Saturday 28 May 2011

Adverbs

Nuria is from Spain. Now she's living in Los Angeles and she writes about the good and bad things of living there.








Click HERE to read about Nuria's life in L.A. (select lesson 8D to read it). Get information about these two questions: 
- How do people drive in L.A.?
- How do people work there?

When we give information about the action (the verb), we use adverbs. When we want to give information about the noun, we use adjectives. Work on these activities to understand the difference.

Thursday 26 May 2011

Like doing / Would like to + Infinitive

"Oh, I would like to thank the Academy from the bottom of my heart! I would like to thank Emily Watson, Fernanda Montenegro and my friend Cate Blanchett for their help and patience".

This is Gwyneth Paltrow's speech at the Oscar Awards Ceremony. The speech has the structure "would like to + infinitive"

Now try these activities with "like + ing" (general) and "would like to + infinitive" (specific, particular).



VIDEO - Gwyneth Paltrow's speech
Click HERE

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Yummy!

















There is a new Thai restaurant in town. Food is really good and cheap. You can try some typical Thai noodles, rice and vegetables. 
However, their speciality is spring rolls. They use cabbage, carrots, onions and meat to prepare this delicious meal. 
Would you like to try Thai food? Do you think it is healthy for your body?

To discover more information and ideas about food, do these activities:
  • GRAMMAR
- Countable & Uncountable nouns 
- Nouns that can be Countable & Uncountable 
  •  VOCABULARY
- Crossword
  • LISTENING ACTIVITIES
- My favourite food: pizza
  • VIDEO - SESAME STREET (SPEEDY PIZZA)
Enjoy watching this Sesame Street scene and answer these 3 questions after watching the video three times:
1. What's the address for the pizza delivery? (dirección de entrega)
2. What are the two ingredients of the pizza?
3. When will the pizza be ready?
Do you want to check your answers? Then, click HERE to download the transcript so you can read it and listen to the audio at the same time.


  • GAME - Trolley Dash
Welcome to Trolley Dash! You have sixty seconds to collect everything on your shopping list. Finish in time and move to the next level. Click HERE to play.

By courtesy of Isabel Bastida

Friday 6 May 2011

Sarah describes her town

Read the following description about Sarah's home town, Cartagena. Pay attention to the use of linking words (in bold).

"Hello guys! This is my home town, Cartagena. It is near the coast, in the south of Spain. In Cartagena, there are a lot of things to do. For example, do you like archaeology? Then, you can visit its beautiful Roman theatre and its museum. Do you like shopping? There are lots of shops in the city centre and also in the surrounding areas. Do you like tapas? There are some tapas bars near the port and a lot of good restaurants in other areas of the city, too.
However, there is a problem. There is a lot of traffic, so some people say that Cartagena is a noisy and polluted town. What do you think?
 
What about you? Do you live in a town or in a village? Are there a lot of activities to do there?"

Now read and listen to this tale and answer the question at the end of the story.
Around my neighbourhood  /'neɪbəhʊd/ (barrio, vecindario).

Now, try these activities about the use of English. 
Places in town (2) 

Try now this listening activity. Six people talk about the places where they live. Listen to each person and answer the questions.
Happy Places

Finally, watch these videos about different places you can find in a town or in a city.
Video 1 - Places in my town


Video 2 - Places in my town


By courtesy of Isabel Bastida

Wednesday 4 May 2011

What are you doing now?

"Naomi Campbell is the best top model on the catwalk. 

In the photo she's modelling casual clothes by Calvin Klein. Naomi's wearing a grey jacket and matching grey top. She's wearing blue jeans too. For a perfect look, she's wearing a golden belt and some bracelets.

But Naomi is sophisticated. She never wears casual clothes when she isn't working. She prefers dresses and high-heeled sandals or boots."


In the text there are verbs in red and verbs in purple. Which verb forms are these? When do we use the verb in the red form? When do we use the verb in the purple form?
Meet the Present Continuous Guy and try these activities:

Revise the Present Simple and try then these activities about Present Simple and Present Continuous:

Now try these listening activities. They are a bit difficult for you, but don't worry. Listen to them and read the transcript later.

Activities by courtesy of Isabel Bastida.

