Agreeing, Disagreeing, Echo Questions and Changing your Life!

Week 24^th- 26^th March

Hello everybody! I’d like to welcome Gema, our new classmate.

This week we continued agreeing and disagreeing. And we also learnt to make “echo questions”, so as to show our interest in the conversation.

·         I was so tired yesterday that I went to bed at 10.00!

·         Did you? (Echo question)

·         I didn’t go to bed at 10.00. (disagreeing)

·         Neither did I. (Agreeing in the negative)

·         I did.(disagreeing)

·         Really, did you? Why?(Echo question)

·         I’d like to travel to Japan.

·         I wouldn’t. (disagreeing)

·         I would. I’ve always felt attracted by their culture. (disagreeing)

·         So would I. (Agreeing in affirmative)

·         Would you? (Echo question)

They met at a party.

·         I’m from Australia.

·         Are you? (echo question) So am I! (agreeing)

·         My parents came here when I was two.

·         Did they? (echo question)  So did mine. (agreeing)

·         I’ve got a twin brother.

·         Have you? (echo question)  So have I. (agreeing)

·         I don’t remember much about him now.

·         Don’t you? (echo question)  Neither do I. (agreeing)

·         I haven’t seen him since the war.

·         Haven’t you? (echo question) Neither have I. (agreeing)

·         I can’t find him anywhere now.

·         Can’t you? (echo question) Neither can I. (agreeing)

·         I’d love to see him again.

·         Would you? (echo question) So would I. (agreeing)

We did a quiz “Fifty years of pop” and learnt about questions with and without auxiliaries.

·      When did Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, die?

·      Whose husband was the film director Guy Ritchie?

·      What happened to Mick Jagger in 2004?

·      Which band included Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel?

When the subject is the question word, we don’t use the auxiliary verb.

Who wrote ‘Hamlet’? Shakespeare wrote ‘Hamlet’

Which famous play did Shakespeare write? Shakespeare wrote ‘Hamlet’

We found out (discovered) who wrote ‘Imagine’. It wasn’t only John Lennon; Yoko Ono, helped him.

And to finish with, we started talking about the topic “Changing your life”

If you could spend a year working in another country, which country would you choose? Why?

This is the title for your essay.

We’ll continue tomorrow.

So do I / Neither do I

Questions in the passive

More passive exercises

Do you agree? So do I

Week 17^th – 19^th March

Hi again,

Well, this is nearly the end of the term!

What did we do last week?

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.

We listened to two ladies talking about their families.

Louisa has a big family. There were four girls and two boys, counting brothers and sisters. She was quite happy when she was a child but there were some disadvantages. They couldn’t go on holiday. They have hand- me-down (“inherited”) clothes and toys. But, on the other hand, they had plenty of kids to play with. Besides, the old ones looked after the youngest.

Rose, on the contrary, is an only child. She was also happy when she was a child. Although she didn’t have brothers or sisters, she had a lot of cousins and her best friend lived next to her. Now that she’s an adult she misses not having siblings (brothers or sisters) to help her with the responsibility of looking after her mother.

And finally we learnt different ways of agreeing and disagreeing.

AGREEING WITH AN AFFIRMATIVE OPINION		AGREEING WITH A NEGATIVE OPINION
I want to learn French	So do I / me,too	I don’t like cold countries	Neither do I / Me, neither
She can speak three languages	So can I / Me, too	They can’t speak Japanese	Neither can I / Me, neither
I’m going to buy a new car.	So am I / Me, too	I’m not going to travel by car.	Neither am I / Me neither
I went to London last year.	So did I / Me, too	I didn’t study French at school.	Neither did I / Me neither
He has arrived very early.	So have I / Me, too	They haven’t arrived yet.	Neither has Ellen.
I’d like to live in a bigger house.	So would I / Me, too	I wouldn’t like to have a lot of children.	Neither would I / Me neither.

As you can see, we use the structure “So do I” to agree with affirmative opinions. Take into account that you have to change “do” into the auxiliary used in the sentence you agree with.  And the same with the structure “neither do I”, which is used to agree in the negative.

To disagree, we use the auxiliary verb; not “yes” or “no”

I didn’t go to the cinema yesterday. I did. NOT Me, yes.

She’s studying for her exam. I’m not. NOT, Me, no.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn more!

See you! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

The Passive Voice

Week 10^th -12^th

Hello! How are you doing?

We started last week talking about Canadians and sports.

Canadians don’t hate doing sports. Men like jogging and women love doing aerobics. They don’t mind playing team games.

What sports do you enjoy doing?

I can’t stand (hate) watching tennis on TV. I think it’s the most boring sport to watch!

I prefer watching football because it’s faster.

What about you?

Don’t forget:

We usually say the verb in “-ing” after love, hate, like, don’t mind, can’t stand, can’t bear, enjoy and prefer, when we talk generally about hobbies or leisure activities.

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 tomorrow. 

Listening- How babies learn languages

Bye

Keeping Fit is a Good Alibi!

Week 3^rd – 5^th

Hi! I see you enjoyed the weekend. Well done!

We started the week talking about illnesses. Describing symptoms and giving advice.

·         Good morning. What’s the matter?

·         Last week I was enjoying in the park when I got a terrible sore throat. At home, I was surprised to see that my eyes were very red. It isn’t a cold, but I don’t feel right.

·         It sounds as if you have hay fever and are allergic to the pollen from trees and plants.

·         Stay inside and keep the windows shut.

             _____________________________________________

·         Good afternoon, doctor.

·         Good afternoon. What’s the matter?

·         I have a headache and a backache. In fact, all my body aches.

·         Do you have a temperature?

·         Yes, I think so.

·         You may have the flu. I’m going to write you a prescription for some tablets.

 ·          Stay in bed, drink a lot of water and take these tablets three times a day for one week.

Listening - Health issues

We talked about Tom and Kate and how they have changed!

She didn’t use to be a rebel but now she wears a tattoo.

He used to have long hair.

She didn’t use to play the guitar.

He didn’t use to wear glasses.

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.

·         What do you think is the most exciting sport to watch?

·         What music do you listen to when you feel depressed?

·         Have you ever been disappointed by a birthday present?

·         What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

We learnt these phrasal verbs: take up, give up and carry on.

·         When my father retired, he took up (adopted as a hobby) tennis.

·         Carry on (continue) reading. I like the story.

·         Did you know that Sue has given up (has abandoned) her job?

And we learnt that:

The Thrift bank had been robbed.

The police suspected of Noemi and Alberto. They were taken to the police station for an interrogatory. After some time they were discharged (let free). It seems they were jogging early in the morning. After that, they went to their homes for breakfast. And they met again, later. At the time of the robbery they were at the sports centre. Noemi was playing tennis and Alberto was swimming. They had a good alibi supported by a lot of witnesses.

To end the week we talked about what we love, like, don’t mind or hate doing.

We’ll continue tomorrow. See you!