English - Advanced. This blog is aimed at advanced students and is intended to be an alternative source of information (other than the textbook and the photocopies provided by myself). This blog offers some extra material for further practice. It also contains some of the video-activities and podcasts that have been used in our lessons.
19 Jun 2020
Information about our school
Listen to the interview in which the principal talks about some aspects of our school. It's in Spanish. Click on the track: Entrevista con Antonio Sánchez Carnicero
17 Jun 2020
Online session, June 17th / 18th
LESSON PLANS
LEVEL: C1.2
GROUPS: A, B, C
DATE: June 17th, 18th
LAST
REVISION AND PRACTICE FOR THE TEST
ORAL PRODUCTION (test practice)
These are the cards used in June 2018 for
oral production. We will revise them and some of you will prepare a monologue
to practice for the exam. I will give
you a feedback after that. Click
here to download the oral production cards.
ORAL COPRODUCTION (test practice)
These cards correspond to June 2018. We
will revise them and some of you will hold a conversation to practice for the
exam. I will give you a feedback after
that.
ORAL MEDIATION (test practice)
There wasn’t a mediation task in 2018. The
first time that mediation was ever included in a certificate test in
Castilla-La Mancha was June 2019. However, I can offer you another example of
an oral mediation task that Consejería de educación suggested in 2019. The
instructions are in Spanish because that was the way it was initially thought,
but they changed their minds before the tests started in June 2019.
MEDIACIÓN ORAL C1
Un/a amigo/a extranjero/a acaba de
finalizar los estudios universitarios y quiere irse este verano a algún país
europeo a vivir una experiencia relacionada con el voluntariado. En un sitio
web has encontrado información sobre diferentes propuestas que le pueden
interesar. Coméntale la información que consideras más importante para sus
intereses.
-
Yes to Sustainability es un
proyecto internacional que pretende reunir a jóvenes de diferentes regiones de
Europa mediante la organización de diferentes intercambios juveniles en
diferentes ecoaldeas de Europa financiados por Erasmus +. Los participantes
pueden participar en uno o más intercambios y serán financiados completamente
por el Programa Erasmus +.
El
proyecto se creó en el año 2016 por un grupo de personas implicadas en la
educación y el trabajo con jóvenes en diferentes proyectos rurales europeos.
Desde entonces se han organizado más de 10 intercambios juveniles en ecoaldeas
como Lakabe, Findhorn, Sunseed, Zavod Veles, Bergen, Hallingelille con el
objetivo de crear puentes entre las ecoaldeas y las nuevas generaciones. Yes to
Sustainability ha apoyado a más de 200 jóvenes europeos a visitar proyectos y
conocer a otras personas interesadas por la sostenibilidad y la alternativa de
vida que ofrecen las ecoaldeas.
Gracias
a este proyecto están surgiendo organizaciones de jóvenes en las diferentes
redes nacionales de ecoaldeas de Europa. Reforzando la red de jóvenes
interesados en las ecoaldeas conocida como NextGEN.
- El
Servicio Voluntario Europeo es una experiencia de aprendizaje en
el ámbito de la educación no formal en la que las personas jóvenes voluntarias
mejoran o adquieren competencias para su desarrollo personal, educativo y
profesional, así como para su integración social.
Los voluntarios/as
desarrollan su actividad en un país distinto de su país de residencia. Esta
actividad, no remunerada y sin ánimo de lucro, se realiza a tiempo completo
durante un periodo determinado en beneficio de la comunidad. Los participantes
deberán tener entre 17 y 30 años.
Las
organizaciones coordinadoras con experiencia previa podrán presentar proyectos
que deberán contar con más de una persona voluntaria y generar un impacto
sistémico a escala local, regional, nacional y/o europea.
Extraído de http://rie.ecovillage.org/participamos/
PRONUNCIATION
This is a compilation of videos from BBC to practise
pronunciation.
There are countless videos on this link, so I advise you to watch them
during the summer. If you scroll down
and you go to the bottom, you will begin with isolated sounds. There are 46 videos about isolated sounds. If
you think that you don’t need this, go straight to Tim’s pronunciation
workshop. There are 29 videos in this section. I suggest that you start
chronologically from bottom to top, but you can totally select the ones you
think you have problems with. Tom deals with these phonetic phenomena:
- Assimilation
- Linking /r/
- Twinning
- Elision
- Intrusive /r/
- Schwa
- Linkage
- Plosives
- Gemination
- Contractions
Of course, you don’t really need to learn the names of
these phonetic phenomena. Learning how they work, though, will help you to
introduce new features in your pronunciation that will hone your speaking
skills to make them reach a C1 level and to make you be better prepared
for C2 next year.
… AND MORE PRACTICE.
During summer, you shouldn’t neglect to keep up with
English for too long. Even when you don’t do activities, it’s always advisable
to have a little contact with English every day. Maybe you can consider these websites.
- Talk as much as you can
The following ones are websites where you could find a
conversation partners and exchange conversation in English. Obviously, if you
have a British, American, Australian, Irish, Canadian… etc friend who you can
talk to, even better! Take advantage of the situation.
