MISPRONOUNCING ABROAD

The importance of a good pronunciation. 

THE SCHWA

For those of you who care about phonetics, here's a little joke. 

AMERICAN ENGLISH vs. BRITISH ENGLISH

An informal lesson about the differences between British and American English. A few basic words to start with. Have fun!

PREPOSITIONS

Useful worksheet to understand when to use the prepositions IN, ON and AT.

NEW CONVERSATION ASSISTANT

I am glad to inform you that our English Department has just been appointed a new foreign language assistant for the school year 2013-2014. Her name is Lindsay Myers, she is from Jacksonville, Florida, USA, and she will presumably be involved with conversation classes. Lindsay is somehow related with Galicia. As a matter of fact, this is not the first time she has applied for and worked at a school in our community. The former native teacher we had, Max Wolod, was also an American but from a different city, Chicago. We are looking forward to having Miss Myers here in September. So let's all get ready to give her a warm welcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonville,_Florida

OLD ENGLISH

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, hwæt me gemætte to midre nihte siþþan reordberend reste wunedon. þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow on lyft lædan leohte bewunden, beama beorhtost. Eall þæt beacen wæs begoten mid golde; gimmas stodon fægere æt foldan sceatum, swylce þær fife wæron uppe on þæm eaxlegespanne. Beheoldon þær engeldryhta fela fægere þurh forþgesceaft; ne wæs þær huru fracodes gealga, ac hine þær beheoldon halige gastas, men ofer moldan, and eall þeos mære gesceaft.

Translation: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/stella/readings/OE/ROOD.HTM 

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southern and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. It is a West Germanic language closely related to Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Old English had a grammar similar in many ways to Classical Latin. In most respects, including its grammar, it was much closer to modern German and Icelandic than to modern English. It was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three grammatical numbers (singular, plural, and dual) and three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter).

The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman French, which brought English closer to Romance languages. Finally, the Great Vowel Shift that took place in the 15th century marked the emergence of Modern English from Middle English.

A WALK ACROSS EUROPE

This video is the final project that the IT (Information Technology) students of 1º BACH elaborated for a national contest whose topic is the European Union. The title that they chose is Un paseo por Europa (A walk across Europe) and, as its name indicates, the participants take us on a stroll along the streets of Boiro which begins at our school and ends at the town hall square, with a final surprise. 

The video is well worth a watch. There is a lot of hard work behind the scenes. Congratulations to all the students and teachers involved. You really deserve to win! 

You'll find more information in this blog: http://ticboiro2013.blogspot.com.es/

NYC TREASURE HUNT TOUR

This is a game called Treasure Hunt, in which the students take a virtual tour of the streets of Manhattan, in New York City, to find a hidden treasure by using a set of instructions provided by their teacher, the help of Google Maps and a few questions they have to answer correctly at the end of each section. 

If you want to learn some interesting facts about the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps, click on the blue markers and an info window will pop up with information and questions about those sites. The starting point is Times Square. Have a nice tour!

Ver NYC TREASURE HUNT TOUR en un mapa más grande

To get a wider view of the map, click on the blue link right above this line.

WEBQUEST: VISITING DENMARK

The purpose of this webquest is to gather information about Denmark, as a previous step to the trip that the Comenius students of 3º ESO are going to make to that country at the end of May.

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=195350

GLOGGING WITH GLOGSTER

Glogster, another interesting tool for my English classes. It is a social network that lets you create multimedia posters called glogs. A glog can include a combination of text, images, photos, MP3 audio, videos, links and other features based on Adobe Flash elements, so it is possible for readers to interact with it. 

The following glog is an experiment I did to become familiar with the tool. I wish I had known about it when my 2º BACH students were working on their political speeches in December. That oral task was the inspiration that led me to do this. Things can only get better with experience. Or, at least, that's what I hope.

JOKE OF THE DAY

A Swiss man, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Americans are waiting. “Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he asks. The two Americans just stare at him. “Excusez-moi, parlez vous Français?” he tries. The two continue to stare. “Parlare Italiano?” No response. “¿Hablan ustedes español?” Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first American turns to the second and says, “Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.” “Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good.”

BLOG STATS

Not bad for a four-week old blog!!! I wonder what the American, Russian and German visitors have to do with this joint. I'm just as curious as they are.

MOSQUITO SOUND TEST

Our hearing ability ranges from 20 Hz up to 20,000 Hz. As we get older, the 20 kHz upper limit decreases. This phenomenon is medically known as presbycusis. Therefore, it is possible to generate high frequencies that are audible only to teenagers. Since these high pitched sounds are uncomfortable to withstand, they can be used -for example- to repel loitering teenagers in the street, as in the case of street-drinking parties, popularly known in Spain as botellones. In contrast, these sounds are also used as ringtones by a considerable number of youngsters who don't want their incoming calls to be detected by their teachers.

If you can hear this mosquito sound, it means you either are young or your ears are still in very good condition. So press PLAY and tell us about your experience!

                                       

Well, there seems to be a problem with the previous recording because even I can hear the noise, so now I'm including this second test which I'm sure most people won't pass. Turn on your loudspeakers and clean the wax off your ears. Ready? Here we go again...

EXPERIMENTING WITH VOKI

Click PLAY to listen to my message.

As you can see, that is not my real voice, but it is possible to make your own recordings if you like.

SUMMER COURSES FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDENTS

The Xunta de Galicia has recently announced the concession of grants for students in public schools who want to improve their foreign language skills through summer courses.

            

These courses are either in English or French. They are held in Galicia for E.S.O. students and abroad (Canada, France or the UK) for Bachillerato and Vocational Training students. The duration varies from two to three weeks.

