Teacher's instructions.

1º BACH 

TASK 4: MONEY
Given on 11/03/15 
DEADLINE: 19/03/15

INSTRUCTIONS
FIND information on the history of money: where was it used for the first time? how has it changed all through history? what objects have been used for money? What metals? what technology to make money? etc. 
AND
1. MAKE your own summary in English, preferably use your own words.PLEASE, NEVER use words or expressions you don`t understand.
2. FIND a video on the topic (not longer than 5 minutes) that deals with the topic. it needs to be really RELEVANT to the subject. 
3. UPLOAD both the summary and the video on your blog.


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TASK 2: MY FAVOURITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER
Given on 25/11/14 
DEADLINE: 02/12/14

INSTRUCTIONS: Think of a famous fictional character from a book or a film. WRITE  a few sentences about him/her using relative clauses. Use the guidelines below:

I'm a character who appears in a (comedy film, superhero film, etc)
My (friend, girlfriend, enemy, etc) whose name is/are ....................
My most exciting/ dangerous/memorable scene is when .................................
In another scene, which happens (at the beginning, in the middle, near the end, etc) of the film, I .................
in ........................... where the action takes place
etc.

If the character is popular and there are films about him/her, FIND a video and paste it on your blog.



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TASK 1 :   El Cambio Climático en España

Instructions:

1.  Watch the video below and answer the questions in as a complete way as possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjpj6VVSPQY&list=PL9HQxO9BGS4Px5VLZUPjCWhuP30ezZMpy&feature=player_detailpage#t=14

According to the information given in the documentary, ...

1. How will the climate change affect Spain?
2. What concerning statements are mentioned?
3. What processes affecting the climate change are mentioned?
4. What could we do in Spain to reduce or revert the climate change?
5. What's your personal reaction to all this?

DEADLINE:14/11/14

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4ºESO A

TASK given on 30/05/14

READ the options given below. CHOOSE one and answer in as much detail as possible.

1. COMPARE Klaatu and the events in the story to the historical-myhthological figure of Jesus Christ. How are they similar?

2. Can you imagine a world without energy or technology? How would it be different.

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TASK given on 21/05/14

Sometimes luck may be just too generous. Is it a good idea to accept fortune's prodigality if you think it is more than you can manage?

READ the short story below. (It illustrates the point very well) and FOLLOW the instructions the bottom.

All Those Noughts

Sulo was a man that everybody noticed. He was a big man. He had the fat smooth face of a man who ate very well. He had a wonderful head of white hair. You knew he was someone important. And his clothes told you that he was a rich man.

But he had not always been rich. He came from a poor family. He was Latvian or Estonian (nobody really knows: he had several passports which said he was Greek or Brazilian). He decided that he wanted to make money, and became very good at it. Before he was twenty, he had his own 'Import and Export' business in Rio, with branches in several other countries. He had two sayings. The first was: 'Buy cheap and sell dear'. The second was: 'Never look back'.

Yes, Sulo was rich - and dishonest. He often bought stolen goods at a low price and sold them at a high price. He used cash, never signed anything, and never paid taxes. As he left his Zurich hotel in a taxi to go to the airport, he patted the briefcase on his lap. What would people say, he thought, if

they knew I had a million dollars in this briefcase! A million US dollars. He thought of their pretty green colour, of their pictures of the US Presidents and he thought of the number. All those noughts: USS 1.000.000. Six beautiful noughts!

Beautiful! He held the briefcase close to his body. Tonight, he thought, this money will be in a safe in Amsterdam. Sulo felt good.

Yanni was a man that nobody noticed. He was small and thin He did not look important. Nobody could ever remember his face. Yanni was Mr Nobody, always overlooked: he was invisible. He had Swiss identity documents, but he came from another country, Latvia or Estonia perhaps. He came from a poor family. When he was older, Yanni was glad that he was 'invisible', because it was useful for his work. His work? Yanni was a thief. And he was very good at it. Before he was twenty, he came to Zurich and got Swiss papers (nobody knows how).

