The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend.

Burlington Books

This is an adaptation of the funny and entertaining novel by Sue Townsend, a British writer who knows and depicts very well the British society and institutions. Adrian Mole is one of her best known characters and has featured many of her novels. In this one, we learn to know him at the age of 13 and 3/4. It starts at the beginning of the year with his New Year Resolutions and a complicated family life.

I hope one of your New Year Resolutions is to read this short and funny book for your English class;  to get the most of it remember that you can download the mp3 recordings of the reading of the book at Burlington Books; you can also answer the questions at the end of the book and send here any comments or questions.

Happy New Year!!!!!

Gmail Motion

Today I am showing you the newest innovation by Gmail. They say that more than 80% of  communication is achieved through body languange and that sitting at a desk typing and moving the mouse is not a natural position for the human being; so, they have created Gmail Motion. This tool is able to interpret body movement as commands (orders). 

For instance: if you want to read a message, you have to do as if you were opening an envelope and this tool which obtains the image from a webcam will interpret it as your order. Watch the video, it explains it clearly. 

This is an impressive tool, but I do not know if it will be able to change our way of relating with machines, what do you think? Leave your comments and tell us!!!

Remember, if you like the post and/or the blog, click on the MacMillan badge (top right) and vote for Close your books, please, it only takes a minute!!!

Update 31st December 2012: Just in case you had not noticed, this is a joke, have  a look at the date: 28th December, is Saint Innocents' Day in Spain and we celebrate it by playing tricks on other people. I hope you   had fun!!!

Sergio Ramos, olé!!

I want to wish my students and all the people who read the blog a  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with  Sergio Ramos' video and I have some good reasons to do so. I know many people are laughing at it because his English is not perfect, but I want to highlight how brave and generous he is.

He wishes the Christmas to all the children of the Real Madrid Fundation school, he says:

"Hi, I hope you all had a good time playing football at the Real Madrid Fundation school. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"

He does it in a way that all the people can understand him. When we talked about the video in class, some students said that he should not have done it, that someone else should. I told them I did not agree, I think a language is to communicate with people and he achieves that, I always encourage my students to talk even though they do not do it perfectly, that is the only way to get better; as Einstein would say:

"It is not that I am so smart, it is just that I stay with problems longer"

I encourage you to keep trying and you will get better.
Merry Christmas and A happy new year!!!!

Love English Awards

MacMillan Dictionary Blog

I have been nominated as Best Blog at the Love English Awards at the MacMillan Dictionary Blog. This is a great honour and a very satisfying and rewarding moment for me. If you like the blog, I would like you to vote for it, it is very simple, you just have to click on the "vote" button next to where the name of the blog is.

I want to thank you in advance and also for reading the blog and making it what it is today. LOL

Merry Christmas from IES Tartessos

Oddcast

If you want to hear Santa Claus wishing you the best for your holidays in my name, click on Oddcast and you will hear him. You can also do your own interactive Christmas card at Chatty Santa.

I want to thank Aurora Jove because I found this web thanks to her wonderful blog Think in English.

How do you congratulate people for Christmas? Do you use e-cards? Which ones?

Practising English with Apps 2: Johny Grammar's Quiz

British Council

As I told you, I am going to show you another app . It is called Johny Grammar's Quiz. This is a very fun and entertaining app also designed by British Council. In this app, you can practice things we see in class in a very easy way. You have a menu subdivided into three:

1. Spelling quiz
2. Grammar quiz, and
3. Vocab quiz

In the spelling quiz, there are two stages: in the first one you say which word is correct; and in the second one, you have to point out the one that is wrong and rewrite it again correcting it. The grammar and vocabulary quizzes are divided into three different levels: easy, medium and hard. The grammar quiz has got four different cattegories depending on the level you choose, for instance modals or conjunctions (on the hardest level), infinitives or gerunds (medium level) and irregular verbs (easiest level). The vocabulary quiz has got ten different categories including phrasal verbs, idioms, food, small talk and so on.

You can practice for hours with this free app for Android. You can also enjoy yourself at the same time. Try it and tell us!! Please, those of you who downloaded the Wordshake app and are literally hooked on it, leave your comments so that your mates know it is true!!

Remember, if you like the blog or this post and think others will like it too, they will find it easier if you push the g+ bottom below or on top right. Thanks!!!

Practising English with Apps 1: Wordshake.

British Council

In a few days (just 5!!!), we will have much more free time. That is the reason why I am presenting  you this new serie of posts: Practising English with Apps.  In this serie, I am going to show you apps that I have come across and that I think are very good to practise English in a fun and entertaining way and/or apps that treat a specific issue, such as vocabulary, grammar...

I am starting today  with Wordshake, this is a free app that you can find at Google Play and it consists of building words of more than three letters with 6 or 9 random letters in a given time (1 or 3 minutes) depending on the level you choose. You get more points the longer the words are. This is a fun way to learn new vocabulary because when you finish, the app makes a list of the words you built but also of all the possibilities that you had, so you see many new words or revise many that you already know but did not have the time to see.

It is quite fun and takes so few time that you can play with it almost everywhere!!

Do download it!! Then, tell me, how many points did you get?

If you liked this post and/or the blog, please remember to g+ at the top right of the page so that more people get here!!! Thanks!!!