Verbling - https://es.verbling.com/
Tandem - https://www.tandem.net/es
Hello Talk - https://www.hellotalk.com/#sp
Conversation Exchange - https://www.conversationexchange.com/?lg=es
Tandem - https://www.tandem.net/es
Hello Talk - https://www.hellotalk.com/#sp
Conversation Exchange - https://www.conversationexchange.com/?lg=es
- Use media to improve
British
radio- http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio
American
radio- https://www.npr.org/
Voices
of America- http://www.voanews.com
American
TV- https://www.pbs.org/
- Podcasts:
- Listening tasks:
Audio
and quizzes- https://www.esl-lab.com/difficult
Including scripts and explanations - http://www.elllo.org/english/levels/level7-advanced.
Dialogues, narrations, phrases, pronunciation
and role plays- http://www.audioenglish.net
- Writing development:
LAST PRACTICE:
Read these case studies. Rate them from “not very
serious”=1 to “very serious”=5 according to the impact you think the obsession
might have on their lives. Compare your opinion with one of your classmates’.
That’s all. Enjoy your summer!
15 Jun 2020
Online session, June 15th / 16th
LESSON PLANS
LEVEL: C1.2
GROUPS: A, B, C
DATE: June 15th,
16th
REVISION
AND PRACTICE FOR THE TEST
This will be the third and last model test
to practise before the end of year test.
You should allow yourself some time to
complete these tasks the same way you would do in an exam. This week, we are
going to practise with the June 2018 test.
READING (test practice)
You have three tasks. Try to do them in 55
minutes. This section will be scored out of 20.Click here to download the reading
test. When you are done, check your own answers. Click here to download the answer
key. What’s your score?
LISTENING (test practice)
Here you have 3 tasks. Try to do them in
50 minutes. Listen to each track twice, letting 1 minute between the first and
the second time you do it. This section will be scored out of 20. Click here to download the test.
These are the tracks:
WRITING (test practice)
In September 2020, you will have 40
minutes for written production (180-190 words), and 2 tasks to choose 1. You
will have 20 minutes for written coproduction (90-100 words), and only 1 task.
The total score for this skill will be 20, unevenly divided between production
(12 marks) and coproduction (8 marks).
I attach below the test belonging to June
2018. Don’t turn it in, this is just for you to check what it looks like.
WRITTEN MEDIATION (test practice).
There wasn’t a mediation task in 2018. The
first time that mediation was ever included in a certificate test in
Castilla-La Mancha was June 2019. However, I can offer you another example of a
written mediation task that Consejería de educación suggested in 2019. The
instructions are in Spanish because that was the way it was initially thought,
but they changed their minds before the tests started in June 2019.
Un amigo extranjero quiere viajar a Croacia este verano. Transmítele
la información de este vídeo animándole a que visite este país europeo e
informándole sobre los puntos de referencia más representativos (sin necesidad
de citar las ciudades).
That’s all for now.
10 Jun 2020
Online session, June 10th
LESSON PLANS
LEVEL: C1.2
GROUPS: A, B, C
DATE: June 10th
REVISION
AND PRACTICE FOR THE TEST
ORAL PRODUCTION (test practice)
These are the cards used in September 2019
for oral production. We will revise them and some of you will prepare a monologue
to practice for the exam. I will give
you a feedback after that. Clickhere to download the oral production cards.
ORAL COPRODUCTION (test practice)
These cards correspond to September 2019.
We will revise them and some of you will hold a conversation to practice for
the exam. I will give you a feedback
after that.
ORAL MEDIATION (test practice)
These are the articles in Spanish that
were used last year in September for the oral mediation section. We will use
them to practise our mediation skills.
PRONUNCIATION (Intonation)
The best way to improve your intonation is simply
to become more aware of it. By listening carefully to a recorded conversation
(YouTube is a good place to start), you will begin noticing how
other speakers use intonation to express themselves.
Another idea is to record your own voice.
These days, even the simplest mobile phones are equipped with a voice recorder.
It is always fascinating (though sometimes unbearable) to listen to one's
own voice because it sounds so different to what we expect! Try recording a dialogue
with a friend, (the same way you did in the last activity you uploaded on
Padlet). Now listen to your intonation. Does it sound natural? Does it express
your attitude in the way you hoped?
With a recording, you can always rewind,
listen again and try a new version. Recordings are an excellent way to keep
track of your progress. They clearly show how you have improved over time.
Intonation is an important aspect of your oral performance. At this
level, it’s important to avoid robotic, flat intonation. As you may know,
intonation as well as pronunciation and fluency will be taken into account in
the final test in a separate, independent section. If you want to be more
confident about your intonation in English, and especially if you want to
use it with precision and subtlety, then it is certainly worth spending time
noticing how others use it, imitating their use, and listening to a
recording of your own voice.
Here
you have a video to understand better the different kinds of intonation in
English. Please watch it, pause it after the examples and repeat them with
the right intonation.
Intonation in cleft sentences
Last year, you studied cleft sentences. They are
frequently used when we are explaining something or when correcting what we or
someone else has just said. Let’s pay attention to your intonation depending on
the kind of cleft sentence you use. First, read this short explanation:
That’s all for now.
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