- We revised some of last week's video vocabulary.
- We also talked about how to tackle the recording of the text on learning and some of the most common problems.
- We decided where to link in a short text and dictated it to a classmate.
- We revised the verb system and practised question formation with a Find a person who... activity.
Homework:
- I gave you a piece of paper with something written on it for you to investigate, read a little bit and write notes to be ready to tell your classmates about it. If you were not here in class, choose between: Jacinda Ardern, Bhutan, well-being budget or Jigme Single Wangchuck.
- We revised some vocabulary from last week's Summer Wine song.
- We exchanged information about the UN, the IPCC group, climate change and Greta Thunberg.
- We watched Greta's UN speech from last week's General Assembly.
- We identified main ideas and some interesting vocabulary from her speech.
- We revised some English sounds with diphthongs in two puzzles by joining the dots.
Homework:
- I've given you a text on learning and I'd like you to record you reading it aloud, as well as you can. In another recording please tell me the difficulties you find in the pronunciation of some sounds and tricky passages or words you have found to be more challenging. I'll upload the text on Friday for those of you who could not come to class and don't have the photocopy.
Sorry guys!! I completely forgot to upload the text I had not with me the other day, here it is: TEXT TO READ ALOUD.
- We told each other about our process of learning a language, presentation which some of you had already sent over.
- We did a role play speaking activity to practise enrolling in evening courses of a community centre while trying to put into action some language from our hobbies handout.
- We did two listening comprehension activities and read aloud the transcript of the second one in pairs while trying to reenact the original pronunciation and intonation.
- We completed a gap filling exercise with the song Summer Wine, by Lana del Rey and Barrie-James O'Neill.
Homework:
- As we're going to see a video related to the topic of Climate Emergency, the students chose to read about either (1) activist Greta Thunberg, (2) the UN or (3) climate change. We are going to read about positive and less positive aspects of the topic of our choice to be able to tell our classmates in the next class. If you were not in class, choose ONE, read a little, take notes and be able to tell you classmates about it.
- We told a classmate about our hobbies with the notes we had prepared.
- We got familiar with structures and vocabulary to ask questions and describe hobbies, picked a few we wanted to adopt and told an improved version of the same presentation to another classmate.
- We then revised ways to show interest when engaged in a conversation and tried to use some when doing a learner's interview.
- We revised the English sound system with phonetic symbols.
- We saw a video of a student of English and the strategies he uses. We compared to our own ones.
Homework:
- You are going to record yourselves giving a short presentation on Learning a language.
- Make it about three or four minutes long and try to give it a shape, so you should prepare what you want to say beforehand.
- Prepare an introduction, the different parts/ideas/points you want to make and finish it up with a conclusion.
- Even though you are preparing in advance, don't write down everything and read out; instead, write notes and produce your speech at the moment of the recording.
- You can use your mobile phone recorder and send the file to me attached to an email, you can also use Miguel Ángel's suggested app (I've forgotten its name now, so sorry) or Vocaroo, an online voice recorder. Here you have a video I made to explain how to use it.
- Next day we'll be revising verb tenses, you can revise a little bit if you want by trying some of these exercises.
- We got some introductory information about how the school is organised.
- We got familiar with the structure and contents of our skills course.
- We shared some personal information to get to know each other a bit better.
- We made questions to guess the teacher's info on the whiteboard.
- We guessed some of our classmates info.
Homework:
- We're preparing some notes on our main hobby or different hobbies we have. We're only taking some notes so that we can have the words to build our speech and share it with the class.
Think about what your hobby involves, the time it takes, people or/and things involved in it, how you took it up, why you like it... anything you can think of.
This is the second year we have organised this course intended for those of you mainly interested in improving your speaking and listening skills, and those who want to do so in a less intensive way than regular courses do. I hope you enjoy it and also find it interesting.
I'll be writing a weekly entry with a summary of the class and the links and work we have done and the one we are preparing for the following class. Remember to follow the site if you want to keep track of all the entries.
- We started our last day by telling each other about books we had read that were memorable in any way.
- We then received a questionnaire about activities we had done all through the year.
- We saw the second episode of the first series of The IT Crowd, Calamity Jen, which is hilarious, as usual.
- We finished the class and the year with a song, from the Scottish band Travis, Flowers in the Window. And we all got a souvenir from this year together.
Thanks a lot for your gift, all your work and your wonderful disposition to take part in everything we organised both in the school and in class. It's been a great year. I wish you all the best for your future. Take lots of care.
