/f/ vs /v/

/f/ and /v/ are two sounds which are quite similar in English. Please, watch this video and answer the following questions about these two sounds:
1. What's the same in both sounds?
2. What is the difference?
Write a comment on this post and answer these questions, please.
Now watch the video again in order to practice and repeat the sounds and words.
Hope you enjoy it!

Listen, answer, check and move on

Here you have a web page with listenings of different levels: advanced, intermediate and elementary. Please go to this particular intermediate listening, play it twice or 3 times if necessary and answer the test. After that, check your answers. Finally, come back to this blog and write a comment on the activity. Please refer to the following points in your comment:
1. Difficulty
2. Right answers
3. Times you played it
Now, if you didn't have any mistakes try an advanced listening and write another comment in the blog. If you did have some mistakes, please try an intermediate listening again and don't forget to write a comment here.

Project on Charles Dickens

The aim of this project is to make a video or power-point presentation about the life or works by Charles Dickens. The project must include an oral text, that is, an audio track recorded by you. Here sou have some interesting webpages to look for information about different aspects of his life:
- A Brief Biography
- Quotations
- Dickens' London
- Themes

Hope you enjoy it!

Transcription tool to turn texts into phonetics

Here you have a good transcription tool to transcribe words or texts into phonetics. One of the most interesting characteristics of this tool is that it provides both a BrE or an AmE output.

Eight-day course in Dublin

Ha'penny bidge - Dublin

We travelled to Ireland for 8 days to take an English course in Dublin at the end of June and the begining of July. We were 17 students and teachers. The students attended Swan School which is in the very centre of Dublin (Grafton Street). We lived with Irish families, two students of the same age in every family. All the students were very happy with the school, the families, the city and the Irish people. We visited a lot of interesting and amazing places. Glendalough, for example, was a wonderful trip.

At the end of thhe week ALL the students said that they have learnt a lot. All of them would like to come back to Ireland again.

We travelled to Ireland with Lenfex company which organized the English course, the families, plane tickets, connections and everything.

All in all, it was a great experience for teachers and students. Something worth doing again.

Picture by AHH.

LA LENTE chosen best newspaper of Madrid Community

The newspaper LA LENTE DE LORANCA, written by our school students of 4th ESO and 1st Bachillerato, has been chosen the best newspaper of the Comunity of Madrid in El País de los Estudiantes journalist-students programme. The 18 best newspapers from all the counties in Spain will attend a ceremony in El País on 22nd June. There, it will be known which three newspapers get the final prizes. We wish them good luck!

Open publication - Free publishing - More extraescolares

Ireland course

Next Wednesday we will meet in order to give you all the information about our course in Dublin. Remember it is at 17:00 pm in our school.ç
Here you have the information about our departure and arrival:

-IDA: Miércoles 22 de junio
Salida Madrid: 17:55 (Terminal 1)
Llegada Dublín: 19:30 (Hora Irlanda)

-VUELTA: Jueves 30 de junio
Salida Dublín: 13:50 (Hora Irlanda)
Llegada Madrid: 17:20 (Terminal 1)

La compañía aérea es Ryanair

IES Barrio Loranca becomes an English bilingual school

Our school has been chosen as a new English bilingual school for the next academic year. We are not only having a new English programme but we will also keep the Frech one. Thus, students in Loranca will have to options to choose in our school: they can join the English bilingual studies or the French bilingual studies. On the whole this is a very good piece of news as languages have become a key issue in present day studies and are key to get almost any kind of job. IES Barrio Loranca will provide students with an outstanding background in languages, helping students to live in a world without frontiers in which knowing a language is substancial.

We congratulate all the teacher staff and the whole educational community in IES Loranca who have bet on languages and worked on providing this interesting offer to students. Now a new cycle starts which is filled with enthusiasm and joy. Congratulations!! 

Intermediate and advanced listenings

I'd like to suggest a web page full of listening exercises from elementary level to advance level. In the followinig link you will get to the page in which intermediate listenings are. You are asked to do at least 5 listenings along this week. Then you have to report here how you have done it. Therefore, you should do 5 listenings and report about them before the 6th February.
Here you have the link:
INTERMEDIATE LISTENINGS

ADVANCED LISTENINGS

INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED LISTENINGS

Cheers

The Beatles Project

The Beatles are the band which have
sold more records ever in music
history.

