EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES

As every September 26th we celebrate the European Day of Languages.
There is an official website with all the relevant information.

Here is a beautiful drawing by Rafael Malmagro (ESO Year 2) to illustrate this importante day for languages.

Having a universal language like English can be great on many occasions but there is a downside: other languages are quickly disappearing.

In the last years there have been several movements to preserve these "endangered" languages around the globe. Here are a few examples:

* The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to build a publicly accessible digital library of human languages.

* The Endangered Languages Project tries to support language documentation and preservation around the world.
Endangered Languages Project

A project to support language preservation and documentation around the world

EDUCATIONAL APPS

Everyday we get more into new technologies applied to education. Recently I found some interesting apps that offer free courses and on-line learning (the buzz word for a long time!!). They offer lessons based on video, documents, off-line reading, presentations, questionnaires, etc. This is ideal as you can go your own pace, according to your motivation, free time, needs, etc.

Have a look at:
- KHAN ACADEMY (virtually any topic from elementary to college level)
- COURSERA (more oriented to university)
- UDEMY (major focus on entrepreneurship and lifestyle)
- iTUNES U (Apple is creating a huge database with courses offered by prestigious universities around the world)

You will see that the possibilities are endless.

PHONETICS IN ENGLISH

Phonemic chart from José Antonio Alcalde López

e-PEL

These days in our English lessons we are talking a lot about the e-PEL. Our aim is for students to create their own digital portfolio where they can track their learning progress in English.
Here is a document for the first steps...

My English portfolio from José Antonio Alcalde López

TOP LINKS FOR BACHILLERATO STUDENTS

Learning a foreign language today is so easy with new technologies. The web is full of resources to help us in every little thing (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, speaking, cultural references, etc.)
Today we present a simple document with only some of these site specifically designed to learn English on-line. We hope they improve your competence in English.

Top links to learn English Bachillerato from José Antonio Alcalde López

WELCOME 2014-15 SCHOOL YEAR!

It is a new school year and we would like to welcome everybody: students, teachers and families.

Here is the distribution of bilingual students:

1º ESO	33 + 33
2º ESO	32 + 32
3º ESO	23 + 22
4º ESO	30
1º BAC	28

Regarding the distribution of bilingual subjects for each level, here is the planning:

YEAR	ENGLISH	ANL1	ANL2	ANL3	Horas en / de Inglés
1º ESO (2 groups)	Miguel (4h)	Maths (4h) Pedro	Science (3h) Martín	Music (2h)	13hh
2º ESO (2 groups)	Miguel + José A. (3h)	Maths (3h) Irene	Social Studies (3h) Mabel	Music (2h)	11h
3º ESO (2 group)	Cinta (4h)	Sports (2h) Raúl	Biology (2h) Luis		8h
4º ESO (1 group)	Cinta (4h)	Sports (2h) Raúl	Ethics (2h) Elena		8h
1º Bach (1 group)	José A. (3h)	Science (3h) Luis	Sports (2h) Raúl		8h

As usual we hope all the projects and ideas we have in mind can be fulfilled and at the end of the year we are proud of our work.

All the best for everybody!!

STUDYING ABROAD

This school year 4 students from our school are studying abroad. Two girls will take ESO Year 4 in the USA and a boy and a girl will take Bachillerato Year 1 in Scotland and the USA respectively.

We wish them all the best and hope the make the most of this awesome opportunity to live in a foreign country for a long time.
We are looking forward to listening to your experiences when you come back!!

GOOGLE'S BALLOONS

Google is always on the edge and here is another awesome example: Balloons to provide worldwide WiFi  especially on remote areas.

Watch the video below where more details are given about this Google Loons project.
What will be next???...

2014-15 LANGUAGE ASSISTANTS

Unfortunately this year the help from Language Assistants is being reduced in schools with fewer than 10 bilingual groups like ours. We will only have 6 hours a week distributed in two days. We will share our Language Assistant with the elementary school  in Corrales (they will also have 6 hours a week).
This new school year there will be 742 Language Assistants placed in Andalucía (138 through the Ministry of Education and 604 through the Andalusian Education Department).
 Long are those days when only in Andalucía there were more than 1,300!! We expect them on October 1st until May 30th.