Mind Your English!

Hi, there!

Well, Easter holidays are round the corner and I guess you are packing your luggage for your trip to the beach or thinking about staying at home and relax. I thought it would be interesting for you to tell us what you are planning to do at Easter or whether there are any traditional activities you are going to take part in, or any special food you are going to eat, etc..... You can use the comments to do so or write a new post if you are one of the contributors to the blog. I am waiting for you to drop a line or two......don't be lazy! ;-)

And now, let's get down to business: yesterday we basically talked about your coffee drinking habits and learnt how to form superlatives. Here you can find more exercises to work on them:
Superlatives (1)
Superlatives (2)
Game

Now, watch this video and complete the sentences below:

(See transcript here)

Extra listening:
Do you prefer coffee or tea? (with video)
Coffee song

And that's all for now, folks! Enjoy your Easter holidays and mind your English!!!

Published by Mariluz en 7:55 PM Comments

Hello everyone!

Yesterday we finished unit 5 by reading about different kinds of holiday. Surfing on the net I found the Poseidon Undersea Resort website, a really different sea holiday experience!

We also learnt some verb patterns and practised speaking with a travel agent-clients role play.

Now, watch this video to learn more about verb patterns (people in this video are American, that's why they usually say "like to do" instead of "like doing") :

Exercises about the video
(Video transcript)

Finally, I asked you to write your next assignment: an e-mail to arrange a trip (exercise 6 only). Try to include the verb patterns studied in this unit and the language expressions used in any formal e-mail. Please, hand it in or send it as an attachment by e-mail (DOUBLE SPACE) before the end of Friday, March 26th (before Easter).

To revise this unit, download these files:
Unit 5 test
Unit 5 test (answer key)
You can also do the Revision test of unit 5 on page 152 of your Student's book and check your answers here.

Extra listening:
Great places (+multiple choice quiz)
Resort game
Vacation game
New York (+cloze exercise)
New York City Top 5 Things to Do (+cloze exercise)
California (+cloze exercise)
Adventure game (+multiple choice quiz)
Immigration and customs (+multiple choice exercise)

Extra vocabulary:
Holiday crossword game
Holiday wordsearch game
'Journey', 'travel' and 'trip' quiz

That's all for now, see you tomorrow and
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Published by Mariluz en 6:51 PM Comments

Hi!

Today 1st March is St David's Day, the national day of Wales. Follow this link and find out how much you know about Wales. Finally, here is a list of useful organisations and Internet sites about Wales.

Good luck for the students who are going to sit for the oral exams this afternoon and see you all next Wednesday in class!

Published by Mariluz en 2:30 PM Comments

Hi, there!

Well, yesterday we learnt some new vocabulary about air travel and we listened to some conversations at the airport. Here you have 3 exercises to learn more vocabulary on this area.

We also learnt how to make polite requests with the right intonation. Check this website and learn more about it. Then, do exercises 1, 2, 3, and 4. Again, this is particularly important because it's usually included in the oral exam tasks.

Extra listening:
Could you do me a favour? 

Finally, did you know that today is Pancake Day in UK? Check this site where you can learn everything about this festivity. And if you want to make pancakes at home, watch this video for the recipe:


How To Make English Pancakes

Enjoy the meal!

Published by Mariluz en 10:18 AM Comments

As you all know, next Sunday is Saint Valentine's Day, so here you have some links and activities related to the festivity of love. Enjoy!

Article: The language of Love
Listening: Valentine's Day around the World
Quiz activity
Valentine Cards

Now listen to one of the best love songs ever: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, by the Beatles. Sing along!

Published by Mariluz en 9:29 AM Comments

Hi, guys!

Did you survive blue Monday yesterday? In case you don't know what I'm talking about, every third Monday in January is known as "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year. Check this video on the Scottish newspaper Daily Record  and find out why this is and what you can do to survive this terrible day. You can read more about it in this article on the British newspaper The Independent  (Thanks, Sergio!).

Anyway, yesterday we basically corrected homework and we learnt some vocabulary about weddings. Here you have more vocabulary on this topic: Marriage and Weddings in the UK. You can also practice some dictation here:
The Wedding Feast Part 1
The Wedding Feast Part 2  

Now listen to Kitty and do this Marital Status exercise. 

