Category Archives: Students’ Corner

Students’ Corner: Two Opinion Essays

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There is little that gives more satisfaction than publishing students’ work ;they are  the reason behind all the hard work that means keeping  this blog going.

Thank you very much to Raquel de Paz and Lucía Fernández, from the Intermediate Level (B1)  for sending their essays.

Education is the single most important factor in the development of a country.

By Raquel de Paz 

In my opinion, there is a very important thing in society which helps us to improve: education. A strong education system helps people to improve their knowledge and to be successful in their lives.
Education gives the keys to solve the problems. There is a famous saying which says: “If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, if you teach the man to fish you feed him for a lifetime”. Firstly, education is essential to our life. Again and again we have to call on to our basic knowledge to understand basic daily information about life. We need it to do the shopping, to understand signs and signals, etc.
Secondly, a good education brings a long number of qualified people with a lot of knowledge on a wide range of subjects and, as a result, these people work in different areas improving technologies and techniques supporting the development of a country.
To sum up, education is a very important factor in the development of a country. Education provides experience, training and personal development and, as a result, more skills, better productivity and greater ability to improve living conditions.

Children watch too much television   by Lucía Fernández

Nowadays children spend an excessive amount of time watching  television wherever they are, helped by the Internet and mobile phones instead of enjoying other kinds of activities healthier and more educative .
Although many people believe that watching  television is a good way of learning new things and an  innocent distraction for children, from my point of view,you waste a lot of time doing something unproductive. It’s more like something parents use  so as not to be  bothered by their children in some situations; for example,when a child is nervous, the parents play cartoons on his mobile and the child then  stares at the  mobile screen  for hours as if  he were in another world.
Children should play with each other and develop their imagination in a healthy mood ,but also  their parents should help them to achieve it.
To sum up,I think television is necessary and  complements  other activities, but it should be used with care.

 

A Guess the Word Game to Practise Relative Sentences and Paraphrasing

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What do you normally do when you are talking to a person in English and you don’t know the word? I guess you don’t tell the person ” OK, right, hold on! I am going to look it up on my mobile phone”. You might be tempted to do it, but know that the person you are talking to might lose interest in what you are saying.
So, the thing to do would be Paraphrasing.

How do we paraphrase?? There are some expressions you can use
It’s A KIND OF house
It’s THE OPPOSITE OF lazy
It’s LIKE cleaning but… trying to explain what you want to say but using other words you know. That’s calle
It’s SIMILAR TO book but..
FOR EXAMPLE, you do this when
It’s A SYNONYM OF..
It’s A PERSON/SOMEBODY WHO…
It’s a THING/SOMETHING WHICH…
It’s SOMEWHERE/A PLACE WHERE

It can also help to say “ It’s a noun, or an adjective…. “ If it’s an expression, you can also say “ It’s an expression and there are three words in it”

Right, now we are ready to play the game. It’s called WHAT’S THE WORD?

How we play the game:

  • Divide the class into two teams
  • Ask a member of Team A to sit on chair with his back to the whiteboard.
  • Display the first word on the screen
  • The members of the team have two minutes to describe the word but they cannot use any parts of the words on the screen. For example if it is “teacher” they cannot use the word “teach”.The aim is for the student to guess as many words as possible in one minute. Every word in black scores one point , the ones in red score two points.
  • Then, it is the other team’s turn to choose someone to take the hot seat.
  • Needless to say, you keep the score on the board for everybody to see. Have fun!!!

 

Get Students Out of their Seats with a Lesson on Gender Stereotypes

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My beloved father was a chauvinist doctor and my mother was an undercover feminist. I am sure you’ve heard the saying “opposites attract”and that appeared to be the case with my parents. It was not an easy combination to live with. My father was the main breadwinner and my mother was the housewife. These were their roles in the house and to be honest, I don’t think my mother had an issue with that arrangement. The problem was he expected us (three sisters) to fully cooperate doing housework while my only brother did nothing but smile when we complained it was unfair. My father, on the other hand, and contradictorily,  expected us to get the best marks at school ’cause we were expected to go to university and get a degree so as not be the housewife my mother was. Who understands men? 😉

Today I want to share with you a lesson I did with my Intermediate students about Gender Stereotypes. This is a lesson where common general stereotypes about men and women are challenged.

Level: B1/B2

Aim: Get students to discuss general stereotypes about men and women using different expressions to give opinion.

STEPS 

1. Give handouts containing expressions used to give opinion. Here. Encourage students to use a variety of expressions when they give opinion.

2. Ask   Do you know any stereotypes about men and women? Instruct students to talk for about five minutes and then ask them to give feedback.

3. Play the video  Differences between Men and Women to get students into the mood. It’s a funny little video. I hope nobody takes offence.

4.Using Blue-tack, stick the posters containing the statements they need to discuss on the walls of the classroom. Posters here

5. Ask students to, working in twos or threes, wander around the classroom and randomly choose the posters they want to discuss.

Sticking posters on the walls of the classroom enables students to get out of their seats and talk to different people. As always it is important to make sure they understand the importance of using English and only English.

