KAHOOT - have fun while you learn!!

Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

You can get direct access in: https://getkahoot.com/

And there is a useful tutorial here:

Moby Dick

Moby Dick was first published on 18th October in 1851; thus, yesterday we celebrated its publication anniversary. As an English teacher, I firmly recommend you this wonderful novel, written by Herman Melville.

You can use it with your students in many different ways, depending on their level. In the following website you'll find lots of great teaching resources on Moby Dick :)

https://www.lessonplanet.com/lesson-plans/moby-dick/all

This is the trailer for the most recent film based on Moby Dick:

Useful Apps to learn English

In today's world, we are used to using different apps in our devices. The ones I post today are apps that help you learn English at your pace, whenever you have time to do so. Have a look at them and download your favourite ones!! ;)


DUOLINGO

BUSUU

VOXY

BABBEL

WLINGUA

ROSETTA STONE

WIBBU

Oscar Wilde - his 162nd birthday

Yesterday it was Oscar Wilde's 162nd birthday. From ELS, we want to take advantage of his birthday to show all of you who he was and some of his most representative work. He was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist and poet, whose most remembered plays are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest:

Oscar Wilde was taken from the world too young. He was a man with infinite literary potential and his works were among the first satires on the life and times of the people of late Victorian England. The humour, simplicity and emotion in his writings were so raw that his works have passed down several generations and now hold a permanent place in our libraries. On his 162nd birthday, we want to remember him, not as a man who suffered at the hands of an intolerable society, but as one who gave us some of the best literature of the times. Happy birthday, sir!

(taken from https://yourstory.com/2016/10/remembering-writer-oscar-wilde/)

Learn English Conversation - Beginner Level

For those of you who want to learn or even improve your English level from home, have a look at the following video, it's worth it!

There are more like that, just choose the one that fits your level ;)

Happy World Teacher's Day!! (5th October)

Today, 5th October, world teacher's day is celebrated worldwide. As a teacher, I'm proud of contributing to the eduation and development of students.

I'll deal with this festivity this afternoon with my students and I'll post their work here later, for you to see what they feel about Teacher's Day.

HAPPY WORLD TEACHER'S DAY!

Sweet Sountrack - songs from movies

Have you ever heard a song in a film that you instantly loved and wanted to know which song was it? Then, sweetsoundtrack is the definitive search engine!

It's a wonderful site that you'll find of a lot of help if you love music and cinema ;)

This is what you can read on their website:

Sweetsoundtrack.com is the spot where music and movie lovers unite! With song listings from thousands of your favorite movies, we are your number one source of movie soundtrack information. Heard an awesome song in the movie you just watched? Don't wait for the credits. Search our comprehensive tracklistings for the information you need.

http://sweetsoundtrack.com/

Premier Skills English - English through football

Do you like football? are you learning English? then, you can improve your English skills with this wonderful partnership of the British Council with the Premier League.

Through Premier Skills, young people, including the most vulnerable in society, are given opportunities to become better integrated into their local communities, to develop their skills for employability and raise their self-esteem.  

Premier Skills English helps teachers and learners of English with free, compelling learning materials, drawing on football-based content from the most exciting football league in the world.

On Premier Skills English, you can find lots of resources for learning English and they are all about football. Some of the materials will teach you football English. This is language about the beautiful game, connected to playing or watching football. These materials will teach you the words and phrases you need to talk about football on and off the pitch.

The rest of the materials will teach general English through football. The materials will cover the same sort of language you would find in any language course, but the subject of the lessons will be football or related to football.


Go to http://premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org/ and learn more about Premier Skills English.

Prepositions

Most EFL students have doubts when dealing with prepositions. With the following images, you'll never face problems with them ;)

The following represents a more complete group of prepositions of place:

SLANG

What is SLANG and how can you use it in your daily conversations?

A slang word or term is often adopted by different groups of people and spreads from one city to another. Among English speakers, there are many reasons why people use slang – and often it enriches the language. It could be used just for fun or to be witty or clever. Or it could be used as a form of expression – to be different or controversial. Although common among young people, it is used by people of all ages.

While some slang terms are making their way into the English language from the internet, others may appear as brand new words, a new meaning for an existing word, or a word that becomes more generalised than its former meaning. And it isn’t a new thing – every decade has had slang terms or phrases appear during that time. Although, because etymology (the study of the origin of words) is as much an art as it is a science, it can be difficult to accurately pinpoint the exact time that a particular piece of English slang came into use.

