Some useful links to practice for PET

Hello, everybody!

Here are some links for you to practice for PET. Please, use them!

To practice vocabulary--> VOCABULARY

To practice grammar:

PRESENT PERFECT/ PAST SIMPLE

WILL/GOING TO

REPORTED SPEECH

ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY

PASSIVE

PRESENT SIMPLE/PRESENT CONTINUOUS

COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES

To practice exam-type exercises:
PET exercises 1
PET exercises 2
PET exercises 3

I hope they are useful! Please comment with any doubts you may have.

Harry Potter

Hello, children!

How is it going? I heard you have a new teacher now, I hope you are being nice to her!
This is my last week here in England, and I am so looking forward to seeing you next Monday!
I've really missed you! Especially two weeks ago when I went to London and I visited... THE HARRY POTTER STUDIOS!! That's where they filmed most of the Harry Potter movies, and since we are reading the first book in class I thought it would be nice for you to see some pictures of the things I saw there.

The Gryffindor common room.

The Sorting Hat in Dumbledore's office.

The envelope that Harry receives from Hogwarts in the first film.

Ron's car.

Number 4, Privet Drive (home of the Dursleys)

Diagon Alley

And the Hogwarts castle!

And this is me in platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross station. Luckily it worked and I could cross to the other side of the wall without smashing into it! Look, half of my cart is already in! hahaha

I will show you more photographs when I come back if you want, but this is it for now.

Be good! I'll see you in less than a week!

Bonfire Night

Had you heard this poem before?
It is about a celebration here in the UK called "Bonfire Night" or "Guy Fawkes' Day".

In 1605, a group of people planned to blow up the Hoses of Parliament, in London, a kill the king, James I, because they wanted another queen who had the same religion as them.
One of these men was called Guy Fawkes.
Everything was carefully planned and they filled a cellar* under the Parliament with gunpowder*.
But the night before the explosion, on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes was captured. He was tortured until he confessed and then he was executed.
To warn everybody not to break the law again, the King marked this day by having a bonfire and made a dummy* Guy to burn on the flames.
Since that day, every 5th of November there are bonfires and fireworks all over Britain, to celebrate the foiled plot*.

Here is a photo of fireworks in London:

And these are photos and a video I took of the fireworks and bonfires where I live:

If you want to know more about Bonfire Night, click here!--> Bonfire Night


Have a lovely week!
Macarena.



*Click on words for definitions.

Halloween

Hello, everybody!!
How are you?
I know I haven't updated this in ages, but I am really busy! Sorry about that!
Today I will tell you about how Halloween is celebrated here in the U.K., and I will show you some of the things I did to celebrate it.
The truth is that Halloween started here in the U.K. and in Ireland many years ago, as a Celtic celebration. It was believed that on the night of the 31st of October, the limits between the world of the living and the world of the dead became blurred, so it was possible for dead people to come to our world (don't worry, it is just a legend, it is not true!) So the living decided to dress up as dead people in order to be confused and that way the spirits would not haunt them.
Then, it started being celebrated more in the USA, and then it came back to England and the rest of Europe, as I am sure you know, because you celebrate it in Madrid as well.

So here is what I did:
First we went to a pumpkin patch in a lovely village near here where there are a lot of different kinds of pumpkins.

Every year, they make a collage with pumpkins, representing something and they display it in a little market. Can you guess what it is?

There were really big ones!

The night before halloween, two friends and myself got together to carve our pumpkins. Here, children will only go trick-or-treating to a house where there are Jack-o-Lanterns at the door. And we wanted trick-or-treaters! We had a lot of fun carving them!

I look concentrated, don't I? haha

 And here's the result!

Mine is a scared pumpkin, rather than a scary one! haha 

On the 31st, the University dining hall was nicely decorated and there were original things to eat, like these yogurts and treat pots:

At night, I put my Jack-o-Lantern at the door of my house, and lots of children came trick-or-treating. It was really dark, so the photo is quite bad, but you can see it more or less.

Now it's your turn to tell me what you did for Halloween! Did you do anything special at school? Did you dress up and go trick-or-treating?

Leave your comments below!

Take care!

Macarena.

News from England

Hello, everyone!!

How are you? Are you behaving well with the new teacher? I hope so!

As you know, I arrived in London last Saturday and then travelled south to the coast, where the town I'm staying in is. I'm staying with a very nice host family and going to university everyday.
On Sunday I had the chance to go to Brighton, so here are the promised photographs of the pier! (6ºD, I'm afraid I didn't get the exact same light as in the photo in your book, but I did my best! haha)

Kisses!

Science contents in Spanish

Hello, everyone!

Here I upload a document with Science vocabulary in Spanish. You know all the concepts already, but some of you don't know the proper vocabulary in Spanish. You will read it with Milagros, but it's always good to review it at home as well.

Just click here -->  Contenidos Cono español

Writing PART 1

Hello, everyone!

Here I upload a document with practice for writing part 1. I will send it for homework little by litte, please always wait for me to tell you how many sentences you must do and when.
Please, make sure you can see the document properly in your home computer.
It is not necessary that you print it if you don't want to, because you will do it in the notebook. You will have to copy both sentences.

