Practical English

Wednesday 24^th June

Hi!

There’s very little left for the end of the English lessons.

In fact, there’s only one class left. And remember, this last class will be Tuesday 30^th, the very last day of June!

I had planned to watch some videos for the last three days of class. As the two of you were absent on Monday, I hope to have enough time to finish them next week!

It’s just a reminder of practical situations with useful expressions and sentences. Do you remember Mark and Allie?

Mark is from San Francisco. He’s divorced and he works for a music company: MTC. Allie is British. She also works for MTC, but in London. Last month, Mark travelled to London on business and he met Allie. They went for a coffee. They went shopping. They had dinner at a restaurant. They got on very well, so Mark invited her to a conference in San Francisco. And now, Mark is at the airport, waiting for Allie.

We watched the video.

Allie went through ‘immigration’. Then she met Mark and he took her to her hotel. She was very tired. The flight was 11 hours long and she couldn’t sleep on the plane. Besides it was 5a.m. in England and 7p.m. in the USA!

She checked in the hotel. She called reception because the air conditioning didn’t work and she also ordered a sandwich! 

Then, we continued with both of them eating out; ‘At the restaurant’

You can see everything again on the videos below.We’ll continue and try to finish on Tuesday!

     Bye!

Enjoy this hot, very hot, boiling weekend!

How Old is your Body?

Week 15^th – 17^th June

Hi! How are you?

Mónica is very happy because she passed her exams! Well done!

As I had promised, we finished the story of Grace.

Who was going to think that after so many years, Jim Stewart would appear in Scotland again? Who would have thought that Grace would recognize him? And who had expected that Grace would take revenge by poisoning him?

But…did she go to prison?

Then, we changed subjects.

We read an article entitled ‘How old is your body?’

Did you know that our body age and our calendar age may not be the same? In fact, our body age can be much younger or much older than our calendar age (even eighteen years different!). We can calculate our body age by answering questions about the way we live.

First we read the answers of Tariq, a record producer, to the questionnaire.

These are some of his answers:

·         He doesn’t do enough exercise.

·         He eats a lot of fresh food but he eats too much meat.

·         He is too busy. There aren’t enough hours in the day!

·         He doesn’t have much free time but he has a few close friends who he tries to see regularly.

Then, we did the quiz to find out our body ages. Your body ages are even younger than your calendar ages! You’re ‘on the ‘minus’ side.’

Study the chart below:

		Big Quantities	Small quantities
Singular / uncountable nouns	+	A lot (of) /plenty (of) /Lots (of)	(a) Little /(very)little
	-	much
	?	How much?
Plural / countable nouns	+	A lot (of) /plenty (of) /Lots (of)	(a) Few/ (very) few
	-	many
	?	How many?

“Much” and its compounds for singular; “many” and its compounds for plural.

·           “Too” before an adjective. He is too young to drive. He’s only 16.

·           “Too much” singular/uncountable nouns. There’s too much milk. Don’t buy more. It’ll go off!

·           “Too many” plural/countable nouns. There are too many chairs in this room. Take two to the other room, please.

·           “enough” before nouns. Are there enough photocopies for everybody?

                   After adjectives. Are you hot enough? Shall I turn the heating up?

Try this exercises /too much / too many / enough

And we finished the week talking about Phrasal verbs.

A phrasal verb is a verb+ one or even two particles. They can have a literal meaning (when you translate the verb + the sense of the particle) or a metaphorical meaning (something completely different).

·         Some verbs are separable: Turn the TV on, please.

·         Some are inseparable:  Can you look after my cat next week?

When the verb is separable, we can place the object between the verb and the particle or after the particle.

It’s hot. Take your coat off / Take off your coat.

But if the object is a pronoun, it never goes at the end, unless the verb is inseparable.

Inseparable verb: ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m looking for the keys.’ ‘I´m looking for them.’ ‘I’m looking them for.’

We had a look at the possible combinations and meanings of ‘get’.

This is what we are going to continue doing next week.

See you tomorrow!

Leisure Time and Entertaining

Week 8^th- 10^th June

Hello Mónica and Dani!

First of all, lots of good luck for your test tomorrow, Mónica. I’m sure you’ll pass!!!

We started the week talking.

We talked about football, of course! Barҫa won the Champions league this year and it deserved some comments …

Then, we talked about the weekend and Dani told me that he had been to the Warner Bros. Theme park with his family. So, we talked about the zoo, theme parks and amusement parks. We also talked about aquatic parks now that the summer is arriving.We learnt vocabulary related to this way of spending our leisure time (free time).

We corrected the exercises about passive sentences with two objects.

In Spanish, you can only make passive sentences using the direct object.

But in English you can make passive sentences using either the direct or the indirect object. For Spanish people, the passive with the indirect object sounds weird (strange); however, in English this sounds much more natural that the passive made with the direct object, although both of them are correct.

ACTIVE	The travel agency has given me a 10% discount on my holidays.
PASSIVE with D.Object	I’ve been given a 10% discount on my holidays.
PASSIVE with I.Object	A 10% discount on my holidays has been given to me by the travel agency.

We revised passive sentences, the structure ‘used to’ and expressions of time.

