Tim Burton's Vincent

Dear All,
here's the Tim Burton short movie we saw yesterday and will see this afternoon in class.

And the link to the poem

Happy Halloween!

Hi there!

Here's a video on the history of Halloween. Listen and answer the questions below:

1. The history of Halloween starts with ...................... (a diverse group of tribal societies from Europe).

2. The end of the harvest season was celebrated on .................. (date)

3. Why was it a magical night?

4. On Samhain (pronounced /sauin/), people sat around .................

5. When did the church start to appropriate the pagan festivity?

6. Both the pagan and catholic festivities had to do with ...................

7. "hallow" means .......... or ..........

8. Who brought the holiday to the United States? When?

9. Some of their customs included bobbing for apples and "playing tricks on ...........

10. The young pranksters wore ........... not to be recognised.

11. In the 1930s the holiday became dangerous because of ..................

12. What is Halloween's holiday greeting?

(The answers are in the "comments")

Present Perfect or Simple Past?

Dear NB2,

here's the link to the activity we did in class yesterday (you have to scroll down and see the video again). As I told you, this activity was designed by a Brazilian teacher who has a blog where you can practise grammar through movie fragments. It's a fun way of learning, don't you think?

Revision - Question formation

Dear NI2!
Here's some homework for the weekend!

Vocabulary - Dating and relationships

Hi there!
Here's a podcast from Culips (also in the links on the right) that teaches you more vocabulary about dating and relationships. 
Culips is an excellent source of "real English". You should listen to a different podcast every weekend. If you manage to do this, your vocabulary will be just stunning by the end of the course!

English Irregular Verbs

I posted this a couple of years ago, but I'm posting it again because it's useful for both NI2 (revision) and NB2 (revision and learning the participles well, now that we're studying the present perfect form). So here's a list of irregular verbs with the pronunciation of the three forms. Voilá!

You have six links within that page to access a good number of irregular verbs. 

"Have you ever..." questions

Hi NB2s!

Here's the complete handout we worked with the other day in class. Can you think of other "Have you ever..." questions you want to ask your classmates?

William Blake

There's an exhibition of William Blake's etchings and paintings at the Caixa Forum. My colleague Gabriel has organized a tour in English for 19th October which, in principle, is aimed at Advanced students. If you're interested, ask Gabriel if there are any vacancies. The visit will take place in the afternoon and is really worth doing.
Here's a video about the English poet and painter. Enjoy!

EOI Choir

Dear All,
if you enjoy singing, you might like this initiative ;-)

Organization and Student's Book NB2

This is the book we'll be using in NB2:

Innovations. Pre-Intermediate. Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley. Ed. Heinle. It comes with a Workbook with key.

Here's the objectives of the course you  asked for in the presentation. 
And here's a few organization sheets where you can find important information about our course. 

Organization NI2

Dear NI2,

here's the class organization sheets I told you about yesterday. 

And here's the objectives of the course

Student's Book NI2

This is the book we'll be using this academic year:

New English File. Upper-Intermediate. Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig. Oxford University Press. The pack comes with a Workbook with key, and a Grammar Checker.

We won't do the Workbook in class, but you're encouraged to do the exercises and correct them by yourselves. Any question related to the workbook exercises can be asked in class. As for the Grammar Checker, it'd be very convenient if you could revise the grammar on your own as well and ask whatever you don't understand in class. 

See you on Monday. Have a nice weekend!

Updating and relocating

Dear visitor, former students and imminent ones ;-),

I've deleted and relocated some of the entries in this blog, so apologies if you can't find what you're looking for...  All the entries under the label "NA1" went to one of the "All - ......" sections. In each of these sections you're going to find stuff of different levels. 

I hope to be able to find time and define the levels within each entry, but I cannot promise anything. Please remember that this blog is something I've been doing aside from my teaching hours and even aside from my class preparation hours. I thank those of you who, aware of this, have been grateful for the work done. 

My groups start on Wednesday (NI2 16:30) and Thursday (NB2 19:00). See you all in Room 12!