Third term, third week

Hiya!

This week we have continued practicing reported speech in different contexts. We role-played a situation in a clothes shop and in a restaruant in which there had been a problem and you had to complain. In the end, you had to fill in a complaint form, which I hope you can hand in after Easter.

On Thursday we interpreted The Knight's Tale, with Lady Tíscar Emily, Palamon-Daniel and Arcite-Paco. (It sounds like a soap opera!) Thanks to our great narrator, The knight Inma. Then, we focused on the for and against discourse (either in oral speech or in writing), and you have to write a for&against essay (or advantages-disadvantages).

As for the key to handouts 42, 43 and 44 (Reported Speech and Shopping vocabulary), you can download the key here.

As for the use of "thus", it can be a synonym of "in this way", and at the beginning of a sentence, it is like "therefore". In any case, it introduces a consequence of the previous action:
These are some examples from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
The universities have expanded, thus allowing many more people the chance of higher education. (Thus = in this way)
He is the eldest son and thus heir to the title (Thus = Therefore = Hence
We do not own the building. Tus, it would be impossible for us to make any major changes to it. (Thus = Therefore = Hence)
There is an expression: "thus far", which means the same as "so far".

Well... have a nice Easter, enjoy with your family and friends and see you on the 26th at the meeting hall. Don't forget the language assistants have prepared a talk for all of us.

See you then!

second term, sixth week

Hello everybody,

This week we have been dealing with mobile phones and revising relative clauses. Chanelle proposed a discussion about the nature of St. Valentine's day which was rather interesting. I discovered there are not many romantic people in our class...

Here you have the answer key of handout 31.

We were also learning the features of informal letters, and you have to write one. The deadline is next Thursday.

To finish, we listened to a song illustrating how to give advice with conditional clauses. Dani gave us the link in a comment (Thanks Dani!), but here you can watch it again. I hope the song is not in your head the whole week!!

Second term, fifth week

Hello everyone,

Last week we were dealing with cultural problems (cultural shock, cultural gaffes...) we might encounter when we travel abroad. Paco was also talking about some foreigners' conceptions about Spanish people. Thanks Paco!

You have the activity Cultural Gaffes in the School Virtual Library, with the code 0000000293, but you can also find it by its title Cultural Gaffes. There, you will be able to watch the video again and check the answers to the activities.

We finished with a review of modal verbs, which I hope you can now understand and use more and more.

We were also doing some vocabulary activities on mobile phones (or cell phones as Benjamín would call them... you know why!. You can also find the activities and the listening in the Virtual Library, title Cell Phones or code 0000000294.I hope the sound is better in your computers; I must apologize for the technical problems we had in class. Next Thursday, Ana Fajardo will speak about her experience with mobile phones. She is expected to use that vocabulary as well as modal verbs,and the grammar we have been studying so far. It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. Someone else could also speak about the same topic too

Then we started with relative clauses. You have some handouts to do and I will soon upload the answer key.
An advanced topic was raised, and it was about the difference between Cleft sentences and relative clauses. It is a topic even linguists don't agree on. If you want more information about it, click here and look for "Structural Issues", in the fourth paragraph, but I insist: you will study this point next year or even more likely in Avanzado 2.

Wel... that is all for now...
See you on Tuesday with Chanelle.

Happy New Year!!

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having the most splendid holiday!!

If you click here you can listen to this week Six Minute English, which is about families. You will be able to revise what we learnt. It should be a good idea if you subscribe to this podcast.

We have to get down to work soon, so here you have the key to handout 21.

In our first week after holidays, we are going to revise speaking. We will revise these topics:

• Stress
• Money and banking
• Families and relationships 
• Changing your city 
• Stereotypes (men and women) 
• Money, jobs, quality of life, happiness 
• Ordering at a restaurant 
• Travelling, visiting a new city 
• Life experiences 
• Comparing cities (means of transport, facilities…) 
• Food, eating habits 
• Road safety

 You could start thinking about what you know about them, what you can ASK about them, as well as about your opinions regarding some aspects of them. Don't forget you are expected to use new grammar and vocabulary, so we will start planning all this next week.

As Xmas has not ended yet,click here to do two listening activities (OUP).

Then, watch and sing along (I recommend you to watch till the end; it is worth it)




By the way, how is "Stories of Suspense" going? :-)

See you in a week.

