NEW YEAR PROMISES

A completely new way of making new year's resolutions. Watch this great video from "Because I said I would and write down what are your promises for this year that has just started! While watching the video try to write down the promises you understand!

THE HISTORY OF VALENTINE'S DAY

Do you know the origin of the history of Valentine's Day?

VALIDATION

Through this great short film, which has been played in 34 film festivals worldwide and has won 17 awards, we celebrate Peace Day. Sometimes we think of peace as something that doesn't depend on us direclty... but everyday we have lots of opportunities to make people around us feel happy...let's change rude nicknames and fights into compliments and hugs!!

If you want to see the subtitled version click here:

Validation- Spanish subtitles

BOOK DAY 2014

WOMEN`S DAY

My name is Maya. I was born 14 years ago in a poor peasant family. There were already many children so when I was born no one was happy. When I was still very little, I learned to help my mother and elder sisters with domestic chores. I swept the floor, washed clothes and carried water and firewood. Some of my friends played outside but I could not join them. I was very happy when I was allowed to go to school. I made new friends there and learned to read and write. But when I reached the fourth grade, my parents stopped my education. My father said there was no money to pay the fees. Also, I was needed at home to help my mother and the others. If I were a boy, my parents would have let me complete school. My elder brother finished school and now works in an office in the capital. Two of my younger brothers go to school. Maybe they, too, will finish.

There are 130 million children worldwide who are not in school. Two out of every three of these are girls.

During the past two decades there has been a great increase in the proportion of girls enrolled in schools in developing countries: the percentage of girls in school shot up from 38 to 78 percent.

If a poor family has to pay even a small amount (such as for books and paper) for a child's schooling, it may think twice. A family might think that a daughter can help around the house to clean and cook, to collect wood and water, and look after younger children. Even if she does go to school, the family might consider how little opportunity there will be for her to get a paying job. Part of the decision is also based on the idea that sons should be educated, because they will be the breadwinners of their future families and the supporters of their aging parents.

A girl's work, though it may be longer and harder, is considered less likely to bring in monetary income. In cities everywhere, the number of girls and boys in schools is more even than in rural areas; and there are more girls out of school in developing countries than in industrialized ones.

Take a look at who's in school around the world:

source: un.org

How many boys are there in your class, and girls?

HOW TO PREPARE FOR AN EXAM!

cram= study intensely 

Watch this video that offers us some interesting tips to do great exams. Psychologist Dr. Cynthia Green, author of the book Toal Memory Workout, gives us some interesting advice. What should we do before an exam?

OLIVER TWIST

Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, is found on the street and dies just after Oliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into asking for more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver narrowly escapes being apprenticed to a brutish chimney sweep and is eventually apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertaker’s other apprentice, Noah Claypole, makes disparaging comments about Oliver’s mother, Oliver attacks him and incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs away at dawn and travels toward London.

Outside London, Oliver, starved and exhausted, meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack offers him shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. It turns out that Fagin is a career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him. After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchief from an elderly gentleman, Oliver is horrified and runs off. He is caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of the theft. Mr. Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow is struck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hangs in his house. Oliver thrives in Mr. Brownlow’s home, but two young adults in Fagin’s gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin.

Fagin sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliver is shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes escapes, is taken in by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are set on recapturing Oliver. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’s mother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys that locket. When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meets secretly with Rose and informs her of Fagin’s designs, but a member of Fagin’s gang overhears the conversation. When word of Nancy’s disclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and flees London. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he inadvertently hangs himself while trying to escape.

Mr. Brownlow, with whom the Maylies have reunited Oliver, confronts Monks and wrings the truth about Oliver’s parentage from him. It is revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affair with Oliver’s mother, Agnes Fleming. Monks has been pursuing Oliver all along in the hopes of ensuring that his half-brother is deprived of his share of the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forces Monks to sign over Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it is discovered that Rose is Agnes’s younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence in the countryside.
Source: Sparknotes

WEATHER IDIOMS

January 2014 has been the wettest month in the South of England since records began in 1910. Let's learn some idioms related to the weather.

RAIN
1. it never rains but it pours - this idiom or proverb means that when one bad thing happens, other bad things will inevitably happen at the same time or quickly one after the other.
Example: I’ve had a horrible week. First I locked myself out of my house, then my car broke down, and today I missed my train to work and was late for an important meeting. It never rains but it pours!
2. take a rain check -  if you take a rain check on something you postpone it until another time. (informal English)
Example: I am really behind with work today. Can we take a rain check on that drink tonight?
CLOUDS
3. every cloud has a silver lining -  this idiom means that something good always comes from something bad, and there is always a reason to hope, even in the worst situations.
Example: Jane set up her baking school after she lost her job as on office administrator. The school has been a huge success and she has never been happier. I really believe that every cloud has a silver lining.

Have your head in the clouds

4. to have your head in the clouds - to be out of touch with reality: to have ideas and thoughts that are not sensible or practical.
Example: I despair of John. He thinks that getting a job without qualifications is easy these days. He really has his head in the clouds.

5. under a cloud - if someone is under a cloud they are suspected of having done something wrong.
Example: She left the company under a cloud after she was suspected of stealing.