When using English slang, it’s important to know that some terms have become commonplace among all groups of people of all ages. These include “blimey” (an exclamation of surprise), “budge up” (move along to make some room) and “have a flutter” (place a bet).

However, some words used by younger people are the kinds of words you need to know if you want to be thought of as cool – even though it may appear a completely different language!

Here we present our guide to some of the newest English slang…

Snatched: Move over “fleek” – this is the new way to describe anything that looks really good or “on point”. Anything from your eyebrows to your clothes can look snatched.

Lit: If some thing is really good, then it’s “lit”. Again, this can refer to anything from a concert or a TV show to an outfit.

Cancel: An English word that usually means to decide that a planned event will not take place. But now you can use it to refer to anything you don’t like. “Would you like vegetables with dinner?” “CANCEL!”

High-key/low-key: High-key refers to something needing to be said out loud. Low-key is the opposite. Both can refer to an intense like/dislike.



Source: Pearson English 

April 21 - The Queen's birthday

Happy birthday your Majesty!!!! From ELS we wish you a very happy 90th birthday!!

“Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories queen, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith,” (to recite her full title) turned 90 last Thursday.

She was born 21 April 1926 and has been since her accession in 1952, Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Head of the Commonwealth. She is also Queen of 12 countries that have become independent since her accession: Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Elizabeth was born in London to the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and was the elder of their two daughters. She was educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. In 1947, she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

Her longevity is remarkable. She is the longest-reigning monarch in British history and the longest-reigning queen in world history; since ascending to the throne she has known 12 prime ministers, starting with Winston Churchill, and 12 American presidents.

Typically, the queen spends her birthday working. Not many people live to 90, and those who do have long retired, but the queen had 341 official engagements last year and has given no hint of stepping down. On Friday, she and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, received President Barack and Michelle Obama at Windsor Castle.

Source: www.nytimes.com / wikipedia

YOUGLISH

Youglish is a very useful tool that shows you the pronunciation of English words in natural contexts. It's a website that uses over ten million youtube videos of natural speech from native and/or fluent speakers.

It's very simple to use, all you need to do is typing in an English word and it'll provide you with several video samples (you may select whether you want to listen to American or British English).

Try it to improve your pronunciation! ;)

http://youglish.com/

Transitive & Intransitive Verbs

A lot of students find it difficult to differentiate between transitive and intransitive verbs. With this post, I'd like you to learn about these structures and put them into practice asap ;)

Intransitive verbs: subject + verb

If an action concerns only one person or thing, you mention only the person or thing that carries out the action (the subject) and the action itself (the verb). Verbs which describe such actions are called intransitive verbs.

Many intransitive verbs describe physical behaviour or movement:

As the boys arrived, the girls departed.



Transitive verbs: subject + verb + object

Transitive verbs involve not only the subject, but also someone or something else, the object:

She has many friends, but (she) admires Victoria most.


Some transitive verbs can have two objects, an indirect object followed by a direct object:

She brought me my breakfast in bed on a silver tray.


We can also reverse the order of the objects and put the direct object first by inserting the preposition to before the indirect object:

I lent all the money I had to my younger sister.



Intransitive or transitive

Many verbs in English can be used both transitively and intransitively. The object is often not needed when it is obvious what you are talking about. But it may need to be added to clarify what is meant. Compare the following:

I asked him to come in, but he did not enter. He did not enter the room.

When he entered the room, she was reading. She was reading a book about Buddhism.


In these examples, the meaning of the verb does not change whether it is used transitively or intransitively. With certain verbs, the meaning does change. Compare the following:

She runs a bed-and-breakfast establishment in Broadstairs.

The bull was chasing him so he ran as quickly as he could.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv244.shtml

Tu-be or not Tu-be: a new map of the London Underground

And here it is, another tribute to William Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death. I really like it!!! :) :)

A special edition Tube map has been produced in which station names have been replaced with characters, plays and modern adaptations of William Shakespeare's work to mark the 400th anniversary of his death.

Among the changes from the real-life London Underground are Westminster as tragedy King Lear, St Paul's as Lysander from A Midsummer Night's Dream and Cannon Street as history play King John.

The map also shows three of the capital's theatres where Shakespeare's plays were performed – the Globe Theatre, Blackfriars Theatre and the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch.

Dr Farah Karim-Cooper, head of higher education and research at Shakespeare's Globe, said: "What this wonderful keepsake reveals is that Shakespeare's work, his characters and themes intersect with each other in fascinating ways.

"To think about navigating the plays in the same way we think about getting around the Underground reminds us that as complex as they are, the works of Shakespeare are entirely accessible to everyone."

Shakespeare is believed to have died on his birthday, April 23, in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616.

The map will be available to buy from Monday online or directly from London Transport Museum and Shakespeare's Globe.



Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Becas para deportistas - International Doorway to Education and Athletics

ISEP es una organización que ayuda a deportistas amateurs a prepararse física y técnicamente para después viajar a Estados Unidos y participar de eventos en los que son observados y evaluados por entrenadores de más de 70 universidades. De acuerdo al nivel de rendimiento de cada participante, las universidades definen el porcentaje de beca de estudio (parcial o total) que ofrecerán a cada aspirante. Por su parte, los elegidos se comprometen a representar a la universidad en la liga del deporte que practican. Los estados donde se encuentran las universidades sedes del programa son Georgia y Missouri. Una vez seleccionados como becarios, los participantes pueden comenzar o continuar sus estudios en agosto del mismo año o en enero del año siguiente.

Durante la estadía en Estados Unidos, los participantes residen en campus universitarios y tienen libre acceso a todas las instalaciones académicas y deportivas, que incluyen laboratorios de computación, biblioteca y piscina. Además, cuentan con cobertura médica permanente.

Requisitos:

- tener entre 16 y 26 años de edad.

- ser deportista amateur en las siguientes disciplinas: fútbol, tenis, golf, básquet y baseball para los hombres; o fútbol, tenis, golf, vóley, hockey sobre césped, básquet y softball para las mujeres.

- estar cursando los dos últimos años del colegio secundario, ser graduado secundario o estar cursando una carrera universitaria y tener hasta 26 años de edad (las universidades norteamericanas aceptan transferencia de materias)

- tener pasaporte y visa de turista (la visa de estudiante se tramitará luego de haber obtenido la beca)

El conocimiento del idioma inglés no es un requerimiento excluyente.


Duración:

El viaje se realiza entre el 15 y el 31 de julio de cada año.

Información: Para más información, contactar a: 

1616 P Street NW
Suite 150
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202/667-8027
Fax: 202/667-7801
info@isep.org

Lugar: EE.UU. - U.S.A.

Más información:

http://www.isep.org

Source: http://www.becas.com/beca-Becas-para-deportistas---International-Doorway-to-Education-and-Athletics_14422.html

WHO or WHOM - what's the difference?

A lot of students struggle with Who and Whom; they usually confuse them and use them incorrectly. The following image explains it very well, in a clear and concise way:

Positive and Negative Responses

When you want to say in English that you also like something or that you can also do something, that is to say that you agree in a response, you can express it in different ways, using both formal & informal English. It's the same with negative expressions. The above picture shows this perfectly, so now you have no excuses to be able to express positive or negative responses ;)

April Fools' Day

April Fools' Day (sometimes called All Fools' Day) is celebrated every year on 1 April by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools. People playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting April Fool. Some newspapers, magazines, and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in small letters. Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.

Source: Wikipedia

APRIL - National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month, which takes place each April, is a celebration of poetry introduced in 1996 and organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.

You can learn more on this month here: https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home

If you want to have resources for poetry month, click on http://www.edutopia.org/blog/16-resources-national-poetry-month-marc-anderson

The Red Telephone Box - a British Icon

Are you familiar with the British red telephone box? do you know why is it red or why has it got that specific design?

If you want to find answers to those questions and learn more on this great icon, go to http://www.anglotopia.net/british-history/anglotopia-magazine-great-british-icons-a-history-of-the-red-telephone-box/

FilmEnglish

As a teacher, do you use videos in class?

As a student, do you like watching clips in your English class?

Then, you can visit http://film-english.com/, where you'll find lots of lessons based around high quality short films.   

HAPPY EASTER!

Easter is already here!!!! :)

I love these holly days because a lot of wonderful memories from my childhood come to my mind.


