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Tag Archives: writing
Scary Stories for Halloween
If you had asked me like twenty years ago what my favourite stories were, I would have loudly proclaimed HORROR stories but this was back then when I was brave enough to play with the ouija board in a badly lit church without fearing anything, when me and my gang broke into abandoned houses with the legend of being inhabited by spirits or gathered around a fire to share the scariest stories. This was back when one of my favourite writers was Stephen King and my favourite film was Carrie. I feared nothing and nobody. Yep. Those were the years horror stories were my favourite.
I still like stories with a bit of something , but not like back then. I don’t remember when horror stories started to take a back seat but I guess it was when I began to have nightmares .
These two stories have a touch of mystery and they have been kindly sent by two of my intermediate students. I hope you enjoy them.!!
♥SNAKES ON THE PLANE by Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente
One of my passions is travelling and learning about other cultures and countries so last month I travelled abroad.
I don´t really like flying but to go from Istanbul to Frankfurt I had no choice but to travel by plane. The weather was sunny so the plane took off on time.
My trip was perfect until suddenly the pilot said “We are heading for a storm and there will be turbulence”. I was nervous and worried because the sky was dark and there weren’t any lights inside the plane. I couldn´t see anything, I just heard screams.
When the light returned ,I couldn´t believe what I saw. There were hundreds of snakes inside the plane. They were furious and they were attacking all passengers.
Then, I ran to the cabin but it was too late. The pilot was dead and I just saw blood everywhere and snakes.
I thought my end had come.
Luckily, when the biggest snake attacked me I woke up and understood that everything had been a bad dream caused by my fear to fly and my snake phobia.
♥LOOKING FOR SUSAN DESPERATELY by Noelia Espinosa
As every year, I had a Christmas dinner with some friends who lived 
outside Asturias. We went to a restaurant in Avilés and after desserts, coffees and some glasses of cider, I felt tired and decided to go home. While I was in the restaurant I noticed a guy staring at me . When I looked his way , he greeted me and although I couldn´t remember him I said “hello”.
When I left the restaurant, I felt that somebody was walking behind me ,very close, and I began to feel scared so, I started to walk faster but the person following me also walked faster. Suddenly, he shouted: “Susan, Susan please, wait for me”. I told him: ”Sorry, I´m not Susan, you´re wrong” but he didn´t care and he went on shouting : “Susan, you´re my wife, we have two children, don´t leave me, please”. I thought “Oh, my God, he´s crazy!!”
I stopped a taxi and I explained the situation to the driver. He called the police and I went home.
The next day, I read in the newspaper that “A DANGEROUS MAN HAD RUN AWAY FROM THE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL” . There was photo of the man. It was him!.
Guess Who!
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! 😉
Lesson Plan : Technology
Oh my God! can you believe we are already in May??? Three lessons left with my intermediate students and so much to teach them!
I have to admit that we are all tired. If last week felt long I wonder how is this next week going to feel? I read somewhere that this feeling is called Short Timers Disease ( a disease, really?? ). Apparently , it is an ailment that prolongs time and saps your enthusiasm when a holiday is imminent.
So, being in May, are you suffering from this mythical Short Timers Disease?? Let’s hope not.
These are the Speaking Activities I am planning to do with Intermediate Students . There is a bit of everything in the hope that they enjoy my last lessons.
You can download the whole lesson plan here.
TASK 1. JUST FOR FUN . Ask one student to read the following poem aloud. ( good to introduce some new vocabulary). It is called BEFORE THE COMPUTER
BEFORE THE COMPUTER
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account!
And if you had a broken disk,
It would hurt when you found out!Compress was something you did to garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You’d be in jail for awhile!Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!Cut–you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider’s home
And a virus was the flu!I guess I’ll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody’s been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!
TASK 2. PICTURE DESCRIPTION. PREPARING FOR CERTIFICACION EXAM. Student describe and comment on the following pictures. (useful vocabulary here)
TASK 3. VIDEO Ask students if they know what the term Nomophobia means. Play the video I forgot my Phone and ask students to share their thoughts.
Task 4. SOME QUESTIONS TO TALK ABOUT
· What are some of the benefit and dangers of the Internet?
· What is your favourite piece of technology?
· Are there any new gadgets that you really want to get?
· What are the main ways in which technology has changed society?
· What do you think elderly people think of modern technology?
· How have technological advances affected your life?
· Do you think modern technology reduces or increases stress? Why?
· How has technology changed education?
· How do you think face to face communication differs from communication using computers?
· Are you connected to the Internet at home? What do you use your connection for?
· What’s your favourite website?
· Do you often buy things over the net?
· Do you use social network services such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?
· If you do, How often do you use it/them?
The memorable life of….
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.
Today, I want to show you some essays written by students in the Elementary level under the heading “The memorable life of… . I would have wanted to include all of them but the truth is that they were too many so I have just published half the ones I was sent. I hope nobody is disappointed!
As I have often done in the past, to publish the content I have used the free digital publishing platform Issuu.
Click to enlarge .
Carmen Menéndez’s presentation of The Memorable life of Amelia Earhart is also worth publishing . I hope you enjoy it!!