HAVE FUN WITH ENGLISH C1

Hi, everyone! Welcome to another post on my English teaching adventures! Today, I'm excited to share an activity about understanding cultural nuances in the English language classroom. This idea sprang from a particularly inspiring experience I enjoyed a few weeks ago: the " II Jornadas de Escuelas Amigas " at EOI La Carolina, where I participated in many interesting workshops. These were not only enlightening but also deeply encouraging. So, I just can't wait to tell you! The workshops underscored the importance of motivating students and designing attractive activities... and here I am:  brimming with the new ideas I discovered then and eager to implement them in my classroom. Thanks to Cristina Cabal, Carolina Sáez, Olga Peláez, Marisa Rodríguez, Javi Rico and Ana Pérez for their inspiring sessions! I wish I had had the opportunity to attend many more! In fact, the activity I'm about to describe is a direct result of the inspiration I drew from Cristina’s metho...

 As you all know, I have been keeping my C1 blog up and running for a couple of years now. However, it is getting harder and harder to update it! My responsibilities as a head of studies at school, my blended level course, and the training sessions I keep on doing... are just getting in the way all the time! So, here I am! Trying to find out some time to tell you all about my latest idea, which I got the inspiration for from delpupitrealasestrellas.com .  The game is called " Vocal a la fuga " in Spanish. That is why I called it " The runaway vowel ". I simply loved the image of vowels flying all over our classroom! I intend to use this activity as a retrieval practice game for my C1.1 blended students to recall vocabulary from the first module in their course, where they have been learning personality adjectives. As most of them were revised at home, I found it very convenient and necessary to retrieve some in class.  Just follow the instructions on the card below ...

OMG! Time does fly! It has been ages since I last posted on my C1 blog. I have been as busy as a bee and had no time at all to devote to my facet as an amateur blogger. My apologies, everyone! Nothing can be done now but just... mend my ways! So, here comes a new update!💪 Going back to the grind in class after a holiday break (we have just enjoyed our Easter week!) has always proved to be challenging. Unfortunately enough, most students have got into the mood of getting away from their learning😉. That is why setting up the right class atmosphere on the very first session after the holiday is always on my top-priority list. No wonder some retrieval practice will do the trick!  So, I entered my classroom with a very positive mindset, determined to grab my students' attention and kick-start the lesson with a retrieval quiz. I designed it on @genially_es (I simply love it for quizzes!) to recall some of the expressions regarding fast fashion and social responsibility we had been work...

If there is a game that has gone viral that is Wordle . Its increasing popularity may lie in the fact that it has proved to be both simple and engaging at the same time, together with the fact that it also offers the possibility to challenge others! And you all know ours is a competitive world! We are always up for a challenge, aren't we? That is why I have decided to follow suit and confront my students with a tailored-made Wordle game that will definitely help them learn some interesting strategies to acquire new vocabulary. Who knows? They might get hooked and start playing the real game itself! Fingers crossed, hopefully in English! Here is the presentation I have designed to motivate them and get the right class atmosphere before playing five different challenges. I hope this does the trick and gets them involved! If it also inspires other teachers, I would have killed two birds with one stone!  Finally, all the credit should go to  @SlidesManiaSM ! I wouldn't have manage...

We have all been there staring at a blank page or a computer screen ready to plan our next class unable to think about how to come up with an idea to wrap up a unit that is about to finish. I usually tend to finish most of them up with a range of activities that consolidate knowledge from previous lessons. So, now that I am ready to complete Module 2 with my C1.1 Blended English Course I have just decided to conclude with a couple of fun class games. Here is how they go! I will start by getting students to recap all the things we have studied in the Module : education expressions, attitudes to ageing, benefits of having children, life stages, idioms related to age, syllabic consonants, conditional sentences,... You name it! Students will be given a certain amount of time to work with the person sitting next to them to shout out as many items as they remember, trying to get the highest number. Do not forget to keep a record of each team´s answers on the board! As soon as winners are ...

