Breaking prejudices: Love has no labels

Unfortunately, as social beings,  people tend to have "implicit" prejudices, preconceived ideas on which we based to judge, normally unfavorably, a person's behaviour or personal characteristic.

Watch this beautiful video and think about the message it seeks to convey. Read the following questions which will help you to think about it

- What is a "bias" or prejudice?

- What kind of prejudices are made "explicit" in the video? Bias in reference to genre, age, race, disability, religion or sexuality.

- What does the X ray screen symbolise?

- What does the phrase " Love has no Labels" mean?


       

End-of-the-2nd term activities: Trips and Theatre

       To finish off the term, our high school always devotes the last two days of the final week before
       Easter to extracurricular activities with the aim of taking a break, socialising
       and having fun together  through doing outside-the-classroom  activities different from the
       classes and homework.
       One of the most popular activity for 1st and 2nd years E.S.O. is the school trip to the French ski
       station Somport where we all went snowshoeing , a fun way to enjoy the beauty of winter. It was
       chilly and a bit windy, but it was good  weather for walking.
   
             


             On Friday we all went to the Theatre in Utebo to watch a different type of performance   
            "Improbich@", a play in which the actors improvised impossible absurd plays out of
             phrases y excuses the audience  had written on a scrap of paper before the performance.

              

              3rd  years spent three days in Madrid visiting their main museums and sights such as
              the Congress of the Diputados, The Planitarium, The Egypcian Debod Temple, St. Ana
              Square, the national archeological museum, The Austrias Madrid and The Bernabeu football
              stadium
              
              

              1st year Bachillerato have already arrived from Italy, where they have visited beautiful
              citie such as Rome, Verona , Venice and Florence and emblematic places like The Vatican,
              St. Mark's square or The Colisseum.


             

Welcome spring

I hadn't realised spring is already here. The awful weather and the tragic news from France did not let me see its quiet discreet arrival.
Open your eyes wide, spring is here, let us celebrate with a simple poem by William Blake with which you can practise pronunciation in English paying attention to the rhyme.

 

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org

SPRING

Sound the flute!

Now it's mute

Birds delight

Day and Night;

Nightingale

In the dale,

Lake in Sky.

Merrily,

Merrily, Merrily to welcome in the Year.

Little Boy

Full of joy;

Little Girl,

Sweet and small;

Cock does crow,

So do you;

Merry voice,

Infant noise,

Merrily, Merrily to welcome in the Year.

Little Lamb,

here I am;

Come and lick;

My white neck;

Let me pull

Your soft Wool;

Let me kiss

Your soft face;

Merrily,merrily, we welcome in the year.

                

               William Blake 

                                                  ( Romantic English poet  1757-1827)

In memory of the plane crash victims

Europe mourns the 150 victims of the plane crash in The Alps, 51 of whom were Spaniards
and five of them were Aragonese. Our thoughts are with their families and friends. R.I.P.

Lufthansa's director on the video giving explanations of the tragic accident of his company' s plane.

 

 

Publicado con Blogsy

Ireland in the movies: Leap Year

It is not difficult to find a movie depicting particular aspects of Irish reality, many of which have been based on successful novels written by popular and acknowledged writers like James Joyce or Roddy Doyle.
There are lots of movies set in Ireland dealing with varied recurrent Irish themes like social evils-"Angela's Ashes" ( based on homonymous novel by Frank McCourt) -the Northern  political conflict,  the so-called The Troubles -"Hidden Agenda" or "In the Name of the Father", easy-going crazy character of Irish people -"The Commitments o The Snapper", or deep rural traditional Ireland -"The field".

                                                                 source: wikipedia

For our cinema session we have chosen Leap Year, a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Anand Tucker. The film is about a woman who heads to Ireland to ask her boyfriend to accept her wedding proposal on leap day , when tradition supposedly holds that men cannot refuse a woman's proposal for marriage. Her plans are interrupted by a series of increasingly unlikely events and are further complicated when she hires a handsome innkeeper to take her to her boyfriend in Dublin.
                                                                                                           source: wikipedia

                                              source: http://www.englishblog.com

• What is  "leap year"? 

• What can  women do on leap days according to Irish tradition? 

• What sociocultural aspects of Ireland are depicted in the movie? 

•  What is the stereotype of an Irish person?

Enjoying the "craic" at The I.E.S. Torre de los Espejos.

We have had a great time celebrating the Irish Week held at the high school. We have come into contact with an ancient small country but large in talented people, culture and traditions. Irish people are present all over the world keeping their customs and identity alive, like Lisa, our former language assistant, who taught us Irish Ceili dance. It was good "craic" ( fun in Irish )

This is our little homage to a great country.

             

Publicado con Blogsy

Ireland's adverts by 2 C

2 E.S.O  C year pupils have prepared a tourist ad of Ireland promoting some of the most relevant aspects of the country we have seen in class. They have done a good research work and thes are some of the results.


 



 

 




 


 

The Irish solar eclipse

And the sun turned green.... gorgeous Irish solar eclipse today!!! 

Publicado con Blogsy

Tourist Brochures of Ireland

Aa a final task of the Irish project, some 2 ESO pupils have made their own brochures of Ireland for a tourist promotion of the country.

If you need some help and inspiration you can browse some real brochures in Spanish sent by Ireland's Tourist Office in Madrid
Brochures available here

Irish password

                                                       

In order to assess how much and how well we have learnt about Ireland, we are going to play this popular game  called "pasapalabra" ( "Password").

