30.8.18

Diigo


What is Diigo?

Diigo (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) is a tool that allows us to bookmark and tag web pages for future occasions. Besides, we can highlight part of the text from the webpages and write some sticky notes for specific webpages. These can be shared with other users that are signed up in Diigo" or sent for others via link.

My personal Diigo: https://www.diigo.com/user/soniachzh

Extra Activity: Create your own account with Diigo and make annotations in different documents or webpages. Then give the links to your own personal Diigo to see if you know how to use it.
Feel free to post the links below, in the comment section

28.8.18

Writing


1. In groups of four, write a review of a restaurant where you have eaten recently and would recommend to others.  Using the ICT tool of Google Docs (https://www.google.es/intl/es/docs/about/), and in groups of four students. Write about 30 words (each) and revise the lines written by the other members of the team. To know who the original author of the words is, choose and write a colour.

Use and follow the guidelines provided:

How to Write a Restaurant Review

The job of a food reviewer is to tell the taste, texture, smell, and presentation of a restaurant's food. You not only comment on the food but also on the atmosphere, staff knowledge, attentiveness, the speed of service and the general impression of the restaurant. A great food review allows the readers to decide whether or not they want to visit the restaurant when they're done reading your review.
This is how a review would be planned and then written:

1)    Open your review with a catchy sentence. The first sentence of the review should make people want to read more. Remember, you are giving them a reason to either spend their money at this restaurant or skip ahead to another one, but you're also trying to get them to read your writing.

2)    Describe 3-5 dishes that you sampled, not all of them. No one wants to read a laundry list of foods, so pick the foods that made the greatest impression on you (good or bad) and focus your writing on these dishes. You should try and talk about:

·         Presentation
·         Taste

3)  Use big, colourful adjectives when writing. Remember that, above all, you're selling the experience here, not just the food.

4)  Think about a restaurant's intentions, not just your personal preferences. A good food review is about helping other people find the restaurant, not just a platform to tell everyone your likes and dislikes. A good reviewer is as unbiased as possible, evaluating the restaurant as a whole. What kind of atmosphere are they going for here? Do they pull it off? How do your preferences match the restaurants?

5)      Write a mixture of pros and cons. Unless it is either the very best restaurant you've ever eaten at or the very worst, it is not fair to write a review that is either all good or all bad. Try and give your audience the complete picture.

6)   Make a recommendation. Ultimately, people want your advice on the food. What to order, what to skip, and what restaurants to go to depending on their mood.

7)   Fill in the essential details of the restaurant in the beginning or end of the review. This is where you put in the average cost of a meal, the reservations time, and the address. You could also add a rating, such 3 out of 4 stars, if you wanted.


Here you have some useful language for a review:
The thing I liked most was
I was pleasantly surprised by
If you get a chance to
I was disappointed by/with
owned by
head chef (restaurant)
waiters (restaurant)
reasonable prices
 (a bit/somehow) expensive
always fully booked
book in advance
I would definitely recommend seeing/visiting/reading/having a look at ...

REMEMBER: Describe the location, service and setting.


Use as much modals as possible.










27.8.18

How the food you eat affects your brain

Extension activity

Annotation:

  • Reputable source: TED-Ed
  • Engaging presentation
  • Adequate length
  • Maybe too complex, but a good way to have contact with other subjects such as Biology
  • Topic is well researched and has captions
Summary: The video describes how the food we eat have a long-lasting effect on our brain.

Watch it and answer the exercises below. Do not worry if it is too difficult or you do not understand every single word. 


"How the food you eat affects your brain" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyQY8a-ng6g) by Mia Nacamulli

Here, are some exercises: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-the-food-you-eat-affects-your-brain-mia-nacamulli#review 

25.8.18

Cooking verbs and food


  • Engaging image
  • Suitable images and vocabulary
  • Cooking verbs are complete
  • Lack of exercises I provide you with some.
"Cooking vocabulary in English" (https://www.flickr.com/photos/austinaronoff/18892579072) by attanatta used under CC BY 2.0


Here, you have the links to the glossaries and activities:


https://quizlet.com/214263153/healthy-food-in-english-diagram/





GRAMMAR MODALS


  • Tree diagram about modal verbs
  • Visual
  • The video has captions




Diagram made by me with Mindomo https://www.mindomo.com/es/mindmap/bf9e5e974bb54f0eb817a17280b1b3f3

24.8.18

Speaking

Look at the following image:

Created by me with PiktoChart


  • Do you follow a balanced diet?
  • Do you drink 2 litres of water a day? What about your classmates?
  • Is there anything you overeat?
  • Do you think is easy to follow a balanced diet? Why/why not?

Idioms with Food



The original image "Floris Van Dyck, Pièce de banquet" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Floris_Van_Dyck,_Pi%C3%A8ce_de_banquet.jpg#filelinks) by Thomas1313 and used under CC0 1.0 - Public Domain has been modified and edited with Thinglink


A piece of cake: This expression is used to say that something is very easy.

  • E.g: The English exam that we did on Monday was a piece of cake.


Take something with a pinch of salt: to not completely believe something that you are told, because you think it is unlikely to be true.

  • E.g: Sergio has to take everything you say with a pinch of salt, because you tend to exaggerate.
In a nutshell: something that you say when you are describing something using as few words as possible.


  • E.g.: That's the problem in a nutshell.
Spill the beans: to tell people secret information.

  • E.g.: Ok, I'll tell you my secret, but do not spill the beans under any circumstance.
Bread and butter: a job or activity that provides you with the money you need to live.

  • E.g.: Teaching is my bread and butter now.
Cup of tea: if something is not your cup of tea, it is not the type of thing you like.

  • E.g: Thanks for inviting me, but football isn't really my cup of tea.
Cry over spilled milk: To express regret about something that has already happened or cannot be changed.

  • E.g.: It's true that I could have answered the questions in the test in a different and better way, but there's no point in crying over spilled milk.

22.8.18

A matter of false friends

 FALSE FRIENDS: DESSERT VS. DESERT

REMEMBER: 

False friends are words that are similarly written in two languages, in this case, Spanish and English but that they mean something completely different in one of the languages.


The above image is a modified version of the image "John popcorn FAIL!" published on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/taestell/4342567080) by Travis Estell, which is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

DESSERT



Written as: dessert
Pronounced as: /dɪˈzɜːt/

"Berliner Luft"(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berliner_Luft.jpg) by SKopp is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Diferencia"(https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Diferencia.png) by Wil29 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

DESERT



Written as: desert
Pronounced as: /ˈdɛzət/

"Desert Morocco Sand Dune" (https://pixabay.com/es/desierto-marruecos-duna-de-arena-1270345/) by jpeter2 is licensed under CC0-Public Domain

BE CAREFUL WITH THE SPELLING!

Write four sentences (in the comment section) using dessert and desert and give some context to the sentence to see that they are used correctly.

7.8.18

INTRODUCTION. Getting to know each other.

Creating a Virtual Representation with Voki

1.- Go to the page: https://www.voki.com/ 

2.- Sign up and create your own customizable avatar.

3. - Think of 5 facts about yourself and record your own voice or write the information to turn the text into speech.

This is the example that I ellaborated for this blog.

Share yours in the comment section.

http://tinyurl.com/ybrzxfnd






Activity Multiple-Choice. Grammar. Modals.


Grammar presentation - Verb to be