VICTORIAN MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN'S TORTURE

What made Victorian middle class women's clothes so uncomfortable? This is one of the questions students had to find out about. If you look at the following pictures you will soon understand: This is a corset: These are hoop petticoats:

Over the hoop, they wood wear another petticoat, this time with embroided hems.

It had to be very difficult for these women to eat, sit or even breathe! It's not surprising to hear that they were usually unhealthy, and fainted easily. Can any of you imagine wearing such clothes everyday?

If you are interested in this topic, visit the following page: http://images.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http://www.longago.com/TV141.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.longago.com/victorian2.html&h=308&w=321&sz=24&hl=es&start=14&um=1&tbnid=UrhMI2ECkDfurM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvictorian%2Bhoop%2Bpetticoat%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des

FCE 1 RADIO PROGRAMMES

Hi! Some of our Batxi 1 students have been producing their own radio programmes. They have worked in teams of 5 or 6 people and they were asked to include a news section, some debates and interviews, some space for advertising and a competition. In the following days you will all have the chance to listen to their programmes, here, in Laskenglish. Don't forget to connect us!

medieval clothes

Here are some pictures of medieval clothes. The first picture shows peasant men in their costumes: stockings, tunics, hoods, poulaines... Now we will show you real medieval robes that peasant men used. These are now shown in a museum: And we also have a peasant woman's robe:

Sometimes they were tied in the waist, like this:

To finish with peasants, here's a couple working:

The following show wealthy women in their long gowns with more elborate headdresses. You can also see knights with their fighting clothes.

These were "poulaines", medieval shoes:

Exercises for my 4D students

Hello Unai, Miriam, Haizea, Mikel, Erik, Julen, Jonathan, Maikel, Ander and Monika. Today, Thursday 24th, I want you to do these exercises. They are about comparative and superlative adjectives: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/regcom1.htm http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/regcom2.htm http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/regcom3.htm

http://www.stclaresenglish.net/langprac/adcomsup.htm

BBC RADIO

If you want to practise listening you're in the right place. We have included a new link, this time to the BBC radio online. If you want to find it, just go to the Grammar and Skills section. Enjoy it!

TONGUE TWISTER

A friend of us has sent us the following tongue twister to teach English in two levels.

1 - For beginners: Hiru sorgin hiru erloju Swatch begiratzen ari dira. Zein sorgin ari da begiratzen zein erloju Swatch?

In English:

Three witches watch three Swatch watches. Which witch watches which Swatch watch?

2 - For advanced students: hiru sorgin trabesti hiru erloju Swatcheko teklak begiratzen ari dira. Zein sorgin trabesti ari da begiratzen zein Swatch erlojuko teklak?

In English:

Three switched witches watch three Swatch watch switches. Which switched witch watches which Swatch watch switch?

Isn't it good? If any of you knows any more, please send them to us by writing a comment here or posting it to laskenglish@gmail.com

FCE 2 STUDENTS: EXAM ON 23RD APRIL

We're posting this message just to remind you that you've got a grammar and vocabulary exam on 23rd April. We recommend visiting our grammar section where you will find a lot of exercises related to Relative Clauses. We specially recommend doing Relative Clauses (4). Apart from that you will also find exercises (although less) to practice Have / Get causative. Don't miss them!

AGAINST REGULAR POCKET MONEY

Our latest poll results show that our students prefer not to have regular pocket money. They prefer to ask parents the money they need rather than get weekly or monthly pocket money and administer it. Moreover, the idea of getting money monthly is, by far, the least favoured. My question is, shouldn't it be suitable to teach our teenagers to manage with a certain amount of money? Will they/you ever be conscious of how difficult it can be to make ends meet if they always get what they need when they need it? (Ana)

Housing conditions in the Victorian period

Factory workers in the 19th century lived in tenement buildings in slums. Have a look at these.

Notice how narrow the streets were:


This small attic was occupied by a family of ten.

Factory workers had to go out to the streets for water. Remember they had to share a few water pumps.

Compare the housing conditions above with the following Middle Classes Terraced houses and villas which can still be seen nowadays:

Blackboards in the Internet era

That's the title of one article from today's elpais.com . The article refers to the fact that students do not use the internet during the lessons, that in many cases they never use the school computers and that if they do, they are used as mere word processors. The existence of Laskenglish shows that we are trying to make this statement as false as possible in the case of our school. But I'm sure there is still much to do.

How do you feel about this? Do you think teachers at Laskorain are enabling the use of the ICTs (Information and Communication Technology)? Do you think we should promote their use more effectively? Could you tell us about your experience with computers at school?...

We are very interested in your opinion, so LEAVE A COMMENT HERE!

If you want to read the mentioned article click http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Pizarra/tizas/era/Internet/elpeputec/20080408elpepisoc_1/Tes

housing conditions

Before we compare our housing conditions with those in the 1300s and 1900s, our dbh2 students have been reflecting on our own housing conditions. Our welfare is such that many of them hadn't even thought about basic things such as where water comes from or how our houses are heated or lit. I think the conclusion has been that we are very lucky!

FCE 1 students: Exam on April 11th

This post is just to remind you that you have a vocabulary and grammar exam on Friday and that you can do extra grammar practice by clicking on our Grammmar section. You have a lot of conditional sentences exercises there as well as exercises to practise countable and uncountable nouns and quantifiers. Don't miss them!

Are you influenced by adverts?

Our FCE1 students are dealing with an article related to the importance of advertising aimed at children. Aparently, children do have an incredible influence on parents' consumption habits, specially when buying clothes, food and even when choosing a holiday destination. So marketing teams pay special attention to these "little targets". You've been children, and I am sure you still have your power at home as teenagers. Will you tell us your experience regarding this issue? Did you manage to get something you really wished because you saw "it" on the TV? Do you feel adverts influence you? Leave a comment here with your experience.