Boxing Day

Wikipedia: "Boxing Day is a public holiday in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, as well as many other members of the Commonwealth of Nations and Greece. It is based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society (...) It is usually celebrated on 26 December, the day after Christmas Day; however, its associated public holiday can be moved to the next weekday if 26 December is a Saturday or Sunday.

(...)

A Christmas box is, in English tradition, a clay box used in artisan shops. Apprentices, masters, visitors, customers, and others would put donations of money into the box, like a piggy bank, and then, after Christmas, the box would be shattered and all the contents shared among the workers of the shop. Thus, masters and customers could donate bonuses to the workers anonymously, and the employees could average their wages. The habit of breaking the Christmas box lent its name to Boxing Day. The term "Christmas box" now refers generally to a gift or pay bonus given to workers."

Christmas Messages

The first message comes from Her Royal Majesty:



If you are really interested in the British Royal Family, the following link might suit your needs better than the previous one:


But if what interests you is "real" messages, here is one, a cover of Ben E. King's classic "Stand By Me" sung and/or played by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe:



Playing For Change: Song Around the World | Stand By Me from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

You can add further messages using "comments" below.

Christmas diet and New Year's Resolutions

To learn more about Britain and British traditions, it is worthwhile visiting the following link:


At Christmas, food and drink play an important role to make you feel at home. These are some elements to take into account in the UK:

Xmas Dinner Xmas Crackers Xmas Pudding

After all this food, it is not surprising that one of the most popular among New Year's Resolutions is "to lose weight".

Most Popular Goals

• Lose Weight
• Pay Off Debt/s
• Save Money
• Get a Better Job
• Get Fit
• Eat Right
• Get a Better Education
• Drink less Alcohol
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce Stress Overall
• Reduce Stress at Work
• Take a Trip
• Volunteer to Help Others
• reduce diabetes & improve quality of life

But, how can we really achieve our goals?

Adapted from The Guardian, Friday 29 December 2006:

Five tips to help keep resolutions:

1) The first is to make only one resolution: if you are an obese, misanthropic, SUV-driving smoker, Prof Wiseman recommends picking just one aspect of life to improve, to increase your chances of success.

2) Planning your resolution in advance, instead of waiting until New Year's Eve. The extra time will allow you to reflect on what you really want to achieve.

3) Another tip is to avoid repeating a previous resolution, or at least try a different technique to keep it. So if trying to lose half a stone did not work last year, plan to exercise more instead. "If people think they can do it they probably can, but if they've already tried and failed, their self-belief will be low," Prof Wiseman said.

The remaining tips include keeping resolutions specific (4) and rewarding yourself (5) by buying a new book or CD if you manage to lose a few pounds or cut down on smoking.


More interesting links to help you achieve your goals:




You can also use New Year's Resolutions with your students. Click here to find how:

20 HEALTHY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR KIDS

Having said that, I have already chosen my goal for 2009: "I will reduce stress"
(I must confess I also want to get fitter, learn Portuguese and five other things, but stress reduction is the main objective for 2009)

Which are your resolutions for 2009?

Express yourself (send your resolutions) and have a Happy Resolutive New Year.

To finish, a bit of grammar in use: remember the difference between a promise (I will....) and a plan (I'm going to...). Resolutions are like promises that we make to ourselves.

Happy Holidays!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

More superlatives and comparatives: El Gordo

We, Spanish citizens, were born and grew up listening to the children of San Ildefonso "singing" out the numbers of the National Christmas Lottery every year (I know, you also prefered pesetas to euros in the chant).

Our Christmas holidays are one of the longest in the world (I'm not sure this is a positive thing, though), and our lottery is the most generous. A lot of money in the draw, but we (Spaniards) know that the best thing about this Christmas lottery is that the whole amount is divided in such a way that we all have a chance to win something (and almost no chance of getting rich).

In the following site, Lottery Sindicate World, the Spanish El Gordo (The fat one) is presented as the biggest prize pot lottery, but do they know what we know? Click on the picture and check:



Along with the lottery goes the "official" advertising for it. This time, the bald man and the music we got familiar with in the last few years are gone. But there is something really interesting about the new chosen tune. It is a song written and sung by Lionel Neykov, a young New Yorker who has made himself known to the world using the internet. Having been chosen for the ad, we may say he got his share of "El Gordo" this year. I hope you get yours too.

