Second writing

I was nicely surprised to see all the creativity in your stories.
I hope you enjoyed writing them as much as we enjoyed listening to them in class.
This week assignment
The next type of story you need to write is " Eyewitness account"
Check in the writer´s model bank, (link given above)
Follow the strategies and structure and suggested there.
Please bring your story and copies for everyone.

To give you some ideas on how a simple event in your life can turn into an interesting account worth to be told , check the Reader's Digest section called "Life's like That" where readers can write about their own anecdotes.

Life's Like That (Reader's Digest)
(In categories, select Life's Like That. Then enjoy reading).

Now you can choose three stories and retell them.
To have more practise on tense sequence, click on the links below and do the activities. All of them are related to narrative tenses.

Activity 1 (Narrative Tenses)
Activity 1 KEY
Activity 2
Activity 3
Activity 4
Activity 5
Although or despite


Activities for our next session on Monday October 13th. W e will

• read another chapter from the novel ,
• begin listening to your stories and
  
• listen to some of the anecdotes you read n the Reader´s magazine site.

Important news

International Studies
The application for a very attractive program has just come out.
Check the link to see it , you might be interested.
http://www.mx.uwc.org/

Welcome advanced English group

I hope the activities in this course are fun, engaging and help you develop your language skills.
We will have 2 types of activities for this first part of the school year .
Writing and speaking
We will also create products to describe who we are and share this information with some other groups around the world.

For the writing tasks we will use the following web site
Model bank
http://go.hrw.com/eolang/modbank/

Read the model for
Autobiographical incident and prepare your own story for next class session.
You will take turns to read it outloud.
Type it in a word document (in a computer of course), print it and bring 10 copies so we can all follow your reading.

Take pictures of your school because we will describe it with images and audio using a tool called Voicethread.
Bring your pictures in a usb port.

The links to the sister classes project is:
http://esleflstudents.edublogs.org/

We will subscribe and publish our projects here. Check it out.
Well, that all for this week.

Discussing strategies for speaking

Hi
The games we have played in our class sessions seem to have been fun. But now we will concrentate on speaking discussing the strategies needed to improve our speaking skills.

For next Monday listen to episode 3 Better speaking.
1.Go to the webpage by clicking on the link below.
2. Look for episode 3
3. Download the audio file into your cell phone.
4. Listen to it as many times as you can. There is no script
5.Takes notes and be ready to retell and discuss the information in class.

Episode 3 Better speaking

Back to work!

Dear students,

Monday January 7th, will be our first session this year .
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time. We have a new year ahead of us hopefully with lots of interesting challenges.
To begin our session we are going to talk about our holidays.
Did you go somewhere? Did you visit any relatives? Did you help prepare Christmas and New Year´s eve dinner? Do you have any plans and resolutions for this new year? Were there any special achievements for 2007 you would like to share with us?
Listen to these guys talking about their New Year´s resolutions and make a brief recording (2 or 3 minutes) telling me about yours.
Deadline Januray 14th.

New Year's resolutions

Our second activity will be reading and discussion about some world news. And finally we will make teams and play
Wordmaster

I need to have your grades ready by the end of this month.
This is an overview of the projects and their weight in the scores for this terms.
All Saints day (text and pictures 2 points, audio2 points )
New Year´s resolutions (audio 2 points)
Creation of a children´s story (audio 2 points)
Class attendance and participation ( 2 points)


I wish you a wonderful year 2008 full of achievements.

"Dia de Muertos" and "Thanksgiving" projects

Dear students,
It is now time to create our next TWO projects

Project 1. "Día de Muertos" (All Saints Day)
for November 12th
These are the tools you can use to report to the world the celebration of November 1rst and second we just had here in Mexico.

• If you have pictures, you can create a powerpoint presentation with pictures and text and upload it to your blog using slideshare

• If you have a videoclip you can upload it and share it in your blog using

springdoo or flixn

• For your audio you will use evoca The idea is that you will report to the audience the celebration that you captured in images (moving images or still pictures).
  