He became a specialist in picking pockets and stealing purses from handbags. He had only one saying: 'Little and often'. He used to spend a lot of time at the main railway station, looking for 'customers'. Sometimes he liked to walk up Bahnhofstrasse and into one of the big department stores like Globus. Here it was easy to steal purses from open shopping bags. One day, his friend Dix, a specialist in stolen credit cards and foreign money, asked him: 'Yanni, have you ever thought of trying the Airport? There are lots of fat rich tourists there. Much better than the Railway Station, if you ask me.'

So, one day, Yanni took the bus out to the airport and went into Departures to see what he could find. At the KLM desk he noticed a big man with a fat face and a lovely head of white hair. He noticed that the man was having some trouble with the girl behind the counter. He noticed, too, that the man had put his briefcase on the ground. The man was too busy arguing with the girl to think about his case. It would be easy …

Sulo was angry. 'I booked the flight a week ago. 1 told your office in town that I would pick my ticket up at the airport today. So where is it?'

'I'm sorry, sir, but I have no record of the booking. Could you spell your name again?'

'Really! This is not good enough.'

He spelled out his name to her in the kind of loud slow voice that you use when talking to idiots:

'My name is Sulo. S-U-L-O. Now hurry up or I'll miss my flight to Amsterdam.'

After some more minutes, the girl finally found Sulo's booking; it was listed under Solo, an easy mistake to make. She gave Sulo his ticket.

'If you have only hand luggage, sir, you can go straight through now.'

'Good. Yes,' Sulo said, 'I only have my br .. .'

He looked down. The briefcase had disappeared. He looked round, his eyes wild. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. His face was white. It wasn't possible! It just wasn't

possible! He stared at the place where he had put the case down, as if he expected it to reappear. Suddenly, he felt as if he was going to be sick. He had to go to the toilet. Quickly.

While Sulo was arguing at the KLM desk Yanni went downstairs to the toilet. He went into the nearest cubicle and closed the door behind him. He was quite excited. A briefcase could contain all sorts of useful things: a calculator perhaps, or some expensive pens. Or some foreign money. Dix would buy that from him. Or there would be some credit cards. Dix would be happy to take them too.

'Little and often,' he said to himself, smiling. 'Steal a little, steal often.' He began to sing softly, because Yanni was happy in his work, unlike most people.

He sat on the toilet, put the briefcase on his knees, rubbed his hands and opened the case. He cried out when he saw the piles of green banknotes. Millions and millions of US dollars!

He felt afraid. His face went white and he felt sick. Big money like this was big trouble, and he didn't want any trouble.

'What shall I do? What shall I do?'

He wished that Dix was there to help him. Dix would know what to do.

'Perhaps I should put it down the toilet,' he thought. 'No, that would take a long time. No. Just leave it! Leave it and get out, fast!' He felt angry now. He hated the big man with the fat face and the white hair. Why couldn't he just carry a few credit cards and a small quantity of cash like normal people? Why didn't he have something that an honest thief could steal. Not millions and millions of dollars like this. This was stupid. Too much money. No good for anybody. Yanni closed the case and

hit the lid with his fists.

'It's just not fair!' he said out loud. He put the briefcase out of sight behind the toilet. He hoped that nobody would find it before he had got away from the airport.

'Let's get back to Bahnhofstrasse and steal a few purses, purses that have normal amounts of money in them. A few francs here, a few francs there ... '

As he went up the stairs, he saw the big man with the white hair coming down. Yanni's heart stopped. He looked away quickly. Sulo did not even notice him. Sulo went downstairs and ran into the nearest cubicle. He closed the door and sat on the toilet, his head in his hands. 'How could I have been so stupid?' he asked himself. 'A million dollars! A million dollars! And some dirty little thief has stolen it! Well, if I ever catch him, I'll kill him. There are thieves everywhere nowadays. The world isn't safe for decent people any more. ' It was good to get angry. It made him feel better. But not much better. He realized that. there was nothing he could do about the lost money. He got up and went out of the cubicle.

The briefcase was still behind the toilet, but Sulo did not look back. Sulo never looked back.

IMAGINE that you are Yanni. You will be thinking for him and talking for him in the first person. A few days after the incident, he is giving it some thought. What would be his reflections?

