IMPROVE YOUR WRITING SKILLS

Dear students,

some of you asked for some extra samples and ideas to learn to write correctly. Well, your wish is our command! Here you are some resources to improve your writing skills:

1. 50 resources that will improve your writing
2. A bunch of writing samples
3. For and Against -some tips
4. How to write an informal e-mail
5. How to write a formal e-mail
6. How to write a narrative essay

ORAL EXAM -schedule

Dear students,
this is the schedule we are going to follow:

19th February

 9.30: Emilia & MªÁngeles
 9.50: Victoria & Cristina
10.00: Victoria & Antonio
10.10: María & Caty
10.20: María P. & Antonio
10.30: Rosa María & Mª Ángeles
10.40
10.50: Ana & Nuria
11.00
11.10
11.20: Álvaro & José Victor

24th February

 9.30: Consuelo & Emilia P.
 9.50: Isabel & Lidia
10.00: Paqui & Carmen Mª
10.10: Pascual & José Luis
10.20: María José & Juan Antonio
10.30: María C. & Dafne
10.40: Javier, Noelia & Miriam Lorena
10.50
11.00



Good luck!!

Weekend Movies: "The Secret of Nichola Tesla" by Crsto Papic

Have you heard the latest news on the development of a new battery that might power our homes in the future? It is said to require solar energy but it might free us  from our current electricity providers and, most important, from their extremely expensive electric bill (read here if you want to know more about it). If you feel curious about the inventor of such a thing, Nikola Tesla, you are welcome to watch the film The Secret of Nikola Tesla, directed by the Croatian director Crsto Papic in 1980, and starring a bunch of good actors, Orson Welles among them. Warning: the first minutes are an introduction in a different language: English starts at 1:20 and the movie starts at 7:42. Youtube provides subtitles if you click on one of the buttons below.

I hope you enjoy the film!

January test -KEY

Dear students,
those of you who didn't come to class the day we corrected the January grammar test can download the key from this link now.
: -)

Grammar Review (Conditionals) - KEY

Hey guys,
these are the correct answers of the photocopied activities I delivered in class (REVIEW of conditional sentences). You were supposed to do them on your own to review what you have learned.
Good luck!

ONLINE resources to practice SPEAKING

Dear students,

some of you have asked me about resources to practice speaking... Well, I have good news for you: there are many sites on the Internet where you can find people to share your love of English and, maybe, teach a bit of Spanish in return. So, here you are 10 language exchange communities you might find interesting and useful:

 

1. MyEnglishTeacher.eu

We have open discussions on our forum, where you can find people to practise English with on Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook and Google+.
Feel free to use these pages:

• Practice English on Skype
• Practice English on WhatsApp
• Practice English on Facebook
• Practice English on Google+

2. Speaky

Find and meet native speakers from all around the world.
Practice via online video chat. It is free. For anyone. From anywhere.

3. HowDoYou.Do

A great language exchange website. You can quickly sign up with your email address, Facebook or Google+ account.
This is what you see when you are inside. You can chat, video talk or simply voice chat. There are usually at least 10 people in the chat rooms. Very easy to use. A fantastic website to put your knowledge of the English language into practice.

4. Coeffee.com

The friendly language exchange community. Their website is absolutely amazing. Beside the main purpose of the site (language exchange), you are also able to play games to improve your vocabulary and pronunciation. Test yourself and, of course, share the results with your friends.

5. Easy Language Exchange

Easy Language Exchange makes language learning easily accessible and free for all. They provide all the essential tools to make languages easy for you. Practise how to read, write and speak with natives.

Although the website is new, it is growing very fast and you will find many people there. The founders are nice people and you will be in good company.

6. LingoGlobe

LingoGlobe.com is a free Language Exchange Community. Learn and practice foreign languages with native speakers. Discuss on the Lingo Globe language forum or even through live chat.

7. italki

italki is a language learning social network that connects students and language teachers. You can find language exchange partners, practise speaking a foreign language, ask questions, find free online language resources and get help from an international community of language learners.

italki has been around for a while and is becoming one of the most popular language exchange communities in the world.

8. Verbling

Verbling lets language learners instantly connect with native speakers around the world through live video.

Right now on Verbling, you can learn languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and Russian.

9. busuu.com

Busuu.com is one of the biggest language exchange communities out there.

10. Language Exchange Project

This particular project was created by a polish guy, Greg. @LangExchange. His website works really well. The community is live, and personally, I loved his other projects as well.

http://www.um.es/

Read more...

Homework

Dear students,
please complete the activities related to "I wish", "If only", "it's time..." that I delivered in class today (unit 58, photocopy), and read the text on page 50.
See you soon,
reme

Revision: TRAVELLING

Here's a nice compilation to refresh and enlarge your vocabulary on the topic. To download it, click here.

Weekend Movies: "Citizen Kane" by Orson Welles

Brief analysis:

The fresh, sophisticated, and classic masterpiece, Citizen Kane (1941), is probably the world's most famous and highly-rated film, with its many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations (in photography, editing, and sound). Its director, star, and producer were all the same genius individual - Orson Welles (in his film debut at age 25!), who collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz on the script (and also with an uncredited John Houseman), and with Gregg Toland as his talented cinematographer. [The amount of each person's contributions to the screenplay has been the subject of great debate over many decades.] Toland's camera work on Karl Freund's expressionistic horror film Mad Love (1935) exerted a profound influence on this film.
The film, budgeted at $800,000, received unanimous critical praise even at the time of its release, although it was not a commercial success (partly due to its limited distribution and delayed release by RKO due to pressure exerted by famous megalomaniac publisher W.R. Hearst) - until it was re-released after World War II, found well-deserved (but delayed) recognition in Europe, and then played on television.
The film engendered controversy (and efforts at ruthless suppression in early 1941 through intimidation, blackmail, newspaper smears, discrediting and FBI investigations) before it premiered in New York City on May 1, 1941, because it appeared to fictionalize and caricaturize certain events and individuals in the life of William Randolph Hearst - a powerful newspaper magnate and publisher. The film was accused of drawing remarkable, unflattering, and uncomplimentary parallels (especially in regards to the Susan Alexander Kane character) to real-life. The notorious battle was detailed in Thomas Lennon's and Michael Epstein's Oscar-nominated documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996), and it was retold in HBO's cable-TV film RKO 281 (1999) (the film's title refers to the project numbering for the film by the studio, before the film was formally titled).

Source: http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html

Homework

Dear students,
please complete the activities of the photocopies I delivered in class last week (Sections 56 and 57 -Conditionals).
Kind regards,
r