C1 Halloween Activity

Check how much you know about Halloween here. (Answers included)

EL PAÍS in English

Dear readers,

The town of Lewiston, Maine, joined the list of place names that will forever be associated with gun violence Wednesday when the deadliest massacre committed in the U.S. this year claimed the lives of at least 18 people. A manhunt was launched to capture the suspect, 40-year-old military reserve officer and shooting instructor Robert Card, who has a history of mental health problems.(...).

After three weeks of war between Israel and Hamas, the death toll among the civilian population in Gaza has risen to over 7,000, of whom over 2,300 are children, according to data released Tuesday by the Gazan Health Ministry. More minors have been killed since Israel launched a bombardment of the Strip in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack than in the previous 23 years of the Israel-Palestine conflict. EL PAÍS spoke to Palestinian journalist Mohamed Farra, who was covering a protest in the West Bank when he learned five members of his family had been killed in Gaza. “This is not a war. They are simply killing us,” he said.

Elsewhere, Acapulco was devastated by the category five Hurricane Otis, which struck the popular tourist resort after being upgraded from a tropical storm in just a few hours, catching authorities and meteorologists by surprise. (...) communications down, roads cut off, and food and water running low. (...).

‌And finally, EL PAÍS spoke to Kavita Singh, South Asia Director at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, which seeks affordable and easy-to-use treatments for the estimated one billion people worldwide suffering from any of these ailments. (...).

We hope you enjoy this selection of stories from EL PAIS USA Edition.

You can also read:

• Fitness, butts and Instagram stories: How exercise is sexualized on social media
• Climate change wreaks havoc in Cameroon
• Why multitasking is impossible
• The Spanish sneakers versus the Yankee giants: how Paredes or J’Hayber resisted the power of Nike and Adidas

Tips to improve your vocab

Read, Read, Read… and Listen. Read a variety of materials regularly, concentrate on reading material about specific themes or topics you are interested in to build targeted vocabulary. You can listen to podcasts or other audio content

Focus on Context. This enables you to grasp their precise meanings and usage nuances, making it easier to remember and apply them correctly.

Keep a Journal to record new words, their meanings, example sentences and any notes that may help these terms stick in your brain. Make sure to review this journal periodically to reinforce.

Affixes (prefixes and suffixes) Understanding affixes can help you figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words more effectively or at least give you a place to start. 

Use What You’ve Learnt The best way to truly retain new vocabulary terms is to use them and use them often (like every day)! Conversing with others exposes you to idiomatic expressions and colloquial phrases in natural communication. If you don’t have any way to practise new vocabulary with others, you can always write! 

(Read the whole document here!)

Lucy Bella Simkins  

Up to which extent do you agree with the statements above?

Would you add any other useful tip which worked well with you?

English Speaking Learning Methods

This is Jade Joddle's Speak Well method. Have a look at it and say which features you would add or use instead. Be ready to talk about the 6 points that would be essential in your method. You will have to talk about them for 3 minutes explaining your reasons.

Oral Mediation Activity

CONTEXT: Your British neighbour has just bought a puppy and saw this video on the net, which cannot understand fully. She asks you to explain to her what she has to do with her puppy as far as the new regulations are concerned. You don't know much about her previous knowledge of the law for animal welfare.

TASK: Send her a 2/3-min. audio providing her with the information she needs to know.

Phrases for Letter/Email Writing

You're more beautiful than you think (DOVE US)

Watch the video and use the phrases and vocabulary in your descriptions.

Halloween Contests

This week the Week of Fear begins in our EOI 👻. We propose a couple of contests for all departments: Scary Fun Food and Fun Pumpkins, whose bases to participate are here: Food and Pumpkins. Students who enter the contests can give their teacher their creations, which will be showed on the table for that purpose at the hall. 

The calendar with cultural activities for this quarter is also available on our website. 

EL PAÍS in English

Dear readers,

A humanitarian crisis is looming in Gaza as the UN, Egypt, Israel, and the United States attempt to seek an agreement on the opening of the Rafah border crossing to allow foreign aid to reach refugees in the southern Gaza strip displaced by the Israeli order to evacuate the north of the Palestinian enclave ahead of an expected ground offensive against Hamas militants. EL PAÍS visited the border near Rafah to speak to those trying to flee Gaza, and those who are resigned to remaining despite the dangers. “South or north… there is no difference. The Israeli bombings have the same intensity,” says Awad El Sousi, a Gazan with Spanish citizenship.

