Class Summary B2.2 Dec. 20 and 21

CLASS SUMMARY – 21/12/2013

JOSÉ PEDRO PASTOR ESCUREDO B.2.2-SAT

Hi guys!!!!!!!!

We started the class being six students, less students than usually we are… Kate told us about this is a strange year with holydays. After that we talked about lottery and a day-dream about some teachers of “Estadística” drinking Champaign at the cafeteria (there was no luck for me this year I hope you had better), at the end of the explanation we were some more students (14) …Kate made some corrections about homework (marriage and divorce):

·         Get Married to…

·         Marriage => Institution

·         Married couple => Members

·         General redaction and:

§  The marriage is good… (general abstraction)

§  The responsibilities in a divorce… (specific)

§  Used to / usually / to be used to

§  “To have” as main verb: No contract!!!

§  Two subjects in a phrase

§  I´m agree…

§  Responsible for

We made some exercises in class (Vocabulary page 25) and pronunciation, we can find a sheet in the blog from Conversation B.2 and we saw some phrasal verbs.

Great game with phrasal verbs!!!!!!

After the break, Kate brought some Christmas cookies to class (thanks they were delicious) and we made a listening of a Christmas carol “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

Great Class and no homework**… I will see you on January 11^th.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

** Not quite true, José Pedro. I asked you to do the Reading about the Swiss electoral system and related vocabulary on p. 30. (Or at least I meant to. I know I told the Friday class to do it) But no written homework.  Kate

Summary of B2.2 Made by a Fri student but valid for both groups

Hi B2.2 groups

Cristina from the Friday class has made this summary. It is valid for both groups (except of course for the 1st comment about the transferring students!) Please see my previous post from Saturday for video links and homework. See you all on FridAY or Saturday
AND THANK YOU, CRISTINA!

 Kate

Elena had to change to another English class, and we have another classmate called Carlos (at least I think, I am not too good at rememberING names).

At the beginNING of the class Kate told us that IT is better for us to send our homework by e-mail, because with the color code we can learn more. She told us that it is a good idea to have an English folder on our laptop (or computer), because it is faster to look at our file than look at old posts from Kate´s blog.

We started talking about marriage and divorce and we shareD our opinios, which where a bit different. We did a kind of game: we had to remember vocabulary about divorce from the book, and María and me won!

We corrected page 22 and did page 23. On page 23 we learnt some vocabulary like going out off rails (which means to go out of the correct way). We talked about relationships and described the relationships (on) IN pictures of page 23. We also did the listening on this page,  WHICH was a bit difficult.

AT (To) end the class we learnt some phrasal verbs like take off or put out. Kate explained us that the particle of the phrasal verb is important in terms of the meaning, so if we learn the particles´ meaning it will be eassier to learn phrasal verbs.

A great class, as usual.

Cristina

Recipes Conversation B2 Tu- Thurs Group

Raquel's German noodles!

Now Alejandro's Coffee Cake

Link to Lorena's BEEF WITH GRAVY     Click here

Conversation B2 for Wed. Dec.. 18 and Thurs.19 : Xmas Survey and Songs (for 2 religions!)

Hi M-W group!

As discussed today, on Wednesday, we will do a Survey about your attitude, feelings and thoughts about Xmas.   This can lead to a lot of conversation.    CLICK HERE


Then we will do 2 or 3 Xmas Carols:  CLICK HERE

Finally, there is the song from "Fiddler on the Roof" you suggested cause it's good for practicing the Conditional.

The youtube clip is very entertaining, I think and there is something delightful about the actor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl7BVr36bbs

The clip has subtitles in English, but after watching you can try to fill this in without looking at them. (No cheating!)

Click here

That is 3 different documents. Print what you can, so will I and we can share.

See you on Wednesday.

B2.2 Friday and Saturday

Hi groups,

I am posting the homework with the video clips I have mentioned.

The actual homework for next week is to study the phrasal verbs from the book, p.25  (unit 3C) , the audio script on pp.162-3 and the 1-page document I gave you. There are 2 other links to longer phrasal verb documents posted on  29/11.  .

