MODAL VERBS

We have some modal verbs in this lesson at class which are very important because we deal with special verbs. In this lesson 4 we are going to see some of them. Let's expain them:

The verb CAN is used to speak about "poder" or "saber" in Spanish. The main characteristics are:

• it's a modal verb: it is a way of saying something; in this case: necessity/ lack of necessity/ possibility/ permition / prohibition
• it's defective: with NO infinitive, NO -S in the 3rd person in singular and NO past participle. To solve this problem we use to be able to 
• it's an auxiliary verb: we use it for negative and interrogative forms and it's followed by infinitive without TO

To practise with listening, here you have these songs with CAN: Hall of fame and The Eagles
To practise with gammar, you can do these exercises:

• exercise 1: a fill in the gap exercise with CAN and COULD
• exercise 2: different meanings/uses of CAN
• exercise 3: if you want to see how to use to be able to

The verb MUST is used to speak about "deber hacer algo", but it's very similar to HAVE TO in Spanish "tener que haccer algo". If you want to see the difference between them you can go to this link but here you are the main differences:

MUST	TO HAVE TO
It's a modal verb: it means obligation; in negative it means prohibition and it’s similar to CAN’T	It's a modal verb: it means obligation, like MUST but in negative it means NOT NECESSARY
It's defective: with NO infinitive, NO -S in the 3rd person in singular and NO past  or participle. To solve this problem we use to have to	It's NOT a defective verb: you can use it in any tense ( HAVE – HAD –HAD)
It's an auxiliary verb: we use it for negative and interrogative forms and it's followed by infinitive without TO	It's NOT an auxiliary verb: we need an auxiliary for negative and interrogative forms (DO/DID/WILL,etc.)

To practise with modals you can use these two exercises:

• exercise 1   exercise 2

To finish with, here you have another song to see the use of CAN and MUST with Enrique Iglesias: It must be love

DO versus MAKE

What's the difference between DO and MAKE?

• DO is more general  What do you do? I'm a student
• MAKE is similar to build, when you use your hands  I love making cakes

However, there are certain expressions which are with DO or MAKE. The best way is by doing exercises until they are familiar to you. To practise go to these links:

• exercise 1 : a list of typical expressions
• exercise 2 : a simple explanation with exercises
• exercise 3 : a bit more practice
• exercise 4 : to finish with here you have another exercise

A curious family

Here you have a link with a curious story about the first family to sing country music. It's a long text but it has examples of their music and you can use the reading and the listening. Try to do it reading first and then you can listen to it without the text in fornt of you. This video is taken from VOA (Voice Of America). I think it's quite interesting although it's a very characteristic way of singing. You'll tell me if you like it. Go to the link here

Happy New Year 2013

Coming back to class after holidays. As you can see I let you have a rest to enjoy with your family and friends but it's time to refresh your English. Here you have some new sites of interest:

• http://www.newsinlevels.com/ : this is a page with pieces of news with 3 levels. If you use the level 3 you can watch a video. It's a good help for short listenings especially for those you'll find in the final exam.
• http://www.agendaweb.org/reading/comprehension_easy_interm1.html : if you like short stories you can find a good amount here. No audio but you have exercises with these readings. If you go to the home page you can find grammar, listening, vocabulary... click here
• http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/english_lessons.htm : this is a page you know well for grammar but it has this section for listening as well. Have a look.

Hope to see you again in class.

Christmas is here!

It's Christmas time and I'd like you to see some typical things at Christmas in English speaking countries. Here you have some  videos, carols, texts... I hope you'll enjoy a lot next holidays! These sites are for the smallest at home:

• A video for children: the one we saw at class. Click here
• Jingle Bell karaoke for children: click here
• 
  

future tenses

If you want to work with future tenses you can go to these links and do these exercises:

• A good explanation: http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/rules/future.htm
• another explanation but it's for upper-intermediate students so don't pay attention to the perfect future or future continuous: http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/a_auxfuture.htm Then you can do this exercise
• This page from BBC English has more explanations and exercises at the end. You can do it as a listening because it is an audio explanation. Click here
• A complete post of an interesting blog for these tenses, including some practice; click here
• To finish with, a chart to sum up the future tenses: simple and with exercises. Click here

Here you have some exercises to practise:

• Use of WILL or GOING TO      Exercise 1       exercise 2       exercise3
• Present continuous or GOING TO: exercise 1    exercise 2    
• present simple, continuous and GOING TO: exercise 1 
• Use of future tenses in general: exercise 1   exercise 2   exercise 3

Speaking about ARTS

I love this topic so I'll try to give you some material to work with. To start with, here you have a file with vocabulary connected to the subject. Click HERE to open it.