‌This week we also bring you a wide-ranging interview with philosopher John Gray, author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals and one of the most widely read political thinkers of recent decades. “Whatever happens in Ukraine, Europe has to understand that Russia is not a solvable problem,” he warns.

And finally, we also visited an archeological site in northern Spain to find out more about a remarkable discovery — the only example of a decorated Roman sandal ever uncovered in the country, deposited in the bottom of a well 2,000 years ago by an apparently well-heeled homeowner during a clean-up attempt.

We hope you enjoy this selection of stories from EL PAIS USA Edition.

You can also read:

• Cyborg chic: Welcome to the era of transhuman beauty
• Green spaces for everyone, everywhere
• Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ breaks box office records, grossing $124 million worldwide
• Tips to be a smart traveler: Wrinkle-free clothes and approved luggage locks

C1 & C2 Writing Contest

Have a look at this interesting contest we have borrowed from Dictionary.com. The deadline is over. But if you couldn't make it, you can enrol in our blog Halloween Writing Contest right now and write the beginning of a haunted house story in just 50 words.

Deadline for your 50-word writing: 27th Oct. Send it to the Comment section or email me; subject: Halloween Writing Contest.

Be original. Haunted house stories have been told for centuries. Your unique interpretation of “haunted” and “house” is what will make your opening stand out.

Establish an atmosphere. Your opening should set the scene and establish the atmosphere. Whether it’s spooky, funny, or outright horrifying, it needs to be vivid and memorable.
Make it captivating. You have to hook the reader right away. You’ve only got 50 words to introduce your story and draw the reader into its world, so make every word count!

Should you need inspiration, you can have a look at last year winners of the Sci-fi Horror contest by Dictionary.com.

Don’t get scared, be brave!

The winner will get a modest, but unforgettable prize!

Tips for Learning

• Don’t relearn / revise always the same way
• Learn in context (try to remember the context)
• Use mnemonic rules (mental associations)
• Learn what is necessary for you (info you will use)
• Incorporate Learning in your everyday activity

Up to which extent do you agree with the statements above?

Would you add any other useful tip which worked well with you?

43 Positive Words To Describe Someone

Find them here.

C1 Uses of USED TO/WOULD

Check this presentation. 

Thanks Asun

Scarce, Scant and Sparse vs Ample and Adequate

Ways of saying ‘not enough’

Other ways of saying ‘enough’

EL PAÍS in English

 Dear Readers,

"There are many ways to talk about what happened last Saturday, when Hamas began a terrorist attack against Israel that sparked a new war and led us to a world more broken than the broken world we already live in," writes our columnist Juan Gabriel Vásquez. He and other analysts offer us their view of the consequences of this fresh conflict in the Middle East.

This week we also bring you an interview with Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek former finance minister, who discusses why he thinks techno-feudalism has replaced capitalism as a form of oppression.

‌We also talked to actress Ester Expósito to see what she's been up to since the success of the Netflix teen series 'Elite.'

We hope you enjoy this selection of stories from EL PAIS USA Edition.

You can also read:

• Poet Louise Glück, Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2020, dies at 80
• Six tips on how to potty train your puppy
• What does the future of the planet look like through non-human eyes?
• ‘Dumbphones’ make a comeback: ‘No one calls me anymore’
• What does a child need to be happy from 0 to 3 years old?

Shadowing (English Speaking Practice)

 

Shadowing (pdf)

When shadowing, you repeat what someone is saying with as little delay as possible. It’s not “repeat after me”; it’s “speak along with me”

Rules for Better Health

Content and Function Words

Read this post. Absolutely essential to pronounce well and to be able to have a natural English rhythm in your speech.

C1 Appearance

 

Appearance & Quiz (pdf document)

Indigenous Peoples' Day

Learn about this American Celebration here.

EL PAÍS in English

Dear readers,

(...). Gate 36, on the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, has become a kind of lucky charm for hundreds of migrants seeking a new life in the USA. “We are like Rocky Balboa, the boxer in the movie, carrying a pain all day long,” one Venezuelan told EL PAÍS, after a two-month journey across nearly 10 countries. “I don’t know what will happen, but I’m sure I’ll be better off there than in my country.”

