WRITING ASSIGNMENT

WRITING AN EMAIL: MAKING ARRANGEMENTS

Write an email to a friend of yours who has invited you to a concert. Explain why you can’t go to the concert and suggest a different time and place to meet.

Length: 120 words

Deadline: February 21^st  

TED TALKS

Dear students,

What did you think about the 30-day challenges we discussed in class? Did you consider trying them after reading the text about Matt Cutts? He certainly found them really useful to make his life move forward.  Would you like to listen to him telling you about them and how they enriched his life? Here’s a link to his talk about 30-day challenges.

Matt’s talk is one of the many interesting and inspiring talks you can watch on TED talks website.  TED TALKS are relatively short videos from some of the most engaging speakers around the world. They cover an endless range of topics. They started as a conference about Technology, Entertaiment and Design (TED) but now you can find a talk about almost any subject under the sun.

They can be specially useful for students of English as you can watch them with subtitles. There are more than a thousand talks so you will always find one interesting for you. TED talks are a great way to learn English while you learn something new about another topic.

As you will find so many to choose from, it might be a good idea to start by watching the most popular ones. You can find them on this playlist.

You will also find other playlists (collections of related talks) sorted by topic on the TED website. Choose a subject you are interested in and get inspired!

CERTIFICATE EXAM SAMPLES

Dear students,

As you know, our mock exam is just around the corner (from Wednesday 10th to Wednesday 17th of February), so I guess some of you have already started to revise and you're wondering what the exam will be like.

If that is the case with you, have a look at this website, where you'll find two past exams to practice and you might get an idea of the kind of exam you'll be taking.

Anyway, I'll also explain the exam parts and procedure in detail next week in the class, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

I hope it helps

FALSE FRIENDS: CAREER VS. DEGREE

Do you know what 'career' means?

I hope those of you who have attended the lessons lately will already be able to answer this question correctly. As you know, career refers to 'the job or jobs that someone has in a particular area of work' not to someone's university studies.

Spanish students often misunderstand this word as they tend to translate it as a similar Spanish word. However, career and carrera are what we call 'false friends', two words that look or sound similar but have different meanings.

If you want to know more about false friends you must check out the following blog. Amanda will teach you about them in a fun way in her blog. Explore it and have fun while learning.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND WELCOME BACK!

Did you have a good Christmas? I hope you really enjoyed your holidays.

Have you made any New Year resolutions? I’m sure you have included “I’m going to learn more English” on your list. So I guess it’s about time to get down to work if you want to keep your resolution.  ;)

Here’s a little reminder of the reading assignment for this month, just in case you forgot over the holidays. I know how absorbing Christmas celebrations are…

On January 27^th we will be holding a class discussion of the books you all have read (Remember the book they should be fiction and have at least level A2, pre-intermediate or lower-intermediate).

You will present the book you chose to a small group of your classmates. You will need to complete a worksheet with notes about the book to help you in your presentation. If you still don’t have the worksheet, ask me for one. I will collect the worksheets you have completed after the discussion.

I hope you found the book you chose interesting and you are excited to share it with your classmates. If you didn’t enjoy it, though, don’t be afraid to be critical, we all would like to know your real opinion. Your classmates will find your recommendations very useful for the next reading assignment.

Keep posted!