Writing PART 1 practice

Reproduction

Good afternoon,

Today I wanted to upload the four videos we have watched or will watch in class that have to do with reproduction.

The first one shows how an anemone splits into two. You already know that splitting is a type of asexual reproduction. Do you remember the other type of asexual reproduction?

This second, very short video shows how an ovum is fertilized and how it divides itself in two over and over while it travels through the fallopian tubes to the uterus:

The third video is an animation of all the process, from fertilization, to the last stage of pregnancy:

This last video by National Geographic explains how zygotes sometimes spontaneously divide into two, creating identical twins:

Advice for PET speaking part

Hello everyone!

Here I will be posting useful information regarding PET. Check it regularly and look carefully through the materials I post, as they are really helpful.

This is a document that explains useful language, vocabulary and advice for the speaking part. If you follow this advice when you practice with the assistants, you'll see how much easier it gets!

Advice for PET speaking part

Song of the week: Firework

Hello again.

Here is the lyrics video for the song we've learned this week: Firework, by Katy Perry.
As we saw in class, this song is full of metaphors. What do you think is the main message it transmits? Leave your comments below.
Enjoy!

ROUTINES

Hello, everyone!

Here I post the grammar routines posters so that you can prepare your questions properly. Remember to pay attention to the list to know when your turn is! Also try to think of original and interesting questions to make it more fun.
I hope they're useful!

WELCOME BACK!

I hope you've had a good, relaxing summer, and that you are now ready to work hard and learn a lot!!

Here is the song we learnt last week, as I promised. Enjoy!

Berlin

Hello, everyone!

How is your summer going? Are you having fun, relaxing and visiting interesting places? I hope you are also READING a lot!
As some of you know, I have spent my summer in Berlin, the capital city of Germany.

It is a big and beautiful city, with an interesting history and lots of things to see and do.

There are big parks full of trees, flowers and birds. The biggest is called "Tiergarten", which means "Animal garden", because it used to be the place where kings went hunting, so there were lots of deer, boars, rabbits and other animals. Now you can see ducks, squirrels, and if you're lucky, even foxes!!

The most famous landmark in Berlin is Brandenburger Tor, a big gate which is near Tiergarten, in a beautiful square called Pariser Platz (or Paris Square):

Brandenburger Tor:

A little bit of history:

In the year 1961, a big wall was built in Berlin, which separated friends and family members for 28 years! Different countries controlled different parts of the city, and they didn't get along with each other, so they decided to build the wall so that people couldn't pass from one part to the other. But one day people started protesting peacefully! They wanted to be able to pass to the other side of the wall, and to be free. So polititians decided to let some people pass with special papers. But the person who announced it on the radio made a mistake, and said that everybody could cross inmediately. So thousands of people went out and tore the wall down! Berlin was one city once again!

You can still see parts of the wall in Berlin. The most famous part is called "East Side Gallery", because famous artists from different countries painted it, so it's like an open-air art gallery:

This one symbolizes peace between the two parts of Berlin:

In Berlin people are very ecologic, so they go everywhere by bike and there are few cars. So I decided to buy a bike and I like it so much I think I'm going to take it home! 

In this photo you can see me and my bike in the middle of an airport landing strip (pista de aterrizaje). Don't worry, I haven't gone crazy, this airport was closed five years ago and turned into a park! It's really fun to ride your bike, or rollerblade on the landing strips! 

 There are also lots of flea markets in Berlin, where you can find very old things, like this camera:

I am also learning a little German (Nico can help me with that next year, maybe! hehe) and I enjoy it so much! I have met people from a lot of different countries, and how do you think we communicate with each other? That's it, in English! Everyone knows how to speak English, more or less, so that's why it is so important for you to learn a lot! Everywhere you go, you can make yourself understood.

I am looking forward to seeing you all in September, so that you tell me all about your holidays!! 

Please comment and tell me where you've been!

I will keep posting things about my summer!

Kisses!!

ANCIENT GREECE

And, last but not least, here you have the episode corresponding to Ancient Greece. Pericles was a very important polititian who lived during the Golden Age of Athens (V century BC).

Have a nice weekend! ;)

SUMERIANS AND EGYPTIANS

Hello, everyone!

This video starts with the last period of Prehistory in Europe (the discovery of agriculture and cattle raising, tribes becoming sedentary and building small villages encircled by walls) and continues with the first civilizations of India, Mesopotamia and Egypt. I hope you like it!

PREHISTORY

Hello, everybody!
Here I upload the episodes of the series "Once Upon a Time... Man!"  that I told you about.
They are very interesting to watch, as they explain everything we have been talking about these days, about Prehistory.

This one is about the Neanderthal:

This other one is about the Cro-Magnon Man, or Homo Sapiens:

Enjoy!

Provinces of Spain.

Hello, everyone!
Here I post a map so that you can review the provinces and, below it, a game to practice what you know.
I hope it's useful!

PROVINCES GAME