Christmas around the World

The Three Wise Men according to Wikipedia.

Christmas is coming and I'd like to know how you celebrate this festivity. There are many different traditions all over the world and that's nice. So, let's discuss about different traditions at Christmas.

How do you spend Xmas at home? Anything special? Please, let us know and leave a comment about your customs.

Youtube videos about Christmas

For further information about Christmas time, click on here.

  
Now, let's sing some Christmas Carols. Would you like to sing a special Christmas Carol? Which one? Here are some for you all:
 Deck the Halls
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bell
Silent Night
Silent Night by Beyoncé
Silent Night by Michael Bublé
Let it snow by Michael Bublé
 Let it snow by Frank Sinatra
12 Days of Christmas
Happy Xmas by John Lennon 
Joy to the World
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
The First Noel
Winter wonderland 
White Christmas 
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks 
What Child Is This? 
The Wexford Carol 
We Three Kings of Orient Are
We Wish You a Merry Christmas 
Oh Holy Night
O Come All Ye Faithful 
What Christmas means 
Please Come Home for Christmas 
 
More Carols 

Last Christmas by George Michael (Spanish lyrics)
Is this song really about Christmas? Well, it isn't. Actually, what is it about so? You could write your answer by leaving a comment for this post below.

What about this Xmas song? Do you know any other artist who sings the same song?



Christmas vocabulary (1, 2, ), special dates and traditions.

Christmas vocabulary doc

Christmas Flashcards

Xmas wordsearch (1, 2)

Christmas board game for Basic 2 (poster)

Christmas Winter Quiz for Basic 2

Santa Questions about Xmas for Basic 2

Winter questions_Christmas for Basic 2

How to make Christmas Crackers

How to make a Christmas pudding

How to make Christmas Brownies

Would you sit on Santa Claus' lap like this?



Have you ever received candy coal at Christmas?

Come on! Let's join a Christmas Quiz! Yes, why not?  






Now it's time for some current songs about Xmas:








And finally, here are my Christmas gifts for all my dear students. Some Xmas cards. Enjoy them! Happy Christmas!

English through Games

Do you like word games? I'm sure you do and perhaps you sometimes do a sopa de letras or crucigrama, don't you?


Ok, now it's time to play these games in English. How do you feel about it?

Come on, don't be shy and have a go. There are thousands of games for you to enjoy all day long. 

Games for Basic 1:

Games for Basic 2:
A Game of Parts, Blind Date, Crazy Cans, Let's go together, Twenty-one (Present and Past simple_common verbs), 
Games for Intermediate 1:
Spinning ideas, 

Games for Intermediate 2:

Games for Advanced 1:
Tough luck!, Professor Layton


Games for Advanced 2: 
Xincana das Linguas, 

100 ESL Games

Treasure Hunts
Treasure Hunts through YouTube



Uno Card Game 

 

Youtube games 

More English through games.

Riddles

A Riddle is acertijo or adivinanza in Spanish.

So, today's post is









 about some simple Riddles for Basic 1.

This is our first class Riddle:

        It has two wheels
        It has no motor
        It has a saddle
        What's that?
         Answer:

And what about yours? Do you know any Riddle? If you do, please leave a comment, telling us about your Riddles. Thank you for your contributions.


Youtube Riddles.

For more Riddles, please click on here. 

 

Adjectives wanted

Do you feel like you've got enough adjectives to describe anyone or anything in English?

If you don't, this can be the perfect post for you, partly because of the photo above: Adjectives wanted, and partly due to the fact that all we need is time. Yes, time to talk and assimilate so many adjectives and words.

More than anything else, we need dedication, patience and lot of hours using the language, that is, producing, writing and speaking English as longer as possible.

So, do you still think this is gonna be easy?

Practice on Adjectives for Basic 1:

Practice on Adjectives for Basic 2:

 Describing things, Clothes Shop, describing people, 

Practice on Adjectives for Intermediate 1: 

Order of Adjectives,

Flashcards and adjectives 

On the other hand, there's always an original way of describing oneself. Here's a good example taken from Rosa's Blog.