Finally, this is a video about a very unusual wedding. Before watching it, what do you think is going to happen?

 a) the doors close, the bride starts walking down the aisle, trips over her wedding dress, and falls down.
 b) the doors open and a marching band enters playing the "Macarena" theme.
 c) the doors close and the bride, the groom and their friends start dancing down the aisle to their special song.

Now, watch the video and see what the right answer is:




That was shocking, wasn't it? Please, remember to read the magazine article on page 38 and do exercises 2, pg. 38 and 3, pg. 39 of the reading section for homework.

Cheers!

Published by Mariluz en 5:49 PM Comments

Hi, folks!

December is finally here and it's freezing out there, but the good news is that few weeks are left for Christmas! Anyway, before the end of this term, I'd like to test you on the reading and listening skills. If we have time left tomorrow, you'll complete a reading task and I'll mark it for you so you can see if you're doing well so far.

Yesterday 30th November was St. Andrew's Day. St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and St. Andrew's Day is Scotland's official national day. Check this site to learn about this festivity. Tomorrow's homework is on page 28. Do exercises 2, 3 and 4 about the text "Scots Abroad", and also think about any words that you associate with Scottish culture.

In our latest lesson we spoke about the problems in a shared flat and we learned some house and home collocations. We also listened to a conversation between two friends about where they live. Finally we did some exercises on countable and uncountable nouns with some, any & no.  For more practice, do the following activities.

Grammar:

(Un) Countable nouns

Some/any

Extra listenings:


British Council Elementary Podcast 05 Home (download the file and listen to section 6, Carolina)   
(+ exercises and transcript)

The Roommate quiz game (see transcript)

Finally, remember that tomorrow is the last day to hand in your assignment on an embarrassing situation. If you can't attend the class tomorrow, you can always send me an e-mail with your assignment in an attachment.

Cheers!

Published by Mariluz en 4:41 PM Comments

Hi, there!

Yesterday it was Election Day for CR (no, this doesn't mean "Cristiano Ronaldo", but "Class Representative"!) in the class. It was hard to find candidates (some of you did an anti-campaign not to be elected!) but finally you voted for Julia to be the class rep and Mª Belén to be her deputy (subdelegada) for group A, and Rubén to be the class rep and José to be his deputy for group B. Their job is basically to be the link between the students and the teacher for this course, but please feel free to speak to me personally whenever you want.

Then we did a brainstorming of vocabulary about school. Study the mind maps about Subjects, People, Verb collocations, in class, and Adjective collocations. Mind-mapping is one of the best ways of learning new vocabulary!

We also studied the past simple and I told you to do exercise 3, p.16, of the grammar section for homework. For more practice, do the following exercises:

Past simple (regular and irregular)
Past simple (regular and irregular 2)
Pronunciation of -ed exercise (Choose the mininal pair /d/ or /id/)


Now watch this video:

19 exercises about the video

Sing the Irregular Verbs song to learn them!



Last, but not least, a bit of British culture. Read about Guy Fawkes and learn how Bonfire Night is celebrated across the UK doing the multiple choice exercise.

Happy bonfire night!

Published by Mariluz en 5:04 PM Comments

Yesterday we corrected homework and learnt how to combine what and how with other words to make questions. Practise question-making by clicking on these links:

How questions

WH- Questions (pdf)

The Space Game

Then, we had real fun doing the Trick or Treat quiz (Answer key). Watch the video to learn vocabulary about this traditional festivity:

Word game. Match words related to Halloween to their meanings.

Finally, a song to sing and dance in Halloween: Thriller, by Michael Jackson:


Karaoke version. Sing along!

Published by Mariluz en 11:22 AM Comments

Yesterday we corrected homework and introduced the topic of neighbours (neighbors in American English) by making a list of the top 5 best and worst famous people as our neighbours. Most of your choices were really funny and shocking: your best neighbours ranged from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Rafael Nadal or Bill Gates to Paquirrín or Torrente. On the other hand, some of your worst neighbours were Zapatero, Paris Hilton and Belén Esteban!

For Wednesday (tomorrow), please read the text on page 10 with the title "Who would you like as...a neighbour?" and do exercises 1 and 2 of the Reading section. (If you want to see how Alan Titchmarsh secretly transformed gardens while the owners were away, click here.)

If you have extra time, visit the fantastic elllo page to practise your listening skills:

Neighbors game (easy)

Neighbors quiz (a bit difficult without looking at the transcript)

Published by Mariluz en 12:47 PM Comments