrease pollution by recycling.

To me poverty in countries of the first world is the most important problem list to me the fact that any person could starve is absolutely horrible and vicious but we can help by donating to NGOs.

Regarding insecurity, I believe people that commit crimes is because of their education and situation at home in this option, we can't do anything about it apart from punishing it.

And finally, we have got corruption, I don't understand why politicians prefer money than a better quality of life for people.

A holiday I enjoyed

I traveled to Euskadi last year with my parents and my best friend at that time. We went by car, just because my dad is afraid of flying. 8 hours. I spent 8 hours in a car. Even though, I was not bored at all.
When we arrived, we went to the hotel my parents booked weeks ago. It was quiet and lovely.
The next day we decided to go sightseeing. What to say about San Sebastian? It was crowded and noisy. However, I fell, and I'm still, in love with it. That evening an American boy asked me to take him a picture. I took one to myself with his phone. I wonder what he did with it.
After a couple of days going sightseeing my mum was tired of cities and she made us go to the mountain. Guess what? We got lost. Yes, the mountain was nice, quiet... but it was very cold. Few hours later we were able to call the police and we arrived at the hotel safely. The rest of the week ew went only to cities. Bilbao was nice too, although the food was a bit expensive.
I will definitely come back, but no mountains.

Connectors / Linking Words

Here you have a list of the most common connectors.
If you make a good use of them, your text will be better articulated and more coherent.

Connector	Catalan translation	Example
Contrast:
but	però	It's hot but I'll take my coat.
	sinó que	I didn't go out but I stayed at home.
although	encara que	Although it's hot, I'll take my coat.
in spite of	malgrat	The company had earnings in spite of the crisis.
however	malgrat tot	It's very hot. However, I'll take my coat.
on the other hand	per una altra banda	The company has earned a lot of money. On the other hand, they have closed many factories.
Addició:
and	i	I'll come and wait for you.
moreover	a més a més	We've lost everything. Moreover, the banks will take no responsability.
as well as	així com també	We've lost time as well as money.
also	també	We've lost time and we've also lost money.
in addition	a més a més	We've lost everything. In addition, the banks will take no responsability.
Exemple:
for example	per exemple	You need something that can relax you, for example, a long holiday at the beach.
that is	és a dir	We need an aggresive marketing campaign, that is, something that can improve our sales.
such as	tal com	We need something that can improve our sales such as an aggressive marketing campaign.
in other words	amb altres paraules	We need something that can improve our sales. In other words, we need an aggressive marketing campaign.

Seqüencia:
first of all	primer de tot	First of all, turn the computer on
secondly	en segon lloc	Secondly, look for the program
then	aleshores	Then, open the program
after that	després d'això	After that, locate the folders
finally	finalment	Finally, download the folders into your hard disk.
Temps:
before	abans de	I'll meet him before going home. I'll meet him before I go home. I'll meet him before 6 o'clock.
after	després de	I'll meet him after leaving the office. I'll meet him after I leave the office. I'll meet him after 6 o'clock.
while	mentre	I'll wait while you're in the meeting.
until	fins que fins a	I'll stay in the office until I finish my work. I'll stay in the office until 10 in the evening.
for	durant	I've been waiting for 10 minutes.
since	des de	I've been talking on the phone since you arrived.
as soon as	tan aviat com	Please call me as soon as you can.
Propòsit:
so that	de manera que	I'll give you the report so that you can check it.
in order to	per tal de, per a	I'll go to London in order to practise my English.
Resultat:
consequently	en conseqüència	I'ts very late. Consequently, we should go.
therefore	per tant	It's very late. Therefore, we should go.
for this reason	per aquesta raó	It's very late. For this reason, we should go.
so	així que	It's very late so we should go.
Causa:
because	perquè	I can't buy a flat because they are very expensive
because of	degut a	I can't buy a flat because of the price.
as a result	com a resultat	I have little money. As a result, I can't buy a flat.
thanks to	gràcies a	I earned a lot thanks to the extra hours.

Present Tenses

     Read the following sentences.

·         What verbal tense is it?     Pr. S.    Pr. C.     Pr. P.

·         Match them with one of the uses of the present tenses.

	Verbal tense	Uses
1.       It’s raining right now.
2.       I have lived in Barcelona for 10 years.
3.       I do yoga twice a week.
4.       Prices are going up.
5.       My brother has never worked abroad.
6.       Water boils at 100ºCelcius.
7.       She’s always late.
8.       How often do you have toasts for breakfast?
9.       What are you doing on Friday night?
10.   He often goes out with my brother.
11.   I’ve lost my keys.
12.   I’m painting my flat these days.
13.   I live in a small flat.
14.   How long have you worked there?
15.   I’m having dinner with some friends tomorrow night.
16.   I’ve just seen your sister in the street

*State verbs and verbs describing feelings are not normally used in the present continuous: be, like, want, know, need, have (possession)

Present perfect		Catalan translation	Spanish translation
?  YET	Have you finished yet?	ja	ya
-   YET	Not yet. I haven’t finished yet.	encara	todavia
+  ALREADY	Yes, I have already finished.	ja	ya