Javier’s English Corner

We had not heard from Alison on this blog for quite a while, so yesterday she kindly accepted, as ever, my request to record her voice once again. Alison will be leaving us very soon and we are all going to miss her so badly, as she has become a real asset to our school through her calm professionalism and genuine disposition to participate in any kind of teaching initiative. She has prepared great lessons for our classes and has always been willing to be the patient subject of my “digital experiments”. She is definitely a good sport.

Anyway, I don’t want to start feeling sad about her leaving us just yet, so let’s get to the point. This is going to be the first installment in a series of short conversations with Alison which you can use to practise your listening comprehension skills. This time she talks about coming to Spain and her first days at work. If you are in the mood for a multiple choice activity, go here.

You may have noticed I have changed the lay-out for this blog. The reason for it was that I wanted to have a template that incorporated ‘Answer Tips‘, a great tool you will be able to use over here from now on. ‘Answer Tips’ is powered by Answers.com, a fantastic online dictionary I use non-stop. What ‘Answer Tips’ does is to allow you to double-click any word on this blog to get a definition for it without going to another website. Why don’t you check it out? You will see something like this

Doesn’t it look cool? Besides getting a definition, you can access translations and the pronunciation for most of the words you may look up. I hope you find this useful. Enjoy it!

‘Bloggin’ away‘, a fantastic blog created by my dear colleague Carmen López from EOI Mieres, has been awarded a prize in II Premio Espiral edublogs ‘08. Carmen and her hard working students certainly deserve it, as they do a fantastic job out of providing interesting activities for advanced ESL students.

You can find ‘Bloggin’ away‘ on my link list. If you have never visited it, I strongly recommend you do soon. I guarantee you will find something that will help improve your English.

My warmest congrats to you and your students, Carmen, and keep up the good work!!!