Monthly Archives: October 2014

Word of the Day: Roast and Baked

Word of the Day, ,

Hope you are having a great week!! I can’t complain!! Apart from a visit to the hospital and another one to the doctor to have my wrist bandaged I can say that , all in all , it’s been a great week so far.

I understand  you might be a bit tired of reading about food , but that’s what I am teaching and that’s where my  brain is focused right now. In fact, I have just found a video in youtube to add to the growing list of food related posts. Keep poted !!

Today I just want to point out the difference between these two words which are very similar and therefore raise doubts

♥Both are adjectives

♥Both  mean cooked in the oven

♥Baked is used for bread, cakes and most sweet things, and also fruit and vegetables.

♥Roast  means cooked with fat, and is used especially for meat and potatoes.

LinkengPark: a nice site to practise Listening

Audio, Listening, Resources, ,

Happy Monday to you all!  And no, I am not being ironic here, I sort of “hate” Mondays like everybody else in this planet  but today I am going to share a link with you that is going to help brighten your day, especially if you like English as much as I do, or if you happen not to like it so much, yes, let’s say it, I know there are some few people out there who don’t give a damn about learning this language but still…. they need to.  So.. for both, here we have Linkengpark, a great site to help you  improve your listening skills.

I learned about Linkengpark from the sweetest person on earth, Maria Artime who, when seeing its potential, didn’t hesitate to share it with me. I thank you María. It is really helpful! Linkengpark is a very nice site to practise Listening. It offers lots of different Podcasts (6 minute English, English at work, BBC how to, ESL stories…),  Audiobooks (Pride and Prejudice, Roald Dahl ….)and Videos  (English Vid, CNN Students News, Reuters…) with transcript  so you can also practise pronunciation.   You can choose your level, from Elementary to Advanced .

A great site which I’ll be visiting very often. I hope you do, too.

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Guess Who!

Picture Description, Writing, , , , ,

Good morning folks!! I hope you are having a great week!!! Me?? So far, I can’t complain!!

Here we go once again with an activity where you ‘ll need to use your writing abilities in a game . Have a look at the mosaic below; I guess you’ll recognise most of our celebrities but if you don’t , don’t hassle , for this game you’ll need to write about one of them .

TASK.

Aim: to describe both, physical  appearance and personality, of one of the celebritities in the mosaic  without mentioning their name.

Steps

♥ Choose one of the celebrities  and without mentioning who he/she is ,write a description of both physical appearance and personality.

♥ Don’t forget to use adverbs of degree  : quite, slightly, a bit, a little

♥ Show off, I guess you can see the difference between these two sentences: I think she is 70 years old  and I think she’s a 70-year-old woman. You are an Intermediate student, let the whole world know!

♥ Write a maximum of eight lines. See what other students have done here

♥You think you have finished? Right, you haven’t !! Now,  read what you have written several times to correct grammatical and spelling errors .

♥Now that you are confident everything is Ok, click on the “leave a comment” section and write your description.

♥In class, all descriptions will be read and the celebrities guessed. Enjoy! 😉

 

 

 

 

Word of the Day: stressed or stressful?

Word of the Day, ,

Probably some  of the most popular words in nowadays society where we are always running to and fro and with little time to unwind.

Aren’t some people always complaining of suffering from stress, of having had a very stressful day or feeling very stressed?

  • Stress  is a noun.
  • Stressed and Stressful are both adjectives .

What’ the difference between Stressed and Stressful?

The difference between them is the same that exists between other pair of adjectives ending in -ed and -ing  such as interesting/interested, bored/boring, tired/tiring , annoyed/annoying…etc. Let’s see this difference:

1. Adjectives ending in -ed  express how someone feels about something (stressed)

I am interested in this book  or I am really annoyed today

2. Adjectives ending in -ing describe the thing or situation  that causes the emotion. (stressful)

It was a boring film or  The teacher’s explanation was confusing

The adjective STRESSED can be explained  as belonging  to the first group of adjectives (bored,interested…)  and STRESSFUL as belonging to the second group  (boring, interesting…)

  • Stressing is just the -ing form of the verb To Stress

Stop stressing me, please!!!

Hope it helps you improve! 🙂

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Listening: What is a vegetarian ?

Audio, Create your own stuff, freeware, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Listening, , , , , , , ,

I want to start this week with a positive thought. It is something I’ve read recently and that has been going around for some days inside my head.

Happiness is not getting what you want . It’s wanting what you have.

I should say that I am normally a glass-full type of person but sometimes, only sometimes,  I need to remind myself.

Well, today I want to share with you this amazing site which has a lot of potential. Educaplay is a platform to create embeddable multimedia teaching activities . You can create interactive engaging activities  like crosswords, matching exercises, dialogues, presentations, tests, dictations , interactive maps, word search puzzles and many more… but what I really like about this website is the possibility of creating  a video quiz  as the one I have posted below .

The structure of the activity, is defined by sequences that are composed of a video, or part of it, and a question that will be the end of the sequence.

To define the sequences, we go through three phases:

  • Video election: We can use the search engine, or if we know, insert its URL directly.
  • Sequence election to be held on the question.
  • Definition of the question: Each question can be configured to ask for the answer in any of the following methods;

              ♥In a written form, by selecting one answer from various options or by  selecting         several answers from various options.

Another important feature is that it is entirely web based so you don’t need to download anything  and … it is free, you only need to register.

And now, have a look at this videoquiz answering the question WHAT IS A VEGETARIAN?

 

What is a Vegetarian?