TYPES OF CONDITIONALS

Conditionals slideshare from Marta Regalado

LISTENING ACTIVITY. GRAMMAR: USE OF “FOR” AND “SINCE”

Objectives and description

Listening is not seen as a skill to be trained, since it is thought that there is not much to do about it. Indeed, listening training is not an easy task, since listener will plays a central role. You must hear to listen, but listening is much more, since you must pay attention to listen.

In this sense, the activity has to motivate the students somehow. A well-known and effective resource is to address to students likes. That is the way chosen to develop this activity, which is intended to be fluid and stimulating.

This is a teaching activity with the group 3^rdC ESO. Specifically, it is a listening activity. There are some exercises to develop during the session, which is mainly participative. After that, I will explain to the classroom the use of for and since. The name of the listening activity is the following: Everybody is doing it.  It is an activity to test their listening, but it is also intended to demand students’ opinion about the matter suggested.

The general objective of this activity is to face a listening activity, as well as a grammar lesson. This involves a new opportunity to lead a teaching activity, from which I can with dynamism, creativity and enthusiasm. Specific objectives have to do with finding answer to specific questions around a warming up activity:

What worked well / didn’t work well and why?

How did I do in this specific area of teaching?

What will I change the next time I teach this kind of session?

There are further objectives, those that have to do with a classroom activity, i.e. learning objectives for students:

• Participate in student’s-teacher interaction.
• Be able to use vocabulary related to cultural events.
• Know and understand the use of for and since with present perfect.
• Understand oral texts about things that become very popular for a short time (crazes). 

 Methodology

The activity starts with a video-clip about crazy sports, and then a group discussion through interaction teacher-student and student-student: this activity is based on communicative approach. After that, an audio CD will be played and students will listen.  A number of exercises will be completed by students and then will be corrected trough the interactive whiteboard in order to be watched by the whole group. The skills evaluated are listening and speaking.

After that, I will explain the use of for and since with present perfect. After that, I will set homework on concepts learned. The skill evaluated is use of English (grammar).

 Materials used are the interactive whiteboard, a video-clip, the student’s book (Move On, Oxford University Press), an audio CD and a CD player. Students’ participation will be required in answering questions.

TALKING ABOUT BARGAINS: HALF PRICE

PRINCIPAL TRANSLATIONS

half price, half-price n (cost: 50% reduction) mitad de precio nf

Note: hyphen used when term is an adj before a noun

                I bought this shirt at half price.

                Compré la camisa a mitad de precio.

half price, half-price adv (at a 50% reduction in cost) al cincuenta por cien loc adv; al cincuenta por ciento loc adv

                This Saturday only, everything in the store is half price.

                Sólo por este domingo, el almacén pone todo al cincuenta por cien.

                ¡Pasen y vean, ofrecemos todo al cincuenta por ciento de su precio real! 

half price, half-price adj (offered for sale at a 50% reduction) a mitad de precio loc adj

                They were selling half price shirts. 
                Están liquidando por cierre, se pueden conseguir artículos a mitad de precio.

Fuente: Wordreference

 

If you want to learn more on talking about bargains, click here.

STARTING POINT

I have always been interested in languages and communication. In fact, the main reason why I started my degree in Translation and Interpretation was my interest in communicating with other people from different cultures, but also in helping those cultures to communicate between them. One way to do so is to translate, since it allows people to gain access to texts in different languages by getting them translated into their mother tongue, but there is another way to benefit the communication between cultures, and this is to share with people your knowledge on languages to enable their understanding (i.e., to teach). However, effective teaching is by no means an easy task, so it is crucial to have a good teacher training.

Anyway, classroom is the setting where you are expected to put into practice what you have learnt from the theoretical content of your training, whose purpose is to get ready to provide the best education possible. But what does good teaching consist of? In my opinion, the most effective teaching is that which enables the most effective learning, that is, the best learning for everyone, regardless of their personal situations and needs.

Obviously, teaching in Spain involves knowing legal requirements and regulations of the Spanish Law, which is dedicated to encourage the good teaching practice. Because of it, I think it is important not only to know the legal framework, but also how to apply it in the curriculum so that the objectives may be fulfilled.

But if attention must be paid to teaching planning, it is because teaching practice arises from it. It is in the classroom where I have to teach specific lessons to students, but... what can I do to make students learning, understanding contents, enjoying learning? Will I be able to manage in difficult situations? What can be done with the different cognitive and affective needs? What motivational teaching strategies can I use to promote learning for all students? How can I know if they have learned?

This Weblog is aimed to give answer to these questions through teaching and observation activities. It is important to know how to handle the different educational and interpersonal situations that might arise daily in the classroom. To do so, it is required to plan an assortment of varied activities that might cover the most usual learning situations, alternating different students groups with dissimilar characteristics.

Let's see how it works out...