WRITING: FOR & AGAINST ESSAY BASICS

BASIC BLOGGING TERMINOLOGY

[Info taken from: freetech4teachers.com/a-glossary-of-blogging-terminology.]

Post: “Post” can refer to an entry on your blog as in “a blog post.” “Post” can also be used as a verb as in “I am going to post a new entry on my blog.”

Page: A page on a blog is different than a post because a page is designed for static content. Pages are good for posting information that you want visitors to your blog to be able to quickly access. For example, my classroom blog had pages for curriculum outlines and review guides.

Theme: WordPress (Wordpress is open-source software that powers many blogging tools) and many other blogging platforms use “themes” to describe the look of a blog. The theme can include the color scheme and the placement of elements like calendars and margins on a blog. Changing the theme does not change the content of your blog posts.

Template: Blogger and some other blogging platforms use the term “template” to describe the look of a blog. The template can include the color scheme and the layout of elements on the blog. Changing your template does not change the content of your blog posts.

Tag: Tags are applied to WordPress (Kidblog, Edublogs) blog posts to identify the key ideas or purpose of a post. Tags make it easier for people to search and find older posts on your blog. For example, if you write a post about your Revolutionary War lesson, tag it with “revolution” or “revolutionary war” so that at the end of the school year when you have 150 posts on your blog your students can quickly click on the “revolution” tag and jump to the post that have that label. It’s a lot easier to locate older posts by tag than it is to click through archives by date.

Label: Labels are applied to Blogger blog posts to identify the key ideas or purpose of a post. For example, if you write a blog post about your Revolutionary War lesson plan, label it with “revolution” or “revolutionary war” so that at the end of the school year when you have 150 posts on your blog your students can quickly click on the “revolution” label and jump to the posts that have that label. It’s a lot easier to locate older posts by label than it is to click through archives by date.

Tag Cloud and Label Cloud: Tag and Label clouds can be added to your blog’s homepage to make it easy for visitors to see the tags or labels that you use, click on one of them, and jump to a list of all of the posts that have that particular label.

Categories: In WordPress-powered blogs you can use categories for broad descriptions of posts in addition to using tags. For example, on iPadApps4School.com I use the categories “pre-K,” “elementary school,” “middle school,” and “high school.” I assign each post to a category and use tags for describing the academic topic of the post. This way if someone visits my blog looking for math apps appropriate for elementary school he or she can click on the “math” tag then click on the “elementary school” category to find all of my posts meeting that search criteria.

Embed: To display a video, slideshow, audio recording, Google Calendar, Google Map, game, and many other multimedia elements in a blog post you will use an embed code provided by service hosting that media. Embedding media into a blog post does not make you the owner of it and as long as you follow the guidelines set forth by the hosting service you are not violating copyright by embedding something you didn’t create. For example, when you find a video on YouTube that you want your students to watch you can embed it into a blog post and ask students to comment on the blog post. If the owner of that video decides to take it offline the video will no longer play through your blog post.

Embed Codes: An embed code is a piece of code, often HTML, that media hosting services like YouTube provide so that you can easily display the media that they host in your own blog posts. On some services like SlideShare.net an embed code will be clearly labeled as such next to the media you’re viewing. On other services the embed code will be one of the options that appears when you click on the “share” option. YouTube, for example, currently requires you to open the “share” menu before you see the embed code option.

Widget: A widget is a small application that you can include in the posts and or pages of your blog. A widget could be a game, a display of Tweets, a display of RSS feeds, a tag cloud, a calendar, or any other application that offers an embed code.

Gadget: Gadget is the term that Blogger uses for a widget. A gadget and a widget do the same things.

Plug-in: A plug-in (sometimes plugin) is a small application that you can add to the software that powers your blog. Unlike widgets and gadgets plug-ins operate in the background and visitors to your blog will not see them working. A plug-in can add functions to your blog such as suggesting related posts to your visitors or detecting the type of device a visitor is using to view your blog then automatically displaying the mobile or desktop version of your blog’s layout.

Permalink: Each blog post is assigned its own separate URL this is known as a permalink (permanent link). This URL is the one that you would share if you wanted someone to directly access a post rather than going to your blog’s homepage then searching for the post.

WISHING YOU ALL A...

ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS!

