P E A C E

Hoy Día de la Paz nuestro centro volvió a celebrar múltiples actividades para concienciarnos del mundo en que vivimos durante estos días difíciles, si atendemos en los medios a lo que acontece a nuestro alrededor. Algunas de las actividades se tiñeron de cierto carácter bilingüe.

English teacher Ignacio's tutorship's work.

     Today is the International Day of Peace. Our school performs different activities for this day: reading peace statements, creating posters, singing and listening to songs...

     The English Department teachers have been working on all those activities as the rest of tutors, adding a bilingual dimension to the diverse activities, by the creation of posters or English speeches, and also listening to songs.

     Songs are very useful to make us understand situations we have not experienced so they are great in such moments. English lessons also use them to introduce vocabulary and structures as they analyse their meanings (you can find samples on our section "week soundtrack"), today, International Day of Peace, we have chosen this lovely tune by Sir Paul McCartney and its great video.

...Help them to learn

songs of joy instead of `burn, baby, burn',

let us show them how to play the pipes of peace...

 

Sir Paul McCartney "Pipes of Peace" (1983)

 Click here for the whole lyrics
 

Learning about New Zealand

 

     Estamos acostumbrados a aprender la lengua inglesa en un contexto británico o americano pero la realidad del inglés abarca mucho más incluyendo otras sociedades de mucho peso, en Oceanía es la lengua más hablada y desconocemos tanto de sus gentes y costumbres, gracias a George, esta semana hemos aprendido mucho sobre Nueva Zelanda, su país y junto con Australia una de las naciones angloparlantes más importantes del hemisferio sur.





     English is the main language of the planet and we use it for travelling around the world, to understand diverse forms of art, for entertainment; it is a prime tool to work and for education and it is normally tied in with two nations: UK (country of  its birth) and USA (the most hegemonic society). But English is also the main language (both officially and unofficially) in many countries in all the continents: it is official in countries such as South Africa, Canada, Australia or India. Another example is New Zealand, nation where our English speaking auxiliar comes from this year.

     George introduced all our classes to his country´s  kilometric beaches and large cities (Auckland and Wellington), mountains (for many of us so far, one of the most popular characteristics, by Peter Jackson, of course), its University (Dunedin) and other geographical features. We saw pictures of their breathtaking landscapes, seas and lakes.

       

     We also learnt about other aspects than geography: population, economy (the importance of dairy production and sheep), their summer Christmas (including a flowered tropical Christmas tree) and NZ´s nature (trees and animals), where it is more difficult than expected to find a kiwi, national bird which even gives name to their nationality, they are better known as Kiwis than as New-Zealanders (and it is not offensive at all).

   George described New Zealand with traditions and folks, main figures, it was funny to discover that Sir Edmund Hillary was a Kiwi or that the first bungee-jumping was there. Maori culture was another focus of his speech, it was exciting to learn about their buildings, religion, (their so trendy) tattoos (ta moko) or their dance (haka) what brought about their national sport, Rugby, and their national team, the All Blacks.

     It is great to discover places we do not know, now I am sure most of our students would visit that great country.
    

 

Winter is coming

Recién pasado el Blue Monday, o el calificado como día más triste del año para muchos, no debemos venirnos abajo nos esperan un invierno y primavera lleno de atractivas actividades.

   Just after this (very) blue Monday and beginning of this horrible Arctic cold wave, we should not despair, during winter and the following spring we are having new nice and exciting activities including music, trips, short movies contests and many other original tasks, some will be the first time we do them while others have already been successful here, and each one related to different topics and subjects.


   Stay tuned.

Welcome George!

     Con algo de retraso respecto a otros cursos finalmente recibimos este año a nuestro auxiliar para las clases de inglés y bilingües. Se trata de George Harman, un joven neozelandés que, durante los próximos cinco meses, no solo nos ayudará en el aprendizaje de la lengua sino que además nos acercará a las costumbres y cultura de una sociedad tan exótica. 



     We welcome our new foreign language assistant, Mr. George Harman. He comes from Auckland in New Zealand and he will help us with English both during English and other bilingual non-linguistic subject lessons (actually he will be helping Science, Social studies, Music, Maths and Technology teachers).

     George is a young man who has just ended his university studies on International Business and Spanish language so he did not have any kind of doubts when he had the chance to visit Spain to teach his mother language and improve ours. He loves sports, like rugby or mountain biking, and music: he even wants to learn to play flamenco guitar!!!

     We Profesor Tomás Hormigo´s staff are really excited about his arrival, we think we have been lucky.