English TESTS & EXAMS

The Learners of English are very likely to do any kind of TEST or EXAMINATION at least once in their learning life, and thus, if you are one of those who are desperately looking for some more tests to do, this the right Blog to start with.

Basic considerations before starting any English course or test.

First of all, let's find out your exact level of English.

Test your English by the

KEY English TEST

KET: Examenglish.com, KET

Preliminary English TEST

PET: Examenglish.com,  PET Speaking, PET

First  Certificate in English

FCE: Examenglish.com, FCE

Certificate in Advanced English

CAE: Examenglish.com, CAE

Certificate of Proficiency in English 

CPE: Examenglish.com, CPE

  

TOEFL Practice Test 

Test of English as a Foreign Language

More TOEFL TESTS

TEST your English by Learn 4 good

Many different tests by EnglischHilfen.de

More tests

EOI TESTS:

Galicia, Diagnostic TEST for BASIC 2, 

Basic 1 : 

KET TESTS Test 1(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).
KET TESTS Test 2 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).
Exam Practice for Basic 1


Basic 2:

EOI Tests from País Vasco (Audio: Task 1, 
Task 2, Task 3) Speaking TEST (1, 2, 3) 
Answers.

EOI Tests from Asturias (2011-2012)

Listening (2011)  (Audio)
Listening (2012)  (Audio:Task 1, Task 2,  
Task 3)

Reading (2011)
Reading (2012)

Writing (2011)
Writing (2012)


Speaking (2012)


EOI TESTS from Canarias

EOI TESTS from Madrid (Basic 2)












Tips for the Oral Presentation by the
 British Council

Please remember to enjoy English as you go along and try to find your own way of learning English. Whether you like music, reading, movies or simply talking to people, you could always use your English naturally and fluently through everyday situations, instead of getting almost obsessed with thousands of TESTS, Exams and textbooks. Don't you think?

ENGLISH is outside there for you to enjoy!

Unless you feel like going to a foreign country with only your suitcase and a good dictionary, which is an excellent option, by the way. Actually, there won't be such a perfect TEST, rather than a long stay abroad. 

No more exams:

• Smart Blog on Education
• The Nerdy Teacher

Quantity in English: Some, any and so on

To express Quantity in English, we need to take many things into account. 

Not only grammar, but also a bit of common sense.

General rules in English are definitely not enough. So, we'd better consider exceptions, together with some suitable grammar reference books.

Still interested in Basic Grammar, you could have a look at these two short and simple grammar e-books by www.espressoenglish.net  (Basic 1,Basic 2 ), but please remember that they are not complete, simply because it's Basic Level, that is, not every single grammar exception.

 Some, any, a lot of, Numbers,

Thanksgiving Day

What’s Thanksgiving day?

Well, roughly speaking, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, when people usually spend some time altogether at home. It's also called the Turkey Day, as you can guess by the picture below.

For some YouTube videos about the Thanksgiving Day, please feel free to click on here.





 For more information, please feel free to have a look at this blog about the same topic.

Prepositions

  

Prepositions together with collocations and phrasal verbs are perhaps the three most difficult issues of the English grammar, simply because they must be mostly learnt by heart. On the whole, there're no magic rules to apply and so, we'd better read, write listen and speak as much as possible, so that we can put the following exercises and clarifications into practice.

For further practice on Prepositions, please click on the links below:

Prepositional list (Intermediate and Advanced)
Preposition to (Intermediate)
Order of Prepositions (Advanced)
Prepositions for purpose: To & for (Intermediate)
Prepositional verbs (Intermediate)
Prepositions used with adverbs and participles (Intermediate)

Basic exercises for Basic:

52 sentences Prepositions of time, by Irina
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org
127 sentences to practice PREPOSITIONS OF TIME, by Irina
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org
PREPOSITIONS, by Nancy
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org

Here's a good advert to practise some prepositions

For more Youtube videos about prepositions, please feel free to click on here.