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!