jueves, 12 de diciembre de 2013

Videos about Education

If you want to practise listening comprehension you can use these videos about education:
If you wnat to practise reading here you have two articles:
This is an article about education in Spain, just in case you want to expain it to other foreign people

miércoles, 11 de diciembre de 2013

Modal Verbs of Obligation

A modal verb is the one that gives you the clue of what the speakers want to say, I mean, it's a way of saying something; in this case, haow to express obligation or necessity:

  • I have to lose some weight  --- I have a necessity of losing weight
Sometimes the modal is also an auxiliary verb but sometimes it isn't as it happens with HAVE TO; besides, a modal can change its meaning depending if you use it in afirmative, negative or interrogative form:
  • I can play here (I'm allowed)    I can play the piano (I know how to do it)   I can't play the piano here (It's forbidden-prohibition)   Can I play here? (I ask for permission)

Here you are some links about modals of obligation and some of them also have exercises at the end: here you have one of them with a chart so click here; this one is with the form ought to, a form that is not very used, click here; or this one in which other modals are included, click here

If you want to practise, you can do these exercises:
For those who want to improve their English in the future, you can use this site with many more possiblilities, but it's for a much higher level; click here.
See you in class!

lunes, 9 de diciembre de 2013

Present Perfect versus Past Simple

The main difference between these two tenses is the reference of time:
  • Present Perfect: no clear reference (twice in my lifetime) or anything referred to UP TO NOW.
  • Past simple: this tense needs a reference to past (last summer, 3 week ago, in 2012, when I was young, etc.)
Exercises:  exercise 1    exercise 2     exercise 3
Surf on your own on the internet by using past simple versus present perfect and you'll find plenty of exercises. Enjoy your surfing!
If you want to practise present perfect/past simple orally you can use these sentences we saw in class:
  • Have you seen a good film recently?
  • Has a friend of yours ever been to Africa?
  • Have you bought a present recently?
  • Have you ever been abroad?
To solve the problem with GONE or BEEN go to these links: explanation and exercise
but if you need more help remember how to translate it: she has been to NY (ha visitado, ha estado en NY) she's gone to NY (se ha marchado a NY)

miércoles, 4 de diciembre de 2013

DO versus MAKE (lesson 4.1)

"To DO or to MAKE... that's the question" Seriously, this is a difficult problem to solve, especially for Spanish speakers. As a general rule, MAKE is more connected to actions related with constucting, building or using your hands, while DO is more general and you use your brain. But there are a lot of exceptions and the best way is to do a lot of exercises. Let's start.
Exercises:
To finish with I think you should practise using a context such as:

I do my homework every day. Then I do exercise and when I finish I make lunch; meanwhile my friend is making the bed because we share the housework: I do the cooking, the ironing and the cleaning and he makes the bed, does the dishes and the laundry. We both do the shopping.


martes, 3 de diciembre de 2013

A Day in Alcalá de Henares

At the end of lesson 3 we are asked to write about a day out in our town and here you have a video about Alcala; click here. To have some model sentences you can watch this video with photos and some comments (no audio); click here.
If you want to see more examples here you have some videos about other cities:
To finish with here you have the videos about Christmas in British Council; click here and here

Preparing final exams

 This entry is to help you with the final exams, especially for A2. But if you want, you can use it to practise with A1 as well. You can use...