For Unit 4, we are only going to do the "humourous" or satirical part of politics on pp.28-9 with the Reading and the questions AS HOMEWORK and the Listening about political jokes in the 2nd half of the class.

Also for homework there are 3 videoclips to watch!

The first and most relevant is a videoclip is a political satire about Santa Claus looking at the children's behavior in order to know whether or not they deserve presents (if they are "naughty or nice") and comparing this with the spying of the US government and particularly the NSA (National Surveilllance Agency) to know if you are "naughty or nice with your electronic device."

This video is the perfect way to remember at Xmas time that while Santa’s spying operation may be magical, the NSA’s is very real and a bit worrysome. Click below... 

Check out the hilarious music video for “The NSA is Coming to Town” before anyone else, and be the first one to share it with your friends.  

2. This videoclip in with Orson Welles and another actor talking about a friend is good for personality description, it has the expression "an artistic streak" and it's also funny. Only a few in the Friday class saw it and NONE in the Saturday class, so I am copying the link here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb7uKhI7uqU&feature=PlayList&p=A77AD4D43D39C81D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=24

3. Finally, in both classes, I spoke about the fact that the book makes all pensioners sound very old and  the descriptions were more appropriate only for pensioners of 80 or older and that I found it strange that the woman in Conversation 1 seemed surprised that a woman who "went to universtiy in the 60's" hadn't lost any of her faculties. But then I remembered this funny video song by a man of that age group who  seems to be losing some of his! He even says :" If you remember the 60's, you weren't really there! Maybe he did a lot of drugs!!

Click here:

I hope you enjoy all 3. They are only 3 minutes long.

Now I am waiting for Cristina's summary.

Good week!  Kate

Con B2 Funny Satirical Xmas song

This is a satirical version of a popular Christmas song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", which we will do on Wed. /Thurs.

The original version of the song is about how Santa can see everything the children are doing and if they are "naughty or nice" This version substitutes Santa for the NSA (National Surveillance Agency) and says how they spy to see if we are naughty or nice on our electronic device, etc.

It's really quite clever and since we saw the Jon Stewart clip about this, I thought some of you might enjoy it. It shows CIA agents dressed like Santa!

Dear Kate, When you think about it, Santa Claus and the NSA have a lot in common—both can tell when you’ve been sleeping and know when you’re awake... So we decided to make an NSA version of that classic holiday tune, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” taking a cue from Santa’s own secret surveillance program. And as one of the more than 35,000 supporters who signed our petition to Congress to rein in the NSA, we want you to have the first peek at the hysterical new music video! This new video is the perfect way to show your friends that while Santa’s spying operation may be magical, the NSA’s is very real—and why we should all care. Check out the hilarious music video for “The NSA is Coming to Town” before anyone else, and be the first one to share it with your friends.

Conversation B2 ADVERTSING. Very interesting ad for next Monday or Tuesday.

Seeing this ad made me change my mind and decide to do Advertising in the Monday- Wednesday class after finishing the vocab. and discussion on Steve Jobs.

Most ads are not like this, unfortunately but it is good for conversation and short:

Click here to watch.

I also have a listening exercise about Advertising:

Conversation B2 Steve Jobs video clip Wed. 11, Thurs. 12 IMPORTANT

I would like to remind you to see  the video clip of Steve Job's commencement speech if possible and to download the exercise. I already wrote about this on Dec. 7, but here is the link again.

Click here

Recipe Post Conversation B2 Monday -Wednesday

Hi Group

This is you recipe post: I will add more as they come!  Enjoy: they are great!



Link To Andrea's lovely APPLE PUFF PASTRY  CLICK HERE:

Link to Lola's delicious POPPY SEED CAKE   click here

Link to Diana's original BRAIDED SALMON    CLICK HERE

For Conchy's tasty LASAGNE CLICK HERE

Almudena's magical CHOCOLATE BALLS      Click Here

Cristina's yummy CHOCOLATE CAKE CLICK HERE:

Miguel's DEFINITIVE FABADA :

FABADA, THE DEFINITIVE  RECIPE (for 4 people)

 Before cooking the fabada, you need to have these special beans and put then to soak for 10 or 12 hours.

