Irregular verbs

We have started with past simple and we have seen there are 2 big groups:

• REGULAR: verbs in which you add -ED to the infinitive; e.g. work - worked - worked
• IRREGULAR: you have different forms in past and past participle; e.g. find - found -found

If you want more information, click on these links: here

The problem with regular verbs is the pronunciation because it's a bit difficult:

• / d / : the most usual one; e.g. played, studied, preferred (ending in vowel sound+-ED);listened, changed, travelled, lived  (ending in voiced the consonants) 
• / t / : with voiceless consonants; e.g. asked, washed, stopped (remember the trick: PeTaKaSh)
• / id / : ending in /d/ or /t/; you have an extra syllable; e.g. end - ended

For irregular verbs, look at the list with the pattern (A-A-A, A-B-B, A-B-C, A-B-A) : clikc here

How to learn irregular verbs? There are many activities, but try to do it orally better than writing:

• the alphabet: verbs starting with...
• by topics: senses; habitual actions; money; learning, etc.
• by pattern: tell me 5 verbs A-A-A, A-B-B, A-B-C, etc.
• by groups of pronunciation: /i:/  /e/  /e/ (read, read, read; feel, felt, felt)  or --- /ot/  /ot/ (buy, bought, bought; catch, caught, caught) 
• by mimic: you show your partner the action by mimic (e.g. swim, eat, write, read, think...)
• What did you do yesterday? (in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening) 

If you want to work with written exercises, go to these links:

• exercise 1      exercise 2     exercise 3 (a list of exercises)

To help you with the pronunciation you can go to this link where there are videos to know how to say the most common irregular verbs.

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!

Starting a New School Year 2020-2021 (A-1)

Welcome to the new school year 2020-2021. Here are we to start with English. This year has some changes due to the pandemia but we'll solve any problem we could have, you'll see.

Our class is Nivel Básico 1 (A1) so most of the activities will be oriented to this level. Nevertheless, I'll include other levels if necessary.

To start with, let's see what level you have because maybe there are students with some knowledge (conocimientos) of English but remember we're going to start from the beginning.

To check your real level, you try to do these tests:

• This is a test to know your level by Cambridge
• Another test: click here
• Or this one
• In this link you'll see other links for a placement test and for the different levels you can have. 

Remember all these placement tests are for ALL the levels so you can't do it very well because it's not just for beginners or elementary students. Besides (además) they are only based on grammar and vocabulary, but they don't include productive parts such as oral and writing skills. 

Before starting with our virtual class, let's use the blog as a guide for your homework. For next week, I'd like you to do these exercises:

• The Alphabet: here you have a link with the alphabet, its pronunciation and some words to practise spelling- click here. But let's see some difficulties:
• The pronunciation of vowels: this is a long video but very practical so click here and try to practise with it saying the words after the teacher.
• In class, we saw this chart:

The Alphabet

VOWELS	A /eɪ/	E/i:/	/e/	I/aɪ/	O/əʊ/	U/ju:/
CONSONANTS	A H J K	B C D E G P T V Z/zi :/ (USA)	F L M N S X Z/zed/ (UK)	I Y/waɪ/	O	Q U W	R /ɑ:/(UK) /ɑ:r/ (USA)

TH  /θ/ or /ð/ SH /ʃ/ CH /tʃ/

• Numbers: here you are a video for the pronunciation or this one. There are 3 groups:
• from 1 to 12  click here
• how to distinguish between 13 and 30: click here
• from 1 to 100 (American accent): click here
• Vocabulary of the class: things you can find in your class. To practise with this vocabulary, click here or here. Use the words for practising spelling.

• Unisn songs to learn English: to listen to songs in English is very useful. You can start with easy ones and then go on with more difficult ones, especially if they are your favourite ones!
• All toguether now: click here   

See you in class!