Most language teachers and students know that the Common European Framework of Reference has mapped languages to different levels. Wherever we are in the globe, standard levels have been set so that language learning is based on what speakers can do at each particular stage. That is, we know exactly what each learner can do at each specific level, no matter what language they might be learning. How about that? At school this year, my students are meant to be able to accomplish a wide variety of complex tasks effectively as they are already facing the advanced level. However, how effective do they think they might be? Have they joined the right course? As C1 is divided into two different stages, what can they do at each one of them?  As it is customary at this time of the year, I have just come up with a quick test to find out whether they have enrolled in the right course. Off to a running start! Let us see how it goes!

 👋 Dear school community! Welcome back to a new school year at  EOI Pontevedra . I am so looking forward to welcoming you all back to our friendly school! Above all, our newcomers: our blended English course students! You deserve a special mention this year as you are going to take part in a new promising experience. A new academic year is here and I have been working hard to get everything ready to meet you all! This year will certainly be strikingly different. Even so, motivation and hard work will be basic and will definitely have a significant impact on class performance. Again, my main priority as a teacher will be striving for a class atmosphere that fosters self-reliance, self-confidence, and a love of learning. I know I have made up my mind on a highly ambitious goal but promise to fight tooth and nail to stick to it! I hope this new course suits your needs as C1 English learners. Let´s roll out the red carpet and set the new course in motion. Here is our first challe...

Now that we are about to finish Unit 2 , I would like you all to have a look at the wonderful pieces of writing my C1 students have submitted regarding the environmental impact of the travel industry. The instructions for the task were crystal-clear this time: First, students had to open the link below and do the necessary thinking before they started the writing process: How to write a problem-solution essay Then, they were also asked to include at least:  2 of the environment collocations they have learned in Unit 2. 2 of the comment adverbs we had previously discussed in Unit 1. 2 of the degree adverbs we had also discussed in Unit 1. 2 of the linking expressions on one of the photocopies we had worked in class.  As for the result, judge for yourselves!

It is that time of the year again and I have been racking my brains for an idea to welcome my students on their first day at school. In a flash of sheer inspiration, I just came up with this activity after recalling a video published by @esBritish  in January last year.  The start of a new year might be the perfect opportunity to set new learning goals and help students become more conscious about their learning chances. Let's give it a try! I will kick off by presenting this slide  to play the video a couple of times and, fingers crossed🤞, it will hopefully spark some interesting discussion. Students will be able to complete the first two questions by getting ideas from the video and some more debate will also come up regarding the last question on the slide. If everything goes as planned, some interesting learning tips will turn up! Once students are in the mood, I won't let this great opportunity pass by! They will have to take on some strong long-term commitment to t...

Hi everyone! We have been working hard in class on how to dress for success. Students have been gathering ideas about the most distinctive personality figures that successful leaders share. Collecting their answers using mentimeter.com has really come in handy. Answers having been submitted, we had the opportunity of spotting some mistakes and discussing a few synonyms in class. Good job, guys!  These are some of the things that came out during the lesson:  the right spelling is " tenacious " Notice that persevering  or persistent  are also equivalents for perseverant Communicative is the right adjective for "communicate"  An  all-rounder  is the best option for someone of great versatility or wide-ranging skills . Students tend to confuse that with well-rounded , an adjective that we use for someone that shows a wide range of experience in different areas . Mentimeter can be a great vocabulary booster, don't you agree?

We have kicked off our C1 course outlining the most crucial skills a C1 student must master. We went on discussing whether students in the class were supposed to have those abilities . This having been proved, I encouraged students to take a final step: how about actually needing to apply for a legitimate place at this school? Would they genuinely be the right candidates for the position? Are they sure they meet the requirements? With that idea in mind, I posted an ad calling for the inspiring C1 students I have always dreamed of. I asked students in my class to apply for the position, stating the reasons why they were eligible to a seat in this exceptional C1 team.  I have collected all their application letters in the online magazine below. And guess what? I believe they are just the best candidates ever! Lucky me!

As most language learners and teachers know, all our languages are mapped to CEFR ( Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ) levels, which means that wherever we are in the world, we have standard levels in common for learning a new language.  CEFR levels are based on CAN-DOs that describe what speakers can do at a particular stage of their learning process. So, we know exactly what we can undertake at each specific level, whichever language we might be learning. Isn't that cool?  At C1 , you are supposed to be able to accomplish a wide variety of complex tasks effectively. Yet, how effective do you think you are? Have you enrolled in the right course? What exactly can you do at this stage of your learning? Let's find out! 