The beans for fabada are a special bean which grow together with corn and it has very thin skin

Well, you put one half kilo of beans into a pot and cover with water and put it on the burner until it starts to boil.

Then you to remove the foam of the beans and put two hard pork sausages, one black sausage, a bit of ham with bone, an onion and a piece of garlic and a bit of saffron.

When it begins to boil again, turn down the burner and make sure  that the beans always are covered by water.

Once in a while, you must to stir the pot.

At the end you must taste the degree of salt that it has and to add if it is necessary.

After the 3 hours more or less and when the beans are tender the fabada is already.

Now we need recipes from: Dawn,  Miriam, María and Javi!

From Laura: her special:  EGGS WITH WHITE SAUCE AND TUNA

Ingredients:

- 6 eggs

- 4 spoonfuls of flour

- a pint of milk

- 100 g of butter

- 150 g of tuna

- 100 ml of tomato sauce

- salt

We have to boil the eggs inside a casserole with some water and salt. Then, we leave them until they are cold enough to cut them in half. We make a mixture of the yolk, the tuna and the white sauce. To prepare the white sauce we put the butter in a pan and when it is liquid, we add the flour. When it becomes like a dough, we add the milk and we stir well, being careful to not have any lumpS.

We fill in the eggs with the mixture we made at first and we put all of them into a glass oven pan. Then, we cover the eggs with the white sauce and wait 15 minutes in the oven with a temperature of 180º.

DAWN'S DELICIOUS BOURBON CHICKEN

Bourbon Chicken

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 garlic clove

1/4 teaspoonful ginger

3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper powder

1/4 cup apple juice

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 tablesponful ketchup

1 tablespoonful cider vinegar

1/2 water

1/3 cup soy sauce

Directions:

1. heat oil in a large skillet

2. add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned and remove chicken onto a plate

3. add remaining ingredients, heating over medium heat until well mixed and dissolved

4. add chicken and bring to a hard  boil

5 reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes

6 serve over 

Hope you like it.

And finally, link to Miriam's yummy cheesecake: Click here

Con B2 and B2.2 Miniseries about Spaniards in London.

This is the link for an online TV series about the lives of 4 young Spaniarids living in London.

It's short, cute and listening practice, so you might want to follow it!  Kate

http://www.spaniardsinlondon.com/

Conversation B2 Week after puente

Hi Groups

I hope you're having a good long weekend. A friend of mine has sent me a very cute youtube clip of a scene from a Bill Cosby program. It's easy to understand and has sub-titles in English.

http://youtu.be/DUj9Lt2tLj8

On Monday and Tuesday, we will finish with recipes and food.

On Wednesday -Thursday, we will watch and discuss one of the most interesting videoclips I know as well as do all the questions.

If you have time to see it in advance - perhaps more than once -Click here

B2.2 Friday Late summary

I am publishing a late but excellent summary of the class before last ( not the last one)

BTW, María and others, where were you LAST Friday?

Hi classmates! I’ll try to make a summary about the last Friday 22th November. Sorry if I am late with this summary but I am new and I didn’t know how to upload it!! The class was divided into two parts.
First of all Kate started the class with a review of the last class vocabulary. Then she talks about the 50th John Kennedy’s death anniversary and she asked the students what important dates in our national history or international history we could remember. We discussed in groups about what important events we remember such as the 11th March or the 11th September. After this conversation exercise Kate corrected our mistakes. In the first part of the class we also corrected the reading exercises of the student’s book (page 16 and 17). After these activities we read the vocabulary of the British culture which appears in the page 18 and we talked about what we know about the British culture: literature, religion, monuments, etc. The last thing we made before the break was talking about American and British stereotypes.
After the break we had a listening of the page 18 in which three people gave their own opinion about British stereotypes and then we had to make the listening activities. We also learnt some vocabulary, for example the word “flag waving” which means patriotism. Due to the listening topic we discuss in groups about if there are regional differences in our country and if it is good to have more autonomy from the central government. To conclude the class we were talking about Spanish stereotypes.
María.

