HOUSES HOUSES HOUSES ( unit 7B)

These days we've been looking at the second conditional and the vocabulary of  Homes and Houses...
Visit these links for further practice ...

Do some

LISTENING

Practice on

2nd CONDITIONAL

Revise vocabulary

HOUSES

Now...
Watch,  listen, enjoy this old song ;-)

Lyrics to the song 'Our House' HERE


Have a nice weekend.

Listening on EDUCATION

HI THERE! 
TODAY I AM GIVING YOU THREE POSTS (3)

• This one on LISTENING. 
• Next one is the powerpoint presentation seen in class and further practice on LET,  BE ALLOWED, MAKE . 
• And below there is a guideline for an OPINION COMPOSITION.

___________________________________________________________________________

Visit the following link to practice your listening skill a bit further:

• B1 LEVEL
• Try this a bit more difficult one: B2 LEVEL

KEEP WORKING. GO TO THE PREVIOUS POST below. 

Reading & Listening Practice

READING

Complete the text using the words given in the box. There are FOUR EXTRA words you don’t need to use.

Another     advice    benefits      cause      harmony       illness      in       insurance      on       other     patients    prescribing         proved        reason      recommends      surgery       therapies      treatment

Pros and Cons of Alternative Medicine
There are numerous_____0______ of using alternative medicine, but as it goes for most things in life, there are also some key factors to take into serious consideration. Just like any other conventional treatment, alternative ___1___may also have their side effects, drawbacks, as well as a few other significant aspects to keep in mind. Listed below are the most important pros and cons of alternative medicine that you should be aware of, before undertaking any new___2___

Pros

Alternative medicine is based ___3__the use of natural and herbal remedies and on the principle that health can be restored by bringing our body’s energy back into balance and ___4___.

•Body and mind. Alternative therapists focus on treating the whole person, and not just the symptoms of a disease or___5___. They believe that mind and body are closely connected and that patient’s emotional and spiritual health is of extreme importance when starting a physical cure. They encourage people to lead a healthy life and concentrate on what has actually caused the disease and led to imbalance.

•Stress. Stress in an important ___6___of many health problems and it considerably weakens the immune system. Conventional medicine doesn’t take it much into account when ____7____treatments, while most alternative therapies are instead based on reducing stress and emotional tension, in order to combat illnesses.

•Prevention. Another great pro of alternative medicine is that it considers prevention as one of the major prerequisites of good health. It teaches ____8____to focus on preventing illnesses before they occur and encourages them to take constant care of their body and mind.Contrary to conventional medicine that intervenes only when an illness has developed, alternative medicine uses a preventive and holistic approach and ____9____a responsible lifestyle.

•Chemicals and toxins. Contrary to conventional medicine, alternative medicine treats patients without overloading them with chemical medications, which usually lead to a buildup of toxins in the human body.
Cons
Before starting any alternative therapy, you should also take into consideration all of its pros. But we should also consider the drawbacks.
•Limited scientific research. Many forms of alternative medicine have not yet been scientifically ____10____and there are many questions that have not yet been answered. However, there are several studies currently under way, examining the efficacy and safety of certain therapies.
•Government approval. Most alternative medicine methods are not approved by any governing body and there aren’t any health ___11___companies that provide coverage for them.
•Long-term treatments. Conventional medicine treatments have relatively immediate effects, while alternative medicine therapies require a longer time to heal a problem. Alternative medicine is focused on treating the cause and eliminating the problem at its source, and thereby needs more time and cannot cure instantly.

•Emergency cases. Alternative medicine cannot intervene in emergency cases, such as car accidents or other circumstances that require immediate pain relief and instant action or ___12___.
•Effectiveness. Some people do not react at all to certain alternative therapies. A healing method that can be useful for one person isn’t necessarily effective for___13____.

0   benefits
1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12
13	SOURCE:http://youqueen.com/life/health/pros-and-cons-of-alternative-medicine/

LISTENING

Lucinda talks about using natural remedies to maintain health.

Answer the following questions about the interview.(CLICK!)

1) What does Lucinda say about her family?
a) Her aunt is  path-finder.
b) Her aunt is a homeopath.
 c) Her aunt is a doctor.

2) What does she say about Echinacea?
a) It is a rare treatment.
 b) It is a plant.
c) It gives you a boost.
3) What does she say about Western medicine?

a) She is allergic to it.

 b) She would use it if she needs it.

c) She only will take natural medicine.

4) What does she say about natural medicine?

 a) Doctors dont't like it.

b) You can get it at Starbuck's.

 c) People are against it.

