Test your English pronunciation

How many times do we meet a written word and we don't know how to pronounce it? Everyday, I'm afraid. That makes learning English difficult. However we have phonetics to help us. Phonetics is an essential tool to learn English. Here you have a webpage with a test on phonetics. Try and do it in order to check how much phonetics you remember from our last year course.

http://www.antimoon.com/how/test-pronunciation/test.php
After having done this text, write a commentary on how successful (or unsuccessful) you were.

Final project

The final project of every student last academic course was to record a video on any subject as long as the sounds practice in class were used. Here we have one of them that can be seen as a model for future videos. Some students starred this video. They did a great job as they had to write the script, practice the speech paying attention to individual sounds, linking, fluency and intelligibility and create the charming character of the deaf grandfather. Have a look at it and enjoy it.



This video was created by Ainhoa González, Alejandro Fernández, Jorge Tuda and Carlos Monroy (1st Bachillerato, 17 years old).

Welcome back!

Hi everybody,
I hope you have rested and enjoyed your holidays. We are back at the school ready to start Ampliación en inglés II as a 2nd Bachillerato optional subject. This blog, which was created in the subject of 1st Bachillerato, is intended for both courses. Here you will find resources to practice oral English. Besides, we intend to use this year as a place to show some of the oral practice done by you, the students. So, I hope you find it useful and entertaining.

La Lente awarded the Endesa Prize in El País de los Estudiantes

LA LENTE has been awarded the ENDESA prize for the best Enviromental section of the newspaper,  a national prize given by El País de los Estudiantes. The prize consists of going to Galicia for 5 days including a visit to a mining electric complex of Endesa. We will fly there, stay at a hotel in A Coruña and travel to As Pontes to visit the mine.
This prize is one of the four big prizes given by El País: there are three prizes for the three best newspapers and this ENDESA prize for the best Enviromental section given by the main sponsor of El País de los Estudiantes.

You can watch the video of the ceremony here.
All the information about the programme, the newspapers and prizes can be visited at:

http://estudiantes.elpais.com/

Congratulations to all the students who have written the newspaper and enjoy the trip!!!!!!!!

Picture from Entrega de Premios IX Edición de El País de los Estudiantes (EL PAÍS)

El País de los Estudiantes awards ceremony

This ceremony is held on Monday morning at El País in Madrid. The Education Minister, Ángel Gabilondo, will preside over the ceremony which will be attended by the 18 final newspapers published in Spain. La Lente, the newspaper published in our school - IES Barrio de Loranca, Fuenlabrada- has been elected the final candidate for the Comunity of Madrid.

You can have more information about the event at: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/periodistas/futuro/aprenden/rebelarse/elpepisoc/20100614elpepisoc_5/Tes

We wish them good luck!!

Text reconstruction

Here you have two listening exercises which consist of writing the story you are listening to. Type your text in the Type box and the use the chech and help buttons to help you. Once you have finished, you can check your text and have a look at the solutions.
This one is easier than the second one:
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/uploads/ressources/academic/text_reconstruction_exercises/17_warming.htm
This one is more difficult than the previous one because you have to write the whole text. No help is provided:
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/uploads/ressources/listening/herethere/01.htm

As a final activity you can listen and then read the texts several times paying attention to the sounds we have worked on in class as well as intotation and fluency.

When you have finished, come back to the blog a write a comment on the activity.

LA LENTE reaches the final of El País de los Estudiantes

The newspaper La Lente, written by our school mates, has been chosen the best newspaper of the Comunity of Madrid. The 18 best newspapers from all the counties in Spain will attend a ceremony in El País on 21st June. There, it will be known which three newspapers get the final prizes. We wish them good luck!

LA LENTE 2010 EL PAÍS DE LOS ESTUDIANTES

Gerald Fitch, Nicoloz Tskitishvili and Chris Thomas interviews

After having interviewed three basketball players who play for Ayuda en Acción Fuenlabrada, we have finally published them in a newspaper written for El País de los Estudiantes. Here you have the whole newspaper. Notice that the first pages are written in Spanish, but the last section, which includes the interviews with the basketball players, are written in English. It is also worth reading the article about London: don't miss the picture of the foggy view of the Thames from the London Eye; it was taken by Marta.

ENGLISH BOX 2010 EL PAÍS DE LOS ESTUDIANTES

"It's worth keeping an eye on that blog"

Our blog has been included in the Top 10 of a blog called English without end by teacher at EOI Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) called Laura. We really appreciate that! This Top 10 is part of an initiative called Vale a pena ficar de olho nesse blog ("It's worth keeping an eye on that blog"). So, according to her opinion, our blog is worth visiting. Now, I must point out 10 blogs I value. I've been thinking about my Top 10 and it is a hard task to elect just 10. But here we go (notice, no ranking is intended, just alphabetical order):

Alpozo's Phonetic Blog
Batxillerat Collaborative Class
Bibloranca
Ciencias Naturales
English in Brunete
English without end
My English Printable Worksheets
Shakespeare in love
Sing your English
Tecnoloranca

LA LENTE or our newspaper at El País de los Estudiantes

IMPORTANT: THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED: now you can read the whole newspaper here.
LA LENTE de LORANCA has just published their newspaper. This is the third newspaper published by a group of students of our school. We have participated in the programme El País de los Estudiantes, organized by El País, for three academic years. Here you have just the cover but if you want to have a look at all the sections you can visit http://estudiantes.elpais.com/, choose Madrid (or any other region) > PERIÓDICOS > VISUALIZA OTROS PERIÓDICOS > MADRID > IES BARRIO LORANCA (1A).
Cheers!

Nikoloz Tskitishvili - Ayuda en Acción Fuenlabrada

Here you have the first part of the interview with Nikoloz Tskitishvili. When you finish the listening questions, please report your mark to me (use this information: teacher code: alberto; class id: none). Finally, write a comment on this post explaining how difficult it was. Hope you enjoy it!!



Video edited by Daniel Tierno

Interviewing ACB basketball players

We have just done the most motiviting activity I have ever been involved in. We have interviewed three ACB basketball players who play for Ayuda en Acción Fuenlabrada: Gerald Fitch, who is the leader of the ACB top scorers classification, Chris Thomas and Nicoloz Tskitishvili, who has played in the NBA and Chris Thomas. This has been done thanks to the cooperation of Ayuda en Acción Fuenlabrada basketball club. They allowed us not only to interviewed them, but also use Fernando Martín Sports Center, mainly the court and the press room. We are really grateful for that.

This activity has provided real oral practice, both speaking and listening. It was necessary to practice and review all the sounds we have seen so far this year and to practice falling intonation in questions. Although most part of the interviews was controlled practice (the questions we had practiced in class), there was also open conversation (introductions, giving personal/group information, asking for pictures, autographs...).

Confidence has played an important part: students do not only have to speak in English but they have to do it with a famous basketball player whom they have seen on TV, newspapers or magazines. So, in order to be successful in the interview they must have confidence on themselves.

Motivation has been another important aspect as a result of having done this activity. There is an after and a before this activity. I know it has been incredible for most of you to have been understood in English and being able to have a short conversation in English.

In future posts, we are going to do some listening practice using the audio recordings of these interviews. But before that, and although we have done an evaluation sheet on the activity in class, I would like you to write a comment on this activity explaining what you have learnt and how you felt and referring to confidence and motivation.

Thank you.

Pictures taken by Alberto Hidalgo