Are you ready for 2013?

We are about to start another year - 2012 is coming to a close.

http://www.allegiance.com/blog/thank-you-for-a-great-year/5639#.UN_4w4nm6uQ

For me personally, 2012 has been a great year.

Lots of travel, meeting up with friends, work, contact with teachers in Spain and abroad.  (Face to face and online.)  Several family celebrations - it's been great to reminisce on the past and catch up on the present.

I've learnt and seen lots of new things.   I've made some new friends in various settings.

And I've written 95 posts on this blog!!  The number of people reading the blog has grown tremendously -

The end of one year and the start of another is traditionally the time to plan to do new things or to get rid of bad habits.

So what new year's resolutions am I making this year?

http://www.havebury.com/tenants/keep-in-touch/

I'd like to keep in touch with as many people as possible and with some especially, more frequently.  I hope to not have too many days when I end up realising that it's too late to phone someone I intended calling all day.

http://www.sewmakebelieve.co.uk/2012/08/27/organising-scrapbook-supplies/

I will get round to organising photos and other records of travel, memorable moments.  I've made a start on this in 2012 and have done a lot of the groundwork, so I hope to push on with this.

http://myturnstone.com/blog/getting-control-of-your-email-clutter/

I will aim (can't promise that I'll make this, judging by past experience!) to write up all the notes I have made when I've found something interesting, to file away useful articles.

http://www.which.co.uk/technology/computing/guides/computer-repair-top-tips/

I must make a full back-up of all my computer files.  I don't do this enough and dread my computer crashing and losing so many files and photos.

All that remains is for me to wish you all a great 2013 - may it bring wonderful experiences, endless laughter and inspiration.

If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new

I was looking at the latest posts on Facebook by friends and pages that I'm subscribed to.

I came across this and liked it (in both senses - I clicked to say I liked it and it struck a chord!)

http://www.facebook.com/HealingwithArt

Then, I clicked on a link on a friend's Facebook page and ended up on YouTube, watching a short video.

I think it would be a great video to use in class.  You could ask them what they know about some of the people mentioned in the video (Walt Disney, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, Eminem...).  Ask them what thing the people have in common, then they watch the video to find out.

For more information and material to use in class on this topic, you could try some of the activities on Famous People Lessons, for example, this text and activities about Albert Einstein.


Hope you feel inspired now!!!

I don't know about you ..... but I'm building up to Christmas.

Just spent a great long weekend in London, seeing all the Christmas lights, lots of people wearing tinsel and Christmasy things on their heads!  (See my previous post for more on this.)

I've got over half of my shopping done!!!!

http://festivalsadvices.com/christmas-shopping-women/

On Friday, my daughters will be coming home for the holidays from Madrid where they are at university.  My house is full of decorations (many of them made by myself this year! - really getting into making things thanks to inspiration from the internet and pinterest!!)

Christmas cake is made, more cooking will take place this weekend and next week!!

http://kentcakecourses.co.uk/kent-cake-courses/christmas-cake

Tree goes up today!  (The only decoration we haven't put up yet!)

http://www.homehardwarelloydminster.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/christmas-tree-2.gif
Christmas cards were posted on Wednesday.  Christmas cards from family and friends have started to arrive.  This year, I plan to display them like this:

http://www.bhg.com/christmas/cards/christmas-card-display-ideas/#page=4

I hope to meet up with friends over the holidays, as well as my brother and sister-in-law as they are coming over to Europe from California.

I thought I'd have a look on the internet for what Christmas adverts are being shown in the UK this year and loved the one for John Lewis.

I also found another advert explaining how the advert was made.  I thought it would be very useful for classes next week.

Hope you enjoy watching these videos!  I did!

Pictures of Christmas

Hello again!
Just got back from London, where I spent the long holiday weekend.

I love this city at all times of the year, but in December, even more so.  The streets are busy with shoppers and party goers.

And wherever you look, you will see decorations.  There are some fantastic ones around this year.

This giant reindeer is at Covent Garden.

Inside, you can see some topiary candy rock:

and some giant baubles:

And outside again, a tree:

For me, a tree and baubles are an essential part of Christmas.