Video CHRISTMAS FLASMOB:

REMEMBERING MARIE FREDRIKSSON FROM ROXETTE

Marie Fredriksson, Swedish singer & composer & half of the duo Roxette, has died at the age of 61. The group had great success in the late 80s and 90s all over the world selling more than 75 million records. Their career had a first stop when in 2002 Marie was diagnosed with brain cancer. She recovered after lots of treatments and even had to learn to talk and read again. But in 2005 she came back to music recording several solo albums and officially back to Roxette in 2011, recording albums and performing in concerts until in 2016 when she had to give it all up definitely.

Let's remember -or maybe discover her- with some of her songs.

RIP, Marie.

- "SPENDING MY TIME"

- "LISTEN TO YOUR HEART"



"IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE"



"THE LOOK"



- "JOYRIDE"



- "HOW DO YOU DO?"

WHICH FILM TO SEE BEFORE CHRISTMAS?

Searching for a film to watch in English with English subtitles in class before Christmas holidays. Here are the four films proposed:

- They all have something to do with Christmas, as they take place totally in or around the Christmas season. 
- You're not intended to understand everything, but to see how English is used in "real" everyday life situations. Context will help you understand, and you'll be able to check or learn new vocabulary, pronunciation and entonation.

Read the synopsis to each film and watch each of the trailers first and later choose which one you'd like to watch. The explanation of how to vote for the film is explained at the end of this post.

Stepmom is a 1998 comedy-drama directed by Chris Columbus and starring Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, and Ed Harris.

Jackie and Luke Harrison (Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris) are a divorced New York couple that are struggling to help their children Anna and Ben be happy with this sudden change of lifestyle. This is far from easy, as Luke, an attorney, is living with his new girlfriend, Isabel Kelly (Julia Roberts), an NYU alumna and a successful fashion photographer several years his junior. Isabel tries very hard to make Anna and Ben feel comfortable and happy with her, but Anna repeatedly rejects her overtures while Ben, who loves Isabel (not as much as his actual mother), adds extra complication with his mischievous nature. Isabel behaves with contempt tempered by caution around Jackie, believing she overcompensates for her divorce by spoiling her children.

- Video trailer for "STEPMOM":

Peter's Friends (1992) is a British comedy-drama film. Starring Hugh Laurie, Alphonsia Emmanuel, Imelda Staunton, Stephen Fry, Rita Rudner, Tony Slattery, Phyllida Law, Alex Lowe, Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.

It's New Year's weekend and Peter's friends gather at his newly inherited country house. 10 years ago, they all acted together in a Cambridge University student comedy troupe, but it's less clear how much they have in common now. Peter's friends are Andrew, now a writer in Hollywood; married jingle writers Roger and Mary; glamorous costume designer Sarah; and eccentric Maggie, who works in publishing.
Although the film is primarily a comedy, serious overtones are present from the beginning. Peter's father has died, and Peter plans to sell the house after this last party. While Andrew and Carol's troubled marriage is played mainly for laughs, Roger and Mary are recovering from a devastating personal tragedy only slowly revealed to the audience. A lonely Maggie arrives determined to persuade Peter they should be more than just friends and Sarah's not as happy with her life as she appears.
The film deals with themes of friendship, marriage, fidelity, materialism, and coping with death and loss.

- Video trailer for "PETER'S FRIENDS":

Love Actually (2004) is a British romantic comedy film, written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay sees into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress. The ensemble cast is composed of predominantly British actors.
The film begins five weeks before Christmas and is played out during a week-by-week countdown until the holiday, with an epilogue that takes place one month later.

The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the known messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. 

- Video trailer for "LOVE ACTUALLY":

The Holiday is a 2006 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers. Starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who temporarily exchange homes to escape heartbreak during the holiday season. Jude Law and Jack Black co-star.

The story is about two women who trade homes "only to find that a change of address can change their lives." Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz) is a workaholic who owns a company that produces movie trailers in Los Angeles. Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) is a society column editor for The Daily Telegraph in London.

- Video trailer for "THE HOLIDAY":



How to vote for the film you would like to watch. 

Which one do you prefer to watch?

Vote by leaving a comment below:

1- Your complete name

2- class-group 

3- film you prefer to watch & give a reason why in English.

To watch a film in class, half+1 of the class must vote.

