A Bit of Everything: Find the Differences, a Video, a Song ...

Week 23^rd – 25^th February

Hi! How are you?

Last week we learnt about two different past tenses:

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.

And we practised them with a story.You had to guess how the story went on (continued).

“It was a cold, dark night in November…

…Vanessa was driving out of town but she wasn’t going home.

 Where do you think she was going?

She was driving past some trees when suddenly she hit something in the road. She stopped and got out of the car.

What do you think she saw?

Vanessa was sure the driver of the car was following her because the dog was his.

Why was the car following her?

Now, the driver of the car was flashing his lights.

What do you think Vanessa did?

“The police are (plural) looking for a murderer who escaped from prison last night”, said the news on the radio.

How do you think Vanessa felt now? Why?

Vanessa got out of the car, ran up to the door, rang the bell and shouted, “Martin, help! Help!”

Where do you think Martin was?

Martin got his shotgun and opened the door. The black car stopped next to Vanessa’s car and a tall man got out.

Who do you think the man was?

“No, no! I’m not the murderer”, said the man. “The murderer is in the back of your car”

When did the murderer get into Vanessa’s car?

After the story, we listened to the song ‘Glitter’ by Pink and watch a video segment from ‘Sherlock. It’s the scene of Watson’s proposal (to ask somebody to marry you). We used these exercises to review present perfect. Here’s the link for the video segment. http://anna-edu.com/the-sound-of-present-perfect/

Then, we played a game. Find twelve differences.

We had similar pictures but with twelve differences. We had to ask questions and describe the clothes and appearances of the people in the pictures so as to find the differences. We gave up in the end (we finally surrendered)! There were two differences we couldn’t find!

In one of the pictures there was a woman wearing a short-sleeved sweater and a long patterned skirt. In the other picture, this same woman was wearing a long-sleeved sweater and a plain skirt.

Boy number four was wearing a white T-shirt in one of the pictures while (on the contrary) he was wearing a striped T-shirt in the other. And so on…

Enough of the past, let’s talk about the future!

We finished the week learning the use of ‘going to’ and ‘present continuous’ to express the future.We introduced the topic with some questions:

When was the last time you went to an airport or a train station?

Were you meeting somebody or going somewhere?

These were some of the airport stories we read about:

Rima, 23, from Lithuania.

She is going to look for a job. She’s going to stay for six months. She’s going to live with a friend.

Jonathan, 35, emigrated to Australia.

He’s going to meet his family and friends. He’s going to celebrate his father’s birthday. They’re going to have a party.








Maki, 25 & Koji, 27, Japan.

They are on their honeymoon (trip after a wedding).Everything has been organized! They’re staying at the Hyde Park hotel for two nights. They’re doing a tour of London on a double-decker bus tomorrow. In the evening they’re seeing a show.

Can you spot (see) the difference between using ‘present continuous’ and ‘going to’ to refer to future plans?

We can use both; but present continuous is preferable when we talk about definite arrangements, when everything has been organized; as in the ‘honeymoon trip’

This was the end of our weekly classes and this will be the beginning of our next week class. 

See you then. Have a nice weekend!