Vocabulary: personality

Watch the following video until the minute 3'52 to practise the vocabulary on personality.
Two more videos to practise vocabulary.

Book Recommendation. A couple of books by Jojo Moyes

If you like a bit of a romance but with a deep thought-provoking topic, I would recommend you a couple of books by the writer Jojo Moyes.

The first one of these books is "Me Before You". It is a story about a tetraplegic man and the way he regards life. Even the topic sounds quite gloomy, the author actually doesn't really goats over the sadness and delves into a much more intense topic. And the end is not the one you would expect. This is the plot:  

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

The other book is "The Last Letter from Your Lover". It is a very moving story that combines different levels in the past with the present. It is about how luck, coincidence, or destiny could change the course of our lives for the wrotng reasons. I really loved this book. This is the plot:

 When journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper's archives for a story, she doesn't think she'll find anything of interest. Instead she discovers a letter from 1960, written by a man asking his lover to leave her husband - and Ellie is caught up in the intrigue of a past love affair. Despite, or perhaps because of her own romantic entanglements with a married man.In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident. She can't remember anything - her husband, her friends, who she used to be. And then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, and begins to remember the lover she was willing to risk everything for. 

Fifth year - 5CAL - Thursday 27 September 2012

Summary of the class:

- Correct activities

- Speaking: direct and indirect questions

- Vocabulary: personality

- Writing: informal emails and letters. Click here to read the document we worked on



Homework:

Complete the activities from the worksheet on informal emails/letters

Book Recommendation: Roald Dahl's stories

Roald Dahl is better known as a writer of children's stories, but he also has several collections of stories for adults that are full of wit, humour, and surprises. If you want to have a good time, give it a go. There are several collections you can choose from:


- Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life. The stories are set in rural England. Seven stories. 176 pages

- Kiss, Kiss... very intelligent stories about the dark side of humans. 11 stories. 231 pages

- Someone Like You. Very witty stories. 13 stories 272 Pages

- Switch Bitch. Humorous stories. 4 tales. 208 pages

B2: Listening: Speed flatmating

Watch the video below and complete the sentences:




1. When you buy or rent property, it's all about ____________ and __________. When you share it, it's all about the people.

2. Speed flatmating gives everyone the chance to meet several potential flatmates in one ______ in a relaxed and social ___________

 3. On arrival you get a ___________

4. Speed flatmating __________ runs about 17-18 events per month

 5. It's really for people who are ___________ about where they want to live.

6. We often find that people use speed flatmating not just to find property but also to find other people to ___________ ________ ______________


Click here to check your answers.

Fifth year - 5ºCAL - Tuesday 25 September 2012

Summary of the class:

- Speaking: questions about flatmates and flat sharing.

- Listening: speed flatmating

- Grammar: direct and indirect questions

- Vocabulary: personality




Homework:

- Page 129, 1.1 (all the exercises)

Fifth year - 5ºA - Monday 24 September 2012

Summary of the class:

- Speaking: questions about flatmates and flat sharing.

- Listening: speed flatmating

- Grammar: direct and indirect questions

- Vocabulary: personality




Homework:

- Page 129, 1.1 (all the exercises)

- Page 148: personality adjectives

Book Recommendation: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Another great read. Unputdownable! Here's the plot:


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Pages: 280

Book Recommendation: Holes By Louis Sachar

Holes is a book by Louis Sachar, in which different timelines and stories intermingle, but all of them come together as one. It is a book about teenagers in trouble, but also about old times, love, racial relationships, greed... This is the plot:

Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck going back generations, so he is not too surprised when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre. Nor is he very surprised when he is told that his daily labour at the camp is to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, and report anything that he finds in that hole. The warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie and Stanley must dig up the truth.

Pages: 240

Fifth year - 5CAL - Thursday 19 September 2012

Summary of the class:

- Speaking: introductions... details

- Speaking: ice-breaker. Click here to read the document.

- Speaking: English effective learning. Click here to see the worksheet

Book Recommendation: Slam by Nick Hornby

SLAM is a novel about teenagers and about a very controversial topic: teenage pregnancy. Did you know that Britain is the countries with a biggest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe?

This is the plot:

Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriend-- because by the time she tells him she's pregnant, they've already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. His mom had him at sixteen and has made it very clear how having a baby so young interrupted her life. There's only one person Sam can turn to--his hero, skating legend Tony Hawk. Sam believes the answers to life's hurdles can be found in Hawk's autobiography.

Pages: 304

Book recommendation: Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson

On the blog I am going to post book recommendations for you to read. The first one is a very gripping novel called "Before I Go To Sleep" by SJ Watson. I read this novel last summer and I really couldn't put it down. Here's the plot:

This novel is a psychological thriller about a woman suffering from amnesia. Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle- aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories. 

Pages: 384

If you have any book recommendations in English, just leave a comment on any post about book recommendations and I'll post an entry with the book. It would be interesting if we all left our recommendations.

Fifth year - 5ºA - Wednesday 19 September 2012

Summary of the class:

- Speaking: introductions... details

- Speaking: ice-breaker. Click here to read the document.

- Speaking: English effective learning. Click here to see the worksheet

- Speaking: test about the United Kingdom.

Greetings!

I would like to welcome my fifth years students in Ayamonte. I hope we all have a fulfilling year in which we can learn lots and have fun with English. The main thing is to enjoy learning English. We have agreed that English pronunciation is the worst, and even native English speakers. Try to recite this poem about the pronunciation of English. It's fun to try. :)


 The Chaos (by G. Nolst Trenit, a.k.a. "Charivarius"; 1870 - 1946)
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
 Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
 Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
 Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
 With such words as vague and ague,
 But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
 Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
 Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
 Thames, examining, combining
 Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
 Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
 Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
 But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
 Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
 Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
 Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
 Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does.
Now first say: finger.
 And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
 Job, nob; blossom, bosom, oath.
 Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.;
Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
 Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
 Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
 Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
 Compare alien with Italian,
 Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
 Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew,
Stephen, Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche--!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
 Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with "enough"
 Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!


And here's a video to hear the pronunciation of this crazy poem:

To my former students in Jerez