End of course entry

Well guys, so the year is finished! It's been a long year, and we have worked very hard. Now it is time to relax and make the most of the holidays :)

Now I give a piece of advice to all of you, both for the people that have to do the exam in September, and for the people who don't. Enjoy your holidays, but try to find some time to revise. Remember that learning a language is like practising a sport: the important thing is perseverance.

You have many links on the right column of the blog; you can also check the labels of the different entries. And today I'm going to give you another website to practise listening and speaking with native speakers: www.soziety.com.

You select your mother-tongue (lengua nativa), the language you want to practise, and your level. Then, you look for people you can talk to. Normally, you'll talk to English speakers who want to learn Spanish: that way, you do each other a mutual favour. I used it a few years ago and it's really, really good.

If any of you finds any other interesting website during the summer, please post it in a comment and we can all use it.

Finally, I'd like to tell you all again that it's been an absolutely real pleasure to spend this year with you. Next year I'll be at the Escuela in Roquetas de Mar, but you can still follow my blogs and contact me through e-mail. You can write to me to ask for advice, for material, or simply to let me know how everything's going!!  I'll be really happy to have news from you :)

Have a great holiday!

Ana.

Comparatives & superlatives

Hello everyone!

Last week we revised countable and uncountable nouns and also how to form comparatives and superlatives in English.

You can practise comparatives and superlatives here (you can select four different levels of difficulty). And here you have a text about London and another one about Los Angeles, with a grammar exercise at the end.


Then we read a text about the hottest, the coldest and the highest cities in the world, and you talked about the funniest anecdote and the best moment in your lives. Some of them were really good!! :) Also, we learnt vocabulary related to the weather (what's the weather like today?). For homework, you have to do the last two exercises of the photocopy.





Finally, we finished the book Great Expectations. I read your comments yesterday, and I was happy to see that you all liked it!

Now you know the exam calendar, so, please, use this weekend to start revising and ask me any questions you have.

See you next week! :)

Ps: Remember that you also have to write a composition for next Monday/Tuesday: write about your favourite place in the world (it can be a country, a city, your town, your house, even your bedroom!). Try to use as much vocabulary and grammar as you can (100-120 words).

Algunas ideas de cosas sobre las que podéis hablar: describir el lugar (vocabulario de la casa), qué tiempo hace (the weather), decid por qué os gusta, cuándo fue la primera vez que fuisteis (pasado), con qué frecuencia vais (adverbios de frecuencia), con quién, qué hacéis allí (actividades cotidianas, can), cuándo vais a volver de nuevo (futuro), etc.

The future; reading practice online

Hello everyone!

How is the weekend? :)

Last week was very short because we only had one day of class. We played a game where you had to guess the definition of some words (foggy, staycation, guffaw and gobsmacked), and the winner had a prize that I hope you liked! :p

The word staycation is not in the dictionary because it is a very new creation. It refers to a new trend where people stay at home for their holidays, because (i) they don't have enough money, (ii) they want to help the environment or (iii) they want to know their country better. Have a look at what wikipedia says about this.




We talked about this new phenomenon and we also read a text where 6 people gave their opinion. Finally, we learnt how to talk about our plans and predictions for the future with the expression (be) going to + infinitive (remember that the verb be changes according to the person).

Here you have some links to practise this:

Exercise 1: Very basic exercise to practise the structure in (+) affirmative sentences.
Exercise 2: Here you have to answer questions using the future.
Exercise 3: Here you have to form negative sentences.
Exercise 4: And, finally, ask questions in the future.

Some people asked me to post readings with exercises to practise at home. I found this link where you can find a lot of readings from different topics (temas). The majority of them have comprehension exercises, and some of them also have the possibility of listening (audiotexts). Of course, only do the ones from the easy level.

For homework, I want you to do exercises 1a and 1b on pages 82 and 83. Please, also complete Grammar Banks 7C and 7D at the end of the book.

See you tomorrow / Tuesday!

How much / many?; some / any; line dancing

Hello everybody!!

How are you? I hope you are enjoying the weekend, but apparently it is going to rain a lot... (fingers crossed!!).

Last week we talked about Easter holidays and we had a special activity with Lauren and Chanelle, who prepared a quiz about the differences between Canada and the United States. I hope you learnt a lot!!!

We also learnt a little bit of line dancing. Here you have the video so that you can show your family and friends! :) It's a bit old, but it's the easiest dance we could find!






