MAKING YOUR OWN AVATAR ONLINE - AVATAR MAKER

Avatar Maker is an online tool. You can create your own avatar for free in 4 different styles. You can also select your gender and get a cool username in two clicks. It's absolutely free a d esy to download your final avatars.

Create your own character avatar from wide variety of options. Replace your photo on social media sites, forums or chat programs with your own created cartoon avatar.

From here, you will be able to make your own avatar within the limitations of selected gender styles. Once you decide, you can begin customizing your avatar from the very first tab you are given for options.

To start creating your avatar, click on this link: Avatar Maker

QUEEN ELIZABETH II - SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Queen Elizabeth II, the UK's longest-serving monarch, has died at Balmoral aged 96, after reigning for 70 years.

The Queen came to the throne in 1952 and witnessed enormous social change.Buckingham Palace said the queen, died peacefully, her estate in the Scottish Highlands. Her son became Britain’s new monarch, King Charles III.

In this post you can find some activities to make your students learn a bit more about Queen Elizabeth's life. 

Queen Elizabeth II Curious Facts

Queen Elizabeth II Activity - for students - In this activity students updated it by changing all the verbs need changing to make it suitable for these times. It helps students revise structures from past years

Queen Elizabeth II Activity updated

Queen Elizabeth II KEY

PHONETICS THROUGH LYRICS - BAD HABITS by ED SHEERAN

                   ˈɛvri taɪm jʊ kʌm əˈraʊnd, jʊ nəʊ aɪ kɑːnt seɪ nəʊ
                   ˈɛvri taɪm ðə sʌn gəʊz daʊn, aɪ lɛt jʊ teɪk kənˈtrəʊl

                                   ...

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system where each symbol is associated with a particular English sound. By using IPA you can know exactly how to pronounce a certain word in English. This helps in improving English pronunciation and feeling more confident speaking in English.

In this activity, by the song Bad Habits you can offer your students a great activity to inmerse in hte Phonetic world and work out the parts f the song encrypted to lyrics.

Here you have the hand out: Bad habits (Phonetics)

And the complete lyrics: Bad Habits (Lyrics)

SPELLING BEE GAMES

This game is very simple: you just look at the image and then spell the word. You can click on the letters on the screen or use the keyboard to type. The keyboard seems to be a lot faster than clicking with the mouse. So, if you are looking to get a good score, then it would be advisable to use the keys.

Before you start, you have to select a set of content to use. There are 30 different sets available for this game and each one has about 25 items to spell. You have to spell out each item once and there is also an audio clip for each image which should play just as the image is first shown.

It is possible to add your own images and audio clips. To do this you click on the 'add' button when in the content selection screen. They you can select images from your desktop computer and they get added and displayed on the screen. The file names of the images you add become the target word that you have to spell. So if you add an image called 'beach holiday', then the target to spell for that image will be 'beach holiday'. Although, you can change the target words by clicking on the textbox directly below the image. Note that for this game it is not possible to add numbers or special characters - these are automatically removed on teh content screen. This is because the keyboard that is displayed on screen only contains letter.

Spelling Bee ESL 

Spelling Bee Spell Quiz

Spelling Bee - Maths Playground

BRITISH COUNCIL GAMES FOR LEARNERS

Do you like playing games in English? We have fun games for you to play. Read the instructions and have fun playing and practising English.

 

Follow this link to play Bristish Council games: Fun English games for kids

LUKAS GRAHAM - 7 YEARS VIDEO (AND ACTIVITY)

Nice song to go through with your students. Have a glance at the lirycs and work out this song all together. In this song Lukas summarises his life so far and what he hopes to achieve in the future. He said that the reason the lyrics go as far as the age of 60 is because his father died at 61 and he needed to "pass it to believe it." He continued: "It's a song about growing older.

Lyrics handout: 7 years by Lukas Graham

HOW GOOD GRAMMAR SAVES LIVES AND OTHER REASONS IT'S STILL IMPORTANT

 Your grammar skills, whether good or bad, often leave people with a lasting impression about who you are. Yet grammar errors are still extremely common as they’re so easy to miss. Unfortunately, many grammar mistakes come at the price of being misunderstood, made fun of, or even losing a job.

Luckily, poor grammar skills can be fixed as long as you’re aware of them. This article will show you how even a little mishap, like adding one comma too many, can change the meaning of the whole sentence — and explain how to avoid it.

Keep reading on How Good Grammar Saves Lives

CORONAVIRUS AND MODAL VERBS

The coronavirus is a kind of virus that mutates (changes) very fast. It’s said it comes from wild animals and its origin is China because they’re used to eating wild animals (like bats, pangolins…). Actually people think the animal which transmitted first the virus to a human was a pangolin (an ant-eater family species). The coronavirus has existed for more than 30 years but it stayed confined in China. The reason of the spreading of it is because the more often commercial transactions and, therefore, business travelling to China in this last decade and also the more habitual habits from Chinese to go on holiday to other countries.

To download the worksheet: Coronavirus activity

EMMA WATSON'S SPEECH AT U.N. ABOUT GENDER INEQUALITY

Watch the video on youtube: Emma Watson at U.N.

"Today, we are launching a campaign called HeForShe. I am reaching out to you because we need your help. We want to end gender inequality and to do this, we need everyone involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN. We want to try to galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change and we don't just want to talk about it. We want to try and make sure that it's tangible." 

...
For reading on the full script follow the following link: Emma Watson's speech at U.N.