This is the song, where you can - by the way- practise "comparatives" in English:



Freeze My Senses

Your eyes
Have more power
Than vampires
You bit my mouth
And then left me
On the floor shivering
And aching for more

Your smile is more
Dangerous
Than reptiles
You shot your poison
In my skin
And now
I can't get you
Out of my mind

Chorus:
Help me babe
I got a hole
In my heart
My head is spinning
I feel so high
Release me darling
From this pain
In my side
And please
Freeze my senses
With your kiss

Your lips
More addictive
Than sugar sticks
Make me dizzy
And so light
I could fly
I think my brain
Has melted down

(Chorus)

So there
Now that you know
That I care for you
Yeah
Be fair
Cos I'm a fool
In despair
And you
Got your hands
Round my neck

(Chorus 2x)

Christmas is getting closer: Advent Calendar

This picture, which might look like a Christmas present wrapper, has been taken from the Advent Calendar 2008 in The Big Picture section of The Boston Globe. The Advent Calendar uses images of the outer space taken by the Hubble Telescope. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, still do and hope to do in the next days (I mean until the calendar is complete). Just click on the picture and relax:

Unit 2: Superlative Spain?

We are Spanish and live in Andalucia, the land of exaggeration and overstatements (sorry about the cliché) and the ideal place for superlatives. Seville, being the biggest town and its capital, is well known for that and for the superlatives that its inhabitants often use to describe it. But before going into superlatives, let's consider the other side of the story, that of those people who decided to come to our country as visitors (or even decided to stay among us).

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SOME ADVICE

Advice about traffic in Spain for British nationals from

Click on the picture, read the advice and then think about an answer for the question:
Do we seem to be the best drivers?

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HOLIDAYS IN SEVILLE

Worst vacation day ever: an American "tourist" tells about a bad experience in the province of Seville. Click on the picture and read the experience and the comments other people write.



What do you think? What was wrong from your point of view? How could you make it better next time (considering there is a next time)?


I definitely want to go back sometime: Fortunately, there are people in the same community of travellers, who were luckier when they visited Seville:

www.travbuddy.com

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MOVING TO SPAIN (AFTER A HOLIDAY?)

How can I move to Spain for a couple of years? Click here and read the full question, the basis on which Inatizzy (nickname) made his/her decisions and the advice received, especially that from Librarylis (nickname again). What do you think?

From Norwich to Gran Canaria. This is an excerpt from a BBC local radio programme in which a citizen from Norwich (Norfolk) tells his experience after living in Gran Canaria for 15 years. He made his decision after a holiday:

LISTEN HERE: It's not all sun, sea and sangria

Do you think he is considering the possibility of going back to the UK?

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FINALLY, THE SUPERLATIVES

For this purpose, I have chosen Ben Curtis, a British man who has lived in Spain and loves it, something he shows in his blog "Notes From Spain". Click on the picture to get there:


What do you think? What would you add?

It's nice to hear praise but let's go now to the negative superlatives. If you decide to click on the next link, be open-minded and consider what you might include in the list of

the 10 most annoying things about Spain

In his blog, you can also read about :
The 10 most annoying things about the UK
The 10 best things about the UK

Now you can compare both countries, but do not forget that those are personal opinions which might coincide or not with yours.

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SUPERLATIVE SEVILLE

Taking into account Ben's experience I will not go into negative features, in case someone might feel offended. So,

which do you think are the 10 best things about Seville?

Send your answers by clicking on "comments" below.

A story with a musical background, by María

In class we worked on the creation of four characters for a story. One of them was Mary and this is the story María (the name is just a coincidence) wrote for her out of the outline we managed to make up. She also suggested some music to listen to while reading it:

The music: Weary Blues, by Madeleine Peyroux




The story:

MARY´S LIFE

I was born in 1926 in a beautiful house which is actually opposite the place where I live now. Of course, many things have changed since then…
My mother was a pretty, high-society girl who fell in love with a charming man, my father, being too young. Youth is as amazing as dangerous because it makes you do things that you know are wrong, and so my mother did.