In the rest of classroom time, we talked about healthy habits and about facts and myths of drinking water. We also learnt the difference between:

• How much...? How many...? Click here to revise this.
• Too much / Too many
• Much / Many

Remember that much is used for uncountable nouns, and many for countable nouns. For both of them (countable and uncountable), you can also use some (+), any (-, ?), quite a lot of, a lot of.

For the differences between some and any, please have a look at the following tables (taken from www.theyellowpencil.com). You can practise here and with the second exercise here (ONLY the second).

In the last example, they ask the question with "have got". Remember that we use "have" with the auxiliary "do", like any other verb: Do you have any milk? / Do you have any water? / You don't have any sugar.

Finally, you had to write the shopping list for four different events: a picnic for 8; a romantic dinner for 2; your birthday part and a barbecue for 5. We learnt a lot of vocabulary here! :)

For homework, you have to write a postcard (please, have a look at the model on page 73 in your books. Write between 100 and 120 words; deadline: 4th May (Basic E) / 5th May (Basic D) at 23.59h.
Basic level D, please, finish Grammar Bank 7B too.

Have a great bank holiday!
:)

Fruit and vegetables; dictation exercise on food

Hello guys!!

Lat week we finished Unit 6 correcting some final revision exercises and we started Unit 7 about food! We learnt some vocabulary and also the difference between countable and uncountable nouns. Click here and here to revise some vocabulary about fruit and vegetables. And here you have a dictation exercise about food too.

On Wednesday / Thursday we also played a game to see how good your memory was!! "I went to the supermarket yesterday and I bought..." You all remembered very well!! :)

During these holidays, I would like you to read the book Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, and also to revise Units 1 - 6.

I hope you make the most of these holidays (que las aprovechéis al máximo), in the way you prefer: spiritual, relaxed or simply normal holidays. I'll see you again on the 25th / 26th and we'll have our last push before the final exam!

Present simple & continuous; vocabulary "in town"; website for listening practice

Good afternoon!

How are you? Are you enjoying this sunny, warm weekend? :)

Last week we talked about monuments in London and in Granada and we learnt some vocabulary related with places in a town. Here you have some of them:

Then we worked with a map and we learnt how to give directions. Revise the expressions with this exercise and then practise clicking here.

About grammar, we learnt the difference between the present simple and the present continuous. We did a few exercises in class and for homework, but if you want to practise more, you can visit these links:

• Exercise 1
• Exercise 2
• Exercise 3

Finally, we did an exercise about real English sounds! Did you like them? And can you remember any of them?? In class, you can use "ummm", "huh?" and "uh-huh" (no more "eeeees" in the oral exam, please!!), and some others like "yummy!", "ouch!", "oops!"

Here I post a website with lots of listening exercises for your level. Now you have no excuse to practise at home! :)

And here you have the video from the last Wednesday's theatre play: "I'm too sexy!". Some of you appear on the video!!

I hope you have a great weekend!

The Simpsons

Hello guys!

How's the weekend going? :)

I hope you are all more relaxed after the exams and receiving your marks (notas)! I'm very happy with the results, but I'm sure we'll all do even better in June :)

Last week we started talking about neighbours, and we watched an episode from the Simpsons: "The Lemon of Troy" (season 6, episode 24). If you want to watch it again, you can download it here. And click here for the subtitles in English.

On Wednesday we went to a theatre play by Andrew Marshall. Could you more or less understand him? And did you like it? I think we all had great fun seeing him dance and doing his work-out!!




Apart from that, we also saw the present continuous. Remember that it's used for actions happening now and there are always two elements: to be + verb in -ing. We will continue with this next week.

Finally, Basic Level D did a "special" activity on Thursday :) Did you like it? Were you suprised at your creativity? :) Basic Level E will do it next week.

Well, that's all for now! I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend, and I'll see you on Monday / Tuesday!

Irregular verbs (downloadable pdf)

Hello everybody! :)

Last week we finished unit 5 correcting some revision exercises and having a look at the list of irregular verbs I gave you. I post it here in case you don't have it.

Irregular_verbs.pdf by ana_uk877884

Los verbos irregulares tienen la dificultad de que tienen que aprenderse de memoria, pero, como vimos en clase, no son tan irregulares como parecen: muchos de ellos pueden clasificarse en grupos que presentan exactamente la misma irregularidad tanto en ortografía como en pronunciación. Veréis cómo os resulta mucho más fácil aprendéroslos así.