Watch the first part of the video (to 5 minutes and 15 seconds!), do the exercises and then have a look at the HeForShe website. Emma Watson's Speech Exercises

SANDY HOOK PROMISE

Sandy Hook Promise is a national non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.Based in Newtown, Connecticut, our intent is to honor all victims of gun violence by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation by providing programs and practices that protect children and prevent the senseless, tragic loss of life.

Visit Sandy Hook website on www.sandyhookpromise.org

ESL-LAB: ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE - RESOURCES

The listening activities have been organized by approximate level of difficulty based on rate of speed, vocabulary, content, ambient noise, idiomatic expressions, and other factors; however, this is never an exact science. Because I have tried not to overly predigest the content for the consumption of the language learner, the materials can be challenging for very low students. In fact, the Easy level is designed for false or high beginners on up who have already studied some English, and not for true beginners.

Linjk to the activities: esl-lab

ENGLISH CAMBRIDGE EXAM PRACTICE

Cambridge English (also known as ESOL) is a department of Cambridge University. Their English exams Proficiency (CPE), Advanced (CAE), First (FCE), Preliminary (PET) and Key (KET) are recognised around the world by thousands of employers, universities and government ministries as proof of ability to use English.

Cambridge developed the IELTS exam in conjunction with the British Council and IELTS Australia.

Cambridge ESOL have a range of business English examinations including BULATS and BEC.
Please click on the name of the exam to find out more about it, and access the free practice tests.

Cambridge exam practice

BRITISH COUNCIL: PRACTISING SKILLS

LearnEnglish Teens is brought to you by the British Council, the world's English teaching experts. If you want to learn English while having fun, this free website is just for you. LearnEnglish Teens can help improve your English with reading, writing and listening practice, tips for exams, grammar and vocabulary exercises, games and videos. You can also interact with other teenagers from all around the world.

Britishcouncil site

GRAMMAR, READING AND LISTENING PRACTICE: ESL-LOUNGE

Here you can get into a reference sitefor students of English from elementary level A1 to Advance C1. It is comprehensive, clear, flexible and easy to use, ideal for individual study, ESL-Lounge offers the student clear grammar explanations with examaples with grammar rules. 1000 pages of interactive grammar, listening, vocabulary and reading exercises. English grammar guide and phrasal verbs section, games and more.

Grammar Guide & Exercises: ESL-Lounge
Reading & Listening: ESL-Lounge

BURLINGTON EXTRA MATERIAL

Welcome to Burlington Books Spain. The website tailor-made for teachers and students of English in Spain!

The Catalogue section enables you to browse
through Burlington Books' full catalogue of printed publications and digital products. For a presentation of our New Books, click on the orange icon.

If you are a teacher using Burlington Books, you may join our exclusive Teacher's Zone. This will give you access to a wealth of resources to help you in the classroom, including handy MP3 recordings and the programaciones for our coursebooks.

For your students, there is the Student's Zone, where they will find resources for their coursebook and readers, such as MP3 recordings, extra exams, interactive games and activities to practise their English at home.

Visit our site often to keep up to date with our new materials: Burlington extra material

COURSE NOTICES

In connection with the 2017-2018 school year, I have highlighted some interesting information for students and families: course organization, class does and don'ts, assessment criteria... Very clear document where you can find the essential points for this year's course. In case of any questions, contact me.

Course notices

THE LOST THING

The Lost Thing is a humorous story about a boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature while out collecting bottle-tops at a beach. Having guessed that it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but the problem is met with indifference by everyone else, who barely notice it’s presence. Each is unhelpful in their own way; strangers, friends, parents are all unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to day-to-day life. In spite of his better judgement, the boy feels sorry for this hapless creature, and attempts to find out where it belongs.

CARNIVALS AROUND THE WORLD

It's carnival season. The roots of carnival are both older and newer than the Christian traditions that started in Europe and have spread with colonialism throughout much of the world. Ancient Greek and Roman pagan rituals as well as the folklore, music and dance of colonized peoples have forged colorful expressions of each country's respective history and cultures.
Creative disguises and parody are characteristic of carnival in many countries, which historically gave oppressed and marginalized groups the opportunity to subvert norms of class, race and gender.
Here are some of the most dazzling carnival celebrations around the world.

Carnivals around the world PDF

Carnivals around the world Word

Read the text obout these festivities around the world and answer these questions:
Questions about the carnivals PDF
Questions about the carnivals Word

HALLOWEEN VIDEOS

Halloween is a holiday in many English speaking countries that is celebrated on the night of October 31st. Children wear costumes and they go to peoples' homes saying Trick or Treat! to ask for candy, sweets in the UK, or lollies in Australia, and then people give it to them. This practice originally involved a threat. A threat is when someone says that they will do something bad if they do not get what they want. In this case the threat could be explained as: "Give me a treat or I will play a trick on you." Children today usually do not play tricks if they do not get treats. However, some children still get up to mischief (pranks or things to make fun of people; like putting toilet paper in trees; writing on windows with soap or throwing eggs at peoples' houses). People sometimes dress up as ghosts, witches, gobins and other scary things for Halloween.





For more Halloween-related videos see this link: Halloween

TERROR AND WONDER. RECURRING THEMES FOR HALLOWEEN

From wild and remote landscapes to vulnerable heroines; from violent and erotic fantasies to supernatural and uncanny happenings; what were the key motifs of Gothic fiction, and how did these works reflect the political, social and cultural contexts in which they were written?

In this link you will find information related to the topics you have to work on for the following lesson. Click on Read More window you have at the end of each topic and you will get access to pictures and information for your writing tasks.

To get directed to the site: Discovering Literature. British library

This other website is for an activity which will take place in class. It's about a webquest. Don't go through it till your teacher tells you so: Halloween webquest