B2.2 Classes Fri and Sat.

It is official that THERE IS NO CLASS ON DEC. 7, so both groups will have next class off.

Because of this I have given several homework assignments:

1. Write several sentences about you own personality, using the vocabulary and structures we have learned.

2. Write several more about a famous person or someone you only know from class, using the same vocabulary and the expressions on p.23 ( like "S/he seems, strikes me as, etc.)

3. Do pp.22-23, including the Vcoabulary, the Reading, the questions on the Reading and review the grammar on WOULD.

4. Write 100 to 150 words summarizing your ideas about marriage and divorce.

I'm waiting for someone to make a summary of last week.

BTW, the attendance of the Friday class was not very good: Saturday's was much better.

Have a good long weekend!

Conversation B2 Wed. Dec 4 , Thursday Dec 5

In today's class, we talked about the sayings that could be adapted to talking about food and cooking and we asking and answered the questions on the document wit different pairs and went over the vocabulary.
Then we did a Listening. For homwork, each student has to bring in a recipe.

Then we will talk about going out to eat in Madrid and use the following documents to talk about menus and "restaurant talk".

Click here:

And click here

B2.2 Students: Phrasal Verbs

Hicham sent me a very complete list of phrasal verbs to share with the class. Phrasal verbs are in Unit 3, so it's very appropriate.

Click here

I have a shorter document that approaches Phrasal Verbs from another angle, namely the meaning of the particles and the grammatical rules regarding their use.

Phrasal verbs1 Click here

Phrasal verbs 2 Click here

Phrasal verbs 3 Click here

Phrasal verbs 4  click here:

Conversation B2: for Mon Dec 2 or Tues. Dec 3

Hi Groups

I have been concerned about a drop in attendance in both groups. Please attend as regularly as possible and remember attendance is a factor in your final grade!

First:

This is the link to the Common Sayings for the M-W group and absentees.   Click here

We will spend the first hour doing activities related to this.

Then in the 2nd half, we'll talk about food and recipes.  Click here

And for related Listening activity Click here

B2.2 Nov 22-23 Excellent summary by Hicham of the Saturday class

Saturday 23th November class summary

Hi mates, I’ll try to make a summary about the last class Saturday 23th November. The class had many sections like conversations in groups, Reading and listening.

Kate began the class talking about the 50^th John F. Kennedy (JFK) assassination anniversary.  She told us that the murder is still for her a personal historical marker and described her feelings the few days after she learned about it. She mentioned also what John Kerry (US secretary of state) talked about in his latest interview; that he has serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald (the murderer) acted alone in killing JFK and “Who really killed JFK?” is still the million-dollar question for the past five decades.

The second section was a group conversation about our personal historical marker while Kate was picking up some mistakes to discuss afterward. The most common personal markers were without a doubt the 11^th September and 11^th March terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid.

The third section was making difference between British and North American stereotypes in a list.

The fourth section was reading and discussing texts on the page 17 about people describing what strange and weird customs they found in others countries. The one that most caught my attention was that in China they use separate taps for the cold and hot water in the same sink and you should to fill up the sink first to have the water at the desired temperature. (Actually that was England, which makes it more unbelievable! Kate)

In the fifth and final section we had a listening about three people explaining their own perceptions about British stereotypes, like all Scottish people wear kilts and British recite Shakespeare verses and so on.

Homework for the next Saturday:

Do some exercises at the beginning of the third Unit.

Write a paper about Spanish stereotypes.

Some learnt vocabulary:

Rant (v): To complain hardly about something.

Acquire (v): To obtain something.

Get away with a mistake/error/crime (v): To not be punished for it.

Acquit (v): To absolve someone of a crime.

Fishy:  Inspiring doubt or suspicion.

Left leaning (Politics): Democrat, Liberal, Socialist, Communist…

Right leaning (Politics): Conservative, Neo-Conservative, Republican, Libertarian, Constitutionalist.

