Batxillerat Collaborative Class Blog

Grammar exercises online: Verbal tenses

2012-01-31T13:58:00.000+01:00

If you feel you need further practice with the grammar points that will come up in the exam, here you have a few interesting links that may help you.

You can also use them as a self-evaluation.

Present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continuous, past perfect, future forms: will, going to, present continuous (6 exercises)
Present perfect and past simple, Present perfect continuous (4 exercises)

Do you think you should revise irregular verbs? Ok then, you can play and learn with the following irregular verbs game.

Do you know any good links for grammar practice which you would like to recommend?

Grammar exercises online: Relative clauses

2012-01-31T11:27:00.000+01:00

Relative Clauses:
Relative pronouns: who, which, whose or no pronouns
Relative pronouns: who, which, whose
Test on relative clauses

Relative pronouns: who, which, whom, who, that, when or where
Combine sentences using a relative pronoun
Test on relative clauses

Don't say "Yes" or "No"

2012-01-31T11:00:00.000+01:00

Objective: practice of interrogative sentences.

Whole class or team competition.

Each team prepares as many "yes/no questions" as you can. You can use all the different verbal tenses.

Each question must be answered without delay and without the use of "yes" or "no".
The team which answers the most questions in this way wins.

Alternative answers to "Yes" or "No" could be:

I might go. Obviously Obviously not.
Maybe Sure No way.
Perhaps Of course. Of course not.
Probably I hope so. I hope not.
Possibly I think so. I don't think so.

Of course I will. Of course I won't.
Of course I did.    Of course I didn't.
  I definitely will.   I definitely won't.
     I definitely did. I definitely didn't.

You never know.
It depends.
Who knows!
Why not?
I have no idea.
I haven't got a clue.
I would rather not answer.

Idea taken from Penny Ur's book, Grammar Practice, Cambridge, 1990.

Dying Professor Randy Pausch Gives Final Farewell Lecture

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000+01:00

No matter how busy you are, remember to save some time for listening practice every week.

And this is such an outstanding story that I'm sure you will love to listen to it, if you can spare 10 minutes.

You may benefit from it because at least to me it's pure inspiration and energy.
I hope you like it!

The first Cyborg

2012-01-25T23:32:00.000+01:00

Hi guys, I'm proud to present you a very interesting news...
It's about a man that was born with a genetic anomaly...
Without further ado, here is the news:

Neil Harbisson (27 July 1982) is a Catalan raised, Northern Ireland born artist, musician and performer best known for his self-extended ability to hear colours. In 2004 he became the first person in the world to wear an eyeborg. The inclusion of the eyeborg on his passport photo has been claimed by some to be official recognition of Harbisson as a cyborg. Color and the use of technology as an extension of the performer, and not as part of the performance, are the central themes in Harbisson's work. In 2010, he founded the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization to help humans become cyborgs.

Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a condition that only allows him to see in black and white. He grew up in Mataró (Spain) where he studied music, dance and drama at various schools.He began to compose piano pieces at the age of 11. At school, classmates thought he was just being lazy every time he asked one of them to pass the red paint in an art class, or pick out a blue pen. He dressed exclusively in black and white. "What was the point in wearing something I couldn't appreciate?" he asks. At the age of 16 he started studying Fine Art at Institut Alexandre Satorras, where he was given special permission to use only black, white and gray colors in his works. Harbisson's early works are all in black and white.

In October 2003 in his second year at Dartington College of Arts, Harbisson attended a lecture on cybernetics, particularly on sensory extensions via cybernetics, given by Adam Montandon, a Plymouth University student. Neil found this of immense interest and at the end of the lecture he went up to Adam to explain his condition. From that moment they started working on the eyeborg project.

The eyeborg works with a head mounted camera that picks up the colors directly in front of a person, and converts them in real-time into sound waves.Neil memorised the frequencies related to each colour: high frequency hues are high-pitched, while low frequency hues sound bolder. In Vienna, they co-presented their Eyeborg project, one of more than 400 entries from 29 different countries, and won the Europrix Award in Content Tools and Interface Design (2004), as well as the Innovation Award (Submerge, Bristol 2004).

In 2007, while hitch-hiking around Europe, Harbisson met Peter Kese in Ljubljana, a software developer from Kranj, Slovenia. Kese offered to develop the eyeborg even further so that Harbisson could perceive color saturation and not only color hues. After a few weeks he had developed a new eyeborg model that allowed Harbisson to perceive up to 360 different hues through microtones and saturation through different volume levels.

Matias Lizana, a student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya is currently developing the eyeborg into a small chip as part of his final year project. The new chip will allow Harbisson to hear colours in stereo and to implant the eyeborg in his forehead.

Here is a video, an interview: (Sorry, but I've only found it in Spanish)

Thank you everyone, Greetings.

HOLIDAYS ABROAD OR HOLIDAYS AT HOME ( YOUR COUNTRY)

2012-01-25T19:59:00.000+01:00

In holidays periods, for example, summer holidays or Christmas holidays, people think about whether to travel to another country or your own country ( in my case Spain). Many people prefer travel to another country. However, currently, there are many people travelling in their own country. As in other things, this topic is a great debate of pros and against things.
For one things, travelling to a foreign country you can learn new cultures and languages. For example, you travel yo Japan to lean a new language, you learn Japanese and Japanese culture. Another example, travelling to European countries like Britain or Germany also allows you to learn languages and see landmarks like Big Ben or the Brandenburg Gate.
The downside of travelling to another country is that it is normally very expensive.
On the other hand, traveling in out own country allows us to learn more our culture and our cities. For example, in summer you can travel to coastal cities and in winter you can travel to nearby cities to ski slopes. The downside of travelling in our country is you can not learn other languages.
In conclusion, there are advantages and disadvantages of travelling to another country or your country, but I think it is best to travel to another country to learn new cultures and languages.
Andrés Cuenca Ródenas