Greetings from York

Hi, everybody!
I'm in York, a beautiful city in the north of England. I'm in a course about intercultural communication but I also have time to do some sightseeing.
If you want to know what I'm doing here you can go to the blog we have at the school web page to follow what we do day by day referred to the Erasmus+ grant for our KA-1 project. It's in Spanish because It is for the while school. Just in case, this is the link.
Try to go on with your English practice. A little every day is a lot when you come back to class in September.
See you, guys (*_*).

We are on holiday!

Hi everybody!

I was really busy with exams and I couldn't look for anything for the blog but now I have some free time and I'll give you some recommendations for holidays.

LISTENING

You already know some of these links but I put them all together to practise:

• The British Council page for listening comprehension: 
• https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening/elementary-a2-listening
• Elllo page for beginners (level 1):
• http://www.elllo.org/english/begin/index.html
• this is for level 2: http://www.elllo.org/english/beginner/index.htm
• level 3: http://www.elllo.org/english/level-3-beginner-high.htm
• Saber inglés nivel principiantes: http://www.saberingles.com.ar/listening/index1.html

READING

• British Council: 
• https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/reading/beginner-a1-reading
• https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading/beginner-a1-reading
• Saber inglés: http://www.saberingles.com.ar/reading/
• Different levels of reading comprenhension activities:  https://lingua.com/english/reading/
• Elementary level e-books: https://english-e-reader.net/level/elementary

WRITING

• The previous readings can help you as models or samples for writing. Once you've read one of them, try to write it by yourself (por tí mismo/tú solo). Then compare the result.
• Try to practise in this way: write on a piece of paper your composition and then copy exactly what you did on the computer; you'll see your mistakes with the corrector.

SPEAKING

• Summer is a good time for making friends. Speak to foreigners wherever you go (habla con extranjeros dondequiera que vayas)
• Use your mobile to practise your speaking. Choose an ordinary topic such as the ones I gave you for the oral exam.

Enjoy your summer time and see you in September!

More tips for the exam

• Writing: here you are an example of an email with some tips or this one and this example
• Listening: again go to this link to practise
• Speaking: it's important to make questions and to answer them as long as possible. Don't forget the structure of questions:
• WH-word + auxiliary + subject + verb + the rest of the sentence
• WH-words: when/who/what/where/why/how often/how long/how much/how many...
• Some examples you can use in the oral exam are:
• What did you do last holidays?  //  What are you doing next holidays?
• Where did you go? How did you go there?  //  Where are you going?
• Who did you go with?  //  Who are you going with?
• Did you enjoy? Why?
• Do you usually do that?  etc.
•  Exercise of Questions and Answers: we'll give you the answer and you have to write the question; e.g.:
• ___What did you buy yesterday_________ ? I bought some fruit yesterday.
• ___How often do you come to class____? I come to class twice a week.
• __Why didn't you come to class yesterday___?  Because I was ill yesterday morning.

Remember there is a list for the oral exam.

Listening comprehension exercises and videos to practise oral part

Here have you a link for practising listening:

• KET Exam: click here 
• Other exercises: click here for a list of exercises
• Listening for A2: click here

Let's take the oral topics and watch some videos as examples. Remember that they are only suggestions; you don't have to do it in the same way:

• FAMILY: describe your family
• YOUR HOBBIES: what you do in your free time or this video for vocabulary
• YOUR HOUSE: describing your house
• GOING TO A RESTAURANT/COFFEE SHOP: ask for something to have in a cafe or in a restaurant or this one
• GIVING DIRECTIONS: how I can get to somewhere; click here
• YOUR FREE TIME: what you like doing, click here or this video
• WHAT DID YOU DO YESTERDAY: click here

Practising oral part 1: conversations

In the oral exam you have a converstion with one or two classmates. You have to speak about one of these topics and you have questions to make and to answer your mate's questions.
Let's see the topics:

• YOU: name, age, marital status, family, occupation, nationality...
• FAMILY: describe your family and say something about each member
• YOUR FRIEND(S): your best friend and describe him/her (use adjectives and questions like the ones you use in the topic YOU)
• YOUR HOBBIES: what you do in your free time, frequency, where, why, etc. Include what you CAN do and what you CAN´T.
• YOUR HOUSE: rooms, furniture, your room, describing a room...
• FOOD: what you usually eat (for breakfast, lunch or dinner), what you hate eating, if you cook or not, why...
• GOING TO A RESTAURANT/COFFEE SHOP: ask for something to eat, to drink, how much it is, etc.
• GOING SHOPPING: buying a souvenir, buying clothes, what size you need, how much it is/they are, you like it/them in red/bigger/smaller...
• GOING TO A HOTEL: at the reception desk, where the elevator/lift is, problems in your room, time for breakfast...
• YOUR CITY: where you live, what to do there, what you like/don't like, why you like/don't like it, a special place for you...
• GIVING DIRECTIONS: how I can get to the station, if there is a supermarket near hear, if it's far, to say first right, opposite the church, past the traffic lights, take first left...
• YOUR ROUTINES: in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening
• YOUR FREE TIME: at weekends (on Saturday morning/afternoon/evening)
• YOUR HABITUAL HOLIDAYS: in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening/at night
• PAST ACTIONS: what you did yesterday, what you did last weekend
• YOUR LAST HOLIDAYS: where, when, how, who with...
• YOUR PLANS: for tomorrow (a weekday), for next week
• YOUR NEXT HOLIDAYS: where, when, how, who with...

Revise the vocabulary and the grammar to be able to speak about these topics and remember you have questions and answers so it may be of great help to see what to do in each conversation. This is an example to make you see how to do it:

TOPIC: YOU

QUESTIONS	ANSWERS
What’s your name?	María Gimenez
Can you spell your surname, please?	G-I-M-E-N-E-Z
Where are you from?	I’m from Madrid but I live in Alcalá
How old are you?	I´m 37
Are you married?	Yes, I am
Do you have any children? Do you have any brothers and sisters?	Yes, I have two, a son and a daughter Yes, I have two brothers and a sister
What are their names?	Pedro and Laura
How old are they?	Pedro is 7 and Laura is 5; they are at school Pedro is 32, he’s a doctor and Laura is 21 and she’s a student
What do you do? What’s your job?	I´m a teacher, I work in a secondary school
Do you like it?	I love it. It’s really interesting but a bit hard
Do you live in Alcalá?	Yes, I live in a flat near the school

Do the same with the other topics. Then you can use your mobile to record the questions and you can practise orally answering the questions you hear on the mobile.

To finish with, remember this is a conversation so make 2 or 3 questions and let your partner ask you his/her questions. Give as much information as possible and try to be natural. If you don't understand something in particular, ask your partner to repeat it (Sorry, can you repeat, please?).

See you after Easter holiday!

Revision exercises

Let's start with the review of the course. We're working with present continuous as a future tense so you can do these exercises:

• exercise 1     and use this video
• present simple or continuous: exercise 1

• the difference between SAY and TELL: you SAY something (she said she was ill) but you TELL SOMEONE something (she told ME she was ill). Go to these exercises to practise:
• exercise 1     exercise 2     exercise 3
• use of past tenses: 
• exercise 1     a list of exercises for irregular verbs    another exercise   and this one

Giving and asking for directions

This unit 11 deals with directions so let's start with the vocabulary. If you go to this link you'll find the main instructions: verbs and prepositions; click here

There is another link of BBC giving you some clues about how to ask for directions: typical questions and useful words. And this is for specific places in town: click here

This is a listening exercise to practise with directions: click here

This exercise is for using prepositions and vocabulary revision: click here

Usuful travel sentences about directions: click here

Here you are many videos to practise. I hope you enjoy watching them but don't try to learn them all because some are really difficult for your level; just use them as ways of practising:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tRvWNld_t4
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5wPc_4bfbQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGDtIRNnCyQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JFqKRUB2vc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_YoeEY8FPM&vl=en
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmK30rYNMU
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvMbJjpF-94

Past simple - WAS/WERE

In class we saw past simple of the verb to be. Remember that we use it in this way:

• WAS ---- in singular; e.g. I was tired yesterday, she was very nice
• WERE ---- in plural; e.g. There were many people, we were at home
• Remember: you were a small girl   but   you were small girls

If you want to practise, there are many exercises like these ones:

• exercise 1    exercise 2    exercise 3

If you want to review present simple, this is a video that can help you.
This is another video that you can use: click here

To finish with, here is there a video with an old but beautiful song: The House of the Rising Sun

There is / There are and prepositions

In few words, you use it in this way:

• THERE IS: for singular ;  there's a chair;  there isn't much light here
• THERE ARE: for plural;  there are some pictures but there aren't any photos

This link is very useful to see this: click here

You can go to a previous entry to work with this grammar point  but there are some more  here:

• exercise 1     exercise 2      exercise 3

See you in class!

Learning English with Songs

I love music and I enjoy singing very much. But it is also true that you can learn English with songs and when you sing you have better pronunciation than when you speak normally.
There is a link that you could use for learning English with songs:

• https://www.esolcourses.com/topics/easy-song-quizzes.html

• Here’s a short list of popular English songs that you can sing along with to practise. Happy singing!
1. Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran
2. The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars
3. Sorry by Justin Bieber
4. Closer by The Chainsmokers
5. Can’t Stop The Feeling by Justin Timberlake
6. She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
7. The Reason by Hoobastank
8. Fix You by Coldplay
9. Shake It Off by Taylor Swift
10. Far Away by Nickelback
• Some other good songs for learning English
• Big, Big World by Emilia
• Let me Tender by Elvis
• Don't Know Much by Sam Cook
• Don't Worry, Be Happy
• Someone Like You by Adele
• A Million Dreams by Pink
• When I was 7 years Old by Lukas Grahan
• If I Were a Boy by Beyonce

Clothes

There are many lists of vocabulary of clothes. Here are there some examples:

• with flash cards: click here
• this is an exercise; click here
• some videos: for children, a list with more words, this is higher level

If you like Mr. Bean, here is there a video to work with present continuous. Enjoy it!

Present continuous and habitual present

In lesson 9 we start with present continuous. Remember the difference between both:

• habitual present is connected to habits, something you usually and it is used with frequency adverbs such as always, usually, some times, never...
• present continuous is something punctual or for a period of time, something particular, not habitual.

These are links with exercises to practise:

• exercise 1     exercise 2    exercise 3     exercise 4  

This link is with an explanation and exercises at the end: click here

SELFIE: Encuesta sobre tecnología en la EOI

Can you fill in this survey? It will help us realize what good improvements for the school would be regarding technology. The questionnaire is open until Feb 10.
Thanks for your help.

Use of CAN and CAN'T

I told you in class that CAN is a modal so let's see what that means:

• A modal verb is a verb used to say something in a particular way. It completes or modifies the following verb or action. Here are som examples:
• Can I have your passport, please?   ----    Permission or request
• You can't park here.   ----   Prohibition
• You can buy a present   ----    Possibility
• She can cook very well   ----   Ability

This modal verb is also an auxiliary so I use it to make questions or in negative forms, but pay attention that the meaning can change if you use it in those ways as you can see in the examples given above.

Another characteristic is the fact that it is followed by infinitive and you don't use -S for 3rd person in singular.

You can do these exercises to practise with this verb:

• exercise 1: an explanation with a game at the end  
• exercise 2 : multiple choice    
• exercise 3: a list of exercises   

We'll review this grammar point when we finish with the exam. See you in class!

Starting class after Christmas

We reviewed what we have learnt in class. If you remember there is an example of description of a person in the exam we had before Chistmas and we saw an example in this link.
We have this sample (model) to work with a description. Remember to follow and answer the questions below:

• Who is this person?
• What does he/she do 
• in the morning
• in the afternoon
• in the evening
• What does she/he do in her/his free time?
• Why is this person so important for you?

We also worked with two typical situations:

• going shopping to a gift shop to buy some souvenirs: you have this video and this video was taken from our textbook
• going to a restaurant here