Learn English and have fun!

Giving Opinion: Driving

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For the past week I’ve been raking my brains looking for a nice way to display these statements   and finally for lack of something that took my breath away, I have decided to stick to the overused  writeacomic.com , which works just fine … but for a few details there is no point in getting into right now.

So , right below , you’ll find some statements  about driving . This is what you need to do

TASK

♥Choose one statement  (only one , please)

♥Write a comment (5-8 lines) explaining  your point of view and why you agree or disagree with the statement.

♥Use some of the expressions here

I am pretty sure we all agree that these weeks before Three Wise  Men’s Day  are chaos. We’re all  super busy buying , wrapping ,eating and drinking (OMG!) so I don’t think I’ll be back in this space  until lessons start again.Thanks for being there!!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!!

Students’ Corner

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 Dear students:

This blog would be pretty much nothing without you. Thank you! 

INTERMEDIATE 1

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF GOING CAMPING by Aida Cecilia Marqués Menéndez

In Europe it’s forbidden to go camping in the nature; there are specific areas for camping equipped with electricity, bathrooms, restaurants, playgrounds  and sometimes even a swimming pool. But in other parts of the world you can go camping in the wild. Staying at a campsite has advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantage is that it is cheaper than staying in hotels.  I think that families with children prefer to go camping because children have more freedom and sometimes there are activities planned for them.  So parents are free too!

Taking a break from TV, computers, mobile phones and the internet is a big advantage and it’s good for children and adults. Another thing that is great in campsites is that you can travel with pets. Dogs are usually accepted although they have to be tied.

A big disadvantage of going camping is that it’s uncomfortable. You have to travel with lots of luggage like a tent, sleeping bags,  backpacks and flashlights. Don’t forget the insect repellent because It’s easy to find insects inside the tent. Furthermore, People have less privacy, for example,  bathroom are communal. But if you travel by caravan or by van it’s like renting a small apartment  but in the nature!

For me , being in the outdoors outweighs  all the disadvantages because I love nature! I think it’s really exciting to go camping.

INTERMEDIATE 2

PEOPLE USED TO LISTEN TO THE RADIO MORE by  Esther Ovies García

I´m not sure if this affirmation is totally true.  First I have to say that our options for entertainment are now far greater than they were in the 1930´s or 1940´s. On those days, the radio or the newspaper were the most important means of communication. Either of them was necessary to keep  people informed.

My grandfather loved listening to his radio. Being  able to listen to music or voices coming from all over the world…. it was kind of magic for him.

With the development of television, video games or internet, we now have more options to spend our free time on….although we have less free time too, that´s true!. When I arrive home after a hard day at work, I watch television or listen to music on my iPad… Both of them are fantastic options to relax…but I don´t usually listen to the radio.

So, everything seems to indicate that people used to listen to the radio more, but… some questions come to my mind, for example:

  • Does everybody have internet at home? The answer is no
  • Does everybody have a radio at home? Probably yes.

Also,I´m pretty sure that everybody listens to the radio while they are driving.

I´ve been looking for more information, about the radio on the internet, and I´ve discovered that there are a lot of Radio ListenerShips around the world.

A Radio ListenerShip is a group of people who use the radio as a mean of communication without high technology. This kind of radars are increasing every year.The reason is that in case of a catastrophe, like hurricanes or floods, the radio is a great deal more important means of communication than any other.

Because of all these, I think the myth that people used to listen to the radio more than nowadays is only that, a myth; and this is  probably thanks to the Radio Listener Ships.

IF I HAD THE CHANCE TO LIVE ABROAD,I’D LIVE IN AMERICA  by Marta Blanco Collazos

I’d perfer to live in North America because, from my point of view, the USA is the land where dreams come true.

  I’m sure everybody knows America by their films. I remember our young Antonio Banderas in Philadelphia or Sony Crockett in Miami Vice. When I was a teenager I used to love Beverly Hills, 90210 but I can’t tell if I liked more Brandon or Dylan. Who doesn’t like to walk along the Hollywood Walk of Fame or go shopping on Rodeo Drive like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman?

I’ve always lived in Avilés. It´s a small town in the north of Spain. I’ve never studied or lived abroad so if I had to move to America it would be a big change for me.

I’ve only been to America once. I went on holiday with four friends. We stayed in NY for 10 days. Manhattan is an amazing place and NY is the city that never sleeps.

But our holidays started very badly. We booked an apartment online near Times Square because a friend had stayed there before and she recommended it to us, but when we arrived the owner didn’t answer the phone and the address given was false. Fortunately we booked a hotel that night and the rest of our holidays were fine and we could enjoy going shopping in the 5th Avenue, going for  a walk in Central Park or eating a big pizza in Little Italy neighbourhood. Also, in the subway, I saw the most handsome guy that I’ve ever seen in my life.

But in my opinion America isn’t the perfect country that movies show us because it’s the country with more obese children thanks to junk food and this is a very big problem as they are very unhealthy. I don’t agree with the use of weapons in USA and we see on TV ,every day ,the problems that this use is causing. Neither do  I like the death penalty that some states apply.