Banter: Teasing, joke.

Bug (v): To annoy, disturb, irritate, bother.

Kilts: Scottish skirt.

This is a link to a short video clip from the TV series The West Wing. It is related to the idea of misconceptions and cultural identity. We can't dedicate much class time to it, as we have so much to cover. But try to see it and we will use it in the 1st 5 minutes as a warm-up. 
  
Link: http://www.upworthy.com/we-have-been-mislead-by-an-erroneous-map-of-the-world-for-500-years?c=ufb2

(There is a sub-title option but a lot of the subtitles are wrong!)

A few vocabulary items:
- dues / dues-paying members = fee or quota one must pay to belong to a group or club / poeple who pay this
- bias = prejudice
"blow your mind"  = shock you /"romperte los esquemas" (colloquial)
freak me out = similar expression

A few ?'s:
1. What are the common misconceptions the visitors to the White House point out? What is the goal of the group they belong to?
2. What is the cause of these common misconceptions and how would they like the US President to correct them?
3.. Why do these common misconception show a prejudice?
4. What has probably been the negative result?
5. What is "freaking out" CJ Craig ( the woman)?

Con B2 and B2.2: Another example of British humor!

This is starting to be a "joke blog".  PLEASE READ MY LAST POST, which to me is the funniest!!

 I have just received a short funny video clip with Orson Welles...... and it has an option  for sub-titles.**NB. DON'T  do subtitles. They are terrible:often completely wrong.  K 27/11

Glossary:

- salt of the earth (idiom) = used to describe a simple, natural, "authentic" person
- waif = young, homeless person
- to turn away = to tell someone leave or not to let them enter
- high-piched vice = voz aguda
- to dress up = to wear fancy clothes or a costume
 - a streak = a tendency or hidden quality, una vena ( an artistic streak, a jealous streak)

The two men are presumably talking about a friend who has just died (passed away).
Here the humor is not so  much in a punchline as much as it in what they are suggesting about this man, without really saying it  ( I guess becasue of their British indirectness and good manners).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb7uKhI7uqU&feature=PlayList&p=A77AD4D43D39C81D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=24

Con B2 ( and B2.2) for a good laugh PLEASE READ!!

My sister just sent this to me and since we are doing jokes, I couldn't resist. This might have happened to you - I just changed cell phones and it is more or less happening to me. Similar things also happen over the phone when they have to understand your voice and what you are saying.

What's the punchline??

Couldn't resist. It is so funny

Hope you don't mind the language - I thought this was hysterical!  We've all been there....

Resetting The Password

  "Sorry, your password has been in use for 30 days and has expired - you must register a new one."

   roses

  "Sorry, too few characters."

  pretty roses

  "Sorry, you must use at least one numerical character."

  1 pretty rose

    "Sorry, you cannot use blank spaces."

    1prettyrose

  "Sorry, you must use at least 10 different characters."

    1fuckingprettyrose

  "Sorry, you must use at least one upper case character."

    1FUCKINGprettyrose

  "Sorry, you cannot use more than one upper case character consecutively."

    1FuckingPrettyRose

  "Sorry, you must use no fewer than 20 total characters."

 1FuckingPrettyRoseShovedUpYourAssIfYouDon'tGiveMeAccessRightFuckingNow!!!!!

  "Sorry, you cannot use punctuation."

  1FuckingPrettyRoseShovedUpYourAssIfYouDontGiveMeAccessRightFuckingNow

  "Sorry, that password is already in use."

 *************************************************

B2.2 Fri N22, Sat. N 23

Hi, Students in both classes have offered to write summaries, so I will only write about the homework assignment.

The first was to begin Unit 3 by writing as many words as possible to describe your personality. Then do Vocabulary A and B. I said that  good source for adjectives and phrases to descirbe your personality is a doc. on Horoscope Sun Signs.  Click here:

With this, you can also talk about whether or not the description of "your" sign fits you: also for your loved ones.

