1B: Present Simple (A2)

This lesson is about Present Simple but I prefer to call it "habitual present" because it gives you a clue (pista) about how to use it. The verb is formed with the infinitive verb (except the verb to be) and it takes an -S for the 3rd person in singular. In many ocassions we use a frequency adverb wtih this tense (tiempo verbal). You need to use the auxiliary DO/DOES for negative or interrogative sentences. These are some examples:

• I study English  ---   I don't study Japanese   ---  Does she usually eat meat? No, she doesn't . She never eats meat because she's a vegan.

On the Internet you can find some videos about habitual present and daily routines:

• this video is with the 1st person in singular and the 3rd person in singular: click here
• A video with grammar explanation: click here

In class I explained the 3 pronunciations of -S and -ES (which are usually used in 3rd person in singular of present, plurals and some contractions or saxon genitive) . This video can help you to remember what I said about it: click here. You can use the mnemotechnique rule (PeTaKaSh) for voiceless consonants and also remember that any vowel sound (-y, -er, -o) is always voiced. The extra syllable is after a "sybillant" sound (sonido silbante).

Now do these exercises to practise with present simple or habitual present:

• The Queen's routine: click here
• As a curiosity, this is the routine of a Canadian teacher: click here (more difficult than the others!)

Grammar exercises:     exercise 1 (this is the exercise we saw in class)     exercise 2  (this is a link with exercises)     exercise 3  (this is a test to check you've understood present simple)

To finish with, this is the video woth the song Eternal Flame

See you in class!

Unit 1B: One World (Nationalities) (A1)

 This lesson is about nationalities and you can work with them in many ways, but first keep in mind (ten en cuenta) they always start with a capital letter, as you can see in these examples:

• Peter is British; he's from London. He speaks English, German and French. He lives in France.

This rule is for nationalities and languages and there are NO exceptions.

Let's start with some activities to practise with this vocabulary:

• How to pronounce different countries and nationalities: click here.
• If you want to know the rules for nationalities, go to this link
• If your country and nationality aren't in the exercises before, this list will help you.
• And this last exercise is to check where to stress nationalities: click here

We're also working with the TO BE. Let's practise with it becaus it's a very important verb:

• It's an AUXILIARY verb so you use it for questions and negative forms:
• Is he Egyptian?    No, he isn't. He's Moroccan
• It has more meanings than in Spanish; sometimes it means tener /hacer as you can see in these examples:
• I'm 27 (years old)     it's cold today        she's sleepy        the baby's hungry

As we're going to celebrate Erasmus Day next week (15th, 16th and 17th of October), can you try to do this exercise about the countries which form the European Union? Go to this link.

Welcome to the School Year 2020-2021! (A-2)

Welcome to the new school year 2020-2021. Here are we to start with English after a very hard time without practising it but we are ready to start again.. This year has some changes because of the pandemia the pandemia but we'll solve any problem we could have, you'll see.

Our class is Nivel Básico 2 (A2-F) so most of the activities will be oriented to this level. Nevertheless, I'll include other levels if necessary and if you want to review something, in this very blog there are entries for A1 as well son you can have a look. Last Thursday we saw the alphabet and the numbers in class and you can use the previous entry for revision.

We also started with the textbook but we only worked with QUESTIONS. This is some useful information if you don't have the book yet or if you want to refresh this grammar point :

• Questions: The general characteristic of English questions is the use of an auxiliary verb in the inversion at the beginning of the sentence. Let's see how this auxiliary works depending on the type of question you're using:
• YES/NO questions: they need this kind of answer so they are also called "total" questions. The structures is AUXILIARY+SUBJECT+VERB. These are some examples:
• Is he in our class?  -----  Yes, he is.
• Do they speak German?   -----  No, they don't
• Did you study English here last school year?  -----  Yes, I did
• Can you understand me?  -----  Yes, we can.
• Are you coming home early today?  -----  Yes, I am.
• "Partial" questions:  also called wh-questions, when you only ask something in particular, that is, a "part" of the sentence; these questions start with WH-words but you also have the inversion, as you can see in these examples:
• WHERE was he born?  -----  He was born in Murcia.
• HOW MANY children have you got?  -----  I've got 2, a boy and a girl.
• HOW MUCH sugar do you need?  -----  Just a little.
• WHY did you phone her yesterday?  ------  Because I wanted to meet her.
• Exceptions: when the WH-word has the function of the subject you don't have to use the inversion; have a look at the examples to see how they work:
• WHO is coming tonight?  -----   A few friends (THEY are coming)
• HOW MANY friends are coming?  -----  Just 3 or 4 close friends.
• WHAT happened to you?  -----  Nothing (nothing happened to me).

If you need some more information about questions you can use this link  and this other link is very useful as well. After reviewing the grammar, let's practise with some exercises:

• exercise 1 (very easy)       
• exercise 2 (to practise with HAVE and HAVE GOT as we saw in class)      
• exercise 3 (using WH-word in questions)    
• exercise 4 (do this exercise just for fun!)

If you want to practise in a different way, to listen to Are you lonely tonight? by Elvis Presley (half of the song is just the singer reciting the lyrics!)  : click here

See you in class!