NATURE could be the solution

Ecotherapy could be the solution to some mental illnesses, especially in this stressful world we live. Have you ever tried going for a walk in the rain, or in the forest? How do you feel later? Can you have any negative feelings after such an experience.

 

What is ecotherapy?

 

Here are some articles for you to read about the issue:

• Ecotherapy: how does the great outdoors improve mental health? (The Guardian)

• Could ‘nature healing’ be part of the future of treatment? (the On the line org)

• Ecotherapy: why plants are the latest treatment for depression and anxiety (The Guardian)

And now listen to a podcast and do the listening exercise:

• Eco-therapy (BBC News)

• The calming power of nature  (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English)

 

English in a Minute:  Comparatives to show progress (The bigger, the better)   (BBC Learning English)

 

 

When you don't do things yourself, what happens? In English you can always use THE CAUSATIVE HAVE

And here's a quizz for my 4º ESO students about the REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS. and for my 1º ESO students here's a revision of the QUESTIONS FORMS.

Tennis  >>>  What Happens When Nadal is Down 0-40 in the Most Critical Moment? (Mental Fortress)  

 

Good time to take stock of the situation!!

Now that the year is coming to an end it is the perfect time to take stock of the situation, that is to say, to see all the things we have done this year, both achievements and failures or even things that could be improved. This way we will be able to make a progress in our lives and we will become more mature if we are conscious of our realities.

 

That is what I always think about myself, and what I ask my sons and students to do at the of the year, but especially at the end of the school year in June.

 

Listen to this song and have a look at the lyrics   >>>   Nelly Furtado- All Good Things Come To An End with lyrics on screen  

 

So you can write your comments answering basically these three questions:

• What have you achieved this year? What did you do well this year?

• Where did you fail? Talk about your failures or things you didn't manage to carry out.

• Finally, there certain aspects you did well, but that you feel you could have done better.

 

 

 

English in a Minute: American English vs British English spelling   (BBC Learning English)

 

mmmEnglish >>>> Advanced speaking practice: English Imitation Lesson

 

BBC Learning English - Learners' Questions / The past continuous or past perfect continuous tense?   

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191218 / 18 December 2019    >>>  Deep-sea mining:   Language related to 'mining'.  Need-to-know language: excavating, sources, rich in, on the brink & ventures.

Tennis  >>>  Rafael Nadal - 20+ Unique Shots That Will Impress You (Super RARE)  

 

Merry Christmas to you all!!!

 

There are many topics concerning Christmas that every year come to our minds when the year is about to end.

 

First, how are we going to decorate our house? or do we still decorate our houses when we get older? Do we use a fake or real Christmas tree?

Listening exercise to do: Fake or real: what's the best tree to have at Christmas? (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English)

 

 

Do we still believe in Santa Claus and its tradition? Do we prefere the Three Wise Men? When do we usually get our Christmas gifts? Do we buy presents for everybody or just the children? (Have a look at the LINGOHACK section below)

News Review:Meet a real-life secret Santa (BBC Learning English)

What about TV or films? Do we still like watching films related with Christmas such as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? What other things do we usually watch at Christmas?

A Christmas Carol - Part 1: Marley's ghost   

Why is Christmas a time of happiness? Is it so happy for everybody?

 

The English We Speak: The more the merrier (BBC Learning English)

And apart from all this, what about family gatherings? Do we still meet all the relatives? Where do we meet? At our grandparents' house? Who does all the cooking?

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191225 / 25 December 2019    >>>  Christmas toys for children in poverty:   Language related to 'poverty'.  Need-to-know language: appeal, food bank, suffering & stigma.

  
  

  

  
  

  Tennis  >>>  Rafael Nadal - Top 10 Reactions of Players Who can't handle Rafa's game (Part 2)  

   

This is English and these are our non-bilingual students from IES Mediterraneo

Here's a video some students (Lucía Espinosa, Lucía García, María González & Alicia Ortega) from 4º ESO A have just made  >>>>>

 

Well done!!!!  CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Maybe they can become teachers of English one day!!!

 

Here's a listening exercise for you to do: Why take a gap year?  (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English) 

Do you know what 'a gap year' means?

 

Here's a game for my 1º ESO students about COUNTRIES AND NATIONALITIES (Another exercise).

 

English in a Minute: 'FINE' vs 'FINELY'   (BBC Learning English)

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191204 / 04 December 2019    >>>  Victoria Falls: Is Zimbabwe drying up?:   Language related to 'disasters'.  Need-to-know language: drought, unsustainable, crisis, crippled & collapse.

Tennis  >>>  Rafael Nadal - Top 10 Reactions of Djokovic when he can't handle Rafa's Game  

 

What is your ideal teacher like?

Teaching is not a particularly easy job to carry out. Actually, there are more and more cases of people who try it and give it up after a while. We have had some examples at school.