On Wednesday / Tuesday we started Unit 6, and we learnt a lot of useful vocabulary about houses and rooms in a house. Then we listened to a couple visiting a house: there was something "strange" with one of the bedrooms, but they decided to rent the house! Finally, we learnt the structure there is (+sing) / there are (+plural).

With Basic Level E we had time to see a photocopy about prepositions; Basic Level D did a dialogue in a gift shop (page 60).

Next week we'll continue with Unit 6, and we'll revise for the exam.

Have a nice weekend! :)

The past simple / -ed pronunciation

Good afternoon everyone,

I'm sorry I didn't update (actualizar) the blog last week, but I didn't have Internet access during the bank holiday... So here you have the summary of weeks 21 and 22!

First of all, we talked about travelling, and we read a story of two friends who wanted to fly to Sydney, Canada, but they arrived in a different place...! We also listened to a couple filling out a complaint form because their holidays were not good. In fact (de hecho), they were awful!

About grammar, we saw the past simple of the verb to be, regular and irregular verbs. Click here for a very complete and clear explanation of the past simple. We did a lot of practise, but here you have some more. You can do all the exercises, or select the most interesting for you:

• Was or were?
• Exercise on past simple
• Exercise on questions
• Exercise on interrogatives with a question word
• Text about Chicago
• Text about Oxford

Remember that in regular verbs, the pronunciation of the -ed is very important. Raquel Marín, from Basic Level E, gave me this link (thank you). I hope it helps you!

We also read and listened to the stories of three girls that had a night out in Moscow, Beijing and Rio. Was your last night out similar to theirs? Would you like to post a comment telling us about your last night out?? :)

Finally, last Wednesday/Thursday we read a story about a murder... Can you remember who the murderer was?? I still can't believe it!! Then, in Basic Level D we played a very funny game called "Alibi". Basic Level E will play it next week!!

I hope you have a great weekend!

Ana.

/i/ vs. /i:/; possessive adjectives & pronouns; at a clothes shop

Good morning (almost afternoon!)

As usual, here you have a summary of last week:

On Monday / Tuesday we continued talking about films and you read your summaries (which were very good!!). Then we did an exercise on pronunciation to learn the difference between /i/ and /i:/. For some of you this exercise was a bit difficult, so click here if you want to practise a little bit more.

About grammar, we revised object pronouns and we learnt possessive pronouns. We worked with a photocopy to revise how to express possession in English: possessive 's, possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns. Click here and here to do some more activities related to this. Remember to visit New English File online too and to complete the workbook :)

On Wednesday / Thursday we listened to two film critics talking about 5 different films. I know it was a bit difficult, but you did very well! So... congratulations!! :) We also learnt expressions to use in a clothes shop. Click here if you want to revise this.

Remember to bring the book England to class on Monday / Tuesday. Thank you.

Consonant sounds; clothes; songs

Hello guys!

Last week we talked about the differences between men and women related to shopping and we learnt the pronunciation of the sound /ŋ/ - click here to revise some of the consonants we know. We learnt vocabulary about clothes and how to say what we are wearing. You can revise clothes here.

On Wednesday / Thursday we started to talk about films. We read a summary of the film Ghost, and we learnt "object pronouns", which are used to substitute nouns and after prepositions. Revise Grammar Bank 4C and practise with the Workbook.

Por último, dejo aquí tres canciones con un enlace al videoclip subtítulado y actividades para hacer online. Elegid la que más os guste, o haced las tres! :)

• "Change the world", by Eric Clapton

• "Sick of Love", by Robert Ramírez

• "1973", by James Blunt

"Can"

Hello everybody,

Last week we corrected the First Term Revision and we started Unit 4. On Monday / Tuesday, we talked about things we can do and things we can't do; we talked about our abilities.

• I can swim
• I can drive a car
• I can't take good photos
• I can't play the guitar

We also learnt that can and can't also mean possibility (I can go to your party on Saturday; I can't go to Madrid at the weekend) and permission (Can you open the window, please? Can you come here a minute?)

Click here for an online exercise with the verb can.




Remember that can is a special verb like be: we NEVER use the auxiliary verb do/does; don't/doesn't:

(+) You can programme a video
(-) You can't programme a video - we add not to the verb.
(?) Can you programme a video? - we change the subject-verb order.