So, maybe I agree with the people who are protesting about the abstract tree in the Grand Place in Brussels.

For such an old square, the modern tree is certainly a contrast to the 17th century buildings around it.

I have added a new board to my pinterest account.  I have found and pinned some photos of different things and food associated with Christmas onto the board.

I have prepared some definitions for the things in these pictures.  You can either read them out and students point to the picture for the word, or print them out and do as a reading activity.

Definitions

1      You wrap these with paper and give them to your friends and family.

2      You make this with fruit, flour, eggs, etc.  You add marzipan and icing to the outside.  It’s delicious!

3      Two people open this by pulling on each end.  Inside, you will find a paper hat, a joke and a gift.

4      Some people buy a natural one, and others have an artificial one.  They are tall and you put them in a room and then you decorate them.

5      In some homes, people hang this from the ceiling.  When two people ‘meet’ under it, they have to kiss!

6      People put these on Christmas trees.  They are shiny and metallic and in bright colours usually.

7      People put these on Christmas trees.  Then they plug them in and turn them on.

8      This is metallic and shiny and bright.  It is very light and people put it round the branches of Christmas trees or hang it from the ceiling.

9      In some homes, people cook this bird in the oven for Christmas lunch.

10  People put these on tables, then they light them.

Key

1      presents

2      Christmas cake

3      crackers

4      Christmas tree

5      mistletoe

6      baubles

7      Christmas lights

8      tinsel

9      turkey

10  candles

I'm off to put up my tree now!!

Great resource! Starters Word List Picture Book

Cambridge ESOL has recently published a book for teachers and parents to use with children.

It's full of beautiful scene pictures - At the zoo, My friend's birthday, At the beach - to name just a few.

You can download here too as a pdf document.

On pages 22 -24, there are three games - finding adjectives in a wordsearch, scrambled letters to write numbers as words and writing the correct preposition of place under pictures to describe where the monkey is.

I have prepared one or two more activities to share with you via this post to use with one of the scene pictures.

My favourite food (pages 12-13)

Lead in
How many people can you see?  (11)
How many people are sitting down? (8)
How many people are standing up? (3)

Ask students to find food and drink in the picture starting with these letters (suggested answers in brackets):
a   (apple)
b   (banana, bread, bean)
c   (cake, coconut, chips, chocolate, candy, carrot)
d   (drink)
e   (eggs)
f   (fish)
g   (grape)
i   (ice cream)
j   (juice)
l   (lemon, lime)
m  (mango, milk)
o   (orange, onion)
p   (pear)
r   (rice)
s   (sweets)
t   (tomatoes)
w   (water, watermelon)

And don't forget - you can use these pictures with higher levels - for example here is an activity to use with Movers students.

Have names on pieces of paper.  Students listen and put the names on the person (or point to the person if you put the picture onto a board or screen).

Possible names:
  Dan, Kim, Lucy, Nick, Sam, Grace, May

Read out:
Listen and put the names.
1  Grace is making the food today.  Can you see her?  She's got a pear in her hand.
2  May is coming into the restaurant now.  She's with her dad.  She's wearing her favourite yellow and pink jacket, and she's very happy!
3  My cousin Lucy is here today.  She's there, with the glasses.  She's enjoying some chocolate, lemon and watermelon ice cream with red fruit.  Mmm!
4  Nick is sitting at the green table  His trousers are green too.  He's having meat and potatoes today.
5  Dan is wearing his red and white hockey shirt this afternoon.  He's got chips and sausages today.
6  Sam loves burgers.  Today he's having a big burger with chips and a glass of grape juice too.  Can you see the purple juice?

Key:
1  Grace is the woman behind the counter.
2  May is the small girl in the doorway.
3  Lucy is the girl at the yellow table with glasses.
4  Nick is the boy in the striped shirt eating a potato.
5  Dan is the boy in the red shirt with number 17 on it.
6  Sam is the boy with brown hair sitting at the blue table, eating a burger.

Stories from Italy

Back from Italy now - fantastic trip from all angles - I met loads of great people, shared activities with many, many teachers and learnt a few myself too!

