THOUGHT QUESTIONS

The school year is coming to an end for you guys and so are my assignments. Let's do one more, though. Below you have some inspiring pictures with some questions on them that will make you think. Choose 10 of the pictures, read the questions aloud and then answer them. Try to think about the answers carefully and be a bit original. Send me a voicemail with your answers.

Deadline: Sunday 11th May

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SPAIN: OUT OF TIME?

A front-page article in the New York Times about Spain’s potential time zone change has led to a raging debate in the US on whether Spaniards are right or wrong to do everything later. 

The article, titled “Spain, land of 10pm dinners, asks if it’s time to reset the clock”, has been the New York Times’ most emailed story in recent days.







A different view on the matter

Read the first article and go through some of the comments on the second and send me a voicemail with the main arguments exposed in the first piece, which comment you agree or disagree most with in the second article and your views on the issue. Use your own words, please.




Deadline: Tuesday 25th February

MAKE A GUESS

A JIGSAW STORY

Time for sorting out a story! Below you have the QR codes for a well known story by Roald Dahl called Lamb to Slaughter.




Each one of you will scan and read one QR code which contains 10 different extracts of the story and you must try to figure out how the story goes all together by telling the others what your extract is about.
If you don't have a QR reader, download QR Droid for Android or QR Reader for iPhone.

Have fun!



Now that you've come with the story, let's watch the short film based on it by Hitchcock: 

NELSON MANDELA

As you all know by now, Nelson Mandela died on December 5th. He was a man that really made a difference.







Obama pays tribute to him in the following public announcement:

 Let's pay tribute by doing some activities about him.

The three assignments are due on December 13th.

First, watch the speech by Obama and send me a Speakpipe with the main headlines in it.

Second, do the following listening activity in your virtual classroom so that I get your grades for your final marks this term.

Watch and listen to the poem “His Day is Done: A Tribute Poem for Nelson Mandela by Maya Angelou,” which was produced by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs in December 2013.

Third, watch the video about Mandela's story in your virtual classroom and answer the questions below it. 

The listening assignments will help you upgrade your grades for the listening skill this term.

GENDER GAP

After learning about Malala Yousasfai, we'll go deeper into the issue of gender gap in the following days.

"The first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one"

In a powerful video project, Brown University (New England) student Emma Hall asked some of her classmates to read out statements generated by Google autofill searches for phrases like "women want" and "men should." Some of the examples? "Women want money" and "men should be able to hit women."

Watch what they came up with:



In groups you're going to do some research on Gender Gap in the world in aspects such as education, politics, economy, science, society....

Below you have different links to focus your study on. Try to get the most important information to later present to the rest of the groups what you learnt.

GROUP 1:

• Study the following interactive map and draw some conclusions:

Watch the video by the World Economic Forum and comment on the initiatives they're carrying out to try to close the Gender Gap.

GROUP 2: 

• Saudi Arabian ban on women driving. Read some posts in this blog and share the different point of views expressed on it. What does Bob Marley have to do with it?

GROUP 3: 

• Gender Pay Gap: Study the following infographic and draw conclusions to share with the whole class. You can do further research.

Explore more infographics like this one on  Visually.

 GROUP 4:

• The Gender Gap in Computer Science. Study the infographic below and explain the reason for the gap and the latest tendency.

Source: Best Computer Science Schools

GROUP 5: 

• Watch the video below with a summary of the report carried out by the World Economic Forum on Global Gender Gap and share what you understood. Don't forget to mention the reasons why Gender Gap does not benefit any country.

GROUP 6: 

• Are men and women planets apart? Study the infographic below and share your findings with the class:

.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

THE GIRL THEY COULDN'T SILENCE

Last October was International Day of the Girl, and The Daily Show was able to interview Malala Yousafzai, a courageous young advocate for girls’ education from Pakistan’s Swat Valley. 

But first, let's remember her story.





Study this interactive timeline and get the information needed to retell her story.


Watch the following video about the story of Malala Yousafzai:





Last year, Malala was targeted and shot by radical Taliban militants while on her school bus. She was a youth blogger for the BBC advocating girls education in her native Pakistan, and continued to go to school despite a Taliban ban outlawing women’s education. Malala made a full recovery, and has since used her newfound fame to highlight the discrimination that girls often face when seeking an education in the developing world, and why girls’ education is so essential to the health of a society. 

Because of her courage in the face of great opposition, Mala was nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Although she didn't win the prize, she continues to speak out and raise money to promote education, despite renewed death threats against her...
At least one group was pleased with the decision not to reward her with the Nobel Prize. Find out more.
Let's do some reading aloud about her story. Now you can watch the amazing interview. Take some notes for later discussion.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

She spoke at the UN Youth Assembly on her 16th birthday.





Watch her speech and do the following taks: 

• Send me an oral report with the best headlines in it. 

Answer the following questions in your report:

• What were the Taliban's two goals in attacking Malala? How have their actions toward these goals backfired?
• What role has technology played in Malala’s crusade?
• What are the characteristics of a hero? Is Malala Yousafzai a hero? Find adjectives to describe her.
• Malala's story teaches us that one person can make a big difference. In your own words, explian how Malala has made a difference in the world.

