Exalumna en Japón

Silvia Sancho, former student at our school and with a Fine Arts degree, is doing an interesting project in Japan which involves transmitting Galician legends to Japanese people through Manga.

Link to Silvia's Youtube channel

2nd bach. Students should have this clear.

This is a writing which includes many of the grammar items that drive you crazy.  

We started the course revising all the grammar you have been learning and practising since you started studying English some 12 years ago, which is quite a long time.  From how to express what you are like or what you have, to what you do everyday or you are doing at the moment. Also what you did or have done or been doing, as well, which belongs to ESO contents. 

Furthermore, when we   want to express something we want to or will do in the future, we agreed that we would say 'I'm going to share my sandwich with you', when you have thought of doing it before; however, we say 'we are sharing our sandwich', when you have arranged or planned to do that – there is no big difference between both tenses in this case.  On the other hand, if we decide to do something just while we are speaking to someone, we use will: 'It's hot in here', says the teacher, and the polite student offers: “I'll open the window''.  When we are speaking about something we think will happen in the future, we use will as well: 'When I'm 25, I will be living in my own house'.

We must also use the present simple with future meaning, when we are speaking about timetables: 'Lessons start at 9 on Monday' or 'the London train leaves at 7'45'.

  We also revised how to express both something that we will be doing at a certain time in the future and that someone will have done by a certain time in the future, that is, before that time: 'By the end of May we will have finished the course' means that we will do it before the end, not precisely on the 31^st.  Then we are looking forward to going on holiday, because we can't stand studying any more, although we are aware of the fact that we will have to study for ten more days or so until we have finished selectividad. 

English verbs are pretty simple. After explaining the present and future, let's go on with the past:

In spite of the fact that all past events obviously happen in the past, we have to take into account the relationship of the different events among them:  On the one hand, if an event is related to the present, we call it present perfect; therefore, you must say:  'I have studied at this school for nearly six years', or even more if you have failed and repeated a course; whereas a student who is not at school any longer, will say: 'I studied here for 6 years', because he finished last year, or one year ago, and hasn't been at this school for several months or years.  And when we are speaking about the past, we can either speak about what we were doing at a certain moment: 'I was reading a book at 9 yesterday', or what you did at a certain moment: 'I saw a film yesterday afternoon'.  What's more, you can combine both tenses when a short action interrupted a long one: 'Peter was having a shower when his girlfriend went into the bathroom', and neither of them must have been surprised, as they used to live together, until they fell apart and split up not long ago. 

Morover, when there are two past actions and one is previous to the other, we use the past perfect- the past of the past.  ‘Despite the fact that he had promised to do it, when Mary arrived home, her husband hadn't made dinner yet', so Mary must have been quite annoyed, as she might have been very hungry. 

We also studied the modals, some months ago, and you should have learned that if you must or have to do something, it is your obligation; and when you can or are able to play the piano, you know how to do it.  You must or have to go to school on schooldays, but you needn’t or don’t have to bring your English tasks on the days you do not have English lessons.  However, you might/may need an umbrella if it is cloudy when you leave home, because it may/might rain.  And you should study every day if you do not want to be overstressed when the exams come, and if the results are not good you will tell yourself: ‘I should have started revising earlier, and my results would have been better’.  Although you may not agree with the grade the teacher has given you because you think you can’t have done so badly in the exam, as you had revised quite well for it.  But, in spite of revising quite a lot, you could have had a bad day due to exhaustion by accumulation of tests. 

Sometimes you would like to be allowed to use the dictionary in English tests, because you do not remember some important words.

The passive showed us that in English, when we do not have a subject, we usually say that the house was built a century ago, and I was given a new mobile for my birthday is much more used than a new mobile was given to me.  I have been taught Latin this year, not they taught me Latin.  And also that, when you do not do something yourself, you have it done by someone: You can paint the house yourself or have it painted by the painters.

It is two months for the end of the course, and it is time to settle the knowledge you have acquired for a long time, you should be revising all the works you have done until now, realise what your mistakes are and try not to repeat them, apart from revising the items you are aware you do not manage well enough. 

