Would you Survive?

Week 19^th – 21^st  May

Hello students! How are you doing?

 I hope you are fine and enjoying the weekend.

Let’s get into business! (Idiom; let’s get started)

What did we do last week?

We carried on (continued) with conditional clauses.

We did an oral exercise so as to practise the real conditional, which refers to a real situation or a fact.

We learnt that:

·         If a waiter forgets to put some expensive drinks on Sergio’s bill, he reminds him / her to add them to the bill. (Or at least, that’s what he told us! And we trust (confide) him! He looks like (seems to be) an honest guy)

·         If Alberto hits another car when he’s parking and the damage is rather big (considerable), he leaves a note. (Quite honest, too. Same as Sergio)

·         If people push into a queue in front of Gema, she sends them to the back of the queue.(Sensible behaviour! People should learn to wait their turn!)

·         If a friend asks Elena to borrow some money to buy a lottery ticket, she asks him/her to share with her. (That’s a right thing to do! You never know where luck lies!)

Real situation : If + present------------------------  present  (Zero Conditional)

Then, we did a quiz to show if we could survive animals attack!

I’m afraid, Gema wouldn’t go through(survive) if she were attacked by different animals!

Anyway, despite the results of the test, I seriously doubt any of us could survive a crocodile, bear or even bull attack.

This was the perfect way to introduce the unreal,( second) conditional.

Unreal or imaginary situation.

If a bear attacked you, would you climb up a tree?

What would you do if you were in the country and a bull came towards you?

Unreal situation: If + past simple ------------------ would / wouldn’t + infinitive

                                                                           (present conditional)

 Second Conditional

more exercises on second conditional

Listening on Second conditional

Remember: Don't Lose your Pen!

Week 19^th – 21^st  

Hello again!

This week we started by revising the uses of “in, on, at” for place.

Rules for the use of prepositions? Which rules do we use in Spanish? The only thing both, in English or Spanish is learning them in context. That is, if you say “in the mountain”; it’s “in”. If you say “He works on a farm”; it’s “on” and so on ( etc.)

·        Write your name at the top/at the bottom of the page.        AT

·        What have you got in your hand? What do you wear in your feet?   IN

·        I’ll wait for you at the bus stop.    AT

·        I sit in the front row of the class. IN

·        My friend also sits at the front of the class, close to me. AT

·        Can you do the exercise on page 40, please?   ON

·        I saw the news on TV.   On

·        He read the news in the yesterday’s paper.   IN

·        They live on a beautiful island. ON  

·        They live in the south of the country.  IN

·        They live on the south coast.    ON

·        I was sitting in the front /the back (of the car) when we crashed. IN

·        The house has two gardens. The big one is at the front and the small one is at the back.(the front/ the back of a building or group of people)   AT

·        Write your name on the front / on the back of the test paper. (On a piece of paper)  ON

We continued with pronunciation.

This time we learnt to pronounce and identify consonant sounds.

You can practise on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSnenzetZLE

And we started studying “Conditional Clauses” with an important piece of advice:

“Don’t lose your pen!” If you lose your pen, you’ll die.

If you lose your pen, you won’t be able to take notes.

If you aren’t able to take notes, you won’t pass your exams.

If you don’t pass your exams, you won’t get a degree.

If you don’t get a degree, you won’t find a job.

If you don’t find a job, you won’t earn any money.

If you don’t earn any money, you won’t be able to buy any food.

If you can’t buy any food, you’ll die.

So, if you lose your pen, you’ll die! Don’t lose your pen!!!

Remember the structure of the first conditional.

We use if + present simple                                            will / won’t + infinitive

If it doesn’t rain on Saturday, we’ll go for a walk.

We won’t buy milk if there’s some in the cupboard.

You can begin with the “if” clause or not. When you begin with “if” you need to use a comma.

And this is an example of Zero conditional.

We use if + present simple                                   present simple

If you begin the sentence with “if”, you have to use a comma.

Conditional exercises 

http://www.englishvideolesson.com/4101-zero-conditionals-video-lesson-english-with-jo.html

http://www.englishvideolesson.com/2721-esl-conditionals-first-type-conditionals-type-1.html

And this was about it!

