Vocabulary related to cars and driving

Please have a close look at this:

Driving: Vocabulary from eoi.soraya

Road safety

This video is a very short version of an award winning BBC3 documentary, and it gives vivid accounts of road accidents and their consequences.

Dictations online

A good way to practise listening comprehension is with dictations, especially if you have to try to recognise a specific word.

There is a website where you can try this:

Listen and Write

First you have to sign up (if you don't feel very happy about this, don't give your real name or your main email address. It's a good idea to have an alternative one for these internet things) and you'll have to log in every time with the same user name and password.

There are many different types of exercises for you, but I suggest that you go to level 20 and try the 'blank mode' dictations, which are not so very different to some listenings we do in class.

I hope it proves useful.

Alternative energies and sustainability

Click here to watch a TIME video which weighs the pros and cons of solar energy.

And below you can watch a talk about sustainability.

This year's reading list

At last it's here.

On the left-hand side bar you'll find the books I propose for this year. I've tried to include some variety,  in genres, styles and writers' origins. Yet all of them have something in common: they're neither too long or too difficult.

However, I must admit that it took me a long time to decide whether to include the last one on the list, Too Much Happiness, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro. Her prose is limpid but deep at the same time, so perhaps it would be a good idea to read one or two of her stories to embark on the wonderful adventure of peeping into the world she shows us before making any final decision.

Here, on this link to  The New Yorker,  you'll find some of her stories.

Once you've made up your mind and chosen one, sit back and enjoy it!

DECEMBER EXAM DATES

These are the dates for the December exams, for both 4ºB and 4ºC (at our usual class time and room):


10 December:  Listening, Reading, Writing. (Starting with the listening test. Please don't be late because you won't be allowed to go into the room until it finishes).
15 & 17 December: Speaking. Contact your teacher (that's me!) for the exact day and time.
22 December: Results.

Good luck to everyone!

Stories to listen to

All week long we've been working with stories: tenses to use, adverbs to make them sound interesting; we've also read fifty word stories and even written one.

Now I propose listening to some children's stories read by actors. Sit back, click here and enjoy.

Airplane safety

Watch this video to find out what passengers need to know about safety on light aircrafts, and you'll see that you understand almost everything.

Clothes

To practise vocabulary, try this hangman game



You can also listen to this audio about sagging pants.

Old age

For healthcare professionals, so that they can really feel and live what being old can be like, there is a simulation suit which can radically change their understanding of old people.

Reading

Here you have the link to the complete reading text you read in class the other day: The Internet Generation will learn to Let go.

Chronic pain, but some fun too

TED Talks videos are always interesting. Here you have one that explains chronic pain. Watch it for a while, just to see how much you understand.




And now something more lighthearted:

_______________

Doctor: "I have some bad news and some very bad news."

Patient: "Well, might as well give me the bad news first."

            Doctor: "The lab called with your test results. They said you have 24 hours to live."

            Patient: "24 Hours! Thats terrible! What could be worse? What's the very bad news?"

Doctor: "I've been trying to reach you since yesterday".

________________

The doctor to the patient: 'You are very sick' 
The patient to the doctor: 'Can I get a second opinion?' 
The doctor again: 'Yes, you are very ugly too...'

Doctors and patients

Click here to listen and practice some vocabulary

You can also try this listening where someone compares the French and the American Health System

What your handwriting says of you

Click here for a BBC video on graphology. It's interesting.

Game of Thrones

We have it so very near just now, and perhaps you've either heard of it or watched some episodes, so I just thought you could try this video explanation of a serial that combines magic, the supernatural, horror and suspense with medieval times:  Game of Thrones