Every day in Italy, there was a session on storytelling.

In Turin, Marcus Tubby told us a story about the Frog Prince.

As you can see in these photos, I held one line of the story (washing) line.  ( I mentioned this in my previous post).

Marcus gave a set of pictures showing the different characters and elements in the story to two 'volunteers'.  They had to peg up the pictures in the order they were mentioned in the story.

Marcus has put the pictures and the story on his blog here.

And two days later in Rome, Norman Cain from International House Rome had us listening to and telling more stories.  The slides from his presentation are available here.

A short (working) week here in Spain - Thursday is a national holiday and so is Saturday.  I'll upload another post before I head off to London - I love London in December (well actually, at any time of the year!!!)

Hello from Italy!

Good morning!
Just a very quick post from Salerno, Italy.  In a couple of hours, I will be giving two sessions with teachers here.

My journey started in Turin on Monday.
I helped out with the storytelling session given by Marcus Tubby.  (Here's me and the picture washing line!)

And I shared tips and ideas with teachers for getting the most out of pictures and for useful knowledge to pass on to young learners about words.

Then it was on to Milan.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from Milan.

One thing I will say is that I have been impressed (as always) by the dedication and obvious love of teachers for their subject and their vocation.

And also this time, by the architecture of the three venues we've been to.  (The photos I have are still on my camera, so I can't share them with you yet)

And what about this sky? - yesterday evening, Salerno.  You can just about make out the Costa Amalfi through the clouds.

And this sunset??????  Even on a mobile phone photo, it's still impressive.

Right, time to get a move on.  Off to meet and share ideas and experiences with lots more teachers here in Salerno.

http://www.quirkyguide.com/story/seconds-to-spare

Travel inspiration

"We love exploring new places, taking photographs and staying at the most unique hotels we can find. "

I can relate to that!!

The above sentence is taken from the 'About' information on the Global Grasshopper.com website.

As I told you in my previous post, I will be in Italy Monday 26th November through to Friday 30 November.  It's going to be a packed trip and I was trying to work out which cities I might have a bit of time to explore (I'll not have much tourist time, unfortunately, but will probably be inspired to return to certain places as I whizz through them).

  

I hope to get a taste or snapshot of the five cities I'll be giving sessions in - Torino, Milan, Rome, Salerno, Reggio Calabria).

So when I ended up at the Global Grasshopper website after following a link I'd received in an email about eltblogs, I checked out the places mentioned in the article on '10 of the most beautiful places to visit in Italy'.  I'll be paying very short visits to Rome and Milan (2 of the places mentioned) and won't get to see the others on this trip.  I had a fantastic holiday in Sardinia this summer, so I fully support the mention of that island.

And I also took a quick look at the article and photos '10 of the most beautiful places to visit in Spain'.  I found myself nodding when I saw the 10 places that were covered.  Fantastic photos!!

I think the site, the organisation of the features (based around 10) and the photos have some fantastic material for use in class.  I'll certainly be using it for teaching and for personal reasons...  The hidden places in London might contain some great ideas for my upcoming trip to London ......

I'll try and find time to write posts when I'm in Italy.  If I don't post them while I'm there, I'm sure I'll be coming back with vast amounts of inspiration!   

Ciao!

See you in Italy!

You may have noticed that I have not been very active on this blog this week.

That's not because I've been putting my feet up!

Image:  http://storibookdesigns.blogspot.com.es/2010/11/blog-bites-kick-up-your-feet.html

In a couple of hours, I will set off for Bilbao, where I'll be giving a seminar on 'Cambridge English First:  Exam Tips' at the British Council.

Then, on Monday, I have a very exciting trip to Italy!

I'll be giving training sessions in five different cities:

On Monday afternoon, I'll be in Turin at the Istituto Valsalice.

On Tuesday afternoon, I'll be sharing ideas with teachers in Milan at the Istituto Zaccaria.

On Wednesday morning, I'll be in Rome at the Auditorium Antonianum.

Thursday morning it's Salerno at the Mediterraneo Hotel.

And on Friday morning, I'll be in Reggio Calabria.

As you can imagine, I'm really looking forward to this trip!

