Under these lines you can read and revise every activity done in class during the school year 0708. All of them belong to  1st batxillerat students. I hope you enjoy them.

These are the words of the song we have heard in class recently. As you know, it was written and composed by Eric Clapton under very sad circumstances.

If you want to find out some more about this singer, here you are some links to his webpage and to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_in_heaven

http://www.ericclapton.com/As usual, you also have a link if you are interested in watching the video or singing the karaoke version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRsJlAJvOSMI hope you’ll enjoy it, and, if you like, post your opinions. Cheers!

By the way, Clapton wrote about his sadness and his son, if you had to sing a song, what would you sing about???

TEARS IN HEAVEN

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven

Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven
I’ll find my way, through night and day
Cause I know I just can’t stay
Here in heaven

Time can bring you down
Time can bend your knee
Time can break your heart
Have you begging please
Begging please

(instrumental)

Beyond the door
There’s peace I’m sure.
And I know there’ll be no more…
Tears in heaven

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven

Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven

Dear students,

this term we have begun our daily speaking bag activity… I must tell you that I am very glad of your reaction and your performance up to now. To avoid forgetting about your presentation, please, once you have done it in class, write a short summary on the blog, remind us all your three objects and the reason why they were important to you…

Thanks to all of you again and keep talking!….. in English!

You’re doing a great job!

Feel free to post your opinion about the film, a part from that, why don’t you try to think about the story and tell us what it is really about? Which are the main ideas or values reflected on the film? why?

thank you so much

Have you got any ideas or suggestions to improve our classes?

Is there any kind of activity or content that you would like to do in English class?

Here you may post any comment, impression, criticisim or suggestion which could help us all to learn and enjoy more our English sessions.

What would you like to do? Any ideas? What would you like to stop doing? Before you write your suggestions, rembember that if you are realistic, your suggestions will be taken into account more seriously, if you are too idealistic, your ideas may be very good, but difficult to apply. Anyway, feel free to post any comment!

I’m looking forward to reading your ideas!!!!!!!

As you may remember (look at the photo at the end if you don’t), we had a special activity on 1st February. We could hear and dance to the rythm of the music played by Ded Grandads.

We all could enjoy of the typical Appalachian music, some blues and other kinds of traditional American music.

If you want to have a look at their web or find out more about this group, click here… (you can have the information in English and Spanish)

http://thedifficulttimes.com/castellano/grandad.html

http://thedifficulttimes.com/english/grandad.html

I’d love to read your comments about that day… or tell me about the music you like.

See ya!

As we have worked in class, this song is not only a good way to celebrate that we are in love. It also hides a very special calendar, where many events and celebrations along the year are mentioned.

I’ll leave a link to the video, the lyrics and some information about Stevie Wonder. I hope you’ll enjoy it, post your comments about the song or the activity.

About Stevie Wonder (if you are really interested, visit his official website, for some extra information, look at the wikipedia entry)

http://www.steviewonder.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Wonder

If you want to watch Stevie Wonder singing live, click here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY45DkaP9Ls

If you prefer to read the song, there you are.

No new years’s day
To celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact heres just another ordinary day
No april rain
No flowers bloom
No wedding saturday within the month of june
But what it is
Is something true
Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

No summers high
No warm july
No harvest moon to light one tender august night
No autumn breeze
No falling leaves
No even time for birds to fly to southern skies
No libra sun
No halloween
No giving thanks to all the christmas joy you bring
But what it is
Though old so new
To fill your heart like no three words could ever do.

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

Of my heart
Of my heart

No more excuses!

If you feel you need more practise and revision, here you have a list of links that may help you. Besides, you have a general revision link on the side, where you can choose what you’d like to work on.

Modal verbs:

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/auxiliary-verbs/exercises

http://www.englishpage.com/modals/modalintro.html

http://www.wordpower.ws/grammar/gramex10.html

Passive voice

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/passive#exercises

http://www.smic.be/smic5022/passive1.htm

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/passiv.htm

Conditionals

http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/conditionalintro.html http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/conditional-sentences

Reported Speech

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/reported-speech

http://a4esl.org/q/h/9901/tm-reported1.html

Hi! recently we’ve been talking about British students taking a gap year before going to university.

Have you ever planned to do something similar? Would you like to? If you had the opportunity, what would you like to do or where would you like to go?

I’d love to read your comments, feel free to post them and share them with your peers!

By the way, if I had taken a gap year, I suppose I would have travelled to England and stayed there for a while and improve my English. Unfortunately, I only had the chance to do so in summer, but it was really worth it!

What about you? I’m looking forward to reading your comments!

At school we travelled from Babylon to Canterbury, from Boney M to Chaucer.

We surfed along the net to find out links between these two extremely different concepts.

To refresh your memories, I’ll tell you that we listened to the song By the rivers of Babylon, by Boney M and discovered that the lyrics are not really original, they come from King James’s Authorised Bible Version. We saw that it makes reference to the Promised Land and the Chosen People. We also read that this important book is the accepted one by the Church of England, we learnt that the head of Anglican Church is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In Canterbury Cathedral we met Thomas Becket and his bloody murder by some knights sent by king Henry. We researched some more and related his death with the pilgrimage tradition. Finally we got to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, based on the story of a group of pilgrims from London to Becket’s shrine. We ended our virtual tour reading some information about this book on the Wikipedia. We had finally found our reading for the term!

As you have a lot of information about this topic in another page, I’ll give you some links about the first part of the activity: Boney M’s lyrics and a link to a video.

To watch the video clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm1g8FFRArc

to watch the karaoke version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CnYWCWAeA

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.
When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
Now how shall we sing the lord’s song in a strange land

When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Requiering of us a song
Now how shall we sing the lord’s song in a strange land
Let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart

be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts
be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon)
there we sat down (You got to sing a song)
ye-eah we wept, (Sing a song of love)
when we r

emember Zion. (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)
By the rivers of Babylon (Rough bits of Babylon)
there we sat down (You hear the people cry)
ye-eah we wept, (They need that ???)
when we remember Zion. (Ooh, have the power)