IMPROVING YOUR WRITINGS: CONNECTORS

Here are charts collecting connectors, adverbs and expressions you can use to improve your writings.

HOW TO EXPRESS FUTURE

Here are charts that summarise how you can express future in English.

Future certainty versus possibility:

BRITISH ACCENTS

In Spanish an Andalusian doesn't pronunce it as a Galician or a Madrilenian, Basque or Catalan... The same happens to English in Britain, accents change from county to county, city to city, even in the same city... Here are some videos which show some of the differences of pronunciation of English in Britain.

Video:

Video Canadian accent:

SOME PHRASAL VERBS & VERBS + PREPOSITIONS

"THE WAY" (Film of the IV Cultural Week)

"Rafael Dieste" IV Cultural Week ends today showing the film "The Way".

The Way is a 2010 American drama film. It is a collaboration between Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez to honor the Camino de Santiago and promote the traditional pilgrimage.

Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist who goes to France following the death of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a Catholic pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Tom's purpose is initially to retrieve his son's body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died.

While walking the Camino, Tom meets others from around the world, all looking for greater meaning in their lives. He reluctantly falls in with three other pilgrims in particular. Joost (Yorick van Wageningen) is an overweight man from Amsterdam who says he is walking the route to lose weight to get ready for his brother's wedding and so that his wife will desire him again. He is a warm extrovert who is the first to start walking with Tom. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) is a Canadian fleeing an abusive husband, who says she is walking the pilgrimage to quit smoking. Jack (James Nesbitt) is an Irish travel writer who when younger had desires to be great author like Yeats or Joyce but never wrote the novel he dreamed of. He is the last to join the quartet and has been suffering from "writer's block." As the pilgrims travel the Camino, they occasionally meet and talk with other pilgrims — two Frenchmen, a young Italian and an elderly priest from New York named Father Frank. Thomas occasionally sees his son alive and smiling among other people.

On the pilgrimage, the group have various incidents such as when a young Romani steals Tom's backpack. Although the thief escapes, his father drags him back to Tom to return the pack with his embarrassed apologies and an offer to attend a street party in compensation.

Video trailer of "THE WAY":

The Galician version of this post @ ArquivosDoTrasno.

VIDTIONARY: THE VIDEO DICTIONARY

Here's something new and interesting: VIDTIONARY. It's an online video dictionary for learners of English. It defines and expresses words through images and audio. You can search for words by categories, collections, parts of speech or alphabetical order. It's fantastic!

From today there's a permanent link on the right-hand sidebar of this blog: VIDTIONARY.

Here are some of its definitions:

- ARRIVE (verb):

- NOBODY:

- QUICK (adj):

- WATERFALL (noun):

"RAFAEL DIESTE" IV CULTURAL WEEK: GALICIAN HERITAGE, THE SLIDE

"You say: Galicia is really small.

I say to you: Galicia is a world in itself"

(Vicente Risco)

This week, from Monday 29th April till Friday 3rd May, we'll be celebrating our IV Cultural Week at IES "Rafael Dieste". This activity organized by the school's library together with the different departments and the students of our school is devoted this year to Galician artistic and natural heritage.

This year once again, there will be exhibitions of 
- Galician typical costumes, 
- typical Galician pottery,
- student's works on our different monuments, 
- photos of the different school-trips to visit them.
Performances of:
- traditional music,
- choirs, 
- traditional dance, 
- theatre plays 
and the projection of the film "The Way" devoted to St. James' pilgrimage route.

As you already know, the English Department has contributed with an exhibition based on posters from the local newspaper with short descriptions in English and Galician, which has been on display at our school since the German student exchange arrived a month ago. Now it's shown again as part of the Cultural Week. The different places shown in the exhibition have already been posted in this blog, together with a quiz.

Enjoy the week and take care of our heritage!

St. GEORGE'S DAY: ALL THINGS ENGLISH

Saint George's Day is the feast day of Saint George. It is celebrated by various Christian churches and by the several nations, kingdoms, countries, and cities of which Saint George is the patron saint. Saint George's Day is celebrated on 23 April, the traditionally accepted date of Saint George's death in AD 303.

