English Studio

Shakira grew up in a poor town in Colombia. She used to think of one day becoming a famous singer and travelling the world. Listen to her in detail and complete this activity .

Learning and understanding a foreign language is also learning about the culture of those native speakers. Cambridge is well-known because of Students, Exams and Universities. Cambridge and the surrounding area hold an unrivalled reputation for being a centre of excellence both in learning and ambience. Now its famous Colleges are home to over 17,000 students – Kings College Chapel is a familiar image all over the world. Cambridge’s heritage also includes an outstanding record of scientific and artistic achievements – Newton, Darwin, Wordsworth, Milton, Ian McKellan, John Cleese, Emma Thompson and Zadie Smith were all educated here. But Cambridge is much more than that, as www.visitbritain.com points out: You'll discover a perfect slice of England in Cambridge. Breathtaking buildings, the river running along the backs of the colleges, the bustling market at the centre of it all and the many thriving shops, bookshops, pubs, cafes and restaurants as well as th

Nowadays it is almost impossible to neglect the use of twitter as a communication resource. Today Twitter cannot be "avoided" in the ICT and ELT worlds. USING TWITTER: Pros -Much simpler / quicker to set up and update than any other webpage or blog -Messages are always short (140 word-limited per post) , hence readable...(as long as text conveys meaning), which directs us to another advantage: -It forces the sender to be concise and accurate in the message he wants to deliver Cons -Writing to 140 characters could leads to bad grammar skills -Privacy is at risk -Public timelines read by this network user do not contribute to organised info, i.e. it hard to follow threads The disadvantages mentioned above are not such, though. Regarding the bad grammar, it must be considered that you -as a teacher/tutor will have to monitor every single tweet published in the network. In order to do this you can use private or direct messages or retweet tools "@"to get students to re

Order the words to make sentences that summarise the story

Watch this clip and focus on the fruits that appear on it Then play this word game (play in FULL SCREEN on open) Now listen to the song in detail and try to match the phrases on this activity (again , play in FULL SCREEN on open)

Watch this video . Does the song sound familiar? It's a classic by Oasis- But the "familiarity" has to do with a media hit today. Try this activity YES. The clip has been on for a couple of weeks already and caught the audience attention,which is a good opportunity to take advantage of the motivation it naturally arises. And we have the chance to practise some vocab here This is what a blogger posted on the ad

At Elementary levels students generally lack vocabulary to provide background and character descriptions for their stories. You may provide some hints but they will not be able to express exactly what they want. However the web offers some http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifinteresting tools that you can get students to exploit and enjoy. This is the case of Pixton . Pixton introduces the world to Click-n-Drag Comics™, a revolutionary new patent-pending technology that gives anyone the power to create amazing comics on the web.From fully posable characters to dynamic panels, props, and speech bubbles, every aspect of a comic can be controlled in an intuitive click-n-drag motion. Steps taken: 1. Students read a story from their coursebooks about a man killing a sheriff and putting the blame on his own brother (sounds like a tragedy, doesn't it?-but the case is presented along humorous lines...so it doesn't hurt that much) 2. An extension activity is presented

Some time ago the innovation topic was CALL (computer assisted language learning), then ICT (information and communication technologies) and jargon of that sort. Today MOBILE LEARNING is on the spot. The article " From Blackboards to Blackberries " makes a good description of the situation. By the way,after being nominated as Judge for the Net Ed Gen Project, I am now going through the idea of mobile learning from different perspectives. These are two of the vids I have to give feedback to: Find more videos like this on Net Gen Ed Project Find more videos like this on Net Gen Ed Project

Sometimes these practices are far better than attending seminars or workshops. This is why I like blogs and Sundays. Because I have more free time to investigate and interact with colleagues with whom teaching interests are shared. I'm subscribed to one of Gabriela Sellart's blogs on my rss reader and was very glad to read this post on "feeds" which I did not hesitate to reply as I honestly had an experience to share and recommend. Good for Sundays and ICT tools that let us, teachers at the chalk face (guess this expression will become obsolete sooner than expected) interact and share hands-on experience. This is for everybody (English Studio students included), who sometimes neglect blogs and comments. This is the way to exploit the tools the web has to offer. And the way to learn through them.