Finally, watch these videos about the Present Continuous:
Video 1 - Present Continuous - 1 - (Theory)


Video 2 - Present Continuous - 2 - (Theory)
Video 3 - Present Continuous - (Review)

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Past Simple Review - Songs



Now, click HERE to listen to it again and complete the song with the correct form of the verb. Enjoy it!

And here you go another song with a lot of regular and irregular verbs in the past. Do you know the infinitive of the verbs in the song? Listen to it and try!
Click HERE to listen to "Lazybones", by Ben Eyler.

By courtesy of my colleague Estefanía Galiana

Friday 8 April 2011

A Haunted House

UPDATE...(Actualización)

I live in a big dark house near the main road. The house has ten windows and seven of them overlook the garden. In the garden there is a big fountain with fish and a small swimming- pool.

On the ground floor there is a hall, a kitchen, a living room with lots of photos on the walls, a dining-room, a bathroom and a study room with hundreds of books in a giant bookcase. Upstairs, on the first floor, there are three bedrooms, a small toilet and bathroom.
This house is very cold because it hasn't got central heating. It's also dirty because it has lots of spiders and dust.

Strange things happen at night...
Be careful with monsters and try to do these activities.

VOCABULARY:

GRAMMAR:

LISTENINGS:
VIDEO:

By courtesy of Isabel Bastida

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Past Simple: REGULAR and IRREGULAR Verbs

- READING ACTIVITY - "Sherlock Holmes, a great detective".

Sherlock holmes was born in England on 6th January, 1854. He worked as a detective and Doctor Watson helped him. They shared a house at 221B Baker Street in London and they travelled a lot.
  Sherlock Holmes didn't believe in superstition and he was famous for his logic and astute observation to solve difficult cases, so he always caught the murderer.
  Apparently, he never fell in love with a woman. However, Irene Adler stole his heart because she was very good at deduction too. 

Exercises:
  • Can you identify the verbs that are in the Past Simple form? 
  • Can you say the infinitive of those verbs? 
- ONLINE EXERCISES
- Past Simple (1) (Read the information and do the activities on this website).
- Past Simple Irregular Verbs (1) 
- Past Simple Irregular Verbs (2) 
- Past Simple Regular & Irregular Verbs (1)
- Past Simple Regular & Irregular Verbs (2) 
- Past Simple Regular & Irregular Verbs (3)  


- VIDEO - Irregular Verbs.


- READING - Exam Practice
Read this story and answer the questions.
To read the story "Two sisters and a cat", click HERE

- LISTENING - Exam Practice
Try this listening activity where a woman talks about her wedding day.
Click HERE to listen and then check your answers.

- GAME 2 - A CHALLENGE - Irregular Verbs! (Very interesting and useful).
Click HERE to play. The instructions are very easy. Enter your name or login as "guest", then choose the level Beginner or Easy. After that, click on Cue and you can start the game. Write the infinitive, past simple and past participle and finally click on Check to see if your answers were correct. Good luck!

- VIDEO - What did you do yesterday?

What did you do yesterday? A Real English Classic por realdogswimming

Finally, click HERE to read the transcript. (Una vez hayáis visualizado el vídeo las veces que os sean necesarias, pinchad en ese enlace para poder leer todo lo que dicen las personas entrevistadas en el vídeo).

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Past Simple Tense: REGULAR Verbs

Welcome to the interesting and difficult world of Past Simple of Regular Verbs.

Activities to practise:
- Past Simple Regular Verbs (1) 

WRITING ACTIVITY -

- Write a short story that includes the following regular verbs in the Past Simple. Use Affirmative, Negative and Interrogative sentences:
play - want - score - need - finish - clap - smile - study - work - answer - ask - stop - like - kiss - be - cook - watch - arrive
(Use the comments section to write your story 
 -ed Pronunciation in VerbsView more documents from Rafaarabit33.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

"To be born" quiz

Do you want to play a game? Try this quiz /kwɪz/ (concurso, prueba).
A big thank you to my colleague Sergio Viñals for this quiz.

Monday 14 March 2011

Famous people around the world

"Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born on 14th June, 1928. He was born in Rosario, Argentina. He was a doctor and a famous guerrilla leader. As a guerrilla leader, he was hope for poor people in South America and Cuba. Che Guevara's parents were Ernesto Guevara Lynch, a civil engineer of Irish descent, and Celia de la Serna, of Spanish descent. They were born in Argentina too. There are some very good films about his life."