As Easter often falls close to Saint George's Day, the church celebration of the feast may be moved from 23 April. In England, where it is observed as a solemn feast, for 2011 and 2014 the Anglican and Catholic calendars celebrate Saint George's Day on the first Monday after Easter Week (2 May and 28 April, respectively).

Countries that celebrate St George's Day include England, Canada, Croatia, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republic of Macedonia. It is also celebrated in Spain—Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca.

Saint George is the patron saint of England and as such is celebrated each 23 April.

All the information about St. George's Day in the following links:

- St. GEORGE'S DAY.

- ALL THINGS ENGLISH.

WHERE CAN A BOOK TAKE YOU TO? (BOOK DAY 2013)

WHICH BOOK OPENED YOU EYES ONE DAY, TOOK YOU A BIT FURTHER FROM WHERE YOU WERE?

APRIL 23rd, BOOK DAY.

"THE ORCHESTRA"

We're including today a project work done by 2nd ESO-year students in the subject of MUSIC in English about the composition of an orchestra and all its different instruments.

BRITISH ENGLISH vs AMERICAN ENGLISH

The difference between the British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) can basically be distinguished in:

1) VOCABULARY: a different word or use of a word for a different meaning. Some examples:

There are many more:

British:
HOLIDAY / LIFT / SWEETS   are  in AmE?

American: 
COOKIE / FALL / SOCCER are in BrE?
Do you know any more? 
Check answers to previous questions and other examples in the link below.
Link: BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH VOCABULARY DIFFERENCES.

2) SPELLING: The same word is spelt in a different way. The general idea is that American English has a much more simple and logical spelling from a Spanish point of view.

Link: BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH SPELLING DIFFERENCES. (Wikipèdia)

3) GRAMMAR. Here are some basic grammar differences:

& 4) PRONOUNCIATION. As you can seen what happens in Spanish being spoken by a Spaniard or an Argentinian, or even a person from Galicia, or Madrid and one from Andalucia, all have different accents. Language pronunciation changes from one geographical area to another. 

Here's a video:

For other specific differences, check on this link, which includes all:
Link: GENERAL DIFFERENCES BRITISH ENGLISH vs AMERICAN ENGLISH.

SERENDIPITY

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH (IN 10 MINUTES)

Here's a 10-minute cartoon video which summarises the history of the English language. Funny to watch.

A compilation of ten videos on the history of the English language. It has been compiled into a film to make it a little easier to watch. The originals are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Licence agreement. The original webpage can be found here

Video "THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH (IN 10 MINUTES)":

THE BIG BANG THEORY: MUMMIES VS. ZOMBIES

Today and tomorrow, the teacher in practice will be giving her practical classes to the 1st BAC groups. She's reinforcing on the conditional sentences, we've just been working on, with a project based on TV series, and concentrating on "The Big Bang Theory" sitcom.

Here's the video you're watching in the class, spot the conditional sentences they say.

Video The Big Bang Theory: Mummies vs. Zombies:

Here are the conditionals, they've said:
- "If a zombie bites you, you turn into a zombie"
- "However if a mummy bites you, all you turn into is a schmo with a mummy bite"
- "If you want to check it out later, it's parked right out front, space 294"
- "Someday, if you get a car, I'm sure they'll give you a new parking space."

On the second class with her, you had another possibility of watching a short scene from the series where they played "Guess who?". Link to: The Big Bang Theory: Guess who?

READ IT ANYWAY

THE EFFECTS OF BILIGUALISM

IF... (Conditional sentences)

Here's basic information on CONDITIONAL SENTENCES. On the chart above you can see the structures of the four types of conditional sentences. Below there's a video with a clear explanation

Video "CONDITIONAL SENTENCES":

Previous posts about conditional sentences in this blog HERE.
Links to exercises on Conditionals:
- @ Englisch-Hilfen.
- @ Englishpage.
- Exercise-practice: answer these questions about yourself:

Summary chart:

A CORUÑA: A PLACE TO LOOK FORWARD TO

Here's a video tourist-guide of our home city, A Coruña, in English to enjoy the spectacular sights we can offer to any tourist who comes around.

Video "A CORUÑA: A PLACE TO LOOK FORWARD TO":