Monthly Archives: March 2013

Acapela.tv: converting text to speech in a funny way

Audio, Create your own stuff, freeware, Funny Stuff, Games, In the Computer Room, Resources, Students' Corner, Vocabulary, , , , ,

This site is plain fun ! Acapela .tv is a new site that has a lot of potential for the language class.
Choose a real character or a cute cartoon and make him speak. Choose from a range of voices that interpret and read content with meaning and emotion. This text to speech tool is great to do dictations or revise vocabulary among other things.

HOW I’M PLANNING TO USE IT

♥I think it might be funny to divide the class into two groups -the class I have in mind, right now, is a small class of nine students; with larger classes I might need to divide it into three or four groups.

My aim with this activity will be to make sure students revise some vocabulary related to money for their next test. So, the class is divided into two groups. They need to listen to their cartoon speaking, write down the words the character asks them to revise and be able to explain them to the other group. Each character will say the same number of words and you know the rest… don’t you?? A competition, as usual, something that I, a very competitive person, just love.

TEAM A

TEAM B

♥My next step will be asking selected students from different courses to do the job. The volunteers will need to go home, register and create a character to revise vocabulary. Obviously, they’ll need to copy the link provided and send it to me so that I can display it when playing the game in class.

What do you think? Will they like it?

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. 

Conditional Sentences: grammar and exercises

Grammar and Exercises, , , ,

Tired of always looking for exercises for different grammar points I have started putting together everything I need, related to a certain point of grammar, on the same page.

A good example is the one you see on the left about Conditional Sentences (Basic types). I have gathered together Grammar, exercises for each type, and then exercises for all of them mixed up.

Hope it is as helpful to you as it is to me. Now, I can safely take them to the computer room, ask them to go to this url where they’ll find everything they need to work on. Very useful too, to do as homework or revise just before exams at their own pace.

♥Click here if you need to practise your Conditional Sentences

♥Same for the Simple Past, here

Traditional Recipes from Asturias

freeware, Students' Corner, , , ,

.”Better late than never” or so they say.
This booklet with Traditional Recipes from Asturias was written with lots of love by my former students from the bilingual stream at IES Cesar Rodríguez and with great memories of these amazing students I fulfill my promise . I only hope you are still reading this blog, one year later!


I have used the highly recommendable tool issuu . Click to enlarge.

Shahi: a Cool Visual Dictionary

Dictionaries, ,

I’ve just found the perfect dictionary for my classes. It’s been love at first sight!!!

Did you know that we learn 10% of what we read; 20% of what we hear; 30% of what we see ???Oh my goodness ! and I wonder why my students seem to have forgotten everything they have learned during the whole year over their summer holidays!

The good news is that the combination of what we read,hear, see and discuss reaches 70%  and that’s my point with this dictionary. Shahi is a cool visual dictionary. You just type the word you need to know  and Shahi combines the definition for that word with images from Flikr, Google or Yahoo on the side bar. No more struggling when trying to explain what a rattlesnake or an anteater  is, just show them!!!.

And remember ” A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”

Need to improve Pronunciation and Listening??

Audio, Listening, Resources, ,

Yes, yes … if you want to know, it is still raining in Asturias. No wonder it is always green!! And though visitors ohh and ahhh over our beautiful landscape and mountains these days we, locals, are a bit fed up with the weather. Monday to Wednesday I’ll be taking 42 students on an English Immersion Camp and this weather is going to spoil all the fun… but … it’s no use crying over what you cannot change.

This little site SoundsEnglish can be quite useful for students wishing to improve their Listening  and pronunciation skills. In this site you can get practise at all levels. It has a simple layout and two or three tasks for each listening. To practise pronunciation you can read the tapescript along with the audio.

Hope it is useful!