Another assignment I gave on Saturday BUT FORGOT TO GIVE ON FRIDAY was to write a short 100-word about "What Being Spanish Means to Me" and/or "Stereotypes about Spaniards: which ones bug me and which if any may have some truth".

Waiting for the summaries... Good Week! Kate :)

Conversation B2 : Excellent summary of last class

Hello, team!

This is the summary of the last class. I hope it ´s useful.

The time of the class was divided into two parts.

The first part was about “The Jewish Mother Sketch”, a good and funny performance played by Kate and Another woman. It had a very good cast. Kate was on the role of  an older woman and the other woman was in the role of a daughter. Before watching it, we worked in groups of three trying to answer a group of questions with the help of the clues given by the vocabulary. After watching the video we tried to answer a second group of questions. Then, in the whole group we reviewed the answers, we tried to imagine what happened next and we talked about the stereotypes of mothers and daughters in real life.

The second part was about puns (amusing use of words that can have two meanings) and we did the exercises  you can find in this blog: “Puns” and “Waiter!, waiter!”. Kate told us others jokes too.

HOMEWORK FOR NEXT CLASS:

-Everyone of us has to tell a joke to the group.

-We must review the vocabulary we have learnt during the course because we´ll play TABOO and the more we take part, the funnier it wil be!

Have a good weekend, see you next week and I apologize for my writing mistakes.

Almudena.

Conversation B2 M 25, Tu 26 IMPORTANT!!

Hi,

I gave you 2 "assignments" for the next class:

1. Bring in a joke to tell with a "punchline" ... and be sure it "works" in English and doesn't have a pun or idiom that's impossible to translate.

2. Each of you has to take at least 1 of the vocabulary words learned in the course to date and make a TABOO CARD about it.  In the game TABOO, you put a word to be defined and then 4 words that the person who gets the card CAN'T use in the definition. This makes defining more difficult. You can take vocabulary from FACEBOOK, The Jewish mother sketch, vocabulary about cities and neighborhoods,
Astrology adjectives, etc.

Example  AFFLUENT (word)

TABOO words :  rich    posh      upscale     wealthy

MEASLES

illness disease  child/children sick

I'll bring 5 but you must do the rest.

Waiting for a summary!  Kate

Entertainling Xmas play in English: PLEASE GO!!

Hi classes,

I am posting information about a great Christmas play that AN English-speaking theatre group called the Madrid Players puts on every year here in Madrid. It's really a lovely and fun tradition, with typically British humor, nice contemporary music and something for all ages. It's like a crazy version of a children's story with pop music, jokes for kids, a children's chorus, jokes for adults,men playing women's roles and vice versa, a little social criticism and lots of audience participation.

It has become such a well-known tradition in Madrid that for the last few years, Felipe and Letizia have been going with their kids!

Please try to go! Talk to me about tickets!
I'm going to try to include a video clip from last year to give you an idea!
Click here 

B2.2 Fri. N 17 Sat. N18

This is the EXCELLENT summary of the last class done by Adele from the Friday class. On Saturday, we basically did the same things though in a different order. The homework is several posts back: I can paste here.

1. lease look at the GRAMMAR on .p 15 (Emphatic structures) and try to do B. ( We will comment and review in class.)
2. do the reading and associated questions on p. 16 AND p.18.
3. Please download and print this document about stereotypes of the British versus North Americans - similarities and differences.    Click here 
_______________________________________________
ADELA'S SUMMARY

Adela19 de noviembre de 2013 07:04

Hey guys , my name is Adela and this is a summary of the class on Friday 15/11/2013 .

Firstly, we corrected the exercise on page 13 about binomials, then we talked about the vocabulary on page 16 , household objects , we translated the words of activity A and related them with the verbs of the exercise B through a game; we had to choose a word and a verb and represent it without speaking for the rest of the class so they could guess what we were doing and how . We finished this part of the class doing exercises C and D on the same page .

