Inés workshop of English

The sign of four

2015-02-02T09:23:00.002+00:00

The sign of four in YouTube.
What is the story about? A young lady named Mary Morstan comes to consult Holmes upon a case which she assures him is very unusual. Miss Morstan’s father disappeared some years ago under suspicious circumstances. He had obtained twelve months leave from his Indian regiment and sent word to her to meet him at his hotel. The hotel confirmed that he was staying there, but they informed Miss Morstan that he had gone out and not returned. A few years after this disappearance an advertisement appeared in a paper asking for Miss Morstan to reveal her address. Upon the advice of her employer she did so and that same day she received a valuable pearl in the post. Since then she has received one pearl a year for the last six years. Miss Morstan has now received a letter which urges her to meet with the sender that night. The anonymous sender permits her to bring two friends as long as they are not police.

The Rajáh's diamond

2015-02-01T12:28:00.000+00:00

Image source

The Rajáh's Diamond is the short story that R.L.Stevenson wrote and you are reading now.
Rajáh is the short form of Maharajah, that is an Indian prince.
here you have the story, you can read it and many others from the Internet archive, this is a digital library that gives you free access to lots of books, audio files and videos.

Enjoy exploring the library.

Merry Christmas!!

2014-12-16T11:16:00.001+00:00

Christmas time is here again, listen to musicians from different countries and with different ways to understand music, singing along a Christmas song. Playing for change tries to change the world through the power of music.
Click for the best Christmas songs that you have ever heard.
And the 50 best Christmas songs by the Guardian.
Fairytale of New York by the Pogues was voted the British favourite Christmas song.
Or maybe you prefer hip hop so watch Daniel Radcliffe version of the Blackalicious' tongue-twisting rap "Alphabet Aerobics."

Enjoy your holidays and have a great Christmas time.

Watch TV and learn English

2014-12-11T16:19:00.002+00:00

Click on the image and follow the link.

The Internet is full of websites that can help you to learn English, many of them with videos that can be interesting and great fun at the same time.
Here you have some links:
BBC Learning English a classic website. Also in YouTube .

Ted Talks Listen to some of the world’s most inspired thinkers and feel free to discuss and debate these ideas with some other people. If you do not understand, don't panic! they are subtitled in diferent languages (Of course, English too) and there is a transcription of all talks.

British Council another classic website.
Learn English and feel good is a website where you can watch a video and do some comprehension exercises.

Simple English videos explore the different levels.
ESL video songs and documentaries with quizzes.

And if you want to review your grammar, try one of the English Grammar Games by Woodward English.

Babe a polite sheepdog

2014-12-05T19:01:00.001+00:00

Babe is a nice pig who wants to become the perfect sheepdog, you can see that it is hard for Babe to lead the sheep, and the success comes when Babe moves the sheep with no force but politeness.

A request is asking another people to do something, if you do not want to be a rude person when you talk in English, you must try to be nice and polite when you make a request.

Here you have some nice ways to ask your friend to do something:

Can you Will you Could you	pass me the dictionary, please?
would you mind	helping me with my luggage ?

Click to listen to some examples by the BBC.
You usually use a modal verb to make a request: check the video by the British Council.
Watch this talk by Matt Cutts called "try something new for 30 days".
It is one of Ted's talks.

Would you like to try a new activity for the next 30 days?

The English alphabet

2014-11-27T09:21:00.001+00:00

Image Source

Where do letters come from? Follow the link to learn about the origin of the English Alphabet.

Learn about its history here or go here.
How do they sound? check here, or here if you prefer.
And the phonetic symbols for English. Remeber that Phonetics is the study of sounds. Here there is a wonderful website by Cambridge English..
Or transcribe your text into phonetics here.
And some tips about pronunciation by the BBC.
Some of you think that learning English is boring, watch the video by Mister Duncanand get some fun.

