02.08.12
Posted in TEMAS PROFESORES SECUNDARIAS at 8:00 am by Administrator
A los opositores que han estado preparando los temarios en base a lo que nosotros habíamos escrito para unos temas sobre los que las distintas partes del mundo educativo: ministerio, consejerías de educación de las comunidades autónomas y sindicatos de distinta ideología del sector educativo llevaban negociando durante más de un año y salieron publicados en noviembre de 2011: En la página de www.slshallam.es encontrareis un listado con la comparativa de los que pueden servir del antiguo temario. En breve pondremos otra lista esta basándonos en el temario del 1993 con una relación de los temas publicados con MAD y que son equivalentes. El resto de los temas, si los tenemos elaborados, ya veremos cómo los ponemos a disposición, al menos para nuestros alumnos y algunos fieles más. De todas formas, muchos de los temas elaborados sirven estupendamente para preparar la justificación de las actividades de la programación, el desarrollo de competencias, la evaluación, etc. ¡Ah! y no os desanimeis. Estais mucho mejor preparados y con mayores recursos para afrontar con éxito la oposición. Por lo tanto, si lo que buscan es lo que dicen, vosotros sois de los mejores.
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02.07.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 5:33 pm by Administrator
Here’s a quiz for you… You can supply the answers and then we’ll see how many each of you got right! There are 20 questions on Dickens altogether :
In 1812, the year Dickens was born…..
- a) How many novels were published in Britain?
- b) What was the literacy rate in Britain?
- c) What was his father’s job?
- In which towns did he spend his childhood?
- How old was he when his family moved to London?
- What happened to him then?
- How old was Dickens when he started to work as a freelance reporter?
- What happened to him in 1834?
- What penname did he use when he joined the reporting staff of the Morning Chronicle?
- How old was Dickens when he published his first novel? And when he married?
- Was his first novel published before of after Victoria was crowned queen? How was it published?
- Which novel did Dickens start writing when his first novel was still running?
- How many novels did he publish between his first and 1841? Can you name them?
- What did he do then? Are there any records of it?
- When was his first setback in terms of novel-writing and how did it materialise?
- In which way is David Copperfield different fron Dickens’ previous novels?
- What was Household Words? What did it have in common with All the year Round?
- What were the main topics of Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7)? And those of A tale of two cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)?
- What was the last novel he wrote? What was it about?
- When did he die?
We’ll shortly provide a brief text with the answers… together with some quotes from his books… in English and Spanish.
And here is a link to a website about comments on Dickens by friend Wilkie Collins: http://wilkiecollins.com/
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01.24.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 3:34 pm by Administrator
EPONYMS
Mostly scientific terms, but not all!
Perhaps the most famous is ….
Christmas…. After Christ
Also:
Hooligan…. after Patrick Hooligan, and Irish hoodlum in Southward . London 1989.
Quisling…. After Quisling, a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis (1940): traitor.
Quixotic…. After Don Qixote… foolish, impractical
Boycott… after Charles Boycott, an English land agent in Ireland (1880) who was ostracised for refusing to reduce rents.
Dunce: from John Duns Scotus, whose once accepted writings were ridiculed in the 16th century by humanists and reformers as being enemies of learning. Scotus was a Mediaval philosopher and theologian, (2nd half of 13th and first decade of 14th century ). He became a Franciscan, studied at Oxford and lectured there. His works were mainly commentaries of the Bible, Aristotle and the Sentences of Peter Lombard. He was a critic of preceding scholasticism, but his defence of the Papacy led to his ideas being ridiculed during the reformation. According to some scholars, he was better at criticising others than constructing a system of his own.
Sandwich : after John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich (18th century)
Wellington boots : After the Duke of Wellington. Beginning of 19th century.
The ones which are not, in spite of the listening we did in class from one of the Proficiency textbooks (Testbuilder I) (information based mainly on Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and on Oxford Reference English Dictionary)
Doldrums: according to the Websters, it is probably akin to “dol” OE for foolish. First introduced in 1811. It is used to refer to a spell of listlessness or despondency. Also to a state of inactivity, stagnation or slump.
Gusset: ME piece of armour covering the joints in a suit of armour from MF gouchet (14th century). Also a diamond-shaped or triangular reinforcement or expansion
Pocket: ME poket, from ONF pokete, as diminutive of poke, bag of Germanic origin akin to OE pocca= bag.
