Good Bye

As you all know, I am enjoying early retirement, therefore this blog will not be continued in the same way. On the other hand, I will not close or delete it as it can still be of some use.

I have enjoyed teaching you all these years at the Language School, and even though teaching is a difficult profession it can also be very rewarding. Sometimes teachers forget that teaching is also learning and learners don't realise the key role they play in creating an interesting and safe environment where everybody is at home.

Along these years I have become aware that learning a foreign language is like wearing new shoes. At first you feel very uncomfortable in them, but the more you wear them the better they fit. So effort pays back. It is worth. So be patient and trust in yourself. If your really need English, you'll certainly learn the language whatever it takes!

Glossary

NA2

I have opened a new glossary for Edith Warton's story. Please add new entries.
I hope you can use the forum now: identity issues. Vocabulary and ideas. I have made some changes so that you can write.

Please, keep it alive.

Homework:
Read the story.
Unite 2: Identity. Reading, vocabulary and grammar.
Workbook lesson 2.

Next day:
a) presentations
b) discussions
c) reading "Afterward"

See you,

Homework NA1

Presentations to the whole class with events in your life/events in the world.

Hand in stories about the teenager who lost his job at a Building Company.

Grammar and vocabulary related to Lesson 4
-Past tenses
-Relationships, clothes, weather, feelings, likes, sound and light, etc.

Keep on with your workbook (lesson 4).

See you tomorrow!

HW Wednesday
1) Hand in clean copies of your stories
2) exercise 5A page 51
3) Tenses exercises
4) Vocabulary

Homework NA2

Workbook Unit 2

As each of you has different learning needs, think about yours, and then select those activities (listening, tenses, vocabulary, etc.) that best suit you.

VLP
Read Afterward, by E. Warton.

Participate in the discussion about identity. If you cannot write on the VLP, just write a few ideas on a notebook.

Review past tenses. You have exercises in the na2.09mj@gmail.com acount.

Review vocabulary: topics
- economy
- crime
- weather
- describing people and places

If you still have time to spare, watch the new Obama-Romney Debate on youtube.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Class summaries

These are the groups and links:
 NA1 09 horas http://groups.google.com/group/na1inma
 NA1 11 horas na1.11valencia@gmail.com
 NA2 09 horas na2.09mj@gmail.com
 NA2 11 horas na2.11eoival@gmail.com
Ask your partners for the password, if you should need one.

This is the place where you can write the lesson summary and the new words and expressions to be learned. Anyone can contribute, but we follow alphabetic order, so pay attention to your turn in order not to miss it. If you consider something to be missing just add it at the bottom and don't forget to always sign it.

Submit your email address to receive updates of this blog, please.

Poster

Here you have the tutorial for the poster: Glogster.com Contents: Events in my life Events in the world during my life.

Learning Virtual Environment

Here

Tenses

Here you can practise your past tenses. Have a go!

USA Debate, Obama-Romney

A New Course

Hi! A new course is about to start. This year I shall be teaching NA1 and NA2, so this Blog will help us in both courses. While the  Valencia EOI Virtual Learning Environment is being finished, I shall be introducing contents in this Blog.

Last summer, in Brazil.

International Women's Day

We are preparing a poetry reading of Emily Dickinson's work for March 8th, The International Women's Day. Known because of her introverted and reclusive life, Dickinson managed to write intensively until after her death, when Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes of nearly 1800 of her poems, or "fascicles" as they are sometimes called which had been kept in her room unnoticed.

 Admired throughout the world now and studied in most universities, ED  vas inspired by the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as John Keats.

Dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumor of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice.

Although fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime, Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

If you want to train for the poetry reading, come to our conversation class Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.00 room 2.3: sounds, intonation, tone units, linking devices, pauses, etc.

If you cannot attend, but are curious about this poet, go to:

http://www.emilydickinson.org/

http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/

AUDIO POEMS

 http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155

http://www.poets.org/search.php/fs/1/prmAuthor/DICKINSON/prmMediaTitle/+/prmKeyword/+/prmFormID/0/prmMovementID/0/prmThemeID/0

NO CUTS IN EDUCATION!!!

Yesterday, teachers at the Valencia OLS met to discuss cuts and actions to take against them. More hours, less money, less support, less motivation for training, more control from the top, more privatization, a larger gap between those who have and those who have not. We demand immediate withdrawal of the decree. 

Escuelas de Idiomas Indignadas

Act against cuts!

About books and experiences

Isaak
Jorge
Pablo R.
Pabro G.
Maria
Vicent
Emilio
Irina
Magda
Lucia

Vendetta against Garzón

Read this

Against Cuts in Education!

Thursday, demonstration against cuts in public services. San Agustin, 18.00h.

Come to grips with Phrasal Verbs

Here are some pages that can help you to "Come to grips with Phrasal Verbs"

1. You tube.
2. BBC learners' page.
3. BBC Funky phrasals.
4. English page.
5. ELS Café.
6. English Club.
7. Using English.
8. Idiomas Gratis.

Good luck!

Calendar 2012

The purloined letter, learn about Dupin's innovative method

Have fun listening to this amazing short story by Edgar Allan Poe!