Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is coming again!!! It's incredible how fast time goes by and maybe you have started thinking about what presents you would like to ask for to Santa. If you have been good pupils, I'm sure you'll get loads of extraordinary gifts. But we will reflect on that later.

Here you can listen to two children telling his dad what they want for Christmas. Check that you understand them by clicking on this link.

As this term is nearly over, let's review what you did.

Were you good pupils this term? Did you do your homework every day? Did you participate in your English class a lot or do you think you could have done more than you did? ;-) 

Leave your comments!!!

My Kind of Job

 Hi there,

At last, a new entry ... but this one is not like the rest of entries this academic year. This entry has been created by one of your classmates in 1NI, Erma. She has a unique job. Definitely, it's worth having a look at what she has to tell us about it.

"I have a rewarding job. I’m an international judge of Artistic Gymnastics for women. It’s a very nice and difficult job. I need to be concentrated on the gymnasts' performances for a lot of hours, I have to judge a lot of aspects and parameters in a very short amount of time, such as execution, style, difficulty of the exercise, balance, ... Although it's hard, I love it.

Balance Beam

There are several different judges in a competition. Difficulty panel judges that is formed by two judges; Execution panel formed by five judges and two Reference judges apart from Line and Time judges. The difficulty judges give the exercise value. The Execution judges give the penalization.

I have taken part in many international events as World Cups, European Championships and World Championships. I was in the World Championship, which took place in Antwerpen (Belgium) last October.

Here's a photo of our extraordinary Spanish gymnast, Roxana Popa. She got a really good position in her last championship.

Uneven Bars

In Antwerpen, we were around eighty judges, from all over the world, to judge three competitions; classification, all around and apparatus final. After a draw, I had to judge the vault exercise in all around competition as well as uneven bars in apparatus final.

Floor Exercise

 All judges must pass difficult exams after each Olympic Games so that they can maintain the category they have or get a better or worse category. They range from four to one categories. Only category one and two are allowed to judge in the Olympic Games. I am category two although I’ve never judged in the Olympic Games. I hope to be part of the next board of judges in the next Games which will be taking place in Rio de Janeiro in 2016."

Thanks a lot for this enlightening entry on the topic, Erma. We all want to wish you the best of luck and we really hope to hear from you in the next Olympic Games 2016. :-))

OK, dear pupils, it's your turn to join and participate in this entry with your comments. What do you think of Erma's job? Do you find it interesting? Have you ever stopped and thought of the role judges have in competitions? 

 

What's the Key on Thanksgiving?

What's the key for Thanksgiving dinner?

The tur-KEY!!!

I bet you know quite a lot of things and facts about Thanksgiving Day and its traditional dinner where the turkey and gravy sauce are the main guests. Family and friends gather and enjoy a big feast. Thanksgiving is usually the beginning of all the preparations for Christmas Day.

As we have pointed out above, the most important thing is to have a good turkey. Following a nineteenth-century tradition (although it seems not to be very clear), American people give the President some turkeys which are raised for the whole year until the day before Thanksgiving when the President must issue a pardon for one of the turkeys.

This year he had to decide on Caramel or Popcorn, the two turkeys.

This is what has been published about these two birds:

"Caramel is a steady and deliberate bird that enjoys soybean meal and rocking out to Lady Gaga," a statement on the White House blog said. "When Popcorn is feeling peckish, he can't stop snacking on his namesake, corn, and has been known to strut around to Beyonce's 'Halo.'"

Do you want to know which turkey has been pardoned? Click here and read to find out.

What do you think of this tradition? Do you think it's a good idea? What are you thankful for?

I'll be thankful for your comments. ;-)

Chitown

Today we had the pleasure of having an extraordinary visitor to our school. His name: Brian Engquist, whose origins are a mix and match of nationalities –Italian, Swedish, and American, although he has been greatly influenced by our Spanish culture as well.  His talk, a simple title: Chicago –My Kind of Town.

The first thing Brian taught us was how to pronounce the name of this mid-west city in the USA “Chicago” and that was not the only word he demonstrated how to utter. He started talking about the different nicknames this city has, such as Chitown, The Windy City, The City of the Big Shoulders, The Onion, … a city which flourished around small towns and prairies, mainly thanks to the nearness to Lake Michigan as well as The Chicago River and its two (North and South) branches, among other things.

Brian’s interesting talk went through its history and geography, its architecture, art, literature, music, famous people, food and even sports. Most of its contents were to some extent intertwined by a simple object: the flag of Chicago with its white and blue stripes and its red stars.

We have found out how this city, once completely destroyed by The Great Fire, rose from the ashes, becoming the Second City in the United States with an incredible skyline and breathtaking skyscrapers and buildings. He also showed us the connection between Chicago and Spain by means of architects such as Frank Gehry or Jaume Plensa, who has been awarded today with “Premio Velázquez 2013” or an artist as Picasso and his Untitled sculpture that serves as meeting point there, Downtown.

For an hour or so, Brian Engquist, to our delight, had injected us the pleasure of visiting an endless-film-depicted city. And it would be a good destination for our next holiday, wouldn’t it?

Well, as I don’t want to make this entry too long, just tell you that I’ve enjoyed it a lot and so have you. Thanks for your participation and congrats to those who got your prize for answering the quiz questions correctly. I’m sure you don’t regret having attended school this evening.

A group of pupils during the talk

And more than anything else, no ketchup on your hot dogs. ;-)

Blood is thicker than water

The title of this entry is a saying in English "Blood is thicker than water". It means that family relationships are more important than any other types of relationships in life. Do you agree? I partly do.

Family will not deceive you and it's obvious you can count on them, at least most of the times. ;) I do not have a very big extended family but we get on well together. I know my mother's side of the family much better than my father's. However, I would have liked to have much more information about my ancestors or been able to draw my family tree to my great-great grandparents.

What about you? Where did your ancestors come from? Did you ever meet your great-grandparents?


Click here if you want to practise your listening skills. You'll hear about Randall's family history, particularly about his grandmother, Ana María Cavazos.

How was it? Easy or difficult for you?

And finally, if you want to sing and dance with this anthem from the seventies, here's the song we have sung in first intermediate classes.

It's Friday

At last it's Friday or maybe we could say TGIF (Thanks God It's Friday)  as one of your classmates in 1NI taught us a couple of weeks ago. ;)

When I got up this morning, I found out that one of my friends was a bit down so to cheer her up, I whatsapped her a link with a song (which I had previously been sent in the same situation last month) and it really worked. So, just to get you all in the mood of Friday and although we have class this afternoon/evening, listen to this song,  Friday I'm In Love by the British band The Cure.

By the way, you can practise the pronunciation of the Days of the Week. ;)) Hope you like it!!!

Guy Fawkes

Every fifth of November is celebrated Guy Fawkes' Night. English people commemorate the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1605, Guy Fawkes and some of his fellows tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament but ... what for? 

If you want to find out more about this plot and the festival, watch this video.

Did you understand? Had you heard about this festival before? I really hope you had enjoyed yourselves and learnt a little bit!!!