Votes must be in BEFORE Sunday December 15th at 20:00h for 1ºBac-A 
& BEFORE Tuesday December 18th at 20:00h for my group of 1ºBac-B

1ºBAC-A final update 16th-Dec: 19 votes. A film has won with 8 votes.
1ºBAC-B Update 16th-Dec: 5 votes so far. Not half the class+1 have voted yet.

E.T. REVISTS ELLIOT 37 YEARS LATER FOR CHRISTMAS

An American TV advertisement has brought together E.T. and Elliot 37 years after the iconic film was a great success at the cinemas. The voyager from outer space revists Elliot's home and meets his family for Christmas.

Video:

THE HISTORY OF 'BLACK FRIDAY'

Black Friday, USA's marketing invention after Thanksgiving, is now a common feature in other parts of the world, this video tells you the history of this event.

Video:



Previous posts about 'Black Friday' on this blog HERE.

25th NOV'19: INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN @ RAFAEL DIESTE

25th November 2019, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

To commemorate this day, we had a protest gathering with students and teachers at 12:00 at the central hall to hear an announcement made by 1st Bac students.

Photos of the protest gathering and the wall banner poster prepared by 'BiblioDieste' below.

Galician version @ ArquivosDoTrasno

NOT ONLY... BUT ALSO...

BACK FROM THE 'ENGLISH WEEK' AT OS PEARES

Today the 25 students from 'Rafael Dieste' have already come back from their lingustic immersion "English Week" at Os Peares.

During their last day yesterday, they presented the projects they had been working on throughout the week on the topic of the environment and the 3R (reduce, reuse & recycle).

The last thing we've got to say is congratulate all the students that have taken part in this activity for their good attitude and involvement during the whole week and our thanks to the attending teacher (Leticia Ogando) and the staff at the residence.

Galician version @ RafaelDiesteBlog

CONFUSING GET & ARRIVE

CONFUSING: THERE / THEIR / THEY'RE

WHAT'S YOUR LOOK?

Teenagers like to express their identity they do this by choosing 'a look'

They are free to do this, they don't like to be the same as everyone else.

They often grow out of this phase and dress more conventional.

25 'RAFAEL DIESTE' STUDENTS OFF TO AN 'ENGLISH WEEK' AT OS PEARES & ENJOYING IT

Our school has been selected to take part in the "ENGLISH WEEK", a language immersion activity for 3rd ESO students to practice and improve their oral skills in English with the help of native teachers.

The activity organized by the Consellería de Educación, takes place between the 10th and the 16th of November at the residential area in Os Peares (Ourense). 25 of our 3rd ESO students will be  off today, accompanied by one of our Physical Education teachers, Leticia Ogando.

Update Wednesday 13th: today we've received the photo above in which we can see our 25 students enjoying the "English Week" at Os Peares.


Galician version of this post @ RafaelDiesteBlog

A STORY WITH PHRASAL VERBS

Here's a narrative full with phrasal verbs. Can you explain the meanings of all of them in English?

-SET OFF

-BREAK DOWN

-END UP

-GET OFF

-BUMP INTO

-BRING UP

-FIND OUT

-COME INTO

-SET UP

-SORT OUT

-TAKE ON

-TURN DOWN

-CLOCK IN

-HAVE A GO AT

-TELL OFF

-GET OVER

-MAKE UP FOR

-TURN OUT

-BLOW UP

-FALL THROUGH

-PULL OUT OF

-GET AWAY WITH

-LET DOWN

-GO ON

-RUN OUT OF

-ANSWER BACK

-PUT UP WITH

-LAY OFF

-GO AHEAD

-STORM OUT

-PUT THROUGH

-TAKE UP

-WORK OUT

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2019!

Photo: Torange.biz

Enjoy the long scary weekend of Halloween! 

Vocabulary & activities in English on Halloween on previous post in this blog CLICK HERE

NOUN SUFFIXES

 All posts about SUFFIXES.

24th-OCT: LIBRARIES DAY

October 24th is Library Day in Spain. This year our school library has celebrated it with several exhibitions, which you can see on a post on our library blog clicking HERE.

- An exhibition of photos of the best world's libraries, and as you can see not of them are in  luxurious buildings. Some libraries are in the strangest places: a beach, a donkey's back... or, as in the UK, in old telephone boxes, which have been recycled into mini-libraries where bookcrossing is practiced. In this video you can see an example:

Video:

DAYS OF THE WEEK & MONTHS OF THE YEAR