Pancakes

Hi there!

Today is Tuesday, February 28th and
we will celebrate Pancake Day Today!

In Britain, people eat pancakes on this day. In some towns there are pancake races. People run through the streets holding frying pans with pancakes. Each runner throws the pancake into the air and catches it in the pan.

Do you know that...?

• another name for pancake Day is Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday.
• The world record for the biggest pancake is 15 metres in diameter and weighing 2.980 kilos

Easy pancake recipe

How to make perfect pancakes 

(video guide)

Happy Carnival!

It's Carnival time ;D

Here you have my sweety and favourite tea bags!

Below them you have some vocabulary for this time of the year.

Enjoy Carnival time!

Carnival

Plickers

Plickers is an interactive tool that engages everyone in a flash. What I like most about it is that, although you can compare with kahoot platform, plickers do not use devices, it uses cards, an individual card per student. This fact allows the teacher to use the tool with different ages. Pdf cards can be downloaded from plickers.com.

I use plickers for checking learnings in my students. The pic below correponds to the presentation at the UPF last week.

This is a quick tutorial on how to get plickers working in the class.

Interactive prepositions

Hi there!
This is a very simple picture to remember the prepositions of place. 
Once you have understood them, tap on the pic and try the interactive activity.

Hangman

Look up and smile ;D

This weekend has been very special for me. Personally, it was an honor to participate in the APAC convention but I have been happier for being part of the audience of some awesome speakers. 

One of those was Emma Reynolds, who introduced the audience into the paradox of mindfulness and provided teachers with some skills to deliver simple practices in the classroom. She finished her presentation with this picture and I loved it. I feel that I am one of them.

Thanks to you all !

When I started to work 30 years ago, I didn't seem to understand the potential of technologies, but nowadays I think that they are changing the way of learning. If you are a teacher don't be afraid of them. It is never to late to teach ourselves about digital resources and new technologies. And as technology continues to advance, there are and there will be new media sites that we will use in the future but the ones I talked about in my presentation and in my new blog are awesome: 

they are free, easy to use them and motivational for students. 

So, let's take advantage of them!

Here you have some pics from my presentation at the UPF. 

Thanks to you all, but specially to Jim and Alícia A.

An interactive publication for APAC

Hi there,

I will use this interactive magazine to introduce the top ten digital resources for English Teachers. 
Hope to see you at the UPF!

Top ten digital resources

A new site to share with teachers. 

I designed it for my presentation at UPF tomorrow in the evening.

Last updated on February 16th, 2017

You are invited!

Hi teachers,

the English Teachers' team invites you all to the first opened session in 2017. This event will be on March 13th at CRP  (Mare de Déu de les Aigües, 35 Sabadell). If you want to come, send a mail to a8904081@xtec.cat. We count on you all !

What are you up next weekend?

Dear coleagues, I am pleased to invite you to the APAC convention next weekend. 

Click on the pic and you will read the presentation of the ins and outs of our ever-changing profession.

Riddles

A riddle is a description or a question with a hidden answer.

Students love guessing and language games.

Personally, I use them in my lessons because students have fun and they reinforce writing and reading.

Riddles are going to engage children in a flash.

However, I show some models to students before they start to write their own.

These are good examples:

I have streets but no pavement,

I have cities but no buildings,

I have forests but no trees,

I have rivers but no water.

What am I? 

I have a neck but not head,

two arms but not hands.

What am I? 

(Answers at the bottom of this post)

After that, try to introduce engaging topics to children or the ones they are working in the classroom. Here you have two examples. 

A useful tool!

Hi everyone! 
This post is about a magic tool to help you in your lessons. 
Decide your own ones and surprise your students.

Learning Pyramid

After analysing the pic above, it is clear that, as foreign language teachers, we must train our students on all integrated skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, plus the sociocultural aspects of the target language. It seems that the best way of working is around the newest education theories, where teacher-centered classes and memorizing activities are being totally discredited, where only project-based activities are being proposed, that is, learning by doing. 

Illustrating a chant

Hi there!

This is an activity that children love.

It consists of giving a chant to students and they have to understand and illustrate it, by choosing pictures and making a movie maker. So, this activity should be done by the oldest pupils and then, the teacher can use the video for illustrating the activity to the youngest kids. The example today is "Mosquitoes bite", a chant about some animals and their most important actions. 
By the way, thanks a lot to those students who wanted to record the chant and to make the movie. 

APAC 2017 at Pompeu Fabra University

Hi there,

 Apac convention will be celebrated on February 16th, 17th and 18th.

My presentation will be on Friday 17th at 7:15 p.m.

Tap on the pic below to look at the APAC pre-programme.

Story time

The post Today is specially for
 1st and kindergarten families and teachers!

Your children will love the story that Bill Martin wrote  and Eric Carle drew some time ago. 

You can listen to it while you're watching the animals in the story. 
The rhythmic tone of this wonderful story is fantastic for working phonetics.

I hope you enjoy this activity!

 Share your children's learnings!

Extra! You can visit The Official Eric Carle Web site here!

Groundhog Day

There's an important legend in Catalonia about "la Candelera" (February 2nd). It's celebrated just in the half winter and people say that "Si la Candelera plora, l´hivern és fora; si la Candelera riu, el fred és viu". So, this legend is about weather.

In Pennsylvania there's another one about marmots or groundhogs. It says that an early spring is on its way if you don't see this animal's shadow, but it's six more weeks of winter if you Do see.

Whatever the weather predicts, families will surely dig these adorable Groundhog Cupcakes. 

By the way, if you are a teacher, maybe you are interested in web. You will find some information to work this special day with your students.