The handsome man was working as a musician in a nightclub where every night you could hear the most beautiful music in the whole world: some kind of mixture between American jazz and European folk music that researchers nowadays would call Cabaret. My father played the trumpet in a very special way.

My grandparents could not agree with this relationship, so my mother left home when she knew she was pregnant.

My first memories are really kind: mum was a very affectionate woman who always had a smile in her mouth, and dad was incredibly talkative and sociable and he sang to me whenever he could do it. My childhood is full of music and happiness. But things changed gradually because of my father´s job. He spent the nights out (playing his trumpet and who knows…) until one day when he didn't come back home. I was eight. Hard years had just began. Since April 1936, everything went from bad to worse: mum went extremely quiet, extremely sad, extremely moody. After seven years of sadness and poverty I ran away from home, looking for a happier life. It wasn´t easy to find a job, but after two weeks I got it: in a nightclub!!! Singing the songs my father had taught me. Such is life…

Nightlife "ain´t no good life" because it has a lot of dangers: there are drugs, alcohol and bad people. My life was getting horrible and I needed to find someone reliable and sensible but I couldn´t trust in anyone until Alice arrived and picked me up from the gutter.

I´ve been living with her for 25 years. She´s been my partner, my lover, my mother and, lately, my nurse which is something that´s really worrying me. My health is very delicate and I think she´s getting tired about it.
She has been in Amsterdam for two months, working as a shop assistant in an underwear boutique and I think she has met a new love there. Perhaps she´s going to leave me, maybe I´ll have to spend my last few days on my own…

Unit 2: Numbers, money, decimals and fractions.

Here you have a tool to learn how to say big numbers:



CAN YOU SAY REALLY BIG NUMBERS? CLICK HERE


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If you get confused with prices, coins and notes, these are interesting links. They are originally intended for British children:

HOW MUCH IS THIS?

MONEY MAZE



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Here is a a Spanish webpage where you can read an explanation on how to say decimals and fractions in English. You can also hear them:

DECIMALS AND FRACTIONS


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Finally, take a look at some bizarre numbers, averages and percentages from

Numbers, Averages And Percentages

What do you think about these last numbers? Are they reliable?

Unit 2: Money

Time is money. If you have some spare change of about 15 minutes, you might find the following video about money vocabulary of interest:

Misterduncan's lesson on money:

If you love lists, this might be your link for vocabulary on money: CLICK HERE

Now a question: Is money evil?
Another question: What is the last sentence in the video? Clue: it is a conditional sentence.

María sent the answer: "If a dollar was a chicken would the chicken be evil?" Well done!

Shania Twain, a Canadian singer, sings her vision on money and shopping (read the lyrics on page 20 of the Student's book or here):

Ka-ching:



MORE SPECIALISED LANGUAGE FOR BUSINESS ENGLISH TEACHERS AND LEARNERS:

1) Try to complete the following crossword (if you can't, use help buttons):

Crossword Puzzle: Marketing Vocabulary

2) Page with exercises about Business English, including grammar, vocabulary and language skills:

LINGUARAMA

3) Click on the following link to read a text on different cultural views and how they may affect business and answer the questions at the end. It comes from the same link above (linguarama).

Click here to read the text.

Different views on Autumn traditions: Halloween, Guy Fawkes Night and Thanksgiving

Halloween and Bonfire Night over, there's another Autumn/Fall classic still to come:



And now a film I really like about Thanksgiving:
"Home for the holidays"(1995)


Guy Fawkes Night (november 5th)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

A modern Guy Fawkes introduces himself in "V for Vendetta" (can't you still pronounce the sound /v/?:

KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY (THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE)

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Halloween (October 31st, in the USA)

A SONG: This is Halloween, from Nightmare Before Christmas

A WITCH, or so they say (by Monty Python)

AND A GHOST STORY, plastic surgery included (from The Addams Family).

_________________________________________

Getting serious again, we have someone's opinion about Halloween versus Bonfire Night.

Click on the following link to read it:

Liberal England: Trick or treat or penny for the guy?

