Worst Snack Ever...

Hi there,

Some of us are going over some vocabulary related to food. Now, in order to answer this blog, you'll have to go back to your school days.

Imagine those days in which you carried your backpack and your lunchbox to school. Yes, let's go back to those memories. It's Monday around 10:00 am. First recess is coming. Of course, you had a simple breakfast and you rushed out from home. You're hungry. . You come out to the school patio. You sit down on your favorite spot, and you open your lunch box.... oh no! it's the worst snack ever...


Tell us what you see, what was the worst snack you ever had?... did you eat it?

Thanks for sharing. Hope you're not so hungry now! (If not, grab something to eat now!)

Have a great week.

Word Hunt…

I hope you had a great week so far. I would like you to please take your time to do this for yourself.

We learn words from texts. The more words you know, the more accurate your language becomes. In order to get more vocabulary, you must use your critical thinking to introduce it as part of your vocabulary mental list.

I would like you to pick up whichever book, magazine, online article, novel… or any text written in English and find the following:

• -          One word which you don’t know + its meaning.
• -          One word you already know + two synonyms.
• -          One useful expression. Write a sentence changing the context.

Have fun and enjoy the reading. Remember you can take this exercise as far as you want, so please feel free to find more words and share them with us!

Thanks,

DD

Texting?

Check out this poem and share your thoughts. Do you think we control technology or technology controls us? Have a nice week! DD

im rlly gd @ txting

im rlly gd @ txting.
i do it all day lng.
im spedy on the keybrd
n my thms r supr strng.

i txt wth all my fmly.
i txt wth all my frnz.
n i rply 2 evry txt
tht nebdy senz.

id rthr keep on txting
thn go outsd n play.
i thnk i prbly snd abot
a thsnd txts a day.

im gld 2 no tht u cn
undrstnd me rlly wel.
4 if u cldnt rd my txts
id haf to lrn to spel.

--Kenn Nesbitt

Homo what?

Welcome to our second unit: all about pronunciation. You already know what we are going to work on: sounds and more sounds.

Do you know what homophones are? These are words which are pronounced the same but spelled differently.

I would like you to go over this list. Choose three homophones that called your attention. Look for their definition and write a sentence with each one of them.

Homophones List

If you want to laugh at your own pronunciation… try reading this poem! (Let us know how you did!)

Homophone Poem

Thanks for reading.

DD

Stealing from AC/DC

This is an exercise we might be working on regular basis. It's called to "steal" words from an author.

Go to this website and read about AC/DC

AC/DC The Band

Read what Brian Johnson says about the band:


“By sticking to what we do, that's being brave. The pressures we were under in the '80s and '90s to use wind machines and wear leather coats, those were hard times. People thought we were dinosaurs, that we lost the plot because we weren't sparkly and cutie-wootie enough."





In the last paragraph, find a word which means:

0.- eg. showing no fear for dangerous things: BRAVE

1.- to keep working:
2.- to go over a period of time in which everything seems to be difficult:
3.- energetic/enjoyable:

Next, choose two of those words and make up a sentence with each.

eg. It was brave of Mr. Domínguez to quit his job like that.

Thanks for your work!

Pd. You can keep reading the whole article!

Watching TV for... éxito?

“I learned  English watching TV” “You know what I did? I changed my TV channels to English and I practice like that”

And of course you do!

Let’s set the mood...

It's Saturday afternoon. Oh no! Not just any afternoon, a rainy afternoon. No one is at home. It’s just you and the TV. You start zapping, where does your finger stop? A soccer game, perhaps? Do you prefer movies or tv series? If so, which are your favorite titles?  Do you laugh at Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory? Or enjoy the mistery of Dexter? Do you prefer comedy or drama?  

It’s a bit of a cliché to say you learn English by watching TV, but it’s actually not a crazy idea. There are studies which confirm that a student who watches tv and intentionally tries to improve his/her language will have “éxito”.

But what does purposefully mean? We’ll go over this in the class, but in order to show you, I would like you to share some suggestions of tv series.

 

So, reply this entry by telling me at least two tv series you watch and enjoy. Let’s see which one is the most popular…!

If no ideas are coming to your mind… you can check out this list:

Popular TV Series

English is a crazy language…

But people who speak English are not crazy, or are we?

It’s very common to face students who ask me the explanation on a certain topic, such as the reason why we add an “s” to the verbs in third person singular. (e.g. he walk vs he walks). When I just started learning English I always wondered why words such as blood, door, and flood would rhyme and be pronounced differently from good, food or cool.

After all these years learning English I’ve realized these are questions that come more often to Spanish speakers and that’s because Spanish is what we call an “orthographical” language in which you read and write exactly what you say.

Bad news: English is not. There’s little or no connection whatsoever between spelling and pronunciation. I have to admit: there are some patterns! (e.g. the letter “i” in English would rarely be pronounced as the Spanish i.)  However, there are so many exceptions that I often wonder if I should teach them.

Spanish may be easiest from that point of view, but what about all the conjugations we have? What about the difference between “tú” and “usted”?  

What do you think? Which one is easier? English or Spanish? What makes English a difficult language for Spanish speakers?

Looking forward to reading your opinions!

DD

How was your paper today?

Paper has many definitions. Check them out!

What paper? What is that supposed to mean? The tailings paper? The South African paper? the paper you've worked on for the last two weeks? the one you have to study for? The toilet paper? 

Often times, an exam  or test is also called “paper”, which is a more informal but very popular choice.

We'll have an exam next week, and I was wondering if you could work on accuracy* right now.  We'll work on words related to exams. 

I would like you to click on this link and watch this video. I can't promise it will be highly entertaining… BUT, it’s short, precise and has lots of useful words. You can also find the script if you want to move on faster.

Twominenglish: Exam's vocabulary

This time, I would like you to make a comment making sure you use three of the expressions suggested in the video. Try to be accurate. Choose phrases you are comfortable with. At the end of the day, I would like you to use them in the future!

*(=to know the right word –e.g. mascara is what women use to make their eyelashes darker not something you would use to cover your face with!)

Thanks for sharing!

Welcome to our blog!

So far we have studied some steps and tips to write emails. We have talked about what is formal, less formal and informal. We have also laughed about different situations related to emails. 

BUT, you must accept that until now, I've been really generous on the homework. It was supposed to take you one hour. However, I understand this is a process. That's why I have decided to add this little something to our list. 

It's very simple: I'll post something, you'll answer back. (Every single week...!) I know. I told you I was pushy (=I'll take the best out of you!). Well, this is where you learn. Later on we'll become more sophisticated. Maybe I ask you to start a post, or I'll ask you to watch a video...

As for this week, the question is: What's the easiest part of writing an email? what's the most difficult? 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

DD