Special Occasions

Week 19^th - 21^st January

Hello! How are you?

Mónica I hope you are Ok. We haven’t seen you this week.

We finished reading about ‘The London Eye’.

 

Remember that we use ‘how+ adjective’ to ask about distance, age, speed, number, quantity etc.

      ·            How high is the London Eye? (height: metres, centimetres etc.)

      ·            How far can you see on a clear day? (distance)

      ·            How many capsules are there? (number)

      ·            How long is the trip? (time)

      ·            How fast does it move? (speed)

You can practise with some exercises in here: http://www.tolearnenglish.com/english_lessons/questions-with-how-far

After that, we listened to a song: ‘Waterloo Sunset’

The singer complains about the speed everything moves in a city like London; but he admits he likes living there.

Then, we talked about festivals and celebrations.

Don’t forget that we use ordinal numbers to refer to dates in English.

 Ordinal numbers

Try this listening exercise!

We revised prepositions ‘in, on, at’ for time. Remember:

In/on/at for time. Exercise:  In, On, At ...

I was born on Saturday on25th in December in 1991 in winter in the morning at /on (American English) the weekend at 9p.m

·         On New Year’s Eve we stay up until midnight.

·         We send cards to family at Christmas and on birthdays.

·         They are sweet and we often eat them on special occasions, like Christmas. What are they?

·         Pumpkins are popular at Halloween.

·         People often put up special decorations around the house at Christmas

Let's learn vocabulary on weddings!

And we finished the week learning ‘Present perfect’.

We use it to talk about experiences in our life.

We use“Have you ever…?” because they are general experiences and we don’t ask or say “when” we had them.

The structure of present perfect is the same as in Spanish, but its use is different, so don’t translate from Spanish into English!!!!

·           Have you ever found any money in the street?

·           Have you ever won a prize?

·           Have you ever asked anybody famous for their autograph?

·           Have you ever forgotten an important date?

We use have + participle because we are asking in general.

·           How much did you find?

·           What did you do with the money?

·           What prize was it?

·           When did you win the prize?

·           How did you feel?

·           We used did (past simple) because now we are asking about the details of a past event or situation.

To sum up: Use “Have you ever…” to talk about general experiences. Use “Did (past simple)” to ask about the details, (follow – up questions).

Use of the prepositions, for, since, ago with present perfect or past simple.

 ·          Since is only used with perfect tenses.

He’s lived in Madrid since 2006.

 ·          Ago is only used with past simple.

He moved to Madrid 8 years ago.

 ·          For can be used with both tenses but the meaning of the sentences is different.

He lived in Santander for six years.         He doesn’t live in Santander.

He’s lived in Santander for six years.      He’s probably living in Santander                          

                                                                  now.

How to greet someone you haven't seen for ages

This is all! See you next Monday! Have a good weekend!

First week, Revising!

Week 12^th – 14^th January

Hi! Back to normal!

After the unusual class on Thursday because of the kids still being out of school, last week was a usual week and we started our lessons on Monday.

Before going on (continue) with the planning of the course, we stopped for a while and checked the homework you did at Christmas and sorted out (solved) your doubts.

We read and answer questions about Jonny Depp.

I didn’t know he had starred in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. I didn’t know, either, that he had two kids with the French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis.

You can read more information about recent events in Johnny Depp’s life in here.

This text helped us revise past simple, present perfect,adverbs and adjectives.

·         Past simple is used to express a complete, finished action. He was born on 9^th June, 1963. He starred in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’.

·         One of the uses of present perfect is to connect present with past. He has made very popular films. (He started making films in the past and he still makes them)

Adverbs modify adverbs, adjectives or verbs.

Very good, really quickly, run fast

Adjectives modify nouns.

Wonderful clothes

Most of adverbs of manner come from adding ‘–ly’ to the adjective.

They tell “how”. He ran quickly. How did he run? Quickly

Adjective	Adverb
quick	quickly
sad	sadly
happy	hapily
fast	fast
hard	hard
good	well

We reviewed the difference between “-ed” and “-ing” adjectives.

 Somebody feels “ed” because something or somebody is “ing”. In other words,  “-ed” is how you feel and “-ing” is the reason why you feel like that.

She is bored because the film is boring.

Then, we corrected a revision test.

We ended the week by reading another text, revising the pronunciation of certain sounds and with a listening comprehension.

The text was titled ‘Our little piece of pop history’.

It’s about a family that bought a house. They were surprised to see people taking photographs of their house all the time. They finally found out (learnt, knew) that the house was famous because there was a song called ‘59 Lyndhurst Grove’ and that was the reason why people took photos. Because they were fans of the pop group who made the song.

And the week was over… See you tomorrow!

Present Simple vs. Present Continuous

Thursday 8^th January, 2015

Happy 2015!!!

Welcome back to classes!!!

Yesterday it was our first class. We started the class talking about our last Christmas holidays and commenting on the news.

We have just started the year and there has been some worrying news. First, there was the bomb scare at Atocha’s train station. And on Wednesday, there was this terrible assault to a magazine redaction in France.

By Charlotte Krol, video source Newsflare / xanderAtocha

7:30PM GMT 02 Jan 2015

Train passengers were evacuated from Atocha station in Madrid, Spain, after a man threatened to commit a suicide bombing.