On Wednesday / Thursday, we talked about shopping: things we like buying and things we hate buying. We talked in pairs and then we listened to four different people talking about their personal preferences.

With these conversations, we learnt that the verbs like, love and hate are always followed by a verb in     -ing:

• I love going to clothes shops.
• I like going to the supermarket.
• I don't like going to big shopping centres.
• I hate traveling by boat.

Basic Level E had one hour with Lauren, the language assistant. I hope you liked the lesson! :)

For homework, you have to do the exercises in Grammar Bank 4B, page 129.

See you tomorrow / on Tuesday!

First Evaluation Session

Good evening everyone!

La semana pasada tuvimos la primera sesión de evaluación, y el miércoles / jueves ya os di los resultados. He de decir que estoy muy contenta con todos vosotros, sobre todo por la parte oral. Es fundamental que perdáis el miedo a hablar en otro idioma, en este caso inglés, y que os déis cuenta de que "speaking" y "listening" son las destrezas que más vais a utilizar cuando salgáis a la calle. Así que enhorabuena a todos.

Mañana ya empezaremos el segundo trimestre, y entraremos de lleno con la unidad 4. I hope we all continue learning a lot and enjoying the lessons.

See you in class.

PS: By the way (por cierto), remember that you have to send me your vocabulary list / glossary about England before the 30th January.

Merry Christmas to all!! Digital story of the Nativity

I post this entry to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Espero que aprovechéis al máximo estos días y encontréis tiempo para descansar, pasar tiempo con la familia y amigos, viajar y empezar el nuevo año con energías renovadas.

I guess (and hope!) you all know the history of Christmas. I found a digital version of the story on the Internet and I wanted to share it with you. It's so good! I hope you enjoy it!

También espero que encontréis tiempo para repasar / estudiar lo que hemos visto en este trimestre. Recordad que a la vuelta de Navidad tenemos una semana de clase antes del examen, por lo que podréis preguntar todas las dudas que tengáis.

See you on the 10th January.

Listening ("Christmas is coming")

Hi everyone,

This week we only had one day of class: Monday 20th. We talked about Christmas and we saw the history of Father Christmas and Santa Claus. Then we listened to a conversation between a dad and his two children, a daughter and a son. They talked about Christmas presents and Santa Claus.

Click here to listen to their conversation again. Then do the activities below (at the end of the document you have the answers):
Christmas is coming

Finally, we saw some typical Christmas dishes (Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, roast turkey, etc.) and we learnt how to make Yule log!

Cardinal and ordinal numbers; prepositions "in", "on", "at"

Hi all,

Here you have the summary of this week and the last one (we only had one day of class - Thursday 9th).

On Monday / Tuesday we talked about fascinating festivals around the world. We saw a powerpoint presentation with three pictures (la tomatina, los san fermines and las fallas). You discussed them in pairs and then we saw them together.

Then we read the text in file 3D and we learnt how to say the dates, the months and the seasons. Remember that in English we say dates with an ordinal number: today is 19th December / December 19th. When we speak we say, "today is the 19th of December" (BrE) OR today is December the 19th (AmE).

Click here for a list of cardinal and ordinal numbers with their pronunciation.




Finally, we read an interview about a novelist's favourite times of the day, we practised in groups and then we listened to Cristina and Udom talking about this.

On Wednesday / Thursday we learnt that we can use three different prepositions to talk about time: in, on, at.

• Use in with:
• months (in January)
• years (in 2005)
• times of the day (in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening).

• Use on with:
• dates (on the 17th of December 2010)
• days of the week (on Monday)

• Use at with:
• times (at half past five)
• festivals / public holidays (at Easter, at Christmas)
• at the weekend
• at night

Click here and here for two online activities to practise this.

Finally, we saw a situation in a coffee shop. Please, study the vocabulary and expressions in these situations (on a plane, at the airport, in a hotel, etc.) because they are extremely useful and they will be in the oral exam.

I hope you have a good weekend!

Some British festivities

Good afternoon!

How's the weekend going? :) Here you have the usual summary of the week.

Last week we talked about stress and we did a test to see how stressed we were. In class, some people were relaxed, but some of you are completely stressed out!!! We also revised some daily routines (please, study the Vocabulary Bank on page 147) and did some phonetic transcriptions on the board. Congratulations, you did them really well! :)

Then we read Louisa's story and we saw that she had a very stressful life. Then we listened to Simon (p. 31): his life is even more stressful!!