 

Not long ago remember we were talking about... More demanding jobs and stressful lives

It is true that it is a very demanding job as you have to be proficient in the subject you teach, you have to be highly motivating, you have to cope with students' misbehaviour in an appropriate way, you have to be a Super Teacher using ITC tools, there are more and more laws, changing every minute, you have to keep families informed... and so on.

What should teachers be like? Many students would prefer a super-teacher who would be telling jokes the whole time, giving high marks to everyone and not making them work (among other things). On the contrary, as you grow older, or when you miss chances in life because you are not well-prepared, you appreciate other characteristics, but perhaps it is already too late.

Before going on, let's just stop for a minute and see the difference between 'ADVICE' and 'ADVISE' (Learners' questions, BBC Learning English)

 

Anyway, here are some pieces of advice to become a good teacher.

The 10 Best Pieces of Teaching Advice for Every Educator    

 

Listen to this song

You Have Made A Difference - A Teacher appreciation song

and read its lyrics to see if you agree with it.

 

And here's some advice to become the best teacher of English. Unfortunately, the article is in Spanish. Do you agree with it?

Here's a most interesting TED talk about Education by Rita Pierson: "Every kid needs a champion"  

Revise the PREPOSITIONS OF TIME with Papa English

For my 1º ESO students, here's an important piece of news:

Let's read Sinbad   >>>>    SINBAD  

What can we do to improve our marks in 'Sinbad':

• Prepare for the control we will have

• Read aloud at home and listen to the reader (the audios are available in your pendrive)

• Do the activities proposed in the book

• Translate it into Spanish using your dictionaries (NO TRANSLATORS!!!!)

• Make a comic

• Do the (BOOK REVIEW) CONTROL SHEET ON TERM READER

Here's a listening exercise for you to do: Chatting to new people  (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English) Can it be good for your mental health?

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191211 / 11 December 2019    >>>  Discovering the code of all life:   Language related to 'life'.  Need-to-know language: teeming with life, biomedical sciences, DNA sequence, breed crops & decipher the genetic code.

Stories for Children >>> Milly and the Rainbow (BBC Learning English)

 

Tennis  >>>  What Awakened The MONSTER Inside Novak Djokovic?  

 

Xmas is round the corner!!!

Christmas is just round the corner!!! Probably the best time of the year, from the point of view of family gatherings!!! 

  

Christmas is one of the most frequent topics in this blog (you can click on the label Christmas ) and you may be able to answer some of these questions:

• What kind of present would you like to have for Christmas?

• Have you ever been to London or Cambridge, or Britain in general, for Christmas? Have a look at the video our Philosophy and Robotics teacher José Luis did when we went on one of our study trips and tell me if you would ever like to go.

• What is your favourite Christmas carol in English?

• What things do you usually do? What things do you have to do every Christmas that you like and that you don't like?

• What words do you know about the topic: Christmas? 

And my students in 4º ESO must remember to make a comment in this post:

Dickens & Christmas

(Book online  for you to read)

Here's a listening exercise for you to do: How long can you hold your breath?  (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English)

English in a Minute:  SEE, WATCH & LOOK   (BBC Learning English)

Rod Stewart - Christmas Live at Stirling Castle

 

6 Minute Vocabulary: More suffixes  (BBC Learning English)

The English We Speak: 'Dad dancing' - Get ready to be embarrassed! (BBC Learning English) Do you like the way your dad dances? Does he make any funny movements? What about your mum?

It is not just climate change, IT IS CLIMATIC EMERGENCY!!!

Next week Madrid will be holding the next climate summit (United Nations Climate Change - December 2019), which should have been hosted by Chile. 

 

Madrid to host UN climate summit after Chile pulls out (The Guardian)

 

 

It is not just climate change what our world has to face, but also a climatic emergency as things are getting worse and worse at such an incredible speed that it might be too late if we don't take action as soon as we can.

 

 

We can make a change ourselves >>>  "Politics plays a big role in the advancement of economics and greatly impacts the environment, technology, and society in general, and this is why we aim to help the world make a better place starting with encouraging healthy political views and ideals. " (ChangeRoots ) Here's an interesting article for you to read: 3 Ways to Make a Difference: Changing The World With Political Awareness

 

Some articles for you to read about CLIMATE EMERGENCY:

• 'Our house is on fire': EU parliament declares climate emergency (The Guardian)

• Climate change: What is a climate emergency? (BBC News)

• 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering' caused by climate change (CNN)

 

Remember the problems derived from the melting of the permafrost:

• The poisons released by melting Arctic ice - BBC Future

• Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted | Environment | The Guardian

 

 

And there are people who have already found some solutions to the problem. For example, here's an example of a Scottish firm who uses sea water or the case of some scientists who have provoked a snowstorm:

• Startup helps Scottish farmers grow gourmet plants with sea water (The Guardian)

• Cooking with seawater – is it the best way to season food? (The Guardian)

• Manmade Antarctic snowstorm 'could save coastal cities from rising seas' (The Guardian)

• Seawater Solutions is tackling agriculture's impact on climate change (The National)  

• Cultivation of barren land with seawater is an idea worth its salt (The Herald)

• Seawater Solutions Scotland  

 

 

Growing Crops in the Desert with Seawater | Freethink

 

6 Minute Vocabulary: Job suffixes  (BBC Learning English)

English with Lucy    >>>  9 RULES OF ARTICLES - A, AN, THE or 'THEE' ? - Use and pronounce correctly every time!

 

 

Stories for Children >>> Nell's books (BBC Learning English)

 

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191127 / 27 November 2019    >>>  Mapping the dead (How tech is finding lost graves):   Language related to 'burial'.  Need-to-know language: resting place, headstones, grave, cemetery and decay.

Better as a team!!!

"Better as a team", said Nadal.  He was really proud of having participated and won the Davis Cup last weekend, and emphasized the fact he felt even better because the victory came from a team. Tennis is an individual sport and he is used to fighting, winning and losing on his own, so he has come to the conclusion that nothing beats a victory when it is achieved as a team.

 

 

Talking about tackling problems, today was...

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

 and again the solution doesn't come from an individual action, but from the actions carried out by a whole society.

Click on this label for related posts on the issue: violence against women

It's better as a team  >>>

Here some quotes from "15 Quotes to Inspire Great Teamwork" (Inc.) related to the greatness of teamwork:

• "Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." --Vince Lombardi

• "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." --Michael Jordan

• "Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." --Andrew Carnegie

• "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." --Helen Keller

• "None of us is as smart as all of us." --Ken Blanchard

• "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." --Henry Ford

• "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." --Henry Ford

• "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." --Phil Jackson

• "It takes two flints to make a fire." --Louisa May Alcott

• "Unity is strength. . . when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved." --Mattie Stepanek

And as a team, Spain has won their 6th Davis Cup....

Davis Cup: Rafael Nadal secures Spain the title (Tennisnet.com)

Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs Denis Shapovalov (CAN) 2019 Davis Cup Final

 

 

Auger Aliassime CAN vs Bautista Agut ESP 2019 Davis Cup Final

Nadal/Granollers (ESP) vs Gonzalez/Mayer (ARG) DAVIS CUP 2019

RAFA NADAL: 2019 ATP Highlight Reel

Listening exercise to do: Can robots care for us? (Can technology look after us) (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English) Related post you can also have a look at and which is connected with 'wearable technology':  Wearables to help and save patients

 

Quiz for you to do: WHY? Expressing purpose

 

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191113 / 13 November 2019    >>>  Do we need toys to play? (Toy-free play trial):   Language related to 'play'.  Need-to-know language: nursery, imagination, dexterity, deprive & gender.

RUBBISH!!!

 

It's no rubbish!! There's rubbish everywhere: at school, in the streets, in the sea, in the space... Something must be done immediately if we don't want things to go any worse!!

 

How many words do you know that are connected with 'rubbish'? Look far below in this post and you'll find some of them. But try first, and then have a look at this interesting LINGOHACK episode:

 

LINGOHACK  >>>

• Episode 191120 / 20 November 2019    >>>  Learn 'rubbish' vocabulary (French restaurants fighting climate change):   Language related to 'rubbish'.  Need-to-know language: waste food, compost, organic, landfill and greenhouse gas.

And rubbish is obviously connected to some big issues, such as: nuclear waste, climate change, recycling, reusing, upcycling, pollution, landfill, methane gas...

 

 

Some articles for you to read about the topic: 

• Green new meal: restaurants can charge diners to reduce their carbon food-print (The Guardian)

• Parisians fight climate change with a surprising weapon (BBC News)

• Restaurants Fighting Climate Change (Michelin Guide) towards Zero Food Print (ZeroFoodPrint)

 

The Future’s Rubbish! - BBC Documentary

 

 

Amazing fact:  Almost 16,000 tonnes of Aucklanders' recycling ended up in landfill last year 

However, 'rubbish' can also mean 'talking foolishly'. Look it up here, and here you can have its definition in English.

And talking about 'rubbish' and, sorry, 'shit', here's another episode of News Review: Slippery toilets could save water (BBC Learning English)

Episode 2: Adverbs of frequency in our series of BBC Learning English: The Grammar Gameshow, where you can test your knowledge of grammar.

English in a Minute:  Five ways of using 'run'   (BBC Learning English)

Words connected with rubbish: rubbish bin, dustbin, litter, space junk, debris, garbage, trash, compost, waste...  You can even have a look at some posts related with this:

• What really matters in life

• Cleaning up space junk 

• PLASTIC, THE BIGGEST THREAT FOR OUR SEAS (Updated) 

• Food and food waste, a big world problem 

• We all wish it would rain down!!!!

• Paris: World Climate Summit 2015

Stories for Children >>> Little Monsters (BBC Learning English)

Tennis  >>>  Top 5 shots in Roland Garros