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...

Most EOI students are now very well acquainted with this new part of the exam that has come to stay:  Mediation . However, it seems to me that some of them are still struggling with it in light of the results of the mid-term exams that took place at school a couple of weeks ago.  As mediation is everywhere and plays a crucial role in our daily lives, have a look at some great tips beautifully given by teacher Mónica Redondo that might help you understand what mediation is. I have tried this presentation below with my C1 students in class and it achieved immediate success. Mónica explains mediation beautifully and the sample texts also helped students make up a clear idea of the task. I hope it greases the wheels for them to enhance a deeper understanding of mediation!

Have you ever wondered how to survive the C1 speaking test without killing yourself in the process? Not only can you survive, but you will also definitely succeed if you follow the steps in the presentation below. Top tips and tricks to do great and get your certificate... as easy as rolling off a log! 

Mediation seems to be a nightmare for most of my C1 students😱. Coming up with the right expressions to relay information or summarize ideas might sometimes become a daunting task😢. If mediating activities are difficult to accomplish for you, search no more! Here is a compilation of hopefully useful resources that I have gathered throughout the course for you to practise and succeed!💪💪

During our school lockdown, we have been expanding our knowledge on how to interpret statistics. As usual under the current circumstances, with the instructions in mind, we stayed safe at home carrying on with the hard work. It was about time for a new mediation task using a line graph on mass media consumption habits in the UK. We shared all our ideas on a google drive document and worked collaboratively to come up with our final versions. De-escalation-made written mediation activities. Where there is a will, there is a way!

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!

We have been working on strategies to come up with nice pieces of writing, mainly focusing on how to relay information from infographics. My C1 students have definitely been working hard to bring their compositions up to scratch. After also checking vocabulary on consumerism and shopping, here are their final summaries synthesizing the key aspects of the pie chart below. Measures to be taken to cut down on food waste is the next step. These summaries will be the starting point for the proposal pieces coming over! Stay tuned!

In the  mediation  tasks of the C1 exam, both oral and written, you might be asked to either give a short descriptive speech or write a short descriptive report based on visual information or data. This visual information will be most commonly presented as line and bar graphs , pie charts or tables . You will definitely be asked to describe and analyze the information provided by selecting and reporting its main features. In the presentation below, I will be focusing on some of the key factors to be considered when dealing with data analysis. First of all, you will learn how to look for the most obvious information to eventually find out what the numbers on a graph are referring to. Our final goal would be coming up with a structured piece of text on the data analysis, which you will also be able to find out by clicking on each of the graphs! Ready? Pull your socks up and go! This presentation is based on the writing activities in Unit 4 of New Language Lea...

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!

The C1speaking test in Galicia will definitely include a new task this year: Mediation . Students will have to mediate with each other and will be assessed according to their performance. But what does that exactly mean? They will be exposed to a text on a particular issue and will have to relay information and discuss the writer's attitude. Luckily, there are some useful expressions and collocations students can use to manage to pass on the information and convey the writer's message. This game below may help English students organize the chunks they can use to mediate effectively and pass the exam with flying colours!. Once the meaning is clear, just be ready to invoke the muses to inspire you during your exam!!