On Thursday we talked about the American festival of Thanksgiving, which is a very important celebration in the United States and in Canada.





Finally, we watched a video about traditional festivals in Britain. We talked about Guy Fawkes' Night (5th November), Pancake Day (sometime in February), St Valentine's Day (14th February) and Halloween (31st October). We'll continue watching it another day.

Have a nice weekend!

Quite & very; telling the time; colours

Good afternoon guys!

Here you have a summary (resumen) of what we did last week: On Monday / Tuesday we did a test of Units 1 and 2. After the test we listened to the song Oh Pretty Woman, which inspired the title of the film starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

On Wednesday / Thursday we corrected Grammar Bank 3A and we learnt more adjectives to describe people (revise the Vocabulary Bank on page 146). Remember that we can use very and quite before the adjective:

       A: How old is your brother?
       B: Oh, he's very young. He's only 14.

       A: How tall is your father?
       B: Oh, he's quite tall, around 1.80 m.




Then, individually, you wrote the description of a famous person and the rest of the class had to guess the person. I think it was quite fun! We also learnt adjectives like angry, happy, sad, thirsty, tired, etc.

Finally, we revised how to tell the time and and we listened to Vicky's morning (very stressful!!). Here you have a clock that can help you remember the times:

Pd: By the way, do you remember the colours in English? Yes? Are you sure? Well, what colour is the following words??

Difficult, huh? :)

Some revision (numbers, informal introductions, verb "to be", present simple, the family)

Aquí os dejo algunos enlaces para repasar:

• Numbers: leed la explicación (está muy detallada) y luego pinchad en el ejercicio que aparece al final de la página. Activad que os salgan números aleatorios (get a randomized number, all through to 1.000.000, cardinal numbers). Os saldrá un número que tendréis que escribir; la misma aplicación os lo corrige.

• Informal introductions (presentaciones informales).

• The verb to be: aquí tenéis una explicación muy completa en español. Parad de leer cuando lleguéis a "Pretérito".

• The present simple: en este enlace os vienen explicados el presente simple y el continuo. Leed sólo lo referente al presente simple -no hagáis los ejercicios puesto que aparecen ambos tiempos.

• Family: un juego de memoria y de pronunciación sobre los miembros de la familia.

Sería conveniente que le echárais un vistazo aunque sea rápido a los distintos enlaces. It will help you to consolidate things.

Vocabulary related to jobs; possessive 's (Saxon genitive)

Good morning everybody!

As usual, here you have a summary (un resumen) of what we did during the week :)

With Basic Level D, we finished the unit about Natasha and Darren. Was their date (cita) a disaster or a success??

We also corrected some exercises to form questions in the present simple. Then we started the topic about jobs. We learnt vocabulary about jobs (please, see Vocabulary Bank page 144) and we read Annabel's interview: she's an artist and a musician, but she thinks her job is stressful and sometimes lonely...

Then we listened to an interview where three people guess a person's job. Can you remember his job? ... That's it: a footballer! With the questions in the interview, we played a game where we had to guess our job: do I work in an office?, do I earn a lot of money?, do I wear a uniform?, am I a politician? etc.




Click here for an activity where you can practise the vocabulary about jobs. Some jobs are new, for example mechanic, photographer, vet, farmer and shopkeeper.

Finally, we started the unit about family: "relatively famous". We talked about some famous people and discovered some of their relatives: JK Rowling's husband, Hugh Grant's brother, Will Smith's father, Kate Winslet's sister, Naomi Campbell's mother and Antonio Banderas's ex-wife.

We also learnt the possessive 's: remember, we use it with relatives (family) and possessions:

• This is Danny's sister (NOT the sister of Danny);

• This is Jenny's bag (NOT the bag of Jenny).

Also remember that we always use 's except with regular plurals (el plural regular se forma añadiendo una -s), where we only use ' (apostrophe): e.g. my parents' house. (For a complete explanation, please see the Grammar Bank on page 124).

With Basic Level E we also learnt vocabulary related to the family (Vocabulary Bank page 145).

Finally, here you can see the video of our Halloween Party!!
Do you recognise some of your classmates? :)


eoi granada halloween from maribel alvarez on Vimeo.