Here you have a couple of sites aobut arts, but not the official one but as a hobby: http://www.worksofart.org.uk/

Art is also a business and it makes a lot of money. Here you have an example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/may/03/most-expensive-auction-in-pictures

Preparing Christmas recipes

Here you can find some recipes for Christmas. Have a look and try one (or all) of them. Click HERE
But if you want to have a great time as a kid or with your kids, go to this link and you'll find a lot of activities for Christmas, including some carols for children:
http://www.eslkidstuff.com/ChristmasGames.htm
Hope to see you in class!

How to practise speaking in Alcala and Madrid

There is a chance to practise English with native speakers here in Alcala. Here you are the place where you can find people to exchange conversation:

• THE GREEN IRISH PUB  C/ Empecinado nº 7. They meet on Wednesday and this is the information a kind colleague at school gave me: Durante la temporada 2012 / 2013 se va a proceder a realizar unas jornadas todos los miércoles de intercambios de conversación en Ingles y/u otros idiomas. El Método de los cursos se realizara de la siguiente manera: 1) Locución de un tema sugerido en Ingles. 2) Hojas para alumnos con el texto de la locución. 3) Pequeñas preguntas a rellenar por el alumno. 4) Discusión acerca de las preguntas y el tema de conversación. 5) Búsqueda de significado del vocabulario con diccionario Ingles-Ingles. Tanto para las personas interesadas en mejorar su nivel de Ingles como para las personas que estén interesadas en mejorar su nivel de Castellano el temario sugerido en Ingles es válido para hablar del tema en Castellano e Ingles y en cualquier otro idioma. Cada día se ofrecerá un tema de conversación acerca de asuntos del día a día, tanto como un viaje en Avión y todo el vocabulario que implica como alquilar un Apartamento, ir al Medico, un Taller de reparaciones etc…. El horario estará comprendido en dos cursos / locuciones desde las 20:30 a 21:30 y de 22:00 a 23:00
• There is another Irish pub where there is exchange of conversation and Trivial in summer is Whelan's in Plaza de los Irlandeses, close to c/ Mayor and I think they meet on Tuesday evening, but I'm not very sure.
• The last possibility is thanks to the community service of All Saints Church in c/ Libreros but I don't have much information about it.

I've been sent this link about exchanging conversations and experiences with other students in Madrid. They have events and some meetings to talk to other people. I don't know much but abut it but you can have a look into it and then you'll tell me how it works.

• http://www.bemadrid.com/

Another possibility is here in Alcalá but just for university students I gess but I don't know if it works well. The links are:

• http://www.uah.es/servicios/servicios_ayudas_prestaciones/asociaciones/erasmusnetwork/bolsa_idiomas.shtm
• http://www.uah.es/estudios/otros_estudios/idiomas/clases_conversacion.shtm#clases

In Madrid there is a group for exchanging conversation called Multilinkual. . They meet on Tuesdays at O'Neill's (c/ Príncipe 12 - metro Sevilla o Sol) and on Thursday at Beer Station (Cuesta de Santo Domingo - metro Callao). The group is open so you can go whenever you want and if you need help you can ask David, the responsible there, to help you. You'll find people from everywhere and you can exchange English or other languages because many people are foreigners.

Present simple + Working

In this unit we work with present simple and the topic of working and we can use a file I did for That's English!, although it's for an intermediate level. Go to this link and you'll find explanations and exercises to do:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g90sq2hivruvbsw/present%20simple%2Bworking.doc

There is also a link about articles, if you want to see it and do some practice.

If you want to practise the song  Please, Don't Go we saw in class here you have the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZHE2xoAo9I

See you in class!

ALCINE: SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IN ALCALA

Last week we had the chance to see 5 short films in English. I enjoyed them a lot and one of my colleagues has a good reference of the films. Go to this link to see or remember what you saw: click here and look for the post on November,12.
If you lost the photocopy I gave you or you want to read it, go to this link. See you in class!

Present Simple versus Present Continuous

To start with I usually called present simple as habitual present because it shows better when we use this tense. It's referred to habits, routines, general truth or similar statements, while present continuous is referred to a particular moment of an action or something that happens in a particular time or period of time.
Have a look these examples:
   What do you do?  ---  I'm a teacher; I teach English at school
   What are you doing this week? -_- I'm explaining present tenses to my students
In many occasions, habitual present is used with frequency adverbs such as usually, often, hardly ever, sometimes, etc.
If you want to practise with these tenses you can do these exercises:

• exercise 1: a good explanation about both tenses with exercises at the end
• exercise 2: another longer explanation but it's useful for the examples and it includes many special cases such as have, think, want, etc. Very few exercises but interesting.
• exercise 3: short simple explanation and some exercises to practise
• exercise 4: a filling the blanks exercise
• exercise 5: a very complete page with grammar and exercises at the end.

