EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

It was on a May 24th that an army of brave men led by General Antonio José de Sucre fought the battle against the Spanish troops that were the last representatives of a merciless force that for centuries had subjugated the original owners of this land and plundered its resources in order to quench the thirst for gold of the Spanish empire. Ecuador as such was yet to exist but cities such as Guayaquil and Cuenca were free already and only Quito remained. Sucre was Simón Bolívar's most trusted and valued ally and it was Sucre who was entrusted with the difficult task of taking over the last Spanish stronghold in what would become Ecuador years latter.  Attacking from upward Pichincha mount, Sucre's forces got the upper hand but  it was only after hours of a terrible battle that finally the Spanish soldiers were defeated and Quito was freed. With Quito now a free city, Bolivar could march unopposed to the south in order to expel the Spanish from Peru thus sealing the independ

One of the many challenges a teacher has to face is to maximize time.  The term "maximize time" in English teaching mostly means that students are given oportunities to increase their practice time. That time is  important because learning without any ulterior practice is not usually assimilated, or fixed properly.   The problem is for the teacher since he has to find ways to make that practice meaningful and at the same time common to the whole group. One teacher can only interact with one student at a time while the rest of the group listens. But are they all listening? Probably not. It is better if they interact with one another under the teacher's supervision whose role is then to monitor, help out and take notes on each student's performance. Those notes are of great aid for the teacher so he can use that informaion to detect weaknesses and take easures in order to work on those weakesses in the future.  In the picture you can see my A01 students engag

Once I had my high school students read The Most Dangerous Game, a short story by Richard Connell. Rainsford, the main character, is a professional hunter traveling by ship to his next hunting area, accidentally ends up in an island called Ship- Trap island. When he goes into the island he finds there are two men living in a palace in the island. One of them is a Cossack general and the other, his brutish servant.  The Cossack is called general Zaroff who is also  a game hunter but has become bored of hunting regular game and now uses the island's unique position to capture sailors from shipwrecks. He lets them go first and next after some time he hunts them down. Rainford's arrival who is worldwide famous presents Zaroff with a rare opportunity to find excitement in hunting again by hunting another hunter. Little does Zaroff know that Rainsford is The Most Dangerous Game in the World and hunting him will not be easy at all. My students enjoyed themselves at reading

If there is one thing to say about this movie that would be the fact that is a Pedro Almodóvar movie, and that should be enough. Still this is a movie that stands out for many other reasons than that. The first is that is an intelligent movie, not told in your regular linear style. At the beginning we see this patient of sorts named Vera (Elena Anaya) completely isolated in a room of a private clinic. All her needs as food or drinks being met by an employee of the clinic, Marilia (Marissa Paredes) who constantly oversees what Vera does using cameras installed in her room. The clinic is owned by a doctor, Robert Legard (Antonio Banderas). Legard has had a tough life having lost his wife and his daughter in unusual circumstances. His wife for instance suffered a car accident and almost died having suffered burns that compromised all of her body. Legard saved her life and during a long time tried to restore her damaged skin until the day she accidentally saw herself in the crystal

At least it has not been its official name since 1995, year when the name was changed to Mumbai which is the one it has these days. The reasons why this city was called Bombay are not that clear. One source indicates that it was a Portuguese phrase (something like Bon Baim) meaning Good Bay. The other was that actually it was an English word coined because of the impossibility of the English of that time to pronounce Mumbai correctly. Whether this is right or not the truth is that Mumbai has had at least ten different names ever since its foundation (which has never been recorded). It has been the capital of now forgotten empires and always the connection between India and the nations of the Middle East since it is actually a seven-island archipelago on the Arabian Sea. This city is the largest in population in India and the most important in terms of economy and commerce, full of temples and modern buildings, full of spiritualism and dynamic trade.

This is one of the most recent TV series, with Spiderman as a protagonist, after Marvel was bought by Disney.   Though he is still the same wise-cracking hero and his background story has been respected this Spiderman indeed has a lot of the Marvel spirit but now also Disney's. Peter Parker is still Peter Parker, Jonah Jameson is still Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson is still Mary Jane Watson but certain aspects have been emphasized on purpose. Peter is and looks much more a teen than he did in previous series and so are some of the other characters such as Mary Jane. His aunt is now a modern woman that spends most of the time outside home which is convenient for Peter and his secret identity. Also it is Peter who narrates the story in every episode and the audience now can get to see  humorous renditions of the comment Peter or any of the other characters makes (such as when Peter claims that Spiderman is a singer in his class and we get to see that image on the screen).

I love the Star Trek universe. I think it is one of the greatest efforts to bring a comprehensive portrait of what mankind can achieve if they do things right because in this future reality man is still on Earth but has managed to make contact with other races and has been able to organize a community of planets and diverse races into an entity called the United Federation of Planets. There is no longer war or avarice, or hunger and poverty. Mankind looks at the stars and sees new places to explore, not to conquer. In order to do that it is that the starship Enterprise was created: to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. After several movies and five series, nothing was happening with this franchise. With a fanbase that has proved once and again to be the most faithful, you could have expected  some interest to revitalize it but it was until J.J. Abrams came and helmed a new project that the Enterprise would rise again. I must also