Remember to give your name at the beginning of the presentation and the purpose .
Some phrases you might find useful are:
Hi this is you host (hostess)____(your name)__
In this episode I will (tell you about.../talk about a traditional celebration in Mexico... )


Project 2. Thanksgiving questionnaire
There is an important celebration coming soon in the USA. It is Thanksgiving. Learn about it by reading information on a web site and answering a questionnaire.
Web site :
The First Thanksgiving
Copy and paste in a word document the questionnaire below.
Answer it using the information form the web site indicated above and print it.
Take it to our face to face session on November 26th.

Fact or Myth?
Read each sentence below. Circle T if the sentence is true. Circle F if it is false.
T F 1. The harvest celebration of 1621 lasted for 2 weeks.
T F 2. The Wampanoag people and the colonists were very
good friends at the time of the harvest celebration.
T F 3. At the first harvest celebration, there were more
Wampanoag people than there were colonists.
T F 4. The Wampanoag people and the colonists held a
harvest celebration each year.

The Evidence
Circle the word(s) that best completes each statement below.
5. A letter written by _____ serves as evidence that the harvest
celebration of 1621 really happened.
William Bradford/ Miles Standish/Edward Winslow
6. When colonists wrote letters or journals, they often used the letter
_____ in place of the letter s in their writing.
c/ f /z
7. At the harvest celebration in 1621, Massasoit, the leader of the
Wampanoag people, presented _____ deer to the colonists.
two/ five /eight

The Wampanoag People
Circle the word(s) that best completes each statement below.
8. The homes of the Wampanoag people were covered with _____.
bark/ branches/straw
9. The Wampanoag celebrated the new year each _____.
winter / spring / fall
10. To help crops grow, the Wampanog used _____ as fertilizer.
cow droppings/ bullrush / fish
11. In winter, the Wampanoag moved deep into the woods to ____.
hunt /get away from ocean winds/ find wood

The English Colonists
Read each sentence below. Circle T if the sentence is true. Circle F if it is false.
T F 12. At the time of the 1621 harvest celebration, the colonists lived in a village of three houses.
T F 13. The English colonists were familiar with a game called football.
T F 14. Colonists celebrated Christmas in the winter of 1621.
T F 15. Some of the native Wampanog people spoke English.
T F 16. Most colonists took a bath each Saturday night.
T F 17. Apple pie was served at the first harvest celebration.

The Path to 1621
Circle the word(s) that best completes each statement below.
18. When the Wampanoag saw the colonists sail into Plimoth, it
was the very first time the native people had ever seen _____.
a ship /strangers/ women and children
19. Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader, believed that signing a treaty
with the colonists would help the Wampanoag _____.
protect themselves from enemies/ learn to fish /learn about God

“First Thanksgiving” Glossary
On each line, write the letter of the meaning that matches the word. All of the words can be found
in the glossaries of the You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving Web site.
_____ 20. pitching the bar / a. a white linen cap worn by girls
_____ 21. bullrush / b. to practice shooting
_____ 22. coif /c. not hungry
_____ 23. mishoon/ d. hunting for birds
_____ 24. pottage / e. a game in which players threw logs
_____ 25. wetu / f. the results of hard work
_____ 26. tumpline / g. a dugout boat used for travel
_____ 27. far from want / h. a tall plant that grows in swamps
_____ 28. exercise arms / i. a belt made of plant fiber
_____ 29. fowling / j. a house of the Wampanoag
_____ 30. fruit of labors / k. a thick stew

Have fun, next Monday November 12th, we will meet in the lACE room and share the first project.

Latest activities

Last session we listened to a grammar podcast from the BBC about how to give suggestions.
I hope you can take a look at the site and check if there are any other topics that you might find useful or interesting.

For homework you need to

1. select your favorite song from MSM tunes . Make sure you know how to pronounce it as you will be asked to read it aloud and explain the content.
2. Write your script for the audio recording about "All Saints day"
   

On Monday 12th we will put together your presentation on "Dia de Muertos" in which you become reporters and tell the world about this celebration.
Your report will include a videoclip or using Springdoo or Flixn for the videoclip and evoca for the audio.
Please bring your script to class so we can read it and make sure it is well organized.
Have fun