Sarah,Cynthia Sylvia Stout

2014-11-22T10:05:00.000+00:00

A nice piece of poetry for the weekend by Shel Silverstein.

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout -
She wouldn't take the garbage out
She'd wash the dishes and scrub the pans
And cook the yams and spice the hams
But though her parents would scream and shout
She wouldn't take the garbage out
So it piled up to the ceiling:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings
Brown bananas, rotten peas
Lumps of sour cottage cheese
Filled the can and covered the floor
And crapped the windows and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones
And drippy ends of ice-cream cones
Pizza crusts and withered greens
Soggy beans and tangerines
Peach pips, prune pips, orange peel
Glumpy globs of cold oatmeal
Crusts of black burnt buttered toast
Grisly bits of beefy roast
The garbage rolled on down the hall
It raised the roof and broke the wall
With greasy napkins, cookie crumbs
Globs of gluey bubble gum
Cellophane from old balloni
Rubbery blubbery macaroni
Peanut butter caked and dried
Cuts of green and mouldy pie
Rotten melon skins and mustard
Egg shells mixed with lemon custard
Cold French fries, rancid meat
Yellow lumps of (ugh!) cream of wheat
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky
And none of her friends would come to play
And all the neighbours moved away
Finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said
O.k. - I'll take the garbage out
But then, of course it was too late
The garbage reached across the state
From New York to the Golden Gate
And there in the garbage she did hate
Poor Sarah met an awful fate
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late
So, children, remember Sarah Stout -
And always take the garbage out
If you want to know the meaning of any word a dictionary.

The London Underground

2014-11-18T19:00:00.001+00:00

The best means of transport to move along a large city is the underground, or better the tube as it is it known in London, Subway is the word used by New Yorkers.
London tube was the first underground public transport in the whole word.

London transport system is efficient and safe, it is also the cheapest way to move in that large city (although prices are going to rise next year). The first tube line goes as back as 1.850, and around this means of transport a lot of stories and legends habe been created.
Here you have some of them:
Have you ever heard about the London underground own mosquito species? I am sure that you have not, so follow the link to learn about it.
You should know that as the tube is so old (1800s) and so many changes have taken place in London since then, some old stations are now out of use. The number of stations today working is 270.
150 facts for 150 years of London tube by The Independent.
Ghosts in the tube? follow the link to know.
Or a werewolf...?

And if you go to London, do not forget to buy your Oyster card even if your stay is going to be short, because using it you will save a lot of time and money .

Present Perfect

2014-11-14T07:44:00.000+00:00

Image source: click on the above picture

We use this tense to talk about actions that started in the past and they are still going on or with actions that have some influence in the present.

Exercises , more exercises here.

And you know that this tense is usually accompanied of already, just, or yet.

Exercises using: already, just, still and yet (by Auto-English).
British Council explains the meaningof the above words.

Would you dare to take the BBC challenge?
For or since?

Parkour

2014-11-11T18:55:00.003+00:00

What is Parkour? follow the link to the Parkourpedia, or explore the freerunning website.
Watch the video by the BBC learning English "Words in the News".
Now you are ready for the following video:

And learn how it works.
Explore the Parkour organization in the UK.
If you want to try, take care, we do not have nine lives like cats!.

Trick or treat? Halloween!

2014-10-25T11:07:00.000+01:00

Trick or treat time is here again, watch the Halloween video above or try the word search if you feel like:

<a href='http://www.wordsearchmaker.net/wordsearchplayer.aspx?puzzleid=22a6f44b-eb0f-4ba0-928d-5e0299df9b04'>Free Word Search Puzzles</a>

Happy Halloween is a guide (made by the Junta of Castilla y León).
Some games here.
British Council has got some games for the youngest and for teens, too.

Enjoy your frightening Halloween!