Now, click on this LINK and read the paragraphs about other famous people. Then, you can answer these questions:
- Where were they born?
- When were they born?
- What were they famous for?

Now, you can do some activities about the verb "To Be" in the past simple.

Finally, watch this video and practise some questions and answers.

Monday 7 March 2011

File 4D: Possessive Pronouns

Welcome to the interesting and important world of Pronouns! You know how to use Subject Pronouns, Object Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives. Now, it's time to learn how to use Possessive Pronouns.
















Now, see this example with a Possessive Adjective and a Possessive Pronoun.


- And now... do you need more practice? It's very easy, click HERE to learn more about these pronouns.
- And now you can see a video about Pronouns and read an explanation in Spanish. Click HERE
- And finally, you can complete these activities:

Friday 25 February 2011

File 4C: Object Pronouns

"Talk to her" is a famous drama film by Pedro Almodóvar. In it, Pedro Almodóvar tells us the story of Benigno. Benigno is a nurse and he looks at Alicia from his window. With the passing of time Benigno is in love with her. When Alica suffers a car accident and Benigno finds her in his hospital, he spends his days taking care of her, but she can't say to him, "Thank you".

In the text there are some object pronouns in bold (en negrita). Who do they refer to? (the film, Benigno, Alicia, the viewers of the film).

Now, watch these videos to know how to use the object pronouns.





Now, you can work on these activities, but remember we use object pronouns after transitive verbs or after prepositions.
OBJECT PRONOUNS (1)
OBJECT PRONOUNS (2)
OBJECT PRONOUNS (3)
OBJECT PRONOUNS (4)

By courtesy of Isabel Bastida

Sunday 13 February 2011

Activities you like doing

The Simpsons are a very typical American family. Homer loves drinking beer and Marge works at home. Bart doesn't like studying and Lisa loves playing the saxo. The baby's name is Maggie and she really likes dancing. They only have one thing in common, they love watching TV on the sofa.

Now it's your turn (es tu turno). Do the activities and talk about your hobbies.

Now you can practise some activities and check your answers.

Finally, here you have a listening activity about Claudia's likes and dislikes.
Click HERE

By courtesy of Isabel Bastida

Saturday 12 February 2011

Play, Go or Do with Various Sports

Let's talk about sports! Do you know when you have to use PLAY, GO or DO?
  1.  Use PLAY with competitive games that you can play and also with sports or activities which you need a Ball (pelota) to play. (Usa PLAY con deportes de competición en los que además tengas que utilizar una pelota).
Examples: - He plays basketball, football and squash. He loves playing hockey, too.
- Carlos loves playing tennis with his girlfriend. 
- I don't like playing table tennis. It's boring.
- We like playing volleyball but we hate playing handball.
Other sports or games you can use with the verb PLAY: Chess (ajedrez), Cards (cartas), Baseball, Golf, American football, etc.

   2.  Use GO with activities that you can do alone (actividades o deportes que puedes hacer sólo, sin nadie más). These sports or activities normally finish with -ing. (Usa GO con deportes o actividades que acaben con -ing y que normalmente puedes realizar por ti mismo, sin nadie más).

Examples: - I go jogging twice a week.
- We go windsurfing every day in the summer.
- My wife loves horse riding. (montar a caballo)
- I hate going swimming very early in the morning.
- She likes going cycling with her children on Sundays. 
- Rollerblading (Patinar con patines de ruedas en línea) is my favourite sport. I go rollerblading every day.
Other sports you can use with the verb GO: go skating (ir a patinar), go ice skating (ir a patinar sobre hielo), running, etc.

    3.  Use DO with the rest of sports or activities. (Usa DO con el resto de deportes o actividades, aquellos que no utilizan una pelota ni acaban en -ing).
Examples: - She does gymnastics twice a week.
- I love doing karate.
- I hate doing yoga.
- She doesn't like doing judo every day.
- He loves doing athletics.(atletismo)
Other sports you can use with the verb DO: aerobics, taichi, tawkondo, etc. 

Monday 7 February 2011

File 4A: CAN (Ability and Possibility) / Verb Phrases

Let's start File 4 with a very important verb: CAN. We use this verb to talk about Abilities and Possibilities. Watch the following video to learn about this modal verb.


