English Challenge: win a class trip to London!!!

What is Next Stop London 2010 all about?

With its 3 levels and all new questions, Next Stop London is back and even more thrilling than last year. Face the challenge now and try your hand at the questions about language, history and culture. Naturally, the prizes for Next Stop London 2010 are awesome – the winning class gets a trip to London for the whole class and the runners-up will win cool language tuition classes.

My students have to register in the following links:

4º ESO A

2º Bachillerato

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New Moon

The thousands of followers of the successful Twilight's saga are eager to see the premiere of the New Moon movie, the sequel to Twilight. The Release Date of New Moon is November 20, 2009, although in some countries, such as Spain, fans are luckier and will be able to see the film on November 18!!!

I am sure that most of the followers have already read Stephenie Meyer's New Moon, but although they know what happens in the film, they are looking forward to watching the film. The following counter tells you the remaining time for the official release date, November 20.

"Halo", Beyonce

Song lyrics | Halo lyrics

Sesame Street

Sesame Street is an American educational children's TV series. It's a pioneer of the contemporary educational television standard, which combines both education and entertainment. Sesame Street is well known for its Muppets, characters created by Jim Henson. It premiered on November 10, 1969, and is the longest running children's program on US television. Thus, today we commemorate the 40th birthday of this popular TV series.

As author Malcolm Gladwell has stated, "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them". Sesame Street uses a combination of animation, puppets, and live actors to stimulate young children's minds, improve their letter and word recognition, basic arithmetic, geometric forms, classification, simple problem solving, and socialization by showing children or people in their everyday lives.

Apart from the previously listed, further instructional goals have been basic life skills, such as how to cross the street safely, proper hygiene, healthy eating habits, and social skills; in addition, real-world situations are taught, such as death, divorce, pregnancy and birth, adoption, and even all of the human emotions such as happiness, love, anger, fear, sadness, and hatred.

This program is undoubtedly an example to follow, a guideline for producers to create less violent and more instructional series for children.

Happy 40th birthday, Sesame Street!!!

Source and more information: Wikipedia.

Here you can watch a video to learn the letter "B":

Gomaespuminglish XI

HALLOWEEN 2009

• Halloween games: Word Game, Spelloween, Transylmania II, Hangman
• Halloween recipes
• Halloween vocabulary
• Halloween quiz
• Halloween reading comprehension: Halloween, Jack O'Lantern
• Grammar: The London Dungeon

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!!!

The Nobel Prize

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace.

The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.

Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award. These prizes are commonly regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in any of these fields.

This year, Nobel Laureates in each of the fields are:

Physics:

- Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication".

- Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor".

Chemistry:

- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

Physiology or Medicine:

- Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase".

Literature:

- Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

Peace:

- Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

Prize in Economics:

- Elinor Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons" and Oliver E. Williamson "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm".


The website "Nobelprize.org" offers a wide variety of educational games based on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements. These games will teach and inspire you while you are having fun! If you want to play, click on this link.
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PAU (Selectividad) Tests and Activities

The following link contains many activities and tests related to PAU (Selectividad). I find them really helpful for you to practise and I hope you find them useful too.

http://www.isabelperez.com/select.htm

Welcome back to school!

Well, this comic strip shows some teenagers' feelings about the beginning of the new school year. I hope you have a very good start next Tuesday. Welcome back to school!
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Shepherd's Pie Recipe

Hello everybody! I'm back and ready to go on posting on English is all around!
I hope you've had a wonderful summer and you've recharged your batteries to start working again.

Today I want to tell you how to make Shepherd's Pie, one of the most traditional British dishes. Also known as Cottage Pie, it consists of a meat pie with a crust made from smashed potato and beef.


British:
How To Make Shepherd's Pie