United Kingdom's birthday

2014-10-23T10:14:00.001+01:00

Click on thepicture to go to the image source

On the above picture you can see the only image we have today of the Scottish Parliament in a working session. On October the 23rd 1707 the first Parliament of modern UK meets for the first time. Before that there were the Scottisth and English Parliaments which were independent from each other. But when both Parliaments signed the Act of the Union The modern British parliament was born and the UK too.

"Articles of Union 1707" by Parliament of England
The story of how this Act was signed, is like a thriller, and in that thriller, the today well-known writer Daniel Defoe had a main role to play, because he worked as a spy for the English Crown in Edimburgh.
Defoe had had a troublesome life, sentenced to pillory :

Image source

and jailed, he finally agreed to spy for England and so he was released from prison. Defoe main job as a secret agent was to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence in the Treaty.
"A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind", he reported after a violent demonstration against the Treaty .

A world at school

2014-10-19T19:04:00.000+01:00

Click on the map to visit the website

Click on the above map and learn how many children can not go to school all over the world.
A world at school wants every child in school and they want it because "Every child has the right to go to school, without danger or discrimination."
Watch the video and click here if you want to sign the petition.

Click if you want to watch some more videos.
Or follow this link if you want to read some news.
Because nothing changes without pressure.

Friends and phrasal verbs

2014-10-15T18:26:00.000+01:00

A Phrasal Verb is a phrase that consists of a verb with a preposition or adverb or both, the meaning of which is different from the meaning of its separate parts.Definition source:Cambridge dictionary online.
break down ( verb and adverb) or break in (verb and preposition) are examples of phrasal verbs.

Some Phrasal verbs can be transitive because they can take a direct object:

Some of them are separable, that means that you can separate the verb and the preposition but you must separate them when using a pronoun:
They pulled the house down and built a new one or they pulled down the house and built a new one.

They put the meeting off or they put off the meeting.
I paid you back.
You can see the direct objects above in bold face letters.

Some Phrasal verbs are intransitive, because they can never take a direct object so you can never separate them.
They got up early.
Now enjoy the video:

Words, words, words

2014-10-13T16:42:00.002+01:00

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

Wittgenstein


Click on the above picture to go to the game

Macmillan English Dictionary is a great dictionary online with a website worth to be explored. Above you have the game about irregular verbs, take care because it can be quite addictive, as the one on phrasal verbs.

I am sure that you want to explore the Lexipedia, give it a try and have fun.

Click on the above picture and follow the link

The visual dictionary above is a fun way to learn new vocabulary although it is not the best option for beginners.

Youngest students will prefer the photographic dictionary.

Click here to visit the dictionary with easy definitions that you can understand.

And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to ...

2014-10-11T11:13:00.000+01:00

Source

Congratulations to you both!!
Malala Yousafzi and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
source

Malala is a 17 year old well known education activist, she is from Pakistan but lives in Birgmingham, UK. She is the youngest person to be awarded this Prize and has become a spokenperson for girls' right to education.

Kailash Satyarthi is Indian and a human rights activist, and he has dedicated a great effort to fight against child slavery,he has rescued more than 80,000 children from exploitative labour in the past three decades, and he has done it deffending a human right, never as a charitable cause. He believes that child labour is the cause of poverty and starvation, no the consequence:

“I was unable to digest the fact that some people were born to work, while fortunate ones like me were able to go to school and pursue our dreams,” Satyarthi said yesterday, wearing a brown kurta, a flowing shirt worn over pajamas.
“It is a myth poverty causes child labor and poverty, but it is a proven fact that child labor causes poverty, child labor perpetuates poverty and child labor perpetuates illiteracy.” source

Click if you want to know more about him.

Did you know..? Check some facts about the Nobel Prize.

Phrasal Verbs

2014-10-03T12:09:00.001+01:00

Phrasal verbs usually consist of two words: verb and adverb or preposition, they are widely used in spoken English, so you should start using them, the web can help you (this is the good news!) here you have some webs to explore:
British Council web: Explanation and exercises.
Separable phrasal verbs.
Dave's ESL cafe: with definitions and examples.
Macmillan dictionary has got a game.
Matching game (easy!).
Phrasal verbs: ESL Quiz.