You have 200 seconds to finish the game: press on the timer
Press on each letter in order.
If the answer is right, press for 3 seconds on key "y".
If the anwer is wrong press on key "n".
If it is "password"press on key "space".
Passwords should be answered on the following rounds

Irish Music: Whiskey in the Jar: one song, two styles

Traditional Irish music is known through the world and has become an important element of Ireland's cultural identity. It belongs to an oral tradition and its origin can be traced to almost thousands years ago, when the Celts arrived in Ireland.The harp, Ireland's symbol, is the best-known of Irish traditional musical instrument.
Over the time, Irish traditional music has developed and evolved into new forms, updating to the present times and mingling with other styles and rhythms.
Yet music is still a central element is social events. Irish music enthusiasts gather at a pub to play and drink beer.

                                                              source: wikipedia.org

One of the best-known traditional Irish song is "Whiskey in the Jar".
Watch at these two videos: the traditional style played by the Irish folk band "The Dubliners" and the adaptation of the same song made by Metallica.
Compare : general style and rhythm, musical instruments , audience, setting.
Which do you prefer? Why?


                        



                         

Whiskey Jar Chart by Amanda Caldwell

Here you have the lyrics, what story does the song tell? Retell the story using your own words.

Publicado con Blogsy

Whiskey Jar Chart by Amanda Caldwell

Paddy's Day: Eire is good craic

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!

Join the Green Wave

Irish Writers

Ireland is the homeland of some the greatest writers in the world. No other country with such a small population has got four Nobel Prize winners for literature. Other well-known books such as Dracula or Gulliver's Travels have been written by Irish writers.
Have a look at the information displayed on the poster and then answer the questions to check out how much you learnt about Irish literature.

           Listen to this gorgeous song by the Cranberries devoted to W.B.Yeats, the poet and nobel
           prize winner.

           

Irish Literature Trivia

Ireland, The Emerald Isle

Next Tuesday, 17th of March is St. Patrick's Day, Ireland's Patron Saint's Day. We are going to celebrate it by learning about this attractive country with such an interesting culture and eventful history through the celebration of the Irish Week at the high school . Over the week we will be working on cultural , literary aspects and traditions of Ireland. The spirit of this cultural educational celebration is summarised by the logo of the Irish project - Eire is good craic !!.

Don't forget to bring something green next Tuesday ( an item of clothing, a wig, a ribbon, nail polish etc.)

Ireland

 

Publicado con Blogsy

What does a United Europe mean to you?

                                                 source: http://micuarto.blogspot.com.es

La comisión Europea ha convocado un concurso de vídeo de 1 minuto de duración para estudiantes de 13 a 15 años en cualquiera de las lenguas oficiales  sobre el  siguiente tema : ¿qué significa una Europa unida para ti?.


Plazo de presentación: 10 de abril 2015

Aquí os dejo el enlace con toda la información sobre la convocatoria. Bases

Describing places: vocabulary and structures

With the arrival of spring and nice weather we are all looking forward to travelling to far and exotic places. In 2 year E.S.O. we are dealing with  holiday and description of places. First of all we have studied some examples of the linguistic content needed to describe: nouns , adjectives and special structures.




We have also worked on adjectives by completing this time-saving postcard with appropriate adjectives others than the "overused good and bad". Once the vocabulary has been presented , some  volunteers have then explained the details of their particular trips orally to the rest of the the class.

CLIL: Aprendiendo idiomas en el taller

Este año tenemos la suerte de contar con unas compañeras del Departamento de Tecnología que participan en el Proyecto Pole llevando a cabo las actividades curriculares en los dos idiomas, inglés y francés. En este caso el idioma extranjero se convierte en la lengua vehicular para aprender otros contenidos no lingüísticos. Estas actividades se enmarcan dentro de la metodología AICLE o CLIL
(AICLE: "Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos en Lengua Extranjera; CLIL: "Content and Language Integrated Learning").
La actividad ha consistido en el estudio de una unidad didáctica de la programación de Tecnología de 2 y 3 de la E.S.O. en inglés y/o francés. Aquí os dejo unas fotos del trabajo realizado.

1. English Project: "Materials- wood and paper- and characteristics"; Environmental analysis of sustainable forests" ( 2 E.S.O. C). The following triangle structures have been made in the workshop out of recycled paper.
2. Projet français: Les éléves de 3 B E.S.O. ont décidé de construire ensemble à l'échelle 1:20 l'atelier de notre college  "Torre de los Espejos" á Utebo.Ils ont construit tous les objets,  les murs ,la porte-fenêtre,le sol, etc. avec des materiaux de recyclage.Ils ont travaillé très bien. Nos félicitations!

Ebro River floods Aragón and Navarra lands

The intense rains and the melting snow in the North have caused the Ebro River to burst its banks in Aragón and Navarra flooding entire localities and  causing great material damage to the farming sector.

Click here to read the news in English : Ebro River Floods

 

           

El lenguaje oral en la clase de idiomas

Es muy importante utilizar la lengua extranjera como lengua vehicular en el aula, y ser capaces de preguntar las dudas sin recurrir al castellano. Esto te ayudará a adquirir estrategias de comunicación que te permitan desenvolverte en situaciones de comunicación real  y avanzar en el aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera. Aquí os dejamos una ficha con las preguntas y frases típicas de una clase de idiomas. Utilizar el inglés y/o francés para aprender más sobre estos idiomas, así adquirirás las estrategias de comunicación que te serán muy útiles cuando necesites preguntar en situaciones de comunicación fuera del aula.

Lenguaje Oral en  Clase Idiomas