Source: ello

Did you find that too difficult? LISTEN NOW to this other piece...

ANSWERS IN CLASS!!!

Have a nice weekend :-)

.

Unit 3: Long life - listening practice

If you want some extra listening practice, click here and listen to Todd and Monica talking about how to live a long and healthy life. You can hide the text so you don't read what they are saying. Look at the right hand side of the page for the interactive exercise to do while you listen.

Unit 3 - Health: injuries

INJURIES

Here's a presentation about "injuries" to complete the vocabulary we have already seen in class. Check it out! NI2 5B Injuries

The presentation to revise vocabulary to go to the doctor's is here.

SOME REVISION BEFORE "CERTIFICACION"

For some revision you can do these activities:

To practise listening, visit the British Council , the "learning English" section in VoaNews, elllo.org....

If you want to practice the different skills, click on the following link and find certificate exams that have been done in the various language schools around Spain.Have a go!

How to be lucky by Dr Richard Wiseman

Do you want to be lucky?

Watch this video and discover that you can make your own luck!!!

Male brains vs Female brains

"A tale of two brains"

Mark Gungor

In this video Mark Gungor, a marriage expert, talks about the difference between male brains and female brains in a very humorous way. Are you ready to have a laugh?

Slow Down, you move too fast - Unit 5a

Slow food in a fast world

Task: Watch the video and post your comments about the advantages and disadvantages of slow food. Would you join the movement?

Enjoy!

Speaking Singlish

Speaking Singlish

Hi students! As you know, English is not only spoken in the U.K. and in the U.S.A. It is spoken in many other countries around the world. But why not creating a new variety of the language? That's what they have done in Singapore. There they speak Singlish which is a variety of English, incorporating elements of Chinese and Malay [from a blend of Singaporean + English]. Have you ever heard about Spanglish? Do you know where it's spoken? Do you know any examples? What do you think about it?

You can leave your comments here and share your knowledge with the others!!!

MAKING CONVERSATION

How can we sound more natural when we speak? That's the million-dollar question, but let's see some expressions which can help us improve our speaking. 

Something we sometimes do is gossip and talk about other people's lives. Listen to this lesson from the BBC to learn some useful expressions and do some exercises.

If you listen to this, you can also practise how to show interest. Here you have some more ways of showing interest and surprise. Here go some expressions we use in informal English:

How to express shock:

• I was shocked to hear the news.
• I was stunned / taken aback by the news
• The news came as a complete shock.
• We're all in complete shock.

How to express disbelief:

• I just can't believe he won the race.
• It's unbelievable that they got married
• I just can't imagine they were able to get along with each other.

Come on, you can't be serious. You're not serious, are you? You're lying, aren't you? Really? It's wrong, isn't it? She is not serious, is she?

You're joking, aren't you? You're kidding me You're laughing at me You're pulling my leg I can't believe you!

Last but not least, this page will offer you lots of expressions for almost any situation you can think of.

FASHION and FUTURES

THIS IS THE POWERPOINT WE USED TO REVISE THE FUTURE:
5 Futures Ni2 This is the listening we did in class. To do some exercises online to practise adjective order you can go here and here.
If you want to see some different types of shops in English (with pictures), go here or for a more exhaustive list click here.
You can also have a look at this old post on fashion.

REVIEWS

This is an example of people discussing books, taken from podcastsinenglish.com. The title is "A good book". Although not a review as such, it's got good examples of the "general comments on the book" part of the review.

Brookline book reviews offers you reviews by some students in public schools in Brookline. You can listen to them all, as they come in mp3 format. However... they're students who speak rather fast, which may be a bit too difficult for you, so take it as a challenge.

GENERAL STRIKE

OMG!
It's Wednesday night, the general strike has just started... but the BBC has nothing on its webpage, nor do "The Times", "The Independent" or "The Guardian"!!!  Well, at least "The Telegraph" mentions something, it focuses on the flight cancellations, but that's about it.


As regards the USA, nothing is mentioned in either the "The New York Times"or "USA Today".  However, the CNN does! Thanks God someone remembers us! You can read the article here (there's a video as well). And ... "The Washington Post" also devotes this article to our country, which offers quite a good general overview.


And all this makes me wonder, does the rest of the world really care about our situation? Will anyone help us out or is it up to us to get out of this crisis just by ourselves? Will the reform be implemented? Will the trade unions succeed? In what ways? What would you do if you were in power?  