According to the filmer Xander Gonzales, a train was arriving at the station when a man started saying he was going to commit suicide.

He said: "the supposed suicidal man was in the same carriage as me and my wife Ester Perez. The train was about to call at Atocha when a man started saying that he was going to commit suicide. Given the fact that it was at the same place as the bomb attack on the 11 March 2004, commuters started ring emergency alarms.

"The man who was in the same coach as me approached me and I asked him why he was doing this. He replied he was not going to harm anyone and that his bag did not contain any explosives."

Police evacuated the station but later learnt the threat had been a false claim. 

 Video on this link

Charlie Hebdo Shooting: Journalists In Europe Face Increasing Violence and Intimidation

By  Dennis Lynch @neato_itsdennis on January 07 2015 12:37 PM

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  Journalists hold placards reading 'I am Charlie' as they hold a minute of silence, on Jan. 7, 2015, at the redaction of French news agency Agence France Presse, following the attack by gunmen in the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Heavily armed gunmen massacred 12 people on Wednesday after bursting into the Paris offices of a satirical weekly that had long outraged Muslims with controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images
• 
  Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine was attacked on Wednesday. It is just the latest in a number of violent attacks on journalists in Europe over the last year. Reuters/Charles Platiau
• 
  Journalists hold placards reading 'I am Charlie' as they hold a minute of silence, on Jan. 7, 2015, at the redaction of French news agency Agence France Presse, following the attack by gunmen in the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Heavily armed gunmen massacred 12 people on Wednesday after bursting into the Paris offices of a satirical weekly that had long outraged Muslims with controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images
• 
  Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine was attacked on Wednesday. It is just the latest in a number of violent attacks on journalists in Europe over the last year. Reuters/Charles Platiau

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European journalists are working in increasingly dangerous conditions amid growing incidents of terrorism and anti-media sentiment. Wednesday’s armed attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left at least 12 people dead was only the most recent assault against the European media. The death toll raised the number of journalists killed while working in Europe since 2014 to at least 18. Across the globe, there were 66 journalists killed in 2014 and 119 kidnapped worldwide, up by 35 percent from 2013. 

Ossigeno per l’Informazione, an Italian journalism-monitoring group, recorded 38 physical attacks on Italian journalists in 2014, an increase from previous years, according to Reporters Without Borders. Some of those attacks were suspected by Italian mafia elements seeking to intimidate journalists. One journalist’s two dogs were hanged and his car torched, while another was blatantly rammed in his vehiclealong with his accompanying police guards after a televised interview he gave about his investigations into Italian organized crime.

In Greece, the country’s most wanted militant Marxist fugitive released videos early in 2014 threatening journalists, according to the Associated Press. Other journalists were arrested or injured while reporting on contentious Greek protests, which periodically devolve into riots and violence.

A German journalist reporting on the growing neo-Nazi and anti-Muslim movement in Germany had his car torched last month. It was the second attack on the journalist. A militant neo-Nazi German group called National Resistance Berlin, or NWB, published a list of individuals the group said is opposed to NWB. A number of journalists are included on the list.

Polish journalists covering political protests were the target of police late last year. Two journalists in particular were arrested while covering a group of protesters who occupied the State Electoral Commission headquarters, despite showing press badges. Their families were kept in the dark about their detention. They were ultimately acquitted.

Simon Ostrovsky, a correspondent for VICE News who received critical acclaim for his work covering the evolving war in Ukraine, was kidnapped by pro-Russian separatists while reporting in eastern Ukraine in April. He was held in a basement and interrogated for four days before being released. Ostrovsky is one of dozens of journalists kidnapped and in some cases killed by both pro-government and separatist forces in Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine is the third deadliest country in the world for journalists, behind Palestine and Syria.

The Danish media group that owns Jyllands-Posten, a similar satirical magazine that received threats and international attention after publishing pictures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in 2005,increased its security following the attack on Charlie Hebdo, although no threats have been levied on them as of 12:00 p.m. EST. LInk to video

Then, we got into business. We listened to a couple talking about their sightseeing tour of London. Mónica hasn’t been to London. Daniel has. He showed us a photo of the famous ‘Big Ben’ from the London Eye. Great view!

This listening helped us to understand how present simple and present continuous are used and to check their different uses.

This week we learnt the difference between present simple and present continuous.

 v   We use present simple to talk about habits, customs, facts and routines. We use adverbs or expressions of frequency.

Remember the position of adverbs of frequency:

Before the main verb	Sam hardly ever does housework.	James never goes to the dentist.	Mary usually does sport or exercise.
After the verb “to be”	Cristina is never at home in the morning.
In questions, after the subject.	Is Isabel often late for work?	Do you often buy flowers?
Expressions of frequency, at the end of the sentence.	Mark goes to the hairdresser’s twice a year.	Christian goes on holiday three times a year.	Alex sees his best friend every weekend.

 v   We use present continuous to talk about actions happening at the moment of speaking or temporary situations.

I’m writing the report. (now)

She’s sharing a flat until she finds a house to rent. (Temporary situation)

We described what the people are doing in our pictures so as to find the differences with our partner’s picture.

 v   We can also use the present continuous to talk about future arrangements.

Click here Link to exercises

See you on Monday! Have a nice weekend!