(...) Communication satellites, according to Morgan Stanley, are generating about $70 billion dollars a year, while observation satellites are pulling in nearly $10 billion. (...). Control of the Earth’s low orbit has sparked a race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, with the SpaceX owner aiming to extend his Starlink network to 42,000 satellites and the Amazon chief planning to provide Wi-Fi coverage through 3,236 satellites.

Elsewhere, the world of science has been rocked by another scandal after a Spanish university researcher and a group of colleagues were linked to a large-scale scheme to generate fraudulent scientific studies. A whistleblower claimed that an Indian scientist named Gunasekaran Manogaran was the mastermind of the scam, allegedly involving selling authorship of fake studies to researchers. (...) “We had absolutely no idea what this man was doing,” said González.

(...) According to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, “2023 is already shaping up to be the hottest year ever for the planet” (...). This “is not a rare or isolated case,” said the director of the agency, but “part of a generalized warming pattern of the climate” due to human activity.

We hope you enjoy this selection of articles from EL PAÍS USA Edition. Thanks for reading.

You can also read:

• Does your car collect your personal data?
• All or nothing to make it to El Hierro, the last European outpost for African refugees
• Taylor Swift has already sold $100 million in tickets to see ‘The Eras Tour’ in movie theaters
• This is what happens when you decide to sleep without underwear
• Reasons to regain technological optimism

World Smile Day

The first Friday of October is World Smile Day 😊

How to improve pronunciation

• Focus on phonemes.
• Search YouTube for tips from fellow learners.
• Try some tongue twisters.
• Learn new words with their pronunciations.
• Read aloud and record yourself.
• Listen to some podcasts.
• Speak slowly.
• Learn pronunciation rules.
• Spend more time talking to native speakers

Up to which extent do you agree with the statements above?

How would you rank both (the ones from the picture and the ones written above) in order of importance?

Would you add any other useful tip which worked well with you?

C2 Learn About “Mumpsimus” And Other Embarrassing Speech Blunders

If you’ve ever hit your bunny phone (and not your funny bone) or commented that “flying saucers are an optical conclusion,” you’ve obviously made a comical speech blunder. These types of slip-ups happen when letters get switched around in your mind and your mouth. Well, as the dictionary, we’re here to let you know even our lapses in locution have specific names. Is it a mondegreen when you mishear a song lyric or bungle an idiom? Why does your brother say escape goat instead of scapegoat?

Click HERE and get ready to correct the most popular speech blunders! (From dictionary.com) 

Theatre at the EOI!

We have a multilingual theatre project. Next Tuesday 10th we'll be having our first meeting in the library at 6:00 p.m. Your participation is highly appreciated. It's not just about appearing in the end-of-year play, the objective is to practise the languages we are teaching / you are learning at the school ​​in a relaxed way. Remember that the activities with the public will not be compulsory for those who don't wish to participate in them. 

Don't miss it!

Present Perfect

Do this short Present Perfect - Present Perfect Continuous Mini Test to check your command on both tenses.

C1 Grandparents' Day KEY

KEY Grandparents' Day

1 → 1 spend   2 telling   3 give   4 meal   5 originated               6 impact   7 raise   8 missed   9 signed   10 place

2 → 1 D   2 B   3 A

EL PAÍS in English

Dear readers,

This week we analyzed the circumstances behind the latest gruesome crime to hit Mexico, where seven youths were abducted from a ranch in the middle of the night by armed criminals operating in the state of Zacatecas. Six bodies have since been recovered, and the sole survivor is struggling for his life in a hospital.

Also this week, a court in Spain ended the probe into the death of John McAfee, who was found dead in a prison cell in Barcelona on June 23, 2021, a few days after learning that he was going to be extradited to the United States for tax fraud. Judges said all the evidence points to suicide, as was established at the time.

In other news, an oncology expert explains why cancer is like a coup staged by our own cells against our body, and the American writer Percival Everett discusses racism and how the system "sells dreams but causes nightmares."

We hope you enjoy this selection of articles from EL PAÍS USA Edition. Thanks for reading.

You can also read:

• Fentanyl, a global danger
• New York City area under state of emergency after storms flood subways and streets
• Intergenerational friendships have the power to enrich your life
• Listen to the 10 most influential Hispanic musicians in the US
• How many photos and applications do you have on your mobile? Tricks to end digital clutter

C1 Grandparents' Day

In the UK this day has been celebrated on the first Sunday in October since 2008. Do this activity to commemorate it! (Just 1 and 2)

KEY next Tuesday