Starry Starry Night...

I've worked with some of my students on these lyrics...





"Vincent" is a song by Don McLean written as a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. It is also known by its opening line, "Starry Starry Night", a reference to van Gogh's painting The Starry Night. It also describes different paintings done by the artist.
McLean wrote the lyrics in 1971 after reading a book about the life of the artist. The following year, the song became a number one hit in the U.K. and the U.S.
The song clearly demonstrates a deep-seated admiration for not only the work of van Gogh, but also for the man himself.


The painting.

The Starry Night is a painting by the Dutch post impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh. It depicts the view outside his sanatorium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day.
Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Penpal Project

These are some of the photos with the comments sent by the students in Turkey.

Youth Park, one of Ankara's historic parks.



Ataturk's Mausoleum. Ataturk, the leader of the Turkish Independence War and the revolutions. The first president of the Republic of Turkey was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Penpal Project

In September, this year, I started, together with my students in 9th, a letter exchange with some children of a school in the city of Malatya, Turkey (ATATÜRK İLKÖĞRETİM OKULU).
Derya, their teacher, and I met through Facebook on a webpage for English as a Second Language teachers.
The aim of the Project is to give students a real purpose for writing in a second language and to make friends with children their same age, knowing about their country and culture.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Nice lyrics to work not only as a Listening activity, but also to work in the Writing class...

Don't Forget

This is the video of a song brought by some students in 8th to work in the Listening class. It was a gap-filling activity (completing with the missing verbs)...

Un grupo de chicos de 8º, trajo esta canción a la clase de Listening, para escucharla en clase y hacer una actividad grupal...

Short Stories

I heard a noise and went downstairs to investigate. I had to be very careful, I didn't know if someone was downstairs or if something had fallen down. First, I went to the kitchen and picked up a knife then, I investigated the kitchen but there was nothing wrong. After that, I opened the living room door, but again there was nothing. A couple of minutes passed, and then a weird noise came from the basement. I was really scared. I didn't know if I should go and check out or call directly the police.
Suddenly, I felt brave and went to the basement. I tried to turn on the light but it didn't work, so I went to look for a torch and investigated the basement. It was full of spider webs and strange things.
I went to the other corner. There was my dog Tommy! It seemed that he had fallen asleep there and when he moved, a glass jar had fallen down and the weird noise was his snoring! Oh my god! I almost had a heart attack.

Florencia.


I heard a noise and went downstairs to investigate. I thought that it was my dog, but he was sleeping. I turned on the living room’s light, but everything was OK. I did the same in the whole house, but I couldn't notice anything strange, so I returned to my room. Although I tried to sleep, I couldn't do it.
After some minutes, a strange man appeared at the door, with a knife in his hand. I felt very frightened. He started to get closer to me. I knew he would kill me, so I closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes, I realised that I had been dreaming. Moreover, the night had passed and the sun was shining. It was a great relief to discover it had been only a dream.

Juan Ignacio.