And the great news is that on Monday, I'll be meeting up with Marina, who used to teach Italian at the school I managed for many years here in Santander.  She got in contact via this blog to let me know and I'm looking forward to catching up and to getting back in touch.

This blog has many readers in Italy and I hope to meet some of them somewhere in Italy next week!

You can find information on the different venues and sessions and register here.

Yesterday, I was along the coast in San Sebastian (for the second time in a week!).   Beautiful city (in fact, the first city I visited after I first came to Spain all those years ago to work in Madrid!)

Yesterday, I was there to give two seminars:  Teaching Cambridge English: Advanced for the First Time and Teaching Cambridge English: First for the first time.

Many of the participants attended both sessions.  I knew this was going to be the case, so I made sure that the sessions complemented each other and didn't repeat materials or ideas.  I also knew that 95% of the people who were coming WEREN'T new to either of these exams, but rather, had come along for advice and ideas for them to train teachers new to the exams.

Near the end of the second session, on First, I asked different groups to discuss their ideas, tips and advice for each of the five Papers of the Cambridge English: First exam, using this handout.  (I adapted this from a document for IELTS I downloaded from Usingenglish.com here.)  Precisely, I wanted to draw on their experience and expertise (there was a lot of this in the room, believe me!)

What I suggested to the people at the seminar was that I would share this document via the Teaching Together Blog.  Then, I will write up the suggestions that the groups in San Sebastian came up with and consider each of the five Papers in five separate blog posts.

It would be great if readers of this blog could also send in their ideas!  We can learn so much from each other!

pinterest - a great tool for classes!

Yesterday evening, I was teaching the vocabulary for containers and the things usually contained in each type.

It suddenly occurred to me that pinterest could be the perfect record (and teaching and revision) tool for vocabulary areas like this.

I have created a pinboard for this topic.  You can see it here:

http://pinterest.com/annerobspain/containers-lexis/

Maybe we could start boards for the different levels of the Cambridge exams, especially for the topic areas that appear on the Cambridge English: Young Learners English Tests and the Cambridge English: Key and Cambridge English: Preliminary Tests??

Coping with cold weather

While I was checking my emails, I was listening to Sky News and in the review of the paper, they were discussing the impact of cold weather and snow.

Here in Cantabria, the temperature dropped by 10º(C) yesterday.  Brr!!!!  Many places both in Spain and the UK have had their first snow falls.

http://www.picturesofwinter.net/snow_pictures.html

(There are some great photos of winter on the website I downloaded the above photo)

This reminded me of an article I had saved to share with you via this blog.  I came across it back in September and thought it would make great classroom material.

How does the chef at the British Antarctic Station feed 90 people when the nearest supermarket is 4,000 miles away?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2195789/British-Antarctic-Station-How-does-chef-feed-90-people-nearest-supermarket-4-000-miles-away.html

I suggest that you could start off by showing students the following subheading:

Antony Dubber works in one of the most remote, dangerous and beautiful places on Earth

Ask them to suggest where Antony works.  
Which remote places can they think of?  
Why might this place be dangerous and beautiful?  
What job does Antony do there?

Then, show them this photo and discuss whether they guessed this place:

Next, they could read the article and find out what makes the South Pole beautiful and dangerous, and why Antony's work as a chef there is challenging.

To follow up and focus on language, I thought students could look at the combinations of adjectives and nouns in the text.  (You could give them a list of adjectives used in the text and  they look for which nouns they describe).

For example:
a varied  (menu)
leading (centre)
fresh (fruit and vegetables) (herbs)
spectacular (night sky)
the nearest (supermarket)
the closest (supermarket)
the most popular (treats)
huge (freezers)

Well, I'd better wrap up because I have to pop out now!  Have a great teaching week!




 

Spain seen from two sides

After watching the news yesterday evening, I switched on the computer to take a look at the photographs that have been submitted to Antena 3, the Spanish TV news channel's website, in response to the article and the pictures that appeared in the New York Times on September 24th:

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

(See this and the other photos here)

One of the biggest criticism's of the photos is that they paint a very one-sided picture of Spain and they are all in black and white.