Coffin ME from MF cofin and from Latin cophinus (14th century)
Ketchup…. According to Wikipedia it appears as early as 1690 as a Chinese invention and then discovered in the 18th century by the British in Malaysia…. It is found in Swift’s A panegyric on the Deans wks (1730). Various theories about the name, some of them relate it to the word escabeche in Spanish and French.
Trousers: from Irish and Gaelic triubhas. They were close-fitting shorts. According to http://www.etymonline.com, in the 1570s there appeared the term trouse, then in the 1580s it was trouzes and they reckon that perhaps the second “r” in today’s “trousers” was an influence of “drawers”.
Walkman: One of the many Sony trademarks, based on its precursor the Pressman and build in 1978. Others are “Watchman, Discman” etc. (this is according to Wikipedia and other internet sources like http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101223102607AAYIwPt
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01.02.12
Posted in VOLUMEN PRÁCTICO INGLES SECUNDARIAS Y ESCUELAS at 9:35 am by Administrator
For our students and for those enrolled to access our extra materials, we have uploaded on the “Class materials” http://slshallam.es/Download3.html the listening text we did on Alan Sillitoe. This connects with Text 5 “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”. You need a code to open the document “as read only”, so if you haven’t been sent it and you are one of our students, e-mail us.
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12.16.11
Posted in Topic Summaries and/or Extended Outlines at 2:46 pm by Administrator
Our students and those who have bought our topics published with Editorial MAD have free access to summaries or extended outlines of topics at www.slshallam.es . The exact page is “topics”. You’ll need a code to open the document, so send us an e-mail…
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12.14.11
Posted in TEMAS PROFESORES SECUNDARIAS, Topic 2 on Language Acquisition and Language learning at 3:08 pm by Administrator
We have spotted a mistake on Topic 2.
1.1.First Language acquisition theories:
This is what it should say:
Over the past sixty years or so three main theoretical positions have been advanced to explain first language acquisition following the nurture vs. nature controversy: the behaviourist, innatist or mentalist (aka cognitivist) and developmental cognitivist (aka constructivist).
We’ll soon include a short article on this regard, summarising an article by T. Newby
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12.13.11
Posted in On "Flesh & Blood" and "IQ", VOLUMEN PRÁCTICO INGLES SECUNDARIAS Y ESCUELAS at 12:35 pm by Administrator
As we have been revising the Volumen Práctico for a new edition which should be coming out soon, we noted one mistake, which we would like to clarify and explain here. Also, as we have added some more questions to the texts, we would like to point out something which was not fully covered in one of our classes so that everybody can benefit from it.
The first point is related to the expression “Flesh and Blood” which in the earlier version of Volumen Práctico came as “uña y carne”. IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT. HERE IS WHAT IT REALLY MEANS:
3. Flesh and… blood (G) de la misma sangre (usually in the expression “of one’s own flesh and blood”). Also found in the expression “In flesh and blood” and the variation “flesh and bone/flesh and bones” –found in a song by Depeche Mode and in other lyrics. In this case it means “en carne y hueso” or “en persona”. There’s also a 1993 film written and directed by Steve Kloves, starring Meg Ryan, Dennis Quaid, James Caan and Gwyneth Paltrow called “Flesh and Bone”, translated into Spanish as “como Uña y Carne”. However, the translation should have been “En carne y hueso”.
Indeed, to translate “son como uña y carne”, as far as we know, we would have to say in English “inseparable”. But if any of you can suggest something better, we’ll be delighted to look into it and accept or reject your suggestion.
The second issue in our Volumen Práctico is the Initialism “IQ”, which stands for Intelligence Quotient, in Spanish Cociente Intelectual. Sometimes, it appears in English as “Intelligence Quota”, but this, if it were right, would have a different meaning, i.e. “Intelligence limit”, which obviously does not make sense. Likewise, it sometimes appears as “Coeficiente Intelectual” in Spanish, but the proper and correct term is “Cociente Intelectual”.
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12.07.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:04 pm by Administrator
This is the www.slshallam.es blog created to answer questions and clarify points related to topics or any other related issues for Secondary English teachers and for teachers at Official Language Schools in Spain. Paloma González is in charge and will try to answer and/or clarify any questions you may have concerning the topics in the New Temario published in the Official Gazette, Order EDU/3138/2011. As I’m new in this blogging business, please excuse any possible shortcomings.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:04 pm by Administrator
This blog has been created with the intention to answer questions, publish articles of interest related to the topics for Secondary English teachers and/or English teachers at Official Schools, or any other issues of interest for English teachers
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