Please leave a comment with your opinion on any of these topics; it'll be interesting and excellent writing practice for you! You can remain anonymous if you wish (but if you let me know which comment is yours, it'll count as one more writing task for this term)

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO....

Hello again!
To practise your listening, please watch Mery Streep's speech here (BBC)

These are the pictures of the celebrities described in the photocopy we saw in class, just match them and indicate who's who. This is the text, just in case. Answers will appear in a comment in a few days!

By the way, in this post from EOI Guía you will find an interesting link to the English blog where they give interesting information about leap years and a funny tradition in the British Isles.

NOVEMBER CELEBRATIONS

There are a couple of common celebrations in Britain which you may not be so familiar with: Guy Fawkes Night and Remembrance Day, a.k.a.* Poppy Day. The former is celebrated on November 5th, the latter is on November 11th. To find out why, just follow the links from Wikipedia above.
This is a video of the Guy Fawkes celebration in Victoria Park in London. Enjoy! You can also visit our post last year here.
* also known as

OPINION ESSAYS

Hello again!

We'll soon revise how to structure them, but meanwhile, you can have a look at this post from Masterpapers or these instructions from eHow. In Custom Writing you can also find some good advice on what to do, what to avoid and some expressions that may come handy.

Now that Halloween is approaching, you will start hearing ghost stories and other scary stuff. However, if you would like to check for yourself if a house is really hauted (or maybe it's just your friends trying to terrify you), you can follow these steps to find out.

Finally, if you've still got what it takes, you can listen to some spooky stories here. When you click on the story, it takes you to the script, then you must click on "listen to the audio version". Try not to read anything the first time, please, just concentrate on what you hear. The second time you are allowed to read while you listen. OK? Enjoy!

R U stressed?

Just do this test to find out...   Good luck!

To find out more on the topic, you can also watch this video where an expert explains what stress is, the physical and mental effects of being stressed, when it becomes a problem and when to seek help; it's at the end of the page, but remember to switch off the subtitles the first times you hear it (pressing "CC")

In any case, if you sometimes think you can't manage stress, you may need to watch this video from the NHS page, where an expert provides some techniques for managing stress.

So ... have you ever suffered / do you ever suffer from stress? Any symptoms? What did / do you do to deal with it? If you had a panic attack, what would you do? Please leave a short paragraph with your experience (and remember to sign it, please)

SOME QUICK TIPS TO GET BETTER

A pool table? No, snooker!

Do you feel the test is just round the corner and you don't know what else to do? Don't panic and try some of these things:
These are the two of the listenings you have in your photocopy: ideal home and blind date.

For further speaking practice go here. It's for intermediate level.
To write a good blog post, follow these steps:

1. have a clear idea of what you are going to write about (topic) and your goal (provide links, start a conversation, express an opinion...)
2. come up with an awesome title
3. think of your readers and try to hook them (humour, news, attack...) and to create a conversation! Communication is one of the main objectives. A good introduction is highly advisable! These comments will...

• have a clear objective, i.e. make a valid point (give your reasons or examples, if necessary)
• be part of a context (the post you are commenting on)
• be brief and respectful
• be signed, so that the blogger can comment back to you
• be proof-read before submitted

     4. write a detailed post, but keep it simple and to the point. Add your thoughts and if you want people to
         comment, ask a question to your readers BUT only get out what’s really relevant to this particular post.
     5. you can make a list with bullet points and organize it into headings and subheadings
     6. use your voice, your opinion (be honest)
     7. check for spelling, grammar, and most importantly flow issues. Then edit the post (things like links to
         resources, underlining, bolding, etc.)
     8. if you add a picture, it will make it a bit easier on your readers’ eyes.

Now, why don't you leave a comment on any of the listenings above? What is your ideal home like? Have you ever gone on a blind date? Would you?

ONE WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKING

Hello again!
You have probably received your recordings... but you may still wonder... How can you get better? How to structure your monologue?
In the first place, THINK! Organise your ideas, so that you do not repeat things or omit important points. If you make notes, be VERY BRIEF and make sure you use them; otherwise you'll have wasted precious time. Your notes are only reminders; you cannot read from them!
As you speak, control the time limit, deal with all the points a little and LINK your ideas nicely, so that you make a speech and not a list of answers.

Remember to STRUCTURE your talk; you'll always need:

• an introduction to the topic
• a body, where you deal with all the points
• a conclusion (which you often forget about)

Try to use gramatical structures and vocabulary of the level and please avoid basic mistakes.
You can listen to this podcast from Splendid Speaking, where they analyse a student's short talk. Two more examples analysed here and here.