Monthly Archives: April 2012

Video : Travelling to Antarctica

Listening, ,

Antarctica is earth’s southernmost continent, encompassing the South Pole. The name Antarctica is the Romanised version of the Greek word Antarktik, meaning “opposite to the north” . It is the coldest, driest and windiest continent and is considered a desert. Only cold-adapted plants and animals survive there, including penguins, seals, mosses, lichen and many types of algae.

Some interesting facts about this continent are:

♥ There are no native people or permanent residents

♥ There are no shops, hotels, billboards or cafes.

♥ It doesn’t belong to any country

Unbelievable as it seems, if you have an adventurous spirit and enough money, you can actually visit this continent. In fact, its popularity as a tourist destination is growing. Now, if you get itchy feet and decide to travel to this continent, watch this video first and try to answer the questions below.

Level: intermediate. (tapescript: here)

Now, answer the following questions about what you’ve heard.

1. How big is Antarctica?

2. Does it rain a lot? Justify your answer

3. What’s the average temperature in winter?

4. Why do tours often take place in summer?

5. What are some of the animals you can see in this continent?

6.What are some of the things you can do in Antarctica?

A Cool Dictionary: Vocabulary.com

Dictionaries, ,

I just love this dictionary! Really ! I love it!  ♥ It’s one of those sites that is worth bookmarking. Have I mentioned it’s called Vocabulary.com?


You might be asking yourselves why all this enthusiasm over a simple dictionary but it’s just that when you see something that is really helpful not only to me, as a teacher, but also to students, you get all cheered up.

Why do I like it?
♥First it has The Challenge Section where you are posed questions about vocabulary and you are given points every time you answer correctly. Better to try it than to explain it! You can also compete against other people if you sign up.


♥Secondly, it has The Dictionary itself. If you sign up whenever you look up a word, you can add it to your learning queue. Each vocabulary word includes a short blurb that is easy to understand and fun to read. The dictionary also provides usage examples from real life, so you can see how words are used in context .

♥Third, The Vocabulary List . You can create your own list of words you need to revise and then do different activities to help you remember them. One of them includes audio.

Now, aren’t you dying to give it a go? Yes? Off you go!

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A Glogster Project : My Favourite Sport!

Create your own stuff, In the Computer Room, Students' Corner, Writing, , , ,

Every year I find a reason to use Glogster in the classroom (click here to see my first article about Glogster) I think most of my students, though camera-shy, like to see their work published. I find that Glogster is the ideal tool to use with twelve or thirteen- year- old students because it ‘s very visual and students have a lot of fun deciding which frame to use for their photograph or text , which video they want to embed ( In English, of course) . Yes, they have fun but what they probably don’t realize is that they are using English from Step 1 of the project.
In fact, after finishing our Glogster, I wrote on the board  several of the words they had been using  (frame, text, wall, image, tools, gallery, upload, cartoon…etc) and they were happy when they recognised it.

Have you never tried Glogster? Give it a go! It’s a lot of fun!

Click here to see it better!

A Ballad: Habits by Maria Mena

General

It’s been a long long time since I haven’t posted a song,  just because. But I’m on holidays and I’m still publishing twice or three times a week. so I think a deserve a treat or two! ha, ha ,ha!

Maria Mena  has, long ago, won my heart .She released her first album when she was fifteen and  writes all the tracks on her albums which are known for their raw emotion and honesty. This song Habits is from her new album Viktoria released in September 2011.

How to use Capital Letters

A word on Grammar

Capital letters are important and therefore one should  say it is essential to know how to use them in the correct way.

Capital letters are the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse. (sorry for being rude, but isn’t it a good example?;-)

Want to know more about Capital letters? Watch this fast paced  video about when and how to use then and remember that the overuse of  capital letters ,when writing ,is considered by most people rude.