The second part of the class was more entertaining , we did activities A and B on page 14 talking in groups about topics such as religion, climate, lifestyle, etc. in Spain. After that, we shared our opinions with the rest of the class and debated about the elderly in our society and religion (aconfessional or secular state).
Later, we did a listening of two conversations about these topics.
The class ended up with exercise A on page 15 about expressions to indicate disagreement.

We also talked about phonetics ( Fany / funny , for example) and Kate told us that we could read entries for B2 and Conversation classes to practise exercises about this and other issues which can help us.

I do not know if I missing anything ... in any case, have a good week!

Conv. B2 Wed. N20 Thurs N 21

Continuing with the idea of jokes and puns on the one hand and family and generational problems on the other, I am posting a link to a  3-minute humourous video clip. We will see it in class, but you may want to see it before too.

"The Jewish Mother Sketch"     Click here

Also if time we'll doing Jokes with "Punch lines" and Puns.

Conv. B2 Summary of last Wed./Thursday's class by Alejandro

Conv Tue/Thu
Last Thursday we finished with vocabulary and acronyms about the video on Facebook. We have continued working in pronunciation remining the pronunciation of the vowels and trying to obtain some rules for it; after that we watch the funny video of Lucy and Riccardo and we agree with him that it's very difficult to have a good pronunciation when there are more exceptions than good cases in the rules!
We have been talking among us about what we thought on the problems of pronunciation, the pros and cons of having one parent that speak a different language, the funny languages that sometimes small kids invent mixing two idioms, etc. Then we answered questions about the video and the curious case of words that are written with the same letters but the pronunciation is different (BOUGH, THROUGH, ROUGH and COUGH).

For All groups - Conv.B2 and B2.2

Hi Students,

I just received an email from the coodinator informing me that you have the right to log into and take advantage of some online classes called ABA English. The link is:
Unit 1:https://campus.abaenglish.com/es/login

I haven't had time to check it out yet, but I assume it's good.  :)

For Conv. B2 and B2.2 for a politically incorrect laugh!

This is quite politically incorrect but it's very funny and one of my students (Alejandro in my Conv. B2) had seen - or heard -it and wanted to again. ENJOY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0FUw-BbAs

Conversation B2 Mon. 18/11 Tues.19/11

Hi conversation Groups,

First, please bring the Project Organizer, as we will talk about that.  Click here: (using control /click) or last post.

Continuing with themes connected with the Pronunciation classes, the Thursday group commented that the sentences Lucy said to improve her pronunciation sounded like "tongue twisters" (trabalenguas) and I said I would post a few for fun. A few made me laugh just reading them!   CLICK HERE:

Finally, talking about the difference between the verbs LEAVE  and LIVE, I commented that there is an old Beatles' song that is very good for talking about the advantages and disadvantages of living with one's parents and the difference between generations.

I will bring in the song and we will do this exercise (print if possible)

CLICK HERE:

If you'd like to listen at home first, here's the link for the youtube with subtitles in English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rqj43vjU-A

OR, MORE CHALLENGING, WITHOUT SUBTITLES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lG3nXyI41M

B2.2 Summary of last class

Excellent summary made by Leo from the Saturday group. It is also valid for the Friday group.

Here it is:

We began last class talking about the possibility of starting our following classes a little later, and as everybody agreed, we came to an arrangement. So, ATTENTION PLEASE: We start classes at 10:10 (If I didn’t misunderstand it. If so, please, correct me).  THIS IS CORRECT!!

After that, Kate gave us some learning questionnaires back, and we went over the most common mistakes and we corrected part of our homework.

The first activity we did was talking in groups about a neighborhood where we would like to live if we had enough money. And taking advantage of Halloween, we did a second speaking activity: Kate handed out pieces of paper with questions about weird or scary issues, and we had to ask each other, have a little talk, exchange our papers, and search FOR another classmate so that we could have a different conversation.

Before THE break, we corrected last homework and we talked briefly about Spanish economic situation.

When we went back into class, we reviewed the new vocabulary we had just learnt during the class.

Afterwards, we had to do a listening activity, but something went wrong with the CD player, so Kate performed the different roles while she read out. There were three unfinished stories, and we had to find out the end of each one.