Choose one of the beginnings below and continue consequently:

A. I think what I did was right because …......................

B. I think I made a big mistake leaving the money because …......................

C. Really, the more I think about it the more confused I am because ….....................

WRITE, at least 120 words.

MAKE A RECORDING of your voice reading the reflections. Please, try to make if fun to listen to.

DEADLINE: 25/05/14

at

10.00 pm

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MY GLOBAL ISSUE CAMPAIGN LEAFLET

Task given on 05/05/14

Deadline: 08/05/14

INSTRUCTIONS:

WRITE your campaign leaflet using the writing guide in exercise 5 on page 73.

Make sure that it contains, at least 150 words.

RECORD your voice reading the text and put a link on your blog. 

Task given on 28/03/14

INVENT A JOB

Think  of a job you would  think  necessary but you don’t  think it’s done.

What would the work consist of?

What qualifications would it require?

What sort of working conditions would it have?

What sort of salary would  be attached to it, being realistic?

Deadline: 02/04/14

TASK given on 24/03/14

Write a summary of the activities done at the Salón de Actos today when we received a group of Danish students. 

Your summary must be at least 100 words long and in your own words. Translators are never accepted.

Deadline: Friday 28/03

TASK given on 20/02/14
About the film 'The Bridges of Madison County'

CONTEXT:  Francesca Johnson and Robert Kincaid were involved in a very intense love affair that lasted 4 days in August 1965. The effects of their short relationship, however, stayed very much alive inside them for the rest of their lives. Robert Kincaid referred to their love as 'the kind of certainty that one only knows once in many lifetimes'.

Francesca could have gone away with Robert. She almost did but resisted her natural impulse thinking how much their children and husband would hurt. She put her family responsability before her once-in-a-lifetime love.

Was she right to do so? COMMENT, please:

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To take into consideration:

1. You are expected to add as much detail to your text as you possibly can since it'll be valued both for its quality and quantity.

2. The deadline to upload it on your blog is Monday 3 March.

3. DO a SOUND FILE of the text and upload it on your blog next to the text.

A CHRISTMAS STORY 

TASK 1

Read the story. Then ...

1. Write a 100 summary in your own words in Spanish.
2. How much did you like the story? Explain in English please.
Deadline : 12 January Evening (8 o'clock)

CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE MORNING

Pearl S Buck

He woke suddenly and completely. It was four o'clock, the hour at which his father had always called him to get up and help with the milking. Strange how the habits of his youth clung to him still! Fifty years ago, and his father had been dead for thirty years, and yet he waked at four o'clock in the morning. He had trained himself to turn over and go to sleep, but this morning it was Christmas, he did not try to sleep.

Why did he feel so awake tonight? He slipped back in time, as he did so easily nowadays. He was fifteen years old and still on his father's farm. He loved his father. He had not known it until one day a few days before Christmas, when he had overheard what his father was saying to his mother.

"Mary, I hate to call Rob in the mornings. He's growing so fast and he needs his sleep. If you could see how he sleeps when I go in to wake him up! I wish I could manage alone.

"Well, you can't, Adam." His mother's voice was brisk. "Besides, he isn't a child anymore. It's time he tok his turn."

"Yes," his father said slowly. "But I sure do hate to wake him."

When he heard these words, something in him spoke: his father loved him! He had never thought of that before, taking for granted the tie of their blood. Neither his father nor his mother talked about loving their children--they had no time for such things. There was always so much to do on the farm.

Now that he knew his father loved him, there would be no loitering in the mornings and having to be called again. He got up after that, stumbling blindly in his sleep, and pulled on his clothes, his eyes shut, but he got up.

And then on the night before Christmas, that year when he was fifteen, he lay for a few minutes thinking about the next day. They were poor, and most of the excitement was in the turkey they had raised themselves and mince pies his mother made. His sisters sewed presents and his mother and father always bought him something he needed, not only a warm jacket, maybe, but something more, such as a book. And he saved and bought them each something, too. 

He wished, that Christmas when he was fifteen, he had a better present for his father. As usual he had gone to the ten-cent store and bought a tie. It had semed nice enough until he lay thinking the night before Christmas. He looked out of his attic window, the stars were bright.

"Dad," he had once asked when he was a little boy, "What is a stable?"

