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!!!)