Last activity was talking about several topics related with Spain, such as climate, religion, cultural life or community life. We did it in groups, and then each group did a short summary for the rest of the class.

For next class, as homework, we must do:

-          page 13. Binomials activity (A and B)

-          a writing about an urban mith you know, or choose one of the pictures on the botton of page 13 and make up a story (an urban mith) about it.

-          Page 16. Vocabulary activity (A, B and D) and reading activity (A, B and C). Obviously, where it says “discuss”, we have to be sure we understand vocabulary and questions 

SEE YOU ON FRIDAY OR SATURDAY! :) KATE

Con B2: Great summary by Carlos

Last Tuesday our class has been divided in two parts. The first one has been a hard time for Kate. She´s spent more than one hour talking about phonetic. She focused on vowels and diphthongs, (which) WHOSE pronunciation is much more complex than in Spanish language. She did her best to show us the differences between the fifteen vowels of English speech. She compared words like sheet and shit or cat and cut, to show us the differences between long and short vowels. Besides, we learnt several phonetic rules, such as that one that say : " When two vowels go walking. The first one does the talking". Kate stressed about the importance of these rules, although English language has plenty of exceptions.

The second part was more entertaining. We did a roll play, in pairs, where we had to carry on a conversation. Kate gave us small pieces of information, one of the couple told a story based on it and the other one had to express his emotional reaction saying expressions such as "How exciting!" or "How unfair!". We practised a lot with different papers and partners.

Conversation B2 Wed /Thurs. Nov 13, 14

Funny video clip to continue with the issue of English pronunciation but in a funny way.

Opening the document, you will see a link to see it on YouTube, as well as the rest of the exercise

Clck here

See, print and enjoy We will probably see it another time in class, as it's very short!

Conv. B2 Mon.- Tu: Wonderful resource from Raquel lovely summary by Lola

RAQUEL has sent me link to a wonderful BBC pronunciation site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_1.shtml:

It is very complete, but unfortunately can't be clicked onto directly. (You have to put it in your search engline.) However, if you're busy, here are direct "clickable" links to most important parts. :)

Pronunciation tips

• 
  About the sounds
• Videos
• Similar sounds exercises:
• Unit 1
• Unit 2
• Unit 3
• Unit 4
• Unit 5

Download poster with examples (25 K)

Download this video (18.3 MB mp4)

 This is Unit 1: Then click on Units 2,3, 4, and 5 above for the different vowel sounds.

NOW FOR LOLA'S SUPER-COMPLETE SUMMARY:

•  

Hi, I´m Lola and here´s my summary

Last wednesday, at the beginning of the class we had a little chat about Kate's theater group. Kate had invited Conchi to join the group and they did a small  rehearsal. It was a radio play and Conchi did it very well (she imitated the sound of a train  whistle ...) Kate also told us that in the group there were two French people: one of them was a very good player, very expressive, even though his English wasn´t very good. The other french guy wasn´t  so good .

After that , we started the speaking part, talking to each other as if we were in at the Psycologist´s. One of us was the Psychologist and the other one the client:  the mother who has problems with her daughter, the girl with problems with her boyfriend... All of the problems were about social network : Facebook, Internet, smart phones and the time we spend with them, that can end up in a real addition, caused all the problems.

When we finished the conversation we talked as a whole group ( or the whole group talked) about Facebook and some bad experiences : such as bullying and how different reactions that can happen according with the gender:  girls  tend to be more introspective and can commit suicide in the worst of cases. On the other hand, boys are more aggressive and they can commit suicide after they kill other people (with guns).

In the second part of the class we were watching a very funny video clip called "Facebook Manners And you"  about  "Facebook" but set in 1950´s instead today.

We learnt new vocabulary and few slang expressions like  "swell guy", to "stick it" , "to cry over spilled milk" etc.

After that we answered post-viewing questions and specific listening task.

We talked about similarities between Facebook and the 1950´s ( Mc Carthy´s witch hunt

For Monday we will finish the vocabulary exercises  and we will practice on English pronunciation.