If you also want to have fun these days, do not hesitate to try these great tasks ;)


http://www.eslkidstuff.com/EasterGames.htm#.Vu7ateLhDIU

http://bogglesworldesl.com/easter_worksheets.htm

http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/easterPrintables.htm

http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/04/easter_sunday.pdf

file:///C:/Users/Pc/Downloads/easter-lesson.pdf

St.Patrick's Day! (17th March)

Today Irish people and the Irish-at-heart around the world celebrate St. Patrick's Day!! It began as a religious festivity for the patron saint of Ireland but it has become an international festival with parades and everything green!! Some of the symbols associated with today's feast are a pot of gold or shamrocks, as you can see in this picture:

The most famous quote you can hear today is:

If you go to http://www.history.com/topics/st-patricks-day, you'll watch wonderful video clips that teach you great facts about St.Patrick's Day. They're worth it!

And if you want to learn vocabulary or just want to have lesson ideas for your students, click on the following sites:

http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/03/saint_patricks_day.pdf

http://speakenglish.thaireformed.com/uploads/3/4/0/1/3401675/___st._patricks_day_int.pdf

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/saint-patricks-day

http://bogglesworldesl.com/stpatricksday_worksheets.htm

EDpuzzle

EDpuzzle is a wonderful online tool for teachers & students that lets you edite and modify videos in order to adapt them to your needs. It's the ideal app to facilitate a flipped classroom.

If you want to know more, watch this Demo and click on the website, it's worth it!

https://edpuzzle.com/

International Women's Day (8th March)

International Women's Day, originally called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation, and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political, and social achievements. In some regions, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for people to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. In other regions, however, the political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner. Some people celebrate the day by wearing purple ribbons.

Source: wikipedia


This is today's Doodle, enjoy watching it!

It's a very interesting topic to deal with in class with your students. These are some great tasks:

http://speakenglish.thaireformed.com/uploads/3/4/0/1/3401675/___wemons_day_int.pdf (Lesson Plan)

http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/03/international_womens_day.html (Reading Comprehension)

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/march10.htm (Spot the grammar mistake)

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!

Language Research Ambassador - Cambridge University Press

I'm very happy to tell you that my English classroom (English Learning Solutions) has been awarded with a Language Research Ambassador Certificate by Cambridge University Press, from the University of Cambridge. I coordinated and collected data from my students who wanted to participate as Junior researchers in this wonderful project.


After taking part in this wonderful project, which my students enjoyed a lot, I have been told from Cambridge University Press that my English Centre has been the runner up in their competition. Many schools from all over the world have taken part in it and having the second position is wonderful!!!!! I'm very glad and grateful as a teacher. Congrats also to my students, you are awesome!!

KIDDLE

Kiddle is a visual search engine designed for kids. It has the following features:

1) Safe search: sites appearing in Kiddle search results satisfy family friendly requirements, as we filter sites with explicit or deceptive content. 

2) Kids-oriented results: the boxes below illustrate how Kiddle returns results for each query (in the order shown):

Safe sites and pages written specifically for kids. Handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors. 
Typically, results 1-3.

Safe, trusted sites that are not written specifically for kids, but have content written in a simple way, easy for kids to understand. Handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors. 
Typically, results 4-7.

Safe, famous sites that are written for adults, providing expert content, but are harder for kids to understand. Filtered by Google safe search. 
Typically, results 8 onwards.

2) Big thumbnails: most Kiddle search results are illustrated with big thumbnails, which makes it easier to scan the results, differentiate between them, and click the most appropriate results to your query. Thumbnails serve as visual clues and are especially beneficial to kids as they don't read as fast as adults.

3) Large Arial font in Kiddle search results provides better readability for kids.

4) Privacy: we don't collect any personally identifiable information, and our logs are deleted every 24 hours. 

Source: http://www.kiddle.co/

Leap year

What is a Leap Year? when did it begin? how often is a Leap Year? 

As you know, tomorrow is 29th February, so we have an extra day in our calendars. But, do you know why? You'll find answers to that questions, together with the ones above, in this post. I hope you find it useful ;)

A leap year is a year containing one additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is called a common year.

The name "leap year" comes from the fact that while a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar normally advances one day of the week from one year to the next, the day of the week in a leap year will advance two days (from March onwards) due to the extra day added at the end of February (thus "leaping over" one of the days in the week). For example, Christmas fell on Tuesday in 2001, Wednesday in 2002, and Thursday in 2003 but then "leapt" over Friday to fall on a Saturday in 2004.