Do you agree with the author? How about the answers he receives? Is anything similar happening in Spain?

Unit 1: Families

Do family trees form a national forest?

Either they do or not, you will need some vocabulary to name the different trees (sorry, I meant relations). Here you have some help:

VOCABULARY: THE FAMILY

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If you are interested in the world of weddings, here is your vocabulary and a funny (in both senses, ha-ha and freak) film about weddings:

WEDDINGS VOCABULARY

CONFETTI (UK, 2006)
(LINKS TO TRAILER AND INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR, DEBBIE ISITT)

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Later in class we saw the evolution of Spanish families from the fifties until recently and the introduction of a new concept: "domestic partnership". Read its definition in the Wikipedia:

DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP DEFINITION

In any case, we stressed that family terms are used by individuals with independence of their legal bonds, and we may call mother somebody who has no blood or legal relation with us but plays that role in our family. This is because, most of all, we are talking about feelings, love and affection.

Here's a song which summarises all the good feelings about being a family. It is "We are family" by Sister Sledge. Watch out for grammar and spelling mistakes in the lyrics transcript.



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Click on the following link to listen to a different version of the same song, but with a slightly different, broader message:

We Are Family Foundation

Which takes us back to a new beginning:
Do family trees form an INTERNATIONAL forest?
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Do you want to leave your ideas about families and family issues? Would you like to show us your family? Are there any interesting sites that you would like to share with us? Send your comments to this entry.

Food for thought, exercise for the mind

All languages are beautiful when they convey beautiful messages. And they do not need to use complicated words or structures for that.

In the following two texts Elisa, one of the students in the CAL group,
gives her opinion about food and "national pride", and Mark Brazaitis,
Peace Corps volunteer talks about soccer, or is it about something
different?

Elisa's opinion:

I hate people that always say their country is the best. I don’t agree with them, because I think that we can find good things in different places.

I like to try new dishes and can we say objectively which is the country with the best cooking in the world?

France has been recognized as a gastronomic reference for three centuries. Is this actually true?. That is true according to the results of a famous contest, organized by the famous chef Paul Bocusse. French chef, of course.

But, what does “the best cooking” mean?. If the best one is the healthiest, maybe other countries or diets could be the winners, for example, the Mediterranean diet or vegetarien diet, as well as the Japanese or Chinese food. And, if the best is the most popular cooking, I think that Italian food would be the winner.

A good meal needs variety and good ingredients, and the best and most sensitive chefs. Although the general opinion is that British food is bad, there is a famous young chef in the U.K, who tries to change that. His name is Jamie Oliver. J. Oliver says that everybody loves having a delicious meal, so people who can cook well, always have a lot of friends. Women love men who can cook, and men love women who can cook. Cooking is a very important skill.

For me, cooking is a very important skill too. In fact, it is not only the tastes of food, such us Proust’s cupcake, it is the memory that is coming back from those tastes. The food becomes a symbol of a happy time.

But, happiness doesn’t live in a country, it can be a citizen in the world. So, eating and being in love, cooking pasta or making sushi together; then, Italian food is the most exciting and Japanese food is the most delicious.

Eating and meeting friends are the times when Chinese or Moroccan or Indian food are the funniest.

Cooking with my children, eating with my family, my sisters and brothers, is when Spanish food is the best in the world.

Sometimes I believe that my mother’s paella is the best paella, but I know that’s not exactly like that. Perhaps that is why we love to think that happiness is very close to us, in some small things, we only have to compose the crumbs of our own cupcake.

Mark's poem: Soccer Until Dusk

You can also listen to the author reading his poem if you click here


What do YOU think? Remember you can insert your comments under each entry.

You may also click on the picture and go to the London Underground page, choose a poem that you like, and bring it to the class.

Unit 1: Sports

New topic, new vocabulary. If you can't name (some) sports in English, this might be your place (for that and for much more):

http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/index_uk.asp

This section is addressed to teachers: http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/studies/educational/index_uk.asp


To 3rd year CAL students (group B):

If you weren't in class last wednesday this is a good moment to find out what we were talking about:

1) Maradona (God's hand)


2) More details about the "Lorz of the Rings"

3) Ten greatest cheats in sports history (look who's first).