The audio tape has been one of the items set aside after the explosion of CDs and mp3 players in the world market . If you have been teaching for more than 20 years you know what I mean: Those expensive and useful materials -so difficult to get- that helped our teaching when we wanted to enhance students' listening skills. As time went by those tapes were left into old boxes as CD tracks played on more updated sound equipements took over. And the same was applied to mp3 files which are useful to be played on mobile devices-so common nowadays. However, no matter how modern the new material is, you still miss certain content wich was recorded on those tapes and cannot be used now simply because you tape recorder is no longer within your teaching equipment. Well, this is what I did and my old tapes came back to "life" again: I dug out my old walkman (but a tape deck would also be perfect for the task) and got hold of a cable to connect the walkman's headphone jack to

1) This link helps you remember verbs from the past . Concentrate and take your time to study and practice with the domino game. 2) Type "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT" in the blanks provided here 3) Try to get out if this maze 4) Save Granny from the aliens ! All the words are verbs in the past ;) 5) Wordsearch

As you may see, people put it all down to Friday 13!!! However, there are more real explanations for the "unlucky" events shown above: Sphinx Facts and Mythology Famine in Ireland -Potatoes plans destroyed The Bell crack and the iconic symbol of American Independence Online Games for ESL learners

A couple of weeks ago I bought a brand new ELT publication in Argentina which I would like to recommend to colleagues. I believe the mag offers a way to see how to blend traditional material (in print) and web resources. It can be an eye opening opportunity for lots of collegues willing to exploit online stuff in their lessons.In addition, it also triggers unlimited ideas to all of those who have started trying out web resources in our classes. Classroom posters, "how to" articles and photocopiable activities, as well as already designed exercises to use along with youtube vids (sth which will certainly help teachers save precious time). Hope this is really useful for our ELT world.

, OK..may be the complete use of mobile devices in my classroom is too much,but I can dream with sth more likely to happen. When I saw this material from Pearson I thought : "This is what I will go for". I admit there are lots of external factors that will have to be overcome to get the idea into practice. One of the issues that are bound to prevent my 100% digitalization is clearly the inexperience of young learners before a PC screen. However, I trust this won't be a great obstacle in the long run. The more user- teachers exploit the world wide web the more likely we will be at ease with all the tools and resources offered online. This blog will show how those expectations can be fulfilled. Simply keep on reading and don't hesitate to join in order to interchange / share ideas.

Great debates on the use of Technology have been on lately and they food for thought . The reading of those posts found me in front of my screen this morning, almost not remembering that I had to set up an activity for my pre intermediate teens who are dealing with the past simple forms these days. Here's how I exploited the computer / internet aids that I has at hand: I needed a song to deal with the PAST, so I asked "Google" for a famous song to practice the PAST TENSE (I didn't want to use the classic "Imagine" by J. Lennon) so there I was, asking for another classic...the feedback was immediate: "Summer nights" (from the musical Grease). Yes ! Lovely -I thought. So I looked for a clip on YouTube and the lyrics . The idea of a very long clip didn't sound appealing, so I used Chop Tube , a magic online tool to cut long YouTube vids short . And ...voilá ... this is the extract I decided to exploit with my students . I cut and pasted part of

The Royal Wedding has been at the top of the news and here's something related to that: 1) The video below has got a singing version that you can listen to after you finish the activity suggested: Try this online crossword -------- 2) There's another interesting audio extract that you can play here and get the script by reconstructing it yourself ---------- 3) Little Howard has also intervened and I set up some listening practice. Go ahead:..are you with Little Howard or with Prince William? william_vs_little_howard