The practice of adding extra days to the year is at least as old as these 360-day systems.“When the Egyptians adopted this calendar they were aware that there was a problem, but they didn't add any more days to the calendar; they just added an extra five days of festivals, of partying, at the end of the year.” In 46 BCE, Roman emperor Julius Caesar sought to fix this problem. He introduced the Julian calendar—an amended version of the existing Roman calendar. A year, he said, would now include 365 days, with an extra leap day—or intercalary day—every fourth year.

Sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160226-leap-year-science-time-world-cultures-february/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year

http://qz.com/626563/how-leap-year-babies-celebrate-their-birthdays/

British vs American English (BrE - AmE)

Do you speak British or American English? do you use British or American vocabulary? This is a topic my students love because they find very interesting to learn different words which mean the same.

In English abbreviation, we refer to British English as BrE and to the American one as AmE.

This is a list of vocabulary for you to see the difference. How many did you know? ;)

Source: http://genial.guru/admiracion-curiosidades/diferencias-entre-el-ingles-britanico-y-americano-92005/#image396405

You can also watch those words on these videos:

Tea Time!

In English, there are several expressions (commonly noun as idioms) with the word 'TEA', with a completely different meaning from its original. Here are some:

If you want to know more on this, click on http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/idioms-about-tea

You can also watch this video:

I hope you enjoy this post!! ;)

Jobs - what do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This is a topic we are currently dealing with in primary education. Students are learning vocabulary related to occupations as well as how to answer to the above question.

If you want to revise this new words at home, you can watch this video and test your knowledge ;)

And you can also learn while singing this song:

In the following links, you'll find flashcards, worksheets and games to practice this topic :)

http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/occupationsTopic.htm

http://www.eslkidslab.com/worksheets/set3/jobs/

http://bogglesworldesl.com/kids_worksheets/jobs.htm


Have fun!!

Musixmatch - Lyrics

Alberto Pérez, one of my intermediate students, told me yesterday about Musixmatch, a wonderful music app that he has in his mobile phone. He loves music and with Musixmatch he's learning a lot of vocabulary and expressions commonly found in songs, since he can follow the lyrics while he's listening to the song.

Musixmatch is a popular lyrics destination on ICT devices with more than 40 million people using it worldwide. This great app lets you discover the words to your music.

You can use it in class with your students when dealing with songs; it's amazing!

https://www.musixmatch.com/

Valentine's Day (14th February)

What is LOVE? can you define it or even explain it?
The Guardian gives you some tips ;) http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/12/what-is-love-valentines-day-experts


If you want to deal with Valentine's Day in class to let your students know about its history, visit http://www.esolcourses.com/content/topics/valentinesday/listening/history-of-valentines-day.html to do a video listening activity. It's great!

You can also use a Scavenger Hunt with your students, a task that motivates them a lot! The best one is this by Svetlana Kandybovich: https://eltcation.wordpress.com/author/svetlanakandy/

The British Council has a lesson plan dedicated to this day for intermediate-advanced students. It's based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/shakespeare-love-romeo-juliet

Without a doubt, when I deal with Romeo and Juliet with my students, I also use the couple of one of the greatest works of Spanish literature which takes place in my city, Salamanca (Spain). They are Calisto and Melibea, from the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea. You can learn more in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Celestina

The following are resources for younger students:

http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/valentinesDayPrintables.htm

http://bogglesworldesl.com/valentines_day_worksheets.htm


Now, you have no excuses to celebrate Valentine's Day ;p

The UK - Four Nations

What do you know about the United Kingdom? Do you know they are four nations that make up the UK?

If you want to know more about England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, watch the following video and complete the provided tasks, you'll have fun and learn lots of interesting things!! ;)

http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/sites/teens/files/four_nations_-_exercises.pdf

This is a lesson plan taken from: http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/uk-now/video-uk/four-nations


Thanks to the British Council for these wonderful resources!!

Creatubbles

Creatubbles is a safe social platform for creative kids and teachers. You can motivate and excit your students with this wonderful resource. They can upload and share their piece of art and even message other people from lots of different countries. It can be a picture, music, a writing composition, etc.

As a teacher, you can connect and collaborate with teachers around the world, and much more!!

It's totally free and I'm sure you'll enjoy it! ;)


Click on:                         https://www.creatubbles.com/