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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I Want to Be with You Tonight

The verbs in red are written in the passive voice.
As you can see, the passive voice is widely used in English.

Sometimes, songs are popular because they have been used in advertising.
Some other times songs are used in advertising because they are popular.
This song is popular and it is used on a TV advertisement.

The lyrics can be followed on this site.

If you know the music, it can be sang along on this karaoke.

A translation into Spanish can be found here.

If you click here an original video will be played.

Monday, May 3, 2010

WRITING A REPORT: useful vocabulary and grammar

I´ve found this interesting piece of news about a School Science Fair in Plymouth,
published at The Bristol Press.

This article talks about the Fair, how it was organised, who won the first prizes and explains some of the students´experiments, providing some of their comments and reactions.

This site includes a list of blogs on the right, with a topic sentence summarising each blog´s contents.

It also has a section below where comments can be submitted.
Now, I have selected a paragraph to focus attention on some items which might be useful for you when writing your own reports.
Pay attention, take notes and stop before the explanations to think on your own




Thursday, April 1, 2010 10:42 PM EDT (1)
By Freesia Singngam
Staff Writer (2)

PLYMOUTH —(3) Their experiments ranged from analyzing plant growth to making their own batteries, but all the 7th-grade students (4) from Bonnie Doughty-Jenkins’ class (5)used the scientific method for their entries in the third-annual Eli Terry Jr. Middle School Science Fair Wednesday (6).“They had to come up with a question they wanted to test,” Doughty-Jenkins said (7) About 80 students from her classes entered the fair, but in the end (8), one student won it all. Spencer Pilarski won the first place trophy with “The Effect of Various Liquids on a Nail.” In a wooden box, he placed cups of several different liquids including ammonia, ginger ale, lemonade and salt water. Then he put one nail in each. He found that salt water rusted the nail the most.“I thought I wasn’t going to win it,” he said (9)
***

BEFORE LOOKING AT THE NOTES BELOW,

FOLLOW THESE STEPS:

1. READ THE FULL TEXT TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IT.

2. THEN, FOCUS ATTENTION ON THE COLOURED EXPRESSIONS TRYING TO GUESS THE REASON WHY THEY HAVE BEEN HIGHTLIGHTED.
3. WRITE YOUR CONCLUSIONS ON YOUR INTERNET-SHEET
4. ANSWER THE FINAL TWO QUESTIONS AT THE END OF YOUR WORK ON YOUR INTERNET-SHEET AND AS A "COMENTARIO" HERE. REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR NAME!

NOTES:

(1) Date: Notice one of the ways of writing the date.
(2) By: Used to introduce the author of the report --also used for films or books, i.e. directed by; written by. Notice the structure BY + NAME OF THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE ARTICLE + WHO HE/SHE IS.
(3) PLYMOUTH: This is the place where the event took place.
(4) Los estudiantes de 7º grado
(5) De la clase de Bonnie Doughty-Jenkins. An example of the use of the Saxon Genitive form. Notice the structure NAME OF THE TEACHER + ´S + CLASS
(6) La Feria de Ciencias del Colegio Eli Terry. Notice the order of elements in English --DETERMINER + NOUN.
(7) Dijo Daughty-Jenkins. Notice the order SUBJECT + VERB and the use of the verb say --said, to report someone else´s words.
(8) al final
(9) dijo. Notice the use and order of SUBJECT + VERB, though in Spanish the subject is not needed. See (7)
***

1. Has this post been useful to you?

2. What did you appreciate most?


***

Learn & Enjoy

Live & Feel

Friday, April 16, 2010

A site providing examples of how to summarize the contents of a blog

Eli Terry students explore science through experiments
is the title of a piece of news I´ve found by chance.
Interesting as an example of how to write a headline on what a blog is about (column on the right)
***
It is also a resource for vocabulary
which might be used by my students in their reports.
***
It´s also interesting because it talks about a group of students and their work,
as well as the way they share it.
***
Have a look at the instructions for "submitting a comment"
-- Go to the SUBMIT A COMMENT section.
Do you understand them?
***
Has this link been useful?
What have you learnt?
Did you like the experiments?
Submit a comment here or e-mail to
if you want to write a larger report.
***
Enjoy your visit!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I REDYNETED meeting at Alcalá de Henares

Yesterday, the I REDYNETED meeting
took place at I.E.S. Isidra de Guzmán in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid.
***
What is REDYNETED?
It is a project which joins people from four schools in Spain who want to share their work.
These schools are:
I.E.S. Schaman Josefina de la Torre, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
I.E.S. El Rincón, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
I.E.S. Isidra de Guzmán, Alcalá de Henares

***

Meeting Hall at I.E.S. Isidra de Guzmán


Welcome at the Town Council


Back to I.E.S. Isidra de Guzmán.

An Exhibition on Outstanding Women Through History


Students from Las Palmas showed their works.


And students from I.E.S. Isidra de Guzmán too


A group of students played a flute version of Pachelbel´s Canon



And a peculiar trio

representing a parody of Julio Iglesias hit parade

"Soy un truhán, soy un señor"


***
On-line Local Press reporting this meeting:
Local News at Portal Local

A2 Prensa
La Quincena.es
Madrid Informativo
Tribuna Municipal
El Portal de Alcalá de Henares
(all of them offer the same report
and a similar photograph at the Town Council)

***
More photographs here.
***
***
Dear friends,
Enjoy your visit and thank you for coming!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Where is the love?

Video:
Lyrics and a different video (recommended):
TITLE: Where is the love?
AUTHOR: Black Eyes Peas
SINGER/GROUP: Black Eyes Peas
NATIONALITY: USA
STYLE: R&B, pop and hip-hop
MAIN MESSAGE: A song to meditate on our world
***
Found and Sent by:
Ruth Arranz

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tears Are Over (Se acabaron las lágrimas)

Leyre Ortega (4º B) has sent this video of the Spanish song
"Se acabaron las lágrimas", sang by Huecco.
It talks about the bad treatment of women and it includes Spanish male and female celebrities showing the message:
"All of Us Are Hurt"
***
Thank you, Leyre.
***
When dealing with songs, these questions are proposed:
Why have you chosen this song?
What do you like most?
How do you feel?
Is it a sad or a happy song?
What is the main message?
Who is the song addressed to?
***

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Gift of a Friend

Demi Lovato, Gift of a Friend
(Selected by Sandra Caso and Raquel Mendoza)
U.S.A., September 9, 2009
Spain, November 21, 2009
Created to promote the film Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure,
the song was Demi Lovato´s second single from her second album called Here We Go Again.
***
This song talks about friendship.
***
At this site you´ve got the lyrics.
There are some spelling mistakes.
Can you find them?
Here you´ve got a video translated into Spanish. It´s interesting that you follow it once you are familiar with the lyrics, in order to recall the English version by heart.
***