Diego's Quintos

FRONTING So many years trying to put all the words in a pre-established order, and being punished if you didn’t, and now the teacher comes with this idea of “fronting”, which is nothing less than ordering the words out of order, i.e. the pre-established order. Let’s start right from the beginning: remember the order (famous “empty” or “MPT”) S + V + O + O + M + P + T [subject+verb+object+object+manner+place+time) “Fronting” means moving one of the MPT elements to “front position and then the verb and then the subject: Shouting and shooting arrived the sheriff  (M+V+S) When I looked up, from the seventh-floor balcony hung a desperate woman (P+V+S) What did we do this for? To emphasize the subject, which is left to the very end: everybody should pay attention or hurry up the reading to learn who arrived shouting and shooting. Have a look at the following sequence: Philip knew he had to find his wife before it was too late...

        ON LISTENING From hearing to comprehension After being on the road as an English teacher since the early seventies, which implies more than 40 years of changes, not only of books, authors, methods, but also of approaches, I have learnt that, since skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking) began to be considered separately, “listening comprehension exams” have become the most feared of all four.  It must be remembered here that the student/examinee is to answer questions on an aural [1] text that, as it flies past his ears, he cannot control at all. The speed, the accent, the quality of the sound, and sometimes even physical obstacles (background noises, echoes, etc), add to the difficulty of the theoretically well conceived distracters [2] .   At this point the obvious question is where does the difficulty of a listening task lie? At first sight it seems to come from the type of exer...

First book ever published; long ago, back in 1988, when the teacher had a different oulook on life, and death, which is the same. As to this point, lots of influence of Plato (the two worlds, you know) and John Dunne (not "Donne", the English poet) and his Serial Time Theory, which had such an influence on Priestley (English playright; you can't miss him: police drama). In those days, the main poetic influence was Italian: the hermetismo and the crepusculares; mainly Ungaretti and Montale. The little book was lucky and awarded a prize by a breathtaking  jury. It can be found at a click http://www.amazon.es/DESDE-ALBA-Diego-Nieto-Marc%C3%B3-ebook/dp/B00ISSAAHE/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394616242&sr=1-3&keywords=diego+a.+nieto+marc%C3%B3 Notice what's happened with the stress on "Marcó's "o": It is not "Marco" (the name of an infamous politician some decades ago), but "Marcó". Let me give as example one...

B2 - C1 e-mails B2 & C1 Your e-mails To Make my job a bit easier, allow me to ask you once more to send me the material, both “Essays” and “Speaking Session Material, stating clearly the content in the subject (asunto). ESSAYS : Your course – your group (if more than one) – That is “Essayº and one word title” Examples:  For B2 (quinto)                                                             course     type writing    title main word                                                                                   ↓         ↓       ...

MALAGUEÑO BOOKS    Estas son publicaciones de alumnos y/o profesores de inglés niveles C1 y B2 en cualquier idioma.  Para quien pueda interesar. En orden alfabético. CONTENTS 1.           Chamizo Moreno, Martín Luis (Music) 2.           Nieto Marcó, Diego A. (Novel in Spanish) 3.      Pardo Milanés, Alberto (Mathematics) 4.           Rodríguez Rico, Juan Antonio (Education) 5.           Vadillo, Eneko (music) If you want your stuff to be advertised here, just speak to your teacher.  Needless to say it is absolutely free.                 JUST INCLUDED: MUSIC              ENEKO VADILLO'S  Elliot Goldenthal's Final Fantasy:  A Discussion on Mixed Harm...