See you in class!

Working with Phonetics

Some students want to practise with phonetics and a good way of distinguishing phonemes is with pair words, that is, two similar words with a little difference in pronunciation. If you want to practise with this kind of exercises go to this link: click here When you click on one of these pairs you are sent to some exercises to pronounce. Have a look and practise as much as possible.

This other link is a chart of the sounds in English, although you've got one at the end of yur book: click here

If you want to know something peculiar about the different pronunciations of English in the UK, Ireland, America, Australia, etc. you should go to: click here

But if you want to practise and go further with phonetics you can go to this link with examples and exercises click here

Have a nice practice!

Some web pages we used in class

This week we have started with our classes but we've been working with the introduction. I told you there were plenty of material to work with English and here you have the ones we've seen:

• the dictionary wordreference: http://www.wordreference.com
• about grammar: http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/pres_simple.htm 
• more grammar: http://a4esl.org/q/h/lb/psv.html
• about reading with audio :http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/

Nevertheless, when you want to look for something on the internet you can go to google and click what you want and then add +ESL

Do you like Spongebob?

This is one of my children's favourite cartoon and I found this video with one of the songs of Spongebob. It has the subtitles and I think it's queite easy to understand. If you want to have a good time with your children, have a look with this video but remember there are many more in youtube. Have fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5g2HtEDJVU

Peace in the world

Surfing on the internet I've found this video made by a person from Israel; I think it's pretty good for the message so when someting is interesting it's much better to do some listening practice with it.
The first link is the video itself in the original version, without subtitles. Although he's not a native speaker of English I think it's quite correct and it can be understood quite well. This is the link:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mYjuUoEivbE

This second link is the same video with subtitles in Spanish, just in case you want to know the exact meaning of the message

• http://www.youtube.com/embed/I6sPCSJu31U?rel=0

If you want to hear some other messages of peace, go to this famous song: Imagine

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseQLDzf-rk

I hope you'll enjoy this post. See you.

Stress in a sentence

One of the most difficult things we have while learning a new language is to change the way we pronounce, especially the stress (acento/golpe de voz). Have a look in your English books and you'll see it's something quite common in the pronunciation section.

If you want to "sound natural" you should pay attention to where the stress of the sentence is. The general rule is that you stress on those words which are really important in meaning within a sentence or the ones you want to emphasise; e.g.: What are you doing?   I'm working at my office   At your office?It's my office

If you're interested in knowing some more details and some oral examples, go to this link of Hablar mejor en inglés; click here to go directly.

There is also a long but useful explanation on BBC Learning English. Click here to visit the page

Hope it'll be useful. See you at school soon!

Revising modals and some idioms

Here you are a page with a good explanation of the difference between the most common modals: CAN - COULD - MAY - MIGHT. It's in Spanish and it's also quite clear, with a few examples, so you can have a look to check your knowledge of English modals. There is a list of idioms or common expressions which are quite interesting as well. To go to the link, click HERE. Once you've read this, try to do some exercises like the ones you can find here:

• exercise 1 : quite easy but it's some practice
• exercise 2 : some more exercises
• exercise 3 : this page is to go further in your practice and more modals are included. There is a tutorial and exercises. It's quite useful. 

As you can see the level is not so high but it's worth revising simple things from time to time to check you still do them properly.

See you in short time!

PD: this post is also available on the other blog I have for intermediate students: 

http://english-goingon.blogspot.com.es/

Practising some listening activities (NB1-NB2)

I've found some links with exercises from an interesting blog. The activities are easy and simple but I think it's good to refresh easy things to check you've already known them. The level is for NB1, but students of higher level might do them as well.Enjoy the exercises and click HERE

Coming back

Hello to everybody!

Here we are again after holidays, with new projects and trying to refresh our English. Although I haven't done too much on holiday I'd like to give you some links to start with:

• Pronunciation: in this link you have some tips (pequeños consejos) to pronounce English better. It's in Spanish but it's quite useful. Click here

• Writing: how to write an e-mail in English. This link is not for learning English eaxactly but it's for learning how to do it properly. The tips are very useful even if you write e-mails in Spanish, and it gives you clues (pistas) to do it better. The page is in English but I think you won't have problems to understand it. Click here

• Music: here you have the song "Someone I used to know" with lyrics. It's quite useful to refresh your past tense and a good example of the expression "used to", something you did in the past but you don't do any more in the present, like the meaning of this song. Click here

I hope to see you at school. Remember we start class in October.