Deadline: 23rd November 


Despite the importance of the subject, let's finish the post with a smile. 
Watch the following short film "Pipas" (sunflower seeds) awarded with the best screenplay and best director in the 9th edtion of Notodofilmfest 

Corto PIPAS from Manuela Moreno on Vimeo.

How does the video relate to the education gender gap topic?

TEXTING LINGO

Now that you have given your opinion about the influence of the Internet on languages, I would like you to watch this video where David Crystal, a well-known professor of linguistics and important editor for Cambridge University Press, proves his theory on a BBC programme called "It's Only a Theory", his theory being: "Texting is good for the English language". 



Take note of his arguments to prove his theory and send me a SpeakPipe with the main arguments in his theory. Do you think he made his point?

Deadline: Tuesday 29th

It is a fact that texting has become a new genre of  communication. 

Check the periodic table of texting below:

Try the matching exercise below and learn some of the most common texting abbreviations.

Now try translating the following text messages into common language.

This is part of an essay written by a Scottish 13-year-old secondary school pupil. Work in pairs reading the texting and ‘translating’ it into English.

"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- @ kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8. Bt my Ps wr so {:-/ BC o 9/11 tht thay dcdd 2 stay in SCO & spnd 2 wks up N. Up N, WUCIWUG -- 0. I ws vvv brd in MON. 0 bt baas & ^^"

Make your own dialogues in this site with the help of this other site and send me the screenshot.


Look at the infographic below and try to get the information needed to answer these questions:

• How many mobile phones are there in the world?
• Which country has the highest number of phone subscribers?
• Who holds the record for the fastest typing on a phone?
• What did she type?
• How fast can you type it?

Finally, a couple of jokes:

Internet Influence on Language

"To Google" has become a universally understood verb and many countries are developing their own internet slang. But is the web changing language and is everyone up to speed? The Internet's impact on society in general and on language in particular has raised opposing standpoints. Listen to the article and try to fill in the blanks in the activity in your course. You needn't send me any results. They will automatically appear in your grade chart.

I'm displaying the activity here in case some of you have some connection difficulties and need to do it in the blog and send me the results. Deadline: Thrusday 10th

Now I would like to know your opinion about the matter. You can do some research to try to answer these questions accurately: What do you think of the impact of Internet and mobile messaging on language? Language itself changes slowly but, do you think the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly? Do you think those changes are for the better or for the worse? Has the language you used on the Internet influenced your academic written language? Being English the lingua franca on the Internet, do you think there is a new linguistic imperealism that leads to the destruction of other languages or cultures? Do you ever use English in your social web interactions? ...





Deadline: Wednesday 16th

A GAP YEAR PROJECT

As Problem-Based learning in the English as a Second Language classroom, you are going to work in the project designed below. You should do some research work, define your task, discard irrelevant information and get the valuable one, digest it and present it to your classmates in the most attractive and explanatory way you can find.

GROUPS	PRESENTATION DATES
Jose, Ricardo, Irene, Isaac	Wednesday 30th
Zoraida, Carmen, Lucia, Laura	Monday 21st
Paola, Laura, Nora, Miriam	Monday 28th
Sergio, Ivan, Maria, Manuel	Monday 21st
Ines, Guillermo, Paula	Monday 28th

SEPTEMBER 26th: EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES

As an ESL teacher, I'd like to raise awareness of the need to learn one or more foreign languages. Language ability brings more than just economic benefits. It encourages us to become more open to others, their cultures and attitudes, and people who can communicate confidently with those of other cultures are likely to be more tolerant. And if that was not enough, studies have been showing that speaking several languages is one of the best exercises your brain can get. Even up to postponing the onset of Alzheimer's by 4 to 5 years.

At the initiative of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, the European Day of Languages has been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26th September. You can surf the web for some fun and facts.


Listen to the following track by www.eslholidaylessons.com and try to fill in the gaps below:

Start by doing this test to self-evaluate your language skills according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Now let's check if your guess was right!

(Share Clip)

Whatever your result was, we should admit Spaniards have always had difficulties in learning foreign languages, especially English. Just notice the role our politicians still play at International Meetings where they can hardly communicate with their colleages. However, Chancellor Merkel is fluent in Russian and English; Russian President Vladmir Putin speaks English, German and French and France's President François Holland gets by in English. David Cameron and Barack Obama, on the other hand, are not fluent in any foreign languages. Check this for celebrities speaking other languages.

Send me a voicemail explaining your view on this matter: Why do you think Spain struggles with English? You may do some research to support your opinion. Don't hesitate to blame whoever or whatever and suggest some ideas to improve our proficiency in English. On the contrary, do you think this is not true any more?

Deadline: Saturday 28th

BACK TO LEARNING ENGLISH IN APLE 2

I'd like to welcome you all back and to start this new school year, first of all, I'd like to ask you why. Why learn a 2nd or a 3rd language? You may or may not have your own reasons but below you have a video from ABC news that talks about the advantages of being bilingual or learning another language.

Let's watch it and comment later on.

But the main reason for you to be eager to learn English should be so as not to sound like our dearest mayor "Ana Bottle" during her speech to the IOC.



Now study one of the following infographics and prepare a short talk based on it: