Saturday, December 11, 2010

Tenth week

Hello again,

Last week there was only one lesson.

We were mainly solving problems about present perfect and present perfect continuous, checking some homework and speaking about the importance of money. We also checked a reading activity and practiced saying figures and listening to four pieces of news containing some. For extension, Click here. It is interesing! You can also have a look at the wikipedia entry, which is rather complete.

Next Tuesday we will start a new unit, so I recommend you to ask me any questions about previous units and get any exercises up to date if you have not finished them yet, either handouts or the workbook.

Here you have the key to handout 19: Vocabulary on Eating and Health, Money and Banking, Free Time and Travel.

As homework, you have to do a new writing activity (handout 20) for next Thursday: Write a comment in reply to this article focusing on whether money brings happiness and the relationship between money, lifestyle and social habits. Give your point of view and support it with evidence (figures, examples, etc.). Write around 200 words

You also have to read the text on page 30 and do the activities on page 29.

By the way, have you ever had a look at the right-hand side in the blog? There are a lot of useful links. I have to point out the BBC learning English widget. You can click on any link you are interested in. 6 minutes English always contains a listening activity.


Hmm... and if you want to have a good time learning idioms, click here for a crossword! (You will have help from "the teacher". Do you remember him? If you don't know him, you can't miss this link)
See you on Tuesday!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Eleventh week

Hello everybody,

This week we have been talking about what we have been doing recently, learning Present Perfect, Past Simple and the uses of for, since, just, already and yet.

I think you have already understood the difference between past simple and present perfect, but, if you haven't, you have some activities in the book and workbook (unit 5A and 2A) as well as handout 18 to do. Click here for the key.

We were also giving our opinions about some measures to improve our city on page 71. It will be a good idea if you revise that vocabulary and the different ways to introduce our opinion, as it will be one of the topics you will have to speak about.

On Thursday, we were revising again the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect and the uses of for, since, just, already and yet. We checked grammar 2A. After that, we started talking about happiness, but we could not listen to the activity on handout 16 because there were some problems with the computer... Log in the School Virtual Library and download the material with code 0000000274. You will find this activity WITH KEY and AUDIO FILE. You can also Click here to listen. It is the first one. The title is "Happiness". You won't find the answer to the questions in this website, as I designed them myself, so I recommend you to find the activity in the Virtual Library.

For homework, you have to do the reading activities on unit 2A and 2B as well as start (or finish)the corresponding workbook units. You also have a handout to practice and revise vocabulary, but I will give you the key next week.

Next week, on the 14th of December, we will start speaking about means of transport and travelling. Click here to start reading and listening about the topic.

I hope you are all having a very nice long weekend!!