And we finished the week describing pictures that make up a story. But …

we will tell and listen to the story - which by the way is called ‘The story of Grace’ -  next week.

Enjoy your weekend as well as the rest of the week.

See you!

Passive Quiz and a Song.

Week 1^st- 3^rd June

Hello again!

What did we do this week?

We started the week reading about ‘Hayao Miyazaki’ the Japanese film director famous for his animation films, ‘Heidi’ and ‘Marco, 3,000 miles in search of mother’.

We reviewed passive questions. Yes, they are a bit tricky because you have to bear in mind (consider) two things at the same time. You have to pay attention to the passive structure, using “to be” and also to the word order in questions:

• Are bananas grown in Spain?
• Was the Mona Lisa painted by
• Leonardo Da Vinci?Who was taken to hospital?
• Was the room being cleaned when you got to the hotel?

We did a passives quiz.

Did you know that …:

…until 1800 New York was called New Amsterdam?

…chess was invented by the Chinese?

…the Italian flag was designed by Napoleon?

….the first Levi jeans were worn by miners?

…the Indiana Jones films were directed by Steven Spielberg?

 Some facts you knew, others, you didn’t!

We used the passive voice so as to ask for information at the hotel:

·      What time is breakfast served? It’s served from 7-9.30 a.m.

·      Where is dinner served? Dinner is served in the Main Restaurant.

·      Where can newspapers be bought? Newspapers can be bought at the reception desk.

·      How often are the rooms cleaned? Rooms are cleaned daily.

·      Where are films shown? They are shown every night at the hotel cinema.

And we finished the week with a song.

This is one of my favourite songs. Although I like all of the songs from this soundtrack. It’s the soundtrack of ‘Young Guns’ the western telling the story of Billy the Kid, the famous American outlaw.

It’s called ‘Bang a drum’ and it was written by Bon Jovi.

And that was all! Enjoy the rest of the week. See you on Monday!!!

What's it Famous for?

Week 25^th – 27^th May 

Hi! How’s everybody?

Let’s remember what we did in our last lessons.

We started the week chatting! “We talk and talk until the cows came home”; this idiomatic expression means to talk for a long time. (In Spanish I ‘d say something like ‘…and we talked for so long that it was time to take the New Year’s Eve grapes!’ Of course this is Spanish not English! Do you remember the books ‘From lost to the River’ or ‘Speaking Silver’?)

You can download the book on PDF if you'rre interested in it, here.

So, we talked about all the events from the previous weekend: the end of the Spanish Football League, the Eurovision Contest and the Elections!

  We also finished talking about our school days and who was or wasn’t a rebel at that time.

Here’s a summary of the different ways of talking about the past.

Past Simple	Finished / completed actions in the past.	She worked in London for five years.
	Actions that happened one after another.	He opened the door, took off his shoes and sat on the sofa.
Past continuous	To set a story.	The sun was shining and people were happy that spring afternoon.
	An action in progress at some time in the past.	The kids were studying for the exam in the kitchen.
Used to + infinitive	States or repetitive actions in the past which are no longer true.	Her daughter used to have long black hair. (Now, she is blonde) I used to go to the cinema once a moth. (Now, I don’t usually go)

Remember that in the same way we use “am/is/are going to” for the future, we can use “was/were going to”, to express a future action in the past!

After that, we listened to and talked about “The Mothers of Invention”

Did you know that:

… disposable nappies, bullet-proof vests, the dishwasher and the windscreen wipers were invented by women?

Text- messaging was invented by the Finnish (from Finland) company Nokia to help Finnish teenagers who were very shy.

Light bulbs are made specially to last only a certain number of hours so that the manufacturers make money.

The first Harry Potter book was written in a café in Edinburgh.

The 2010 Football World cup was won by the national Spanish football team.

“Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona” is a famous movie that was filmed in Spain.America was discovered by Cristopher Columbus.

“Callos” and “Cocido Madrileño” are eaten a lot in Madrid.

The Iberian lynx is only found in Spain.

This is how we make passive sentences:

Farmers	grow	bananas	in the Canary Islands.
Subject	V	Object
Bananas	Are grown	In the Canary Islands
Subject	Passive V
Shakespeare	wrote	Hamlet.
Subject	V	Object
Hamlet	Was written	by Shakespeare.
Subject	Passive V	Agent

The object becomes the subject of the passive sentence. The subject becomes the agent. When the agent isn’t important or it’s a pronoun, it isn’t necessary to write it.

The verb changes into passive voice by writing the verb “to be” in the same tense as in the active sentence + the participle of the verb used in the active sentence.

Like this:

Present simple	produce		Present simple of “to be”	Am / is/are	+	participle	Is produced
They produce coffee in Brazil.			Coffee is produced in Brazil
Past simple	wrote		Past simple of “to be”	Was/were	+	participle	Was written
Dickens wrote ‘Oliver Twist’			‘Oliver Twist’ was written by Dickens.
Future simple	Will sell		Future of “to be”	Will be	+	participle	Will be sold
They will sell hundreds of tickets.			Hundreds of tickets will be sold.
Infinitive	buy		Infinitive of “to be”	be	+	participle	Be bought
You can buy the tickets on the net.			Tickets can be bought on the net.

We’ll continue on Monday. Have a nice weekend! Bye!