Just a few days before our school was locked down, we had been working on how to write opinion essays. You can find all the info my students had at the very end of Unit 5 . With the instructions in mind, we had to stay safe at home the week after and many more weeks were to come. However, nothing has stopped my students from keeping hard work up. They carried on with the work, from the peace and quiet of their own houses. We shared all their essays on a google drive document and worked collaboratively to come up with their final versions. Using an infographic, as required in the C1 standardized exam, we started with a mediation activity that gave way to all the opinion essays. Here you can have a look at the samples. Quarantine-made opinion essays. Where there is a will, there is a way!

I hope you have all had a look at the mediation tasks on the food waste effect that I published a few days ago. They were the starting point for the proposal samples that are now coming up. Read them through and have a look at how to organize proposals in an effective way. Proposals always describe a situation (in this case, the situation is that the wholesaler company that you work for is wasting a lot of food) and try to persuade the reader to make the necessary changes to get over it (in this case, the main goal is to reduce food waste). As you can see in the samples below, you should use headings, and have an intro and a conclusion. I hope all these tasks help you out!

Hi everybody, As you all know, schools have been locked down. Most of us are now confined at home trying to cope with everyday routine and sticking to healthy regular habits. Experts argue a healthy lifestyle will helps us meet the challenge. I am hopeful that this period finishes as soon as possible so that we can meet each other in person again soon. Meanwhile, let's keep up the good work online as long as the coronavirus crisis lasts. Main goal: virtual learning! So, here is my little contribution to your quarantine as we need to keep our minds busy. Classes will relatively go on, as usual, following this plan: Every day there should be a class I will be sending you a lesson plan, with exercises and tools to implement revision on the units we have been teaching. You should follow the instructions, open the links, do the activities and complete the final task that you have to send after every class. All lesson plans will also be posted here . There is no doubt that y...

DESCRIBING VISUAL INFORMATION: HOW TO SAY NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES In the new mediation tasks of the C1 exam - both oral and written ones - you might be asked to give a short descriptive speech (oral mediation) or write a short descriptive report (written mediation) based on visual information or data. This visual information is most commonly presented as line and bar graphs , pie charts or tables . You might be asked to describe and analyse the information provided by selecting and reporting the main features. In the presentation below, based on a didactic unit by New Language Leader Advanced , I will be discussing some of the key factors students will need to consider when dealing with such a task. First of all, they will learn how to look for the most obvious information: what are the numbers on the graph referring to? Then, by learning to say proportions and percentages, they will eventually end up passing on the information in the graph! Isn't it magic!? Fingers ...

The next time you must write a formal paper or give a formal speech, make sure you have the correct style guide to use. Some oral or written exam tasks will have my C1 students say or write proportions and percentages correctly. A percentage is a number expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the percent sign (%) or the abbreviation pct . As they are often used to express a proportionate part of a total, they are common in graphics, statistics and data images. Are you ready to say these proportions in English? Notice the link on more info at the end of the game with more useful exercises to practise!

We have just had our first 2020 class! and I couldn't miss the opportunity to kick off the new year with some inspiring activities which were mainly aimed at language resolutions for 2020. To shake things up a bit, we started with the top 20 English idioms for the new year , according to Purland training, a great site for both English teachers and students alike. Do not hesitate to check it out! After working with the vocabulary, it was high time to put the idioms into practice with a listening activity, courtesy of @natalialzam , which confirms the fact that picking unrealistic goals as New Year's Resolutions is impractical and, in most cases, insensible at all! No matter how optimistic your resolutions might be, just strive to stick to them because... no pain, no gain!

I told you! Genially is totally addictive! To bring Unit 2 together I have just designed an alphabetical game to revise vocabulary on urban issues. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did in class. 

Now that we are about to finish the unit, I have asked my students to make a list of those words that are a bit demanding for them in terms of pronunciation. Ready to face the challenge? Figure out how to pronounce the words below first and then get ready to click on each of them to come up with its accurate meaning and flawless pronunciation! Good luck!