The final thing will be to get the right technique to do tests: find the main ideas, express them clearly- careful with word order- practise transformations, even though they are basically grammar, and organise ideas and express them in a simple and clear way in the composition.  And do things in a thoughtful way, texts cannot be memorised, they have to be understood, summarised, commented, etc.. it is a practical question, so any practise will do, be it reading, listening to 6 minute English to get ideas, or writing compositions.

After so many English courses, it can’t be so difficult.   

Arts and Letters Corner

Here are some of the works presented by the students of Arts and Letters Bach.  I hope some time during the course, we will be able to listen to the presentations and even watch some.  It is a quite new experience and the most students need time to get confidence and get used to a somewhat new experience, at least the way it is being carried out. 
It sounds to me quite curious that they are able to expose their whole life in photos in the social networks, whereas find it difficult to present a piece of work.  It is a question of habit and fashion.  It will take some time, but I would rather do it when it gets natural, than force people to do something they feel unconfident about, which seens quite unnatural after 12 years studying English.  Maybe we should question our methods.

Barroque

Plato

Science Corner

These are links to presentations on the lives and achievements of some important scientists presented to the whole class by the students of 2ºBach.A and B.

Alan Turing and The Enigma Machine

Jane Goodall

Marie Curie

Rosalind Frankin

Sophie Germain

Teaching Methods: Blackboard or Slides

Differences between  Blackboard and Maximalist slides. (comment on teaching course material)

There is a surprising difference between the percentage of students in favour of the blackboard in the first and second surveys.  The survey doesn’t seem to have been carried out on the same group of students- different number- and not the same subject or teacher.  While I was reading the advantages and disadvantages of each device, I was imagining my students, and the way I explain, and realizing that everything depends very much on the way the teacher displays the concepts on the blackboard or the slide; whether the rhythm is suitable for the students; whether practical use of the concepts is introduced gradually, after each concept or group of concepts, or after explaining the whole content of a unit, etc.  It also depends on the students’ attitude.

I usually introduce “bits of grammar”, which I call grammar squares- as I tell them to copy them in the notebook, surrounded by a square- when they have problems to understand or put into practice a concept.  We practise it immediately- normally I introduce it in the middle of a practice, when they have problems- and the result is that only a small percentage of them remember that it is in their notebook.

As for the philosophy "the teacher works, the student works":

-It seems too obvious that it is the only successful way:

-Why doesn’t it happen?  Nice question:  what are the students supposed to do to succeed in a particular subject?  If the answer is : “pass an exam”, we already have a problem.  The goal is the exam, the learning process is not important for them, so the lesson is not important, only the exam.  And when they miss a substantial part of the process, they are missing a substantial part of the learning.  Practice is basic; maybe it is the only effective way of learning, and we have students who have been mostly taught that exams are the only compulsory obstacle to be overcome, anything else seems to be redundant.

Arturo Neira.

Partner wannas (poem) Violence against Women 2015

PARTNER WANNAS

I wanna share my life

with someone who wants to share mine.

I wanna share my life

With someone who respects who I am,

I wanna share my life

With someone who shares my ambitions,

My longings and goals, my propositions.

I wanna share my life

With someone who wants to love and be loved;

Who wants to be helped and help,

To give when needed, and be given when in need.

Someone who wants my support and is able to offer theirs,

Any  other thing wouldn’t be nice or fair.

Controlling what I do doesn’t mean love,

but rather lack of confidence and mistrust,

a sense of possession which I will have not.

I will keep my friends, my fashion and my personality,

If somebody cannot accept this, they didn’t fall in love with me,

they imagined me different or intended to change my reality.

And if they do not accept me the way I am,

they will try to adapt me to their likings,

as if I were their property, instead of their companion.

And when a property does not meet your interests,

you must try hard to transform it into your fashion,

by beating the real me into the me you request.

And right here, if my me hasn't already been devastated,

I’d rather escape to safer circumstances

or I’m quite likely to end up in the grave.

Arturo Neira.

1st Bachirellato News

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When Spaniards were the refugees