“In this lesson you will read an extract from Bill Bryson’s book – Notes from a Small Island – where he describes his first impressions on arriving in Britain twenty years ago.
You will watch some videos about stereotypes generally associated with the British and discuss whether you think there is any truth in any of them. You will chose the ‘Greatest Briton’ of all times, and prepare a 5-minute oral presentation about him/her for your class. Finally, you will write an article explaining why you admire this person.”
English Language Lab Asturias (ELLA) is a project created with the intention of promoting the use of ICT in English teaching. I’m proud to say I’ve been part of the ELLA team from its beginning. Now we present a new set of units, of all levels. We will publish one every ten days, alternating levels. There are two new units already published: ‘How to Tie a Tie’ (basic level) and ‘You Are What you Eat’ (Intermediate).
If you are a teacher, you can subscribe to ELLA and you will have access to the zip version of the units (to be used offline), pdf documents of the different sections, and direct links to audio and video files.
Have a look and let us know what you think of it!
Frank McCourt has died. His childhood memoirs not only made millions cry over his misery but became a worldwide success and won several prizes, the Pulitzer among them. I would like to pay a modest tribute to him with this post.
Watch the author talking about what inspired him to write Angela’s Ashes. He lived in New York for many years, but he never lost his Irish accent.
Hello dudes!
Yesterday I had dinner with my family in a restaurant at the sea shore. There was a big tray laying on the floor which contained the biggest lobsters I have ever seen. There were four or five huge lobsters -the waiter said they weighed six kilos each, and , believe me, I swear, it is true- piled together into that plastic tray, one of those used in ports to sell fish directly from the fishermen’s boats.
The thing is they were moving, fighting to return to the sea in spite of being tied up in rubber ropes. And I felt like stealing the tray and throw them into the water, which was a few meters away. However, I kept sitting in my seat.
I never cook living animals, if I want to cook a lobster I freeze it in the freezer the previous night, the poor animal suffers much less pain this way than being boiled or fried alive.
So if you don’t want to go through an episode like this, which happened to the muppets’ Swedish chef, free the lobsters or freeze them!
I’ve never been there. My first and only experience with big music festivals was at Reading quite a few years ago, and I soon realized I was not the kind of fan who is ready to cope with rain, dirt, discomfort and drunkards for the sake of music. But this year Glastonbury must have been magic, with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen along with the “kids” from other bands.
Look at this picture of The Boss on stage. He’s simply great.
That’s it! Two more days and my time as a teacher at Oviedo EOI will be over. My new school in Cangas del Narcea is waiting for me. It’s exciting to have a new project ahead: after so many years working in a big school now I’m going to be the head teacher in a tiny one, the newest in Asturias. There will be only three or four of us and I will have more responsibilities, but I’m sure it’s going to be a great experience.
To my students in Oviedo all these years, thank you very much for helping me to enjoy my job. It’s been a pleasure. I’m sorry if some of you might have felt disappointed with the results of the Certificación tests. I hope that as a whole, disappointments apart, you have had a good time studying at the EOI of Oviedo and in my classes. I certainly have . I’m not very good at saying goodbye and I wish I had told you this in person the last day I taught you.
And thanks to my fellow teachers who are also my friends. I’m sure that working in a different place won’t affect our friendship. Now you have an excuse to visit Cangas, which happens to be a fantastic lively place. And it’s going to be a relief not to be in charge of so many computers and so much equipment with so little time to do things.
I’ll keep this blog updated every so often this summer and next year, and remember it’s your blog too, students, so please keep taking part in it whenever you feel like! I always enjoy reading your posts and comments.
Hello!
For those of you who have a car with a diesel engine and want to be environmentaly friendly I have good news.
There is a relatively new type of fuel called biodiesel. This fuel is obtained through a chemical process which transforms vegetable and animal oil into diesel.
Its properties are similar to those of the petroleum diesel. There is an important factor to bear in mind though. It has a higher detersive power, which means that if you fill your fuel tank with it, it will remove sediments existing in it causing the fuel filter to block for as many times as your car’s fuel tank is getting free of sediments.
This inconveniece can be sorted out easily:
There are various types of biodiesel, B100 is the designation for pure biodiesel, which means it doesn’t contain any petroleoum diesel. The rest of types vary according to the proportion of biodiesel in a mixture of both kinds of fuel and are the following designations; B5 (5% of biodiesel), B15, B30 and B50.
What you have to do in order not to get your fuel filter blocked by the sediments is to start filling your tank with B5 twice or three times and then fill it with an increasingly higher biodiesel proportion fuel little by little until finaly you load the pure biodiesel.
There are three advantages for the environment in using this fuel.
1. The waste of fuel in the transportation of petroleum from oil wells to refineries is zero.
2. The risk of an oil tanker breaking in the middle of the ocean and thus poluting the environment is -again- zero.
3. The vegetable oil needed to produce it can be gathered after having been used at big restaurants’ kitchens.
And there is a further advantage: the CO2 resulting from the combustion belongs to a closed cycle in which first the plant has absorbed what the diesel engine is releasing later. This doesn’t happen with petroleum diesel.
I hope this information will be useful for us all.
See you.
Have you read any of John Irving’s books? You may be familiar with some of the titles that have been turned into successful films, like The Cider House Rules or Hotel New Hampshire. It’s easy to be put off by the size of his books, but once you get into them that’s exactly what you want: a thick, long novel to keep you going for a while. I really recommend his books, especially The World According to Garp. The language is not particularly difficult, and it’s so well written that it’s worth the effort.
In a conversation with the NY Times editor of the Book Review, Irving talks about his latest book, which hasn’t been published yet, and reveals that he always starts his novels writing one particular part that is never changed, not a comma, not a dash… Do you know which one ? Watch the video and find out.
Do you think you are good at remembering faces? What about describing them in detail so that the photofit of a criminal can be drawn?
Have a look at this game and check your abilities.
“You witness a crime, and the police ask you to help identify the culprit, using their new PDArtist tool. Learn how your left and right brain work and the best ways to use your brain as an artist.
Can you create composite portraits that help identify the culprit?”
Have a look at the new Unit in the English Language Lab Asturias.