For further information, you can check both of these links:

https://workspaces.acrobat.com/?d=wGGtzj9bgKuTTbubM-ZBTA

https://workspaces.acrobat.com/?d=eH31060bAeCyIR81IWmJAw

APRIL FOOL’S DAY

Last Thursday, an English teacher was abducted by aliens as he was driving home from a procession in Boiro. Two witnesses reported to have seen his car being lifted in the air and swallowed by a U.F.O. which left the area at the speed of light immediately afterwards.

Two days later, the police found his car lying on the roof of an old barn two miles away. What’s more surprising, they received a phone call informing them that the teacher had arrived home. A medical check-up confirmed that he was in an excellent physical condition. The doctors, however, are not too sure about his mental state. They base their suspicion on their own observations and the information provided by the people who are closely related to him. They all agree that the man does not behave as he used to. Prior to his abduction, he was renowned for his strictness. “A real hard nut”, his pupils always say. “Impossible to get an A, or even a B, with such a bloke".

The teacher, whose name cannot be revealed to protect his family's request for privacy, now intends to make up for his stern past. In a recent chat with one of his colleagues, he stated: "I feel sorry for what I've done to those kids. The aliens made me listen to that goddamned song over and over again, till I finally realised what a pain in the ass I was. The time for me to change has come".

Here is the song. You can judge for yourself.

NEWSREEL

Newsreel is a new gadget I installed on the sidebar of this blog. A newsreel used to be a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest.

This newsreel displays current headlines from several media sites to my blog. For this purpose, I chose two well-known newspapers -one from America (The New York Times) and another one from Britain (The Guardian)-, a sports channel (BBC Sport) and a music magazine (Rolling Stone). You can click on any of these publications in the sidebar to select the headlines that you want.

     

   

             

            

       

   

Any suggestions about the expansion or modification of this newsreel will be more than welcomed. 

SIMPSONIZE YOURSELF

You can create your own Simpsons avatar. It's very easy! Just follow these steps:

1. Double click on the picture below.

2. Then click the tab that says CREATE YOUR SIMPSONS AVATAR.

3. Click CREATE AVATAR.

4. At the bottom of the new page, click NEW CHARACTER.

5. Then choose MALE or FEMALE.

6. Follow the next steps in order to pick the physical features, clothes and colours that best suit your image.

7. Once you are finished, you can either... a) download the avatar by clicking on the arrow at the bottom of the page, b) register on the site and save the avatar, or c) press the PRINT SCREEN key on your computer keyboard, paste it on Microsoft Paint, crop it and save it as a .jpg extension. I recommend this last option.

The final result should be something like this:

Now that you are offcially a citizen of Springfield, you are ready to be exposed to the rest of the world. So what are you waiting for? Post your link on the comment section below. I promise not to laugh.

SLIDESHOW

This is one of the two slideshows we prepared for our Comenius partners on their last visit to Spain. It took a long time to make. It contains 115 slides, divided into four different sections: food, sports, free time activities and future plans. It includes three songs plus one short video, the transitions between slides are automatic and the texts have visual effects. This means I cannot upload it on Slideshare or a similar hosting service, otherwise all the animated and sound features would be lost. The only thing that occurs to me is to upload it on Google Drive and write down the link. In case you want to see it, I advise you to download the file on your computer instead of watching it online. Make sure you have a late version of Microsoft Powerpoint installed.

Link to the Class of 3º ESO-A slideshow: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VNlFSDoIl7T0JqSnZJbHpfYVE/edit?usp=sharing

*REMEMBER: Download the file on your computer. Don't try to view it on Google Drive or you'll miss all the effects.

Please let me know if it works. If not, you will need to download the songs and the video as well. Let's cross our fingers.

Just in case, here are the links to the three songs and the video:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VNlFSDoIl7d0psSVFBT0xvNjA/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VNlFSDoIl7M2F1MmNtLU1LRm8/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VNlFSDoIl7Q1F3V0RrVXJXNlk/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VNlFSDoIl7aHRMV3hWdzdjSjA/edit?usp=sharing

THE MAYOR'S SPEECH

One of the most nerve-racking moments for me during the visit of our foreign partners was my translation of the mayor's speech. Politicians have a tendency to wander off the track. In addition, the presence of TV cameras can be quite intimidating. Fortunately, everything turned out to be OK. The only thing I regret is not being able to hear my words on the video below. I guess the journalists believed there was not a significant number of English-speaking spectators outside the limits of the town hall. Too bad. Let's hope this situation will change in the future.

Can you see yourself on this news report? How do you think you look? What is your impression?

THE COMENIUS PROJECT

This month we had the honour to host the Comenius project called The Teenager Investment Fund - How To Take Care of The Future. Our partners from Bulgaria, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and The Netherlands spent a few days with us in Boiro. It was an intense and unforgettable experience, especially for the students, who are now looking forward to their next trip to Denmark in the month of May.

English is no longer a barrier when friendship creates a bond.

Say hi to your new friends. Who do you miss the most?

FAMOUS QUOTES

Talking about quotes, here is an interesting page you might like to visit:
http://www.brainyquote.com/

I love the ones by Mark Twain, Woody Allen and Groucho Marx. These are some classics:

"Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times." (Mark Twain)

"The last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty." (Woody Allen)

"I think TV is very educational. Every time someone turns on a TV, I go in  the other room and read." (Groucho Marx)

                                                                                                                                 

                

Who are your favourite quoters? Are there any good quotes that you would like to share?

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to The Teacher's Den, the meeting point for the English-learning community at IES Praia Barraña school in Boiro. The two main goals of this weblog are communication and sharing information, so everyone is invited to join in. Just drop a comment, link, pic or file. Anything can be useful to increase our mutual knowledge of Shakespeare's slang. 

As Homer Simpson once said: "If something goes wrong at the power plant, blame the guy who can't speak English." 
And that guy ain't gonna be me!