You can still add your opinion under this entry.

Unit 1: More food (and some listening practice)

Would you like to visit a British market? Click on the following picture:

More information about Borough Market in http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/index.php

Can't you name the things you saw? Some help here:

http://www.susancanthony.com/Resources/ESL/4vocfoo.html

You know the names but how do you say more things about food? (vvvvvery useful vocabulary):

http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blwordgroups_food.htm

Further practice (based on classroom work):

In our class book (New File Intermediate), we read and heard about "Frederick's", a British restaurant in Santiago (Chile) opened by a Briton, Kevin Poulter. This is not just a story, this is real and both the restaurant and the person exist.

Task 1 (further reading)

Surf the net and find more information about Frederick's. You can also find some recipes by Kevin Poulter in http://canelakitchen.blogspot.com/ (they are in English and Spanish) if you search properly.

In class, we also heard a podcast of an interview with Paul Freedman, author and editor of "Food: The History Of Taste". The podcast was released by the University of Yale.

Task 2 (further listening)

Find the podcast and listen to the interview (you might need iTunes software). You can write your comments about it in this entry. Would you buy the book after listening to the interview? Why or why not?

Unit 1: Food

This is the first specific topic of the year. Although it might not necessarily have a direct relation with some school subjects, it is obvious that this topic is of great importance in our daily lives.

These are some links that may be useful for you:

1) How teachers may help to change some habits in order to improve their students' health:

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36311&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://healthiergeneration.org/schools.aspx?gclid=CLe-osarn5YCFQxMtAodVHGt5w

2) Nutrition and sports:

http://www.nutrition.org/ (general, maybe a bit too technical)
http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/nutrition-sports.html (interesting definitions of basic concepts and entertaining nutrition quiz)

3) Recipes:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes (healthy food in general)
http://www.marthastewart.com/food (not so healthy but with very descriptive videos good for listening too, after advertisements though; also a "light and healthy" section)

4) Sustainable food movement:

http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood/RealFoodSummit.html (Sustainable food project)
http://www.themeatrix.com/ (interesting videos)

5) Other (your suggestions):

Still waiting.....

TASK 1 Send a comment about how your subject could be directly related to this topic. Don't forget to mention what your subject is!

TAKS 2 Send more links that you consider relevant or interesting for you as a teacher (and for your students) in which food and /or nutrition are the main topic.

Unit 0: Introducing yourself

We (hopefully) know how to introduce ourselves in conversations and informal situations. Another way of introducing ourselves could be a blog like this (you can visit profiles of other bloggers and check it up).

In a more formal context, we use CVs as a way of introducing ourselves. Of course, these can also be very detailed or include just basic and general information.

Click on the following link to find a simplified CV. Here you can find the basic structure of a CV. It is Alex Stubb's, a Finnish politician who uses a blog to make himself and his work known to the world.

http://www.alexstubb.com/en/index.php?trg=info&id=21

TASK 1

Of course, you can also give the same information about yourself in a narrative form. This is going to be your first written task this year. Using Alex Stubb's CV as a reference, write your own CV as a text, with linkers, proforms and other elements not normally included in CVs. Don't use headings, such as "personal details, work experience, etc." Of course you may decide to omit or add information which you would or would not include in a formal CV. Write between 100 and 120 words.

TASK 2

You've probably heard or read about Finland's education system, as it is considered one of the best in Europe and a model for the rest of the countries in the European Union, Spain included.
Alex Stubb, as present Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland, signs a short article about this in the summer number of the Finnair airlines magazine, called Bluewings.

Click on the following link to access this magazine and go to the June issue, page 40 (sivu 40), where you can find the article in English. Read it and write down the vocabulary that you consider most relevant in the field of education. Then add your comments about the article in this blog entry.

UNIT 0: Which subject do you teach?

First things first.

You must teach your subject in English, but:

Do you know the name of your subject in English?
Does your subject have an exact correspondent in English?

Click on the following linK (BBC) and find out about some subjects. You will also find some materials to use in class.
If you prefer having a list of subjects and their translation into Spanish, along with some vocabulary about the school, click here.