There are 150 photos on the antena3.com website.  They are all in colour - some of them are very colourful indeed.

After looking through all the photos, my teacher's brain began thinking about how I could use them in class.

One way would be to use a couple of them to illustrate ways of completing three different sentences about Spain:

1  Spain, the perfect place to ...

 (ride a bike)

2  In Spain, we still have ......

 (bubbles and smiles)

3  Visitors to Spain should see:

(Granada)

As a follow-up, students could be asked to find three images of Spain to submit to Antena 3 for the campaign (1 picture for each sentence).

And the pictures make great material for the speaking tests for Cambridge English: Preliminary, First, Advanced and Proficiency.  Either the teacher or each student/pair of students could choose a pair of related pictures and then be asked to write the intoductory rubric (and follow- up question) for the pair of photos.

For example:  (For Cambridge English: First Speaking Practice)

I'm going to give you two photographs.  Both your photos show people from different generations spending time together.  I'd like you to compare your photos and to say what things the two people in each picture can learn from each other.   You have about a minute for this.

I hope you enjoy looking at the (Antena 3) photos as much as I did, as well as reflecting on the photos from the NYT.

  

Just one thing

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

If you could choose only one place to live for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

If you could only kiss just one person for the rest of your life, who would it be?

If you could only support one team for the rest of your life, which team would you support?

If you could watch just one film for the rest of your life, what film would you choose?

If you could look at just one piece of art for the rest of your life, which one would you select?


These seven questions appear in an interactive campaign for Volkswagen Golf VII.  onething.com

All onething.com users can create their own profile and share their answers with their friends via the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ social networks

I thought these questions would be great for use in class.

I suggest you could start with a bit of grammar practice (very useful for Part 2 of the Cambridge English: First and Advanced exams), by showing students the questions with the relative pronouns deleted then they have to supply who, which, where, what.  

To stimulate discussion, students could watch the video below and see the different answers given to three of the questions:

Then, students could choose their answers individually before sharing and discussing them with their classmates.

Finally, they could compare their choices with the most popular answers to each question.

In Spain, the most popular song is Imagine.

The most popular food is pizza.

61% said they would prefer to live abroad.

Women are quicker then men at saying who they would prefer to kiss.  (Average time taken = 2 seconds!)

Pulp Fiction, Titanic, Forrest Gump are among the most cited films.

And Mona Lisa is by far the most popular work of art.

It's Sunday morning.  One thing I miss about not being in the UK, is not spending a large part of the morning reading through the newspaper like I used to do, drinking numerous cups of tea.  (I still read the newspaper online if I have time, but it's not the same - I miss those huge pages!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eloctre/7855061406/

Once I'd tired of reading, I would then start on the cryptic crossword.  I've always like doing crosswords.  (For a few years, I was subscribed to the Telegraph Puzzles website, just to be able to do the cryptic crossword!)

So, thinking about this, I thought I'd have a look at what crosswords to use with students there are out there.
I typed three words into the search bar:

As usual, when you do a search, it is amazing just how many free resources there are on the web.

I went to the first 'match' - a very familiar and amazingly rich site for online exercises for students:

http://iteslj.org/cw/   

The Level 1 crosswords are suitable for beginners and are great for practising gap fills (words like 'he', 'had' were two of the answers to the clues in Very Common Words #1).  Then there are thematic crosswords for Level 2 and in the higher level crosswords, expressions and less common vocabulary is focussed on.

I then clicked on the link to a related website (Manythings.org) and found lots more crosswords, including Puzzles with Images as Hints.

http://www.manythings.org/cs/

I checked out a site that I had not come across before and enjoyed trying out a couple of 3 X 3 crosswords.  (I might revisit and play some more later...... - I have an extra hour today with the clocks changing!!!)

http://www.goobix.com/crosswords/

And of course, there are also numerous sites that offer printable crosswords.  Definitely worth checking out are:

esl galaxy  (Crosswords are thematic.  The only snag I see is that you will use a lot of ink when you print them.)

Bogglesword (more print-friendly)

abcteach.com

As always, if you know of any useful websites for today's theme (crosswords), please share by sending us a comment!