The PowerPoint attached to this post presents the different rooms in our school. The aim is to make a comparison with our partner school in Spain. The video, I think, is great. Our amazing Spanish assistant made it during this year’s visit. The language is simple but what is most important to me is what the students see. The building is quite different to ours plus there is no uniform. Further into the presentation we compare a modern classroom with an older one. I’ve used the film “El Pequeño Nicolás” as the context. This is, of course, a French film, and I have mentioned it in an earlier post but I couldn’t come up with anything else which would show an older style classroom in a Spanish context. At least these two bits add something cultural to the topic.
PRESENTATION mi colegio
Spanish Teaching Resources and Ideas 
aula is a masculine Word, but it starts with an “atona a” so when in singular we need to use the masculine article “el”: el aula, las aulas it happens the same with words such as agua, we would say “el agua limpia”
Isn’t the reason we change la to el before agua/ hambre etc because the stress of both words falls on the a? With esta the stress falls on the e and causes less of a pronunciation problem when combined with a feminine noun beginning with a stressed a.
Hi Neil/Irene
I agree that Neil’s work is enviable, and those kids did a great job too. I was only concerned about teaching their counterparts in the UK an incorrect sentence; however, we would probably have to ask an academician from the RAE to be absolutely sure in this particular case! I think the lively presentation is a lot more important than the grammar issue.
In first place I would like to thanks Neil for such an amazing web site and for the effort updating constantly the information and sharing his knowledge with teachers and students. Pili, I do appreciate you came out with such an interesting issue. I want to apologise for the mistake in the video, as you are correct. I was the person recording and to be honest with you I had never thought about it before so I am glad you did. As you mentioned it is a common mistake between Spanish speakers. I have discussed this with a few more native speakers and we could not really agree. The lovely kids who helped me to record this video did not find anything wrong with the sentence either. By the way, I have no words to thank them enough for their cooperation; they were so professional and helpful!
I am from the South of Spain and for example, I have always said and heard “de este agua no beberé” although now, I know that I should say “de esta agua no beberé”. It just sounds so wrong to me! To be honest it does not make much sense this rule as if you change “la” for “el” because of the two “a” together, then why not to change “esta” to “este”? Any way, we can not argue wit the RAE and the rules are the rules!
I paste here some easy explanation I have found in Spanish:
http://www.netambulo.com/2008/07/28/como-se-dice-este-agua-o-esta-agua/
Pues aunque parezca que está mal lo correcto es esta agua y no “este” agua. Porque agua es un sustantivo femino y debe concordar en género. Y lo mismo ocurre con esa hacha, esta área o aquella águila.
Sólo se cambia para decir el agua, el hacha o el área, por ejemplo. Si usas los indefinidos (un, algún, ningún…) es correcto decir un agua o una agua (aunque se use menos). Pero a la hora de usar los adjetivos demostrativos (este, ese, aquel) o los determinativos (todo, mucho, poco, otro, etc.) hay que usar las formas femeninas correspondientes: esta agua, aquella arma, toda el agua, mucha hambre, etc. (y no este hacha, aquel mismo arma, todo el agua, mucho hambre)
Si todavía no te lo crees, mira dónde lo dice la RAE.
Maybe because “este” does not go directly next to “aula” in this case, it is actually acceptable to say “este es el aula…” but would be incorrect to say “este aula” – Guess I’ve lived in England too long…!!
Great idea. However, they are using “este” incorrectly with “aula” as “aula” is feminine. See:
http://www.escritura-uah.es/index.php?option=com_easyfaq&task=view&id=9
It’s a common native speaker mistake because with the definite/indefinite article you would use the masculine. However, this does not apply to the demonstrative adjective/pronoun.