CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT - Episode 5: MUST

Good morning english buddies!
We have done it! THE TIME OUT PROJECT 2011 has reached 1002 visitors in 3 months!!! We are very proud of this achievement and we expect you to be around for a long time. To celebrate this nice victory, let's enjoy a new video from our cockpit series!
Check it out, try to practice, follow the advice of one of my former students: If there's nobody to talk to, talk to yourselves! The worst that could happen would be people laughing at you on the streets :)

Have fun and take advantage of today to relax!!! The week is coming!

CHEERS!!!

Gustavo Caldas Brito
Fran Sartor

CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT - Episode 3 & 4: WOULD AND SHOULD

Hello english learners!!!
The TIME OUT PROJECT is celebrating almost three months of activities, and in GREAT STYLE: 717 visits!
So this is a great opportunity to thank you all, we are very happy to see so many students coming here to read, study, practice or simply laugh! We really appreciate it and hope we can count on more visits every day!
To show our gratitude for the remarkable number of visitors over the past months, we have decided to post two new episodes of CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT, together, as a GIFT to all of you, and specially some INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED students who feel lost with modal verbs!
We hope you enjoy and leave comments or emails:
thetimeoutproject2011@gmail.com

  
Keep visiting us, let's make it to 1000!!!


Cheers and thank you very much,


Gustavo Caldas Brito 
Fran Sartor

CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT - Episode 2: The MODAL VERBS CAN & COULD

Hello guys,
today we will post the second episode of CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT, and it is a special gift for Intermediate and Advanced students!
For the next episodes, we will explore all the MODAL VERBS and how to select them appropriately, so keep reading our blog and try to practice at home. Remember: In order to learn english, the best thing is to have stimulus, if you don't exercise currently, your english will not develop. So enjoy this opportunity, watch the video and try to create a dialogue between two friends, discussing:
THINGS THEY COULD DO THAT NOW THEY CAN'T
THINGS THEY COULDN'T DO THAT NOW THEY CAN

The next episode will be about the modal verb WOULD, so stick around and don't blow up the chance of studying with the TIME OUT PROJECT.
Have fun!!!
Ps: If you don't want to leave a comment here, send me an e-mail with your dialogue about can and could: thetimeoutproject2011@gmail.com

Description and Narration: A SPECIAL POST FOR BASIC STUDENTS!

Good morning people!
Today the post is directed to my BASIC 2 students!
They are working with SIMPLE PRESENT and PRESENT CONTINUOUS, and the next exercise is going to be an excellent opportunity to PRACTICE describing and narrating...
Let's do it?


SELECT one of the pictures, use the information and write a DIALOGUE INTRODUCING THE PERSON to YOUR TEACHER:

NAME: Ruud Gullit
AGE: 26
NATIONALITY: Dutch
PROFESSION: Football Player

NAME: Ayrton Senna
AGE: 27
NATIONALITY: Brazilian
PROFESSION: Formula-One Pilot

NAME: Karch Kiraly
AGE: 24
NATIONALITY: American
PROFESSION: Volleyball Player















ATTENTION BASIC STUDENTS: I want you to CREATE a dialogue. In the dialogue YOU HAVE TO describe: PERSONAL INFORMATION, PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS (Eyes color, Hair Color, Height, Weight)...I want you to INTRODUCE THE PERSON telling WHO IS THE PERSON and WHAT IS THE PERSON DOING.


Please, send your text to thetimeoutproject2011@gmail.com or write a comment here on the blog!!!
Study people, enjoy this opportunity!!!
Good Luck!!!

Cry for help

Well, well, well...
It has been a long day. I left my job almost 1 hour ago, I really thought I'd have some time to finally rest my feet, but...NOOOO!!!!
My Advanced 2 students need help. As a responsible teacher, here I am to help them. In spite of telling them to work on their writing skills since early June, I am here again to give them a last chance to practice their reported speech abilities. But this last chance has a price: If I am sacrificing some of my free time to post here, you students must sacrifice some time to write: you have until Saturday 4pm to send me an email to thetimeoutproject2011@gmail.com with your reported speeches. I won't correct them if they came later than that...remember: No pain, No gain.


Your job is to observe the comic strip below and report:
Who were they?
Where were they?
What were they talking about?


When you report, remember to use some:
Side comments about the place
Side comments about the subjects of the story


Bear in mind that reporting is about DESCRIBING, EXPLAINING, NARRATING.


Now, concentrate, analyse the comic strip and get to work!

Don't forget to calculate the minutes...you should not spend more than 20 minutes to report ok?
Good Luck, see you all next week!

OUR NEW CO-AUTHOR

Hello people! 

I have decided to interrupt the posts of CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT today just to introduce you to my new co-author: FRAN SARTOR! 

Among her qualities as a teacher we should highlight her charisma, her gift for teaching, her perfectionism, her cultural awareness and her abilities to motivate students to produce!

THE TIME OUT PROJECT 2011 is really proud to have Franciane Sartor as an associated teacher and is forever thankful for her future contributions here! Welcome and Good Luck!!!!

CHRONICLES FROM MY COCKPIT - EPISODE ONE

Wassup people!!! Sorry for being away for such a long time, my other blogs have been taking most of my time, but now i'm back, and back for good!
I don't know if you know but teachers never have only one job. We need to jump from one place to another in order to make a decent amount of money by the end of the month, so we spend a lot of time driving from one neighborhood to another, trying to find places to park, showing the finger to people, etc...
Because of that, I 've come up with the idea of shooting short videos with my cellphone while I'm driving...sort of a therapy...in english! The name of this therapy is:

Once a week I'll post a video here for your delight and enlightment! The first Episode is just a teaser to what will come next! 
Don't miss the next episodes and the opportunities to enhance your english skills with real life situations, check my blog during the week, on weekends...in the bathroom, wherever and whenever you feel confortable!
Cheers!
Enjoy!!!

Listen up

Hello guys!
My work and Phd studies kept me away from the blog these last weeks, but I'm back with another attempt to help you develop your english with some different challenges. Today, teaching in the morning to a bunch of advanced learners, I've realized that they had some trouble to express themselves at the same level they can express their written discourse...The best solution for that is talking! Still, some people don't have anyone to chat to, some others would refuse to expose their english flops in public...But the whole point of learning english is to talk, right? So, I have challenged my students to follow these steps here:

1 SAVE SOMETHING LIKE 20 MINUTES, TWICE A WEEK, TO DEDICATE YOURSELF TO EXTRA-CURRICULAR ENGLISH PRACTICE;
2 SELECT A MAGAZINE, NEWSPAPER, BLOG OR BOOK AND READ A PART OF IT FOR 10 MINUTES;
3 TRY TO RECORD YOURSELF GIVING OPINION ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE JUST READ OR TRY TO SUMMARIZE THE TEXT, BUT REMEMBER NOT TO WRITE ANYTHING BEFORE RECORDING, YOUR ORAL DISCOURSE MUST BE IMPULSIVE, IT SHOULD NOT BE SOMETHING PLANNED OR WRITTEN DOWN PREVIOUSLY.
4 LISTEN TO YOURSELF SPEAKING, TAKE NOTES OF STRANGE PRONUNCIATIONS AND POSSIBLY STRANGE SENTENCE CONSTRUCTIONS.

I believe you'll feel the benefits of this exercise very soon, since you're gonna be practicing the most important channels of your brain.
I hope you follow my advice and wish all the best luck!!!