6. on cloud nine – to be extremely happy
Example: I’ve just been promoted and received a pay rise. I am on cloud nine!

On cloud nine

STORM
7. storm in a teacup – to make a big fuss about something of little importance
Example: They had a big argument but it was such a storm in a teacup.

A storm in a teacup

8. the calm before the storm - this is the quiet or peaceful period just before a period of great activity, excitement or arguments.
Example: She sat down with a book and a cup of tea enjoying the calm before the storm when the children would return from school.

WIND
9. sail close to the wind - to do something that is dangerous or only just legal or socially acceptable.
Example: Jack is really sailing close to the wind with his comments about the CEO.
10. to get wind of - to find out about something, usually accidentally or from a confidential source.
Example: The police got wind of the plot to rob the bank.
11. a windfall - a sum of money that you win or receive from someone unexpectedly or from a bank that floats on the stockmarket.
Example: They went on a month-long cruise with the windfall they received from their bank.

under the weather

WEATHER
12. under the weather – to be ill or to feel unwell
Example: I’m feeling under the weather today so I am going to stay in bed.
 From: www.englishwithatwist.com

HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THESE IDEAS IN SPANISH? DO YOU USE SIMILAR IDIOMS?

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF AN ASTEROID HIT THE EARTH?

What would happen to the Earth? the oceans?Would we survive? Try to guess and then watch this video!

Discovery Channel Simulation

SECOND CONDITIONAL

SECOND CONDITIONAL 

Answer these sentences to practice second conditional! What would you do if...

HEY BROTHER!

"Hey Brother" is a dance song by Swedish DJ and producer Avicii  from his debut studio album,True (2013). It features uncredited vocals from American singer Dan Tyminski,  and was written by Avicii, Ash Pournouri,Salem Al fakir and Vicent Pontare. The song was solicited to Australian radio on 9 October 2013 as a promotional single from True.It was released as the album's third single on 28 October 2013 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

From wikipedia

Let's practice future tenses and conditionals with this song! 

PAST SIMPLE: IRREGULAR VERBS

IRREGULAR VERBS CONCENTRATION GAME I
CONCENTRATION GAME II
CONCENTRATION GAME III
 

 Try these games to learn or review irregular verbs!

LET'S LEARN TOGETHER

 From Language Teaching Tips

Are you afraid of making mistakes? the truth is we only learn by practising...so, don't be afraid! the only person who doesn't make any mistake is the one who doesn't try!!!  Making mistakes is natural, because as you know...learning never ends!!!

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

Belgian born Wally De Backer is an Indie Rock singer-songwriter who records under the name of Gotye. He moved with his family to Australia at the age of 2 and has been releasing music there since 2001. De Backer achieved a breakthrough with his second album Like Drawing Blood, which was voted # in the Triple J listeners poll of the Best Album of 2006. This is the second single from De Backer's third album, Making Mirrors. The LP was released in the summer of 2011 and went to #1 in Australia.

The song features New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra, who won her country's Critics' Choice awards in 2011; the award is intended to recognize and nurture up-coming talent. Gotye didn't begin writing this song as a duet, but after he finished the first verse, he realized he had nowhere to go with the character he was writing about, and needed to introduce another voice.

"Somebody" was both produced and written by Gotye in his parents' barn on the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne. It finds Gotye addressing a past lover, reminiscing about their relationship and break-up. The song draws from the aftermath and memory of several relationships, but he told Rolling Stone Australia that one does resound louder than the others. "There is an ex-girlfriend I know." he admitted. "It was five-six years ago. It wasn't a nasty breakup, but it was messy in the sense that we hurt each other more than we needed to because it wasn't a clean break. I guess it's closest to what the chorus is about. We both realized we had to move on and we haven't seen each other since."

 - When and where did he write this song? what is the song about? 

BLACK FRIDAY

Spanish shops and department stores are importing the traditional post-Thanksgiving Day 'sales madness' seen in the US every year as a way of getting Spanish shoppers to splash out in the lead up to Christmas. 

Bargain hunters in Spain are in for more than a treat this year, and they won’t even have to wait until the early January sales to find what they were looking for.
As a way of bringing forward the Christmas campaign and encouraging shoppers to spend big before December 25th, shops in Spain of the likes of El Corte Inglés, FNAC, Zara and Media Markt have imported what Americans call Black Friday.
This Friday, prices for electronics, clothes, cosmetics and many more products will drop or halve in most high streets across Spain.
Black Friday, a name originally coined by US policemen to refer to the massive traffic jams they would have to deal with on the day after Thanksgiving, has now come to represent "shopping chaos" more than any other sales day in the US.
The quest to find a good bargain has often resulted in fully-fledged punch-ups between rival shoppers in the States in recent years.
In some extreme cases people have been pepper-sprayed or even shot.

Do you know what Black Friday is? answer the following questions! 

- What is a bargain hunter? 
- Why are shops importing this Black Friday tradition from the US?
- What is the origin of the name Black Friday?
- What may be the result of this quest to find the best bargain? 
- Have you been shopping this Black Friday in Spain? Tell us your experience! What were the prizes like? Were there many people?