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!

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!!

Tenth week

Hello everyone,

I am a bit sad this week because there were few students in class, and we were working on plenty of new aspects of vocabulary and grammar.

In any case, here you have the Power Point Presentation of Quatifiers that we were analysing in class:

Quantifiers

View more presentations from mariaelenatapia.

If you click here you can download the key to handout 14 about Quantifiers.

We were also revising personality adjectives talking about what oldest children, middle children, youngest children and only children are like.

Don't forget to write a description of a child under 12 years old. You have to include details about his/her personality, explain what he/she likes or doesn't like doing, what he/she is good or bad at, and predict some facts about his/her future. Always support your sentences and use as much new language of the level as possible (including quantifiers, of course!). Around 200 words. I would prefer it if you attach it in a word document on an email (thanks!)

Then, on Thursday we were talking about our pace of life. Inma and Alicia compared our pace of life and the pace of life in London, and they did very well, because they used a lot of new vocabulary from handout 12 and the listening I recommended. Moreover, their grammar was correct. Well done! I only hope next time you can improvise a little bit more!

You also have to complete units 1C and 5A in the workbook. Next Tuesday we will be speaking about the activity on page 71. It will be useful if you read the texts on that page and revise the ways to convey your opinion and interrupt people when they are speaking.

Enjoy the weekend!

Ninth week

Hello everyone,

Last week we had Chanelle with us. She was talking about the evolution of families in Canada, which is similar to the rest of the developped countries, I think. She talked about blended families, single parent families, common law couples, half-brothers, half-sisters, same sex marriages, divorces, etc. She gave us some figures and statistics about this in Canada.

For extension, click here.

We finished unit 5B talking about gender stereotypes to continue talking about families and relatives. What is the real difference between these two words? It is quite cultural. "Family" is included in "Relatives", which is a wider term used by anybody sharing a blood relationship. You can read in the previous link what other people think about it.

Then, on Thursday, we were talking about how to convey promises, predictions (with and without evidence), offers, plans or intentions and arrangements, as well as the difference between reciprocal and reflexive pronouns.

Here you have the key to handouts 11 (future tenses), 12 (personality adjectives and modern living) and 13 (reflexive and reciprocal pronouns.

Next week we will finish with the unit about the family and start talking about our work-life balance, free time, obligations... our lifestyle in general, so you should do "Modern living" in handout 12.


On Thursday, we will compare the pace of life in London with the pace of life in Granada, so you have to click HERE to listen to a text about it. (You can read ONLY after listening twice or three times. But... how will we organise this activity?


1. First, you have to click on the link above.
2. Second, you should learn the new expressions (to rush, he can't cut it, I make it part of my daily schedule, the pace, at a snail's pace, "me time", it's all too much for me, or any others)
3. Then, listen to the text two or three times.
4. Listen again and read at the same time. Learn any other new words which you think will be useful.
5. Compare the way people live in London with our lifestyle in Granada paying attention to the things they do that we do as well, or that we don't do. Give real examples from your daily life. You can answer some of the journalist's questions, for example:
- Is life in the capital really too fast?
- Do you ever find yourself trying to slow down?


You can also add some suggestions to slow down. If you click here, you will find some tips.
6. Think that your speech should take 3 or 4 minutes only. Organise it around 3 or 4 ideas.


7. Make sure you use new language: new vocabulary from this text and from handout 12 as well as quantifiers (we will revise them on Tuesday).

On Thursday I will choose two or three people to come to the front of the classroom and talk about the pace of Life in Granada as compared to London. You all have to prepare it.

For those who did not come on Thursday or arrived late, I recommended two readers.

Stories of Suspense, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Black Cat- Vicens Vives.

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Black Cat - Vicens Vives.

The first one will be discussed after Christmas and the second one after Easter. They are not compulsory. If you don't like them, you could always choose other two. And of course, you can read more than two! I recommend you to use the Virtual Library.

Enjoy the rest of the evening!

Seventh week

Hello everyone,

This week we have been learning how to use the article and revising how to give opinions. We will be doing this all throughout the year, so that is why it is so important.

We also revised how to pronounce the final -ed. If you need some more practice, click here.

Remember the importance of reading aloud. If you feