Sunday, November 23, 2008
Friday: Spanish Scramble
This is great for vocabulary. It is easy to understand. And it's an interesting recipe to try. Listen to the video and write your comments, questions and RESULTS (lol) below!
Wednesday: Chew on This
Monday: Food Glorius Food
Please use the comments section once, twice or thrice (three times) to answer the following questions:
What do you enjoy eating? (= What do you like to eat?)
What do you know how to cook well?
Me? Well I like eating raw fruits and vegetables. I love eating salted nuts like almonds, peanuts, walnuts, hazel nuts (filberts), etc. Of course, I enjoy eating chocolate, too. I really don't cook anymore. I have a crockpot in my bedroom. So recently I have been cooking vegetable soup. But it isn't my specialty. I used to enjoy cooking "Egg in a Window" and I think I was pretty good at it.
Friday, November 21, 2008
FRIDAY: FIELD TRIPS, RELATIVES, & EVALUATIONS
Friday
You are invited to meet the teacher and any others who decide to participate, at the RCI of the Gomez Morin Centro Educativo y Cultural del Estado de Queretaro at 1pm for a 2 hour field trip on Saturday. She will be seated close to the front in fila 9 or fila 2 from 12:30 to 1:00pm. We will leave from the entrance of sala C segunda planta at 1pm to have casual conversation over the course of some real life activity e.g. grocery shopping, viewing an art exhibtion, having lunch, etc.
If you are afraid we will have nothing to talk about, lol, explore BBC Knowledge and let's talk about it! (at that link, choose whatever region you want and get a slant that pertains to that region).
Uh, oh...one more thing This is NOT optional homework. I really want you to do this. Write about at least one of your relatives (one of your family members) and post in the comment section of this blog post. You can use any tense and any vocabulary that you want to use. Please include the present simple (affirmative and negative) and the present progressive (affirmative and negative), some of the basic vocabulary (numbers, time, days of week, months of year, seasons, seasonal verbs, members of family and of life) and additional vocabulary from readings, audio, video and in and out of class conversations. Write what is true and what makes sense.
Oh, and please complete the evaluations and get them back to me!
WEDNESDAY: CALL ME!
Wednesday
You may call (44-23-22-36-25) or text message me anytime. However, for homework, you are encouraged to call the teacher anytime on Wednesday to talk about any topic you like. It is a great opportunity for freer practice of what you have been learning and what you are not sure about.
These are some recent comments:
I'll try to call you because I like this exercise.
When I said “SOMETIMES” I meant to the poor signal in our telephone conversation.
I cannot understand most of what you say on the phone.
I feel nervous and I can't say much. I just freeze. It is as if I have some block between me and English.
I don't understand. Hablame en espanol.
MONDAY: MAKE A COMMENT ON A BLOG
Monday
Your homework is to read and comment on a post on a blog that interests you. In the comment section below (on THIS blog post, on THIS blog), include a link to the post and the reason that you decided to comment. To find blogs of interest I use Google Blog Search. Try it and let us know what you find.
Here is a sample. I did a search for "protein sources for vegans".
Vegans are people who are vegetarians. The only thing is that in recent years, many people in the United States call themselves vegetarians BUT they eat fish and seafood, and/or fish, and/or chicken, and/or eggs, and/or milk and/or milk products....In other words, the word "vegetarian" has been so mis-used that another word, "vegan" is now in vogue. "Vegan" is a person that doesn't eat animals or animal products. Some vegans also refrain from using leather shoes or clothing. I did the Google Blog Search and what ranked highest on the day I did the search was a clip from the Do Life Right blog. I loved the name of the blog, afterall we have one chance in this body, let's do it right! The post was great and the resources where right up my alley. The only thing was that there was no opportunity to leave a comment below the post... so I tried something else...how about "life after 50"?
This is the gem that I found. Pippin (it starts like this: "Charlie maneuvered the backhoe skillfully, ..." And my comment is the tenth one.
FRIDAY: WRITE ABOUT A NOUN YOU FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT
Your homework is to post a comment on THIS post commenting on a noun (A noun is a person, place, thing, idea or event.) that you feel strongly about or that you find particularly interesting. It would be great to use some of what you have recently learned in your comment.
WEDNESDAY: FIND THE VIDEO & SING ALONG
Find a music video on You Tube. For fun, why not open up a You Tube account and then collect there the videos that you really like (favorites) and subscribe to contributors whose work you would like to follow. This is what my page looks like. I definitely need some music videos in my collection of favorites. Your homework is to search for a song by name and/or artist. Watch the video and comment (on You Tube) and send the teacher the link to the video after you have posted your comments. If you have time, find the lyrics online or copy them from the audio recording and sing along. (Sometimes the lyrics published online are not accurate.) Look up any words or phrases that you do not understand and/or send me an email.
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day.
Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me lateIs keeping me waiting
And I tell you how easy it is to be with you
And how right your arms feel around me.
Bit I rehearsed those words just late last night
When I was thinking about how right tonight might be.
Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late, keeping me waiting
And tomorrow we might not be together
I'm no prophet, I don't know nature's way
So I'll try to see into your eyes right now
And stay right here, 'cause these are the good old days.
MONDAY: LISTEN TO BBC's WORDS IN THE NEWS
Monday
The British Broadcasting Corporation has great website. I have personally used it to brush up on my Spanish, German and French! At the bottom of the homepage are links to other areas of interest including Learning English.
The Flatmates is a great way to read and listen to dialog for expanded vocabulary, comprehension practice and language or grammar points.
Your homework for today is to read and listen to the latest "Words in the News" or to read this older article Marriage Training in Saudi Arabia. Summarize it in one sentence what the article is about. Give your opinion. Use one or more words, phrases or grammar points recently learned, in class or elsewhere.