Working with The Beatles has always been and will always be both a pleasure and a need to understand nowadays music. This band is also a capsule of British cul- ture, a door towards a period of time, a moment in history which is worth analysing.

We are going to work on The Beatles with the aim of get- ting to know the history of the band, some of their most famous songs, their lyrics and trying to understand the importance of the band in music. The aim of this project is that students give a speech on different issues related to the band.

In order to do that, we are going to work individually and in pairs on the following topics:

1. Liverpool

2. The Beatles birth, development and split

3. John Lennon with The Beatles

4. John Lennon solo career

5. Paul McCartney with the Beatles / solo career

6. Ringo Starr

7. George Harrison

8. Songs and Lyrics

Students will work on one of the following topics in order to prepair a 3-minute speech. This speech will be recorded in mp3 format and used in a video or power point presentation so that it can be showed to the rest of the group. Besides, every student (we are just 8 in class) will choose one song by The Beatles and with the help of the teacher they will prepare two activities for each song. One of these activities must be on Phonetics (ie. underline all the words in the songs which contain a particular sound, match the phonetic transciption of a line (or two) with the actual line, ...). Once they have been checked, they will be used in class.

As a warm-up, you can visit the following web page and watch a video on the early Beatles. There are quiz questions for you to answer. Good luck!

Picture by ahh

/ə/ - schwa

It is the most frequent of all English vowels because historically it has replaced many unstressed vowels. It has a restricted distribution: it only appears in unaccented syllables.

a. Description: it is very short and weak. The middle of the tongue lies in a relax position and the lips are neutral (neither spread nor rounded).

b. Spelling: this sound only appears in unaccented syllables and it may be spelt with any single vowel or combined with consonants:

-"a": about, woman, chocolate
-"e": sister, the
-"i": impossible
-"o": synonym, photograph
-"u": suggest, Saturday

Vowels are distinguished by distribution: /ə/ can only appear in unaccented positions and /I, ʊ/ in both accented and unaccented, the rest of the vowels always requiring some kind of stress.

ACTIVITIES:
1. Watch this video about how to pronounce schwa and practice several times with the examples given in this webpage:



2. Schwa prediction
3. Pronunciation practice:
     3a. Open this chart, click on vowels-monophthongs, then click on central: listen and practice the schwa.
     3b.Watch this video and practice.
     3c. Listen, read and practice in this webpage.
4. Visit this ESL pronunciation web page and do the exercises provided to practice the schwa.

Breakfast in class in English

We have just had breakfast in English. This is an activity which consist of having breakfast in class. Students play the roles of customers and waiter/waitress and serve and eat real breakfast. It is very easy to organize: most products are available at the school cafeteria (milk, toasts, jam, butter, hot chocolate, fruit, orange juice...) and those which are not are brought by some students (muffins, bums...). We displayed two tables together as a counter and they had to order something to drink and eat. No mistakes in English are allowed. In case they don't know how to ask for something, they won't get it. In order to control this I started playing the role of a waiter.
Previously, we had worked in class the following points:
- vocabulary: cutlery (fork, mug, napkin, spoon, etc), food (muffin, a piece of toast, olive oil, etc)
- ordering: 1. Customers: "Can I have the menu, please?", "I'd like...., please", "Could I have.......?", "I think I'll have...", etc.
                 2. Waiter/waitress: "Can I help you?", "Are you ready to order?", "Would you like to see the menu?", "Anything to drink?", etc.
- expressing opinions: "That sounds good", "It is delicious", "It is tasty", "It is crunchy", etc.
- intonation in questions: 1. rising intonation in yes/no questions: Can I see the menu, please?, can I help you?, etc.        
                                     2. falling intonation in open questions: What do you recommend?, "What would you like to drink?, etc.

I find this activity very motivating as students really enjoy what they are doing (they are having breakfast!!) and there is not one single students who doesn't like this. Therefore, they do their best to know how to order and how to play the waiter/waitress role paying special attention to how words are pronounced and how questions are uttered with the proper intonation.

It is time for you, customers, waiters and waitresses, to evaluate this activity. Please write a comment on it focusing on the following points:
a. Do you think you could order food in an English cafeteria after having done this activity?
b. Value how you have improved:
                  1. Vocabulary related to food and cutlery.
                  2. Vocabulary and structures to order food and drinks.
                  3. Vocabulary to express your opinion on food.
                  4. Intonation in questions.
c. Would you like to do this activity again? If so, say why.