Next week we’ll continue talking about conditional clauses and “Murphy’s Law”

Have a nice weekend! See you on Monday!!

The Farmer and his Sons, Connectors in Stories

Week 12^th – 14^th May

Hi!

Last week you worked harder than usual because of the test, didn’t you?

It was worth because they were very good.

We started the week telling stories.

‘The farmer and his sons’

We read about the farmer who was dying.  Before he died, he told his sons about a treasure that was buried in the vineyard. When he died, his sons dug every inch of the vineyard looking for the treasure but they couldn’t find any. But soon the grapes began to grow. They were the best grapes in the area. Now, they understood what their father meant by “treasure”.

The moral of this story is that: hard work brings its own reward. If you work hard, you’ll get a prize,(a reward).

And we also read ‘The Emperor and his daughters’.

The emperor wanted his daughters to marry as soon as they were sixteen. The emperor’s daughters didn’t like the princes their father had chosen for them and ran away. They came to a farm and fell in love with the farmer’s sons and they married them.

Then, Gema told us the story of ‘Peter and the wolf’. The moral of this story is: you mustn’t lie.

These stories helped us to understand the use of connectors.

TIME: before, as soon as, while, during, when.

CONTRAST: but, however.

RELATIVE PRONOUN: who.

CONSEQUENCE: so.

·           He had daughters but he didn’t have sons.

·           They didn’t want to marry the princes so, they ran away.

·           They dug up the grapevine. However, they couldn’t find the treasure.

We learnt to identify and pronounce vowel sounds in English.

You can practise on this link

 Vowel Sounds

Bye, see you tomorrow!

Telling Tales

Week 28^th - 30^th

Hello!

We started the week correcting Easter homework.

·         How long has he had his car? He’s had his car for three years.

·         They’ve lived in Hollywood since 2004.

·         James used to have short hair.

·         He didn’t use to wear glasses.

·         All the singer’s clothes are made especially for her.

·         Where’s cricket played?

We listened to and read the tale about “Gluskap and the baby”

Gluskap was an Indian warrior very pleased (happy) with himself. He had fought many battles and boasted (showed off) that he had never lost. One day a woman told him there was a person, in a village, who could beat him. That person was a little baby. He was very little but he cried in such a loudly way that Gluskap felt terrified (very scared) and ran away!(escaped running)

It was a way of contrasting past simple, perfect and continuous tenses. It also served us to revise the pronunciation of the ‘-ed’ ending in regular verbs.

Remember:

DON’T PRONOUNCE “e”, ONLY AFTER “t” OR “d”

Want   wanted                land     landed                wait    waited

                   /ɪd/                                   /ɪd/                                    /ɪd/

When the verb does not end in “t” or “d”, “e” is never pronounced. Sometimes it sounds like “d”; sometimes it sounds like “t”. Don’t be lazy and try to read it in Spanish because native people won’t understand you and it sounds awful (terrible!)

 If you want to practise pronunciation, follow this link.

Pronunciation of Regular Verbs

We did a couple of pair work activities focused on questions so as to complete different pieces of information every one of us had.

‘The Tale of Two Waves’ was amazing (very surprising). A huge (very big) wave knocked Wanda’s designer sunglasses into the sea. And the following day, another huge wave brought the sunglasses back to the beach!

Kaori Sato’s biography was also interesting. She was a UN Goodwill Ambassador.

(UN stands for United Nations)

Finally, let’s revise the use of the three past tenses:

Past Simple	Actions that happened one after another.	When Carol arrived home, Mark cooked dinner. (Carol arrived, after that, Mark started cooking dinner)
Past continuous	An action in progress at some time in the past.	When Carol arrived home, Mark was cooking dinner. (Mark started before Carol arrived and continued cooking afterwards)
Past Perfect	An action that happened before another action, in the past.	When Carol arrived home, Mark had cooked dinner. (Mark finished cooking before Carol arrived)

And that was about it! We’ll continue next week!

Nice long weekend!!