"It's just a barn," his father had replied, "like ours."

Then Jesus had been born in a barn, and to a barn the shepherds had come...

The thought struck him like a silver dagger. Why should he not give his father a special gift too, out there in the barn? He could get up early, earlier than four o'clock, and he could creep into the barn and get all the milking done. He'd do it alone, milk and clean up, and then when his father went in to start the milking he'd see it all done. And he would know who had done it. He laughed to himself as he gazed at the stars. It was what he would do, and he musn't sleep too sound.

He must have waked twenty times, scratching a match to look each time to look at his old watch -- midnight, and half past one, and then two o'clock.

At a quarter to three he got up and put on his clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky boards, and let himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It was early for them, too.

He had never milked all alone before, but it seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his father's surprise. His father would come in and get him, saying that he would get things started while Rob was getting dressed. He'd go to the barn, open the door, and then he'd go get the two big empty milk cans. But they wouldn't be waiting or empty, they'd be standing in the milk-house, filled.

"What the--," he could hear his father exclaiming.

He smiled and milked steadily, two strong streams rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant.

The task went more easily than he had ever known it to go before. Milking for once was not a chore. It was something else, a gift to his father who loved him. He finished, the two milk cans were full, and he covered them and closed the milk-house door carefully, making sure of the latch.

Back in his room he had only a minute to pull off his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard his father up. He put the covers over his head to silence his quick breathing. The door opened.

"Rob!" His father called. "We have to get up, son, even if it is Christmas."

"Aw-right," he said sleepily.

The door closed and he lay still, laughing to himself. In just a few minutes his father would know. His dancing heart was ready to jump from his body.

The minutes were endless -- ten, fifteen, he did not know how many -- and he heard his father's footsteps again. The door opened and he lay still.

"Rob!"

"Yes, Dad--"

His father was laughing, a queer sobbing sort of laugh.

"Thought you'd fool me, did you?" His father was standing by his bed, feeling for him, pulling away the cover.

"It's for Christmas, Dad!"

He found his father and clutched him in a great hug. He felt his father's arms go around him. It was dark and they could not see each other's faces.

"Son, I thank you. Nobody ever did a nicer thing--"

"Oh, Dad, I want you to know -- I do want to be good!" The words broke from him of their own will. He did not know what to say. His heart was bursting with love.

He got up and pulled on his clothes again and they went down to the Christmas tree. Oh what a Christmas, and how his heart had nearly burst again with shyness and pride as his father told his mother and made the younger children listen about how he, Rob, had got up all by himself.

"The best Christmas gift I ever had, and I'll remember it, son every year on Christmas morning, so long as I live."

They had both remembered it, and now that his father was dead, he remembered it alone: that blessed Christmas dawn when, alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his first gift of true love.

This Christmas he wanted to write a card to his wife and tell her how much he loved her, it had been a long time since he had really told her, although he loved her in a very special way, much more than he ever had when they were young. He had been fortunate that she had loved him. Ah, that was the true joy of life, the ability to love. Love was still alive in him, it still was.

It occured to him suddenly that it was alive because long ago it had been born in him when he knew his father loved him. That was it: Love alone could awaken love. And he could give the gift again and again.This morning, this blessed Christmas morning, he would give it to his beloved wife. He could write it down in a letter for her to read and keep forever. He went to his desk and began his love letter to his wife: My dearest love...

Such a happy, happy Christmas!

TASK 2

 Below you'll find 4 stories that may well have happened during Christmas, any Christmas. They need to be finished. Please, read them and choose the one you like best. Finish it. Do it in English most preferably.
Write your part on your notebook. Later on you will upload it on your blog.

CHRISTMAS STORY 4

Mario, a young drug addict, desperately needs money to pay fo his daily fix. He`s determined to rob a supermarket. When he goes into the shop a Christmas carol is playing on the loudspeakers. It`s a carol his mother used to sing to him when he was a child. He stops for a while and suddenly he can`t help starting to sob and feeling really bitter when the memories filled his mind. Rosa, one of the supermarket girls sees Mario and asks him if he is all

righ. Mario looks at Rosa. His right hand is in his pocket and he is still holding a knife.

(Dialogue between Mario and Rosa)