Now, let's do these activities to practise this verb.
CAN (1)
CAN (2)
CAN (3)
CAN (4)
CAN (5)

Finally, you can click on the links below and do the Verb Phrases activities.
Verb Phrases (1)
Verb Phrases (4)

By courtesy of Sergio Viñals.

Sunday 30 January 2011

The Date in English

There are different ways of expressing the date in English. For example, 02/10 in American English means February 10th, but in British English it means October 2nd. Click on the links below and practise. (For more dates, click on "get a new randomized date").
The Date 
Writing the Date 
Telling the Date 

Now click on British Calendar and read the information about the holidays or festivities clicking on the months of the year.

Monday 24 January 2011

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This is their story:
The three bears live in a little house in the middle of the forest: big Father Bear, medium-sized Mother Bear and little Baby Bear. They never change their daily routine.
For example, Mother Bear often cooks a big pot of porridge for breakfast and then she does the housework. Father Bear always gets up very early in the morning and gets dressed to go to work. And Baby Bear usually sleeps in bed until 8 o'clock when Mother Bear wakes him up. Baby Bear only goes to the forest with his friends twice a week.

Before talking about your daily routine and how often you do some things, do these activities. 
Frequency Adverbs (1) 
Frequency Adverbs (2) 
Frequency Adverbs (3) 

Do you want to practise? Answer these questions about you. Write your answers on the chat.

How often do you...? 
go out with your friends / come to English classes / do sport / tidy up your bedroom / go to the beach / go to the dentist / brush your teeth  / go to the shopping centre / talk on the phone with friends?

Ps. By courtesy of Isabel Bastida.

Thursday 20 January 2011

Frequency Adverbs with Hooria

What does Hooria do in the morning?


What does Hooria do in the evening after work?

Wednesday 19 January 2011

A husband and wife's weekly routine

Hello dear students! Here you go a difficult but interesting listening exercise. Don't panic! It is difficult but you can listen to it many times. Be careful... American accent!
Click HERE to start the activity. Good luck!

Friday 14 January 2011

Miss Plump's routine

Look at the pictures and write about Miss Plump’s routines.
Use simple present and linking words (First, then, after that, later, and, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at night, Finally.)
Try to give as many details as possible.



NOTA: Tratad de hacer una frase por cada viñeta. Podéis empezar así:

Miss Plump wakes up at five past seven in the morning. Then she has a shower. She has breakfast at about half past seven and then she goes to work by bus.

NOTA: Continuación del ejercicio: 

Miss Plump starts work at nine o'clock in the morning. She works from 9 am to 1pm. After that, she has lunch. She eats a big sandwich! Then she goes to the gym at about 5 pm. Miss Plump gets home at half past seven in the evening, cooks dinner and then she has dinner with her family at 8 o'clock. Later, she watches TV and has a drink with some friends. After that, she goes to bed and reads a book at 10 pm. Finally, she sleeps for 7 or 8 hours.

My daily routine

Hello! Click HERE to do a very interesting and useful activity about the daily routine. Then click on the picture and practise to reinforce this content (reforzar este contenido).

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Strategies to learn English

Here you go an interesting article in Spanish. I hope you find the article useful. Click on this LINK to read.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Let's sing "Pretty Woman"!

What time is it?

Do you know how to express the time in English? Click HERE to learn more about this topic. It's very easy!

Let's practise how to tell the time in English. Click HERE to watch a video about "telling the time".

Sunday 9 January 2011

Let's describe these celebrities!

Have a look at (Echad un vistazo a) this POWERPOINT PRESENTATION. We can use it in class on Tuesday to practise physical descriptions. You can download (descargar) it on your personal computer or laptop (portátil) at home.

Friday 7 January 2011

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Listening: 20 questions

Listen to Brett and Senem play the game "20 questions". It's good to practise questions in THE PRESENT SIMPLE with the verb TO BE and the rest of verbs. I know it is a difficult listening activity, but do not worry. You can listen to it many times. Click HERE to listen.

TIP (consejo): First, listen to this activity and DO NOT read the listening script (guión del listening). Antes de escuchar, haced click donde pone HIDE TEXT (esconder el texto/guión). Haced dos o tres escuchas de esa forma. Después, haced click en SHOW TEXT (mostrar texto/guión) para hacer la actividad leyendo lo que estáis escuchando a la misma vez.