BEING A TEACHER IS A DIFFICULT TASK NOWADAYS, SO I DECIDED TO FOLLOW THIS PIECE OF ADVICE BY BRUCE LEE:
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
As I said last year, it is a Good time to take stock of the situation!! after this damned leap year (2020, a leap year) . Could you tell me the best things that have happened, if any, this past year and the worst things, which are a lot and quite obvious?
Something is for certain, we are much better as a society and as human beings, and we have realised how important little things are. Meeting your friends and relatives, hugging and kissing them, hanging out with them, going to school, breathing fresh air, playing with our friends, attending sport events, attending musical events.... or just going to the cinema are some of the many things we have had real problems to carry out. Or just the freedom to go out or move from one town to another when we were locked down.
We always have to thank whoever for having such facilities and think that perhaps in little hamlets in Africa they are used to have the lack of all these comforts or the lack of water and food.
The top 10 words of 2020! Do you know them all?
Which ones do you think they are? Try to guess them before watching the video. In the next post I will give you the solution, anyway.
Episode 201230 / 30 December 2020 >>> Bookshop in 'fairy-tale' tweet - Language related to
'the unusual'. Need-to-know language: quaint, quirky, forlorn & weird.
Anyway, sometimes we do look like fools!!! especially when I see the streets so full of people or such crowded bars and restaurants. We have to be sensible and patient and we will be rewarded with a Covid-free world!!!
I want to tell you all in a near future what Aretha Franklin said in the first song (Until you come back to me): "You have no idea after so many miles how good you, guys, look to me! You just don't know!!"
Episode 201209 / 09 December 2020 >>> New life for world's loneliest elephant - Language related to
'animal welfare'. Need-to-know language: captivity, vocal supporter, treated, distress & logistical.
This term we have read in the level of 4º ESO the fabulous story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. There are so many touching stories around this issue.
Have a look at this video and tell the story behind using PAST TENSES >>>
In your comments you can tell me what the best goal is for you or a Christmas story, or just try to tell me about one of the Christmas stories told above in the adverts.
We are all wishing to spend the best Christmas ever, but also the safest, and, above all, we all want to enjoy Christmas next year with all our relatives and friends, so we have do things properly.
Here are some interesting articles for you to read with some tips to enjoy and keep safe:
REVISION FOR Bachillerato >>> Solutions to exercises in previous post
161. TENSES.
(1) has worked(2)supplies(3) was started(4) was born(5)was employed(6) needed (7) was sent(8)took(9) was carried(10) has changed(11) are expanding(12) are sent
(a) for(b) of(c) by(d) since
162.
1. 'pigeons' are birds that can fly and that in the past were used to carry messages from one person to another 2. clerk
163. TENSES.
1. Albert has been telling us to work every
day 2. We had had only one exam before our
term exams.
3. The TENSES exercise has been really
difficult for us (if we are doing the exam. If not: The TENSES exercise was....)
4. One day we did not bring a composition Albert
had told us to do so he got furious with us.
5. One day we were talking about Maths when Albert came into the classroom
164. PRONUNCIATION. LISTENTALKWRITEKNIFE
165.
1. The new teacher we are having for English this year is called Albert.
2. Albert, who has to feed his baby before school, comes every day at
8.30 sharp.
3. Where is the department store where your
father works?
4. My father works in El Corte Inglés, which is in Granada.
5. Who is the girl you were
talking with in the pub last Monday?
166. Follow-up questions. Possible questions.
1. What did you have for lunch? 2. How much have they paid? 3. Where did he go?
4. Where do you work? / What do you do? 5. Who is Joan writing a letter to?
6.Which film are you watching? Who are you going with?
167. PASSIVE VOICE
1. Internet is used by millions of people. 2. Lunch must be cooked for his baby
every day by Albert.
3. That green
van is being followed by a police car.
4. How many times was this window broken by the children last year?
5. John wasn't asked a lot of questions. // A lot of questions weren't asked to John.
168.
1. ..... so you
have it painted. 2. .... so they
have it done.
169.
1. Millions of cans of Coca-Cola are drunk every day.
2. What do you think the life of a nun is like? Perhaps a little boring, but interesting too.
3. He didn't want anybody to see his new car.
4. They eventually understood what their father had meant.
5. "I think the baby likes learning English a lot because he is very interested in looking up new words in your new dictionary", said the mother to the father.
Episode 201223 / 23 December 2020 >>> Lighting up the railway for Christmas - Language related to
'sentimentality'. Need-to-know language: spectacular, wonder, Christmassy, touching & magical.
The V- Day came and Covid vaccines have started to be administered at hospitals in the UK. In a few days' time we will also begin here in Spain, as well as in most European countries. Is it the light at the end of this long dark tunnel?
And this is what this elderly lady said after being vaccinated: "Go for it. It's free .... If I can do it, so can you". Now we will have to keep alert to see its possible side effects.
Good news now that Christmas is coming. Here's a song by Train: Shake Up Christmas (version with lyrics)
REVISION FOR Bachillerato
161. TENSES. Put the verbs in brackets into
the correct tense. Some are active, some are passive. Then fill in the dotted
gaps (....) with appropriate words.
Reuters News Agency
Martin Webb (1)____________ (work) for the Reuters News Agency (a)
............. ten years. He describes the company.
'Reuters is one (b) .............. the world's biggest news agencies. It
(2) ____________ (supply) news and stock market prices to media world. It (3)
_____________ (start) by Paul Reuter in 1849 - with pigeons! Reuter (4)
_______________ (be born) in 1816 in Germany. During the 1840s he (5)
_______________ (employ) as a bank clerk in Berlin. German bankers
(6)______________ (need) to know the prices on the Paris stock exchange, but
the French telegraph system only went as far as Belgium. From there the
information (7) _______________ (send) to Germany (c) .............. train. The
journey (8) _______________ (take) nine hours. The same information (9)
______________ (carry) by Paul Reuter's pigeons in only two hours!
Reuters (10) _______________ (change) a lot (d) .................. those
days. Over the past fifty years, we've opened offices in many different
countries - and we (11) ____________ still ____________ (expand). Now, news and
stock market prices (12) _________________ (send) all over the world within
seconds.'
162. Look at the previous text again and do
what you are asked:
2. Find a word in
the text for the following definition: "a person whose job is to do
written work or look after records or accounts in an office, bank, court of
law, etc. ___________
163. TENSES. Think about last school term and
write sentences with the clues given imagining it is Tuesday. 22nd
December, that is to say, right at the of the term:
1. Albert / tell / us / to work every
day__________________________________________
2. We / have/ only one exam / before our
term exams.
Episode 201216 / 16 December 2020 >>> Tackling a tide of plastic - Language related to
'helping the planet'. Need-to-know language: the final straw, strong sign, responsability, functioning & trajectory.
What a damned year! Again another great legend, the Italian football player Paolo Rossi has passed away.
For example, the way we communicate with each other. How do you communicate with your friends or relatives? Do you phone them or send them a WhatsApp message, or do you just send an audio and reply with emoticons? Do you use Skype?
Here's a listening exercise for you to do about this issue:
And talking about long bridges and things that can change the world, visit this post:French megastructuresand you will even be able to practise your French!!!
Episode 201202 / 02 December 2020 >>> Trains powered by the sun - Language related to
'power'. Need-to-know language: solar power, feeding, a push, sources & the grid.
As I said last year, it is a Good time to take stock of the situation!! after this damned leap year (2020, a leap year) . Could you tell me the best things that have happened, if any, this past year and the worst things, which are a lot and quite obvious?
Something is for certain, we are much better as a society and as human beings, and we have realised how important little things are. Meeting your friends and relatives, hugging and kissing them, hanging out with them, going to school, breathing fresh air, playing with our friends, attending sport events, attending musical events.... or just going to the cinema are some of the many things we have had real problems to carry out. Or just the freedom to go out or move from one town to another when we were locked down.