Surfing for fun

2014-10-01T18:58:00.003+01:00

Watch the news on Channel 1
or learn about celebrities gossip and news clicking here.
If you are interested in science, this is your website.
And explore this one to know about sports in the USA.
Just for fun.

Some useful (and free) Android Apps for Learners of English

2014-09-28T18:27:00.000+01:00

If you have got a tablet or an Android phone, I'm sure that you have downloaded lots of apps with games, that's great, but there are also some apps that can help you to learn English, and here you have some of them:

Click and explore the website

Listen and learn English, download this app. and you will be able to change the playback speed to listen to it faster or slower.

Click and follow the link

British Council App. for the yougest students of English.

Download the above one if you want to test your level

Phrasal verbs

Dictionary of phrasal verbs, learn their meaning and use.

Listen to the news

2014-09-25T14:37:00.002+01:00

Listening to the BBC has never been easier than now, Click here if you like sports you will find videos and articles about your favourite team. Or explore the BBC radio.
A different link here.
If you prefer different accents:
Down under:New Zealand radio.
NPR: National Public Radio.
CNN video news.

Happy surfing!

A video for the weekend

2014-09-19T18:50:00.001+01:00

Enjoy your weekend!

Be polite!

2014-09-17T19:26:00.001+01:00

“Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners can cost you your reputation”

― B.D.Hawkey

Click on the above image to follow the link

Being polite means being aware of and respecting the feelings of other people. It is usually difficult to be polite in a language different from your own, and that is because when you speak a foreign language you are stepping in another culture, with a different way to behave in society. If you do not want to be rude in English, and (I am sure you don't)just follow the above link and learn how to be polite.
or watch the video:

Engvid has posted a test about the video if you want to try.

Scotland referendum

2014-09-16T22:54:00.001+01:00

Scotland has been in the UK for more than three hundred years by now but next Thursday 18 of September a referendum will take place there.
The single question in this referendum will be :"Should Scotland be an independent country?" voters can only answer "yes" or "no".
But what do the opinion polls suggest? if you want to know just check this link.
Learn how to vote in a polling station. (switch the sound on).
Some fun facts about Scotland.
A Wordsearch on Scotland

and a video:

Did you know that the UK is one of the three countries in the world that do not have a written constitution? Can you guess which are the other two?
they are New Zealand and Israel.
Enjoy!

See you in the classroom!

2014-09-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

Hello, here we are again!
Ready to meet your old and new schoolmates? this brand new course is going to be a great adventure: new teachers and subjects, lots of summer stories to share with friends, I am sure that you are looking forward to start school!
Let me give you a a tip: don't skip tour breakfast, because...
- You need food to burn calories.
- You need breakfast to meet you daily nutritional needs.
- It will help you to keep fit and healty.
Click if you want to know more about breakfast.
Click here if you want to try a quiz.

Learn about the 50 best breakfast in the world.

Or watch the video:

Smile your breakfast:

Have a great breakfast!

Holidays

2014-06-30T19:56:00.003+01:00

If you look up holiday, in the Oxford learners dictionary you will see the following definition: Holiday, (also plural): a period of time when you are not at work or school.
So school has finished and you do not need to get up early. That's great!
I am sure that you will have a lot of time to do all things you can see in the wordle above (and more!).
I have been surfing the web and found some webs for your summer-lazy afternoons:

Music games, get fun with music.

FC songs: Football clubs from around the world songs.

National Geographic kids: a web to explore if you love animals and nature.

17 Bookstores you need to see (if you enjoy reading).

Audibooks for free, just in caase you prefer listening than reading.

Science for kids.

Wildside: It is a popular BBC show in which animals are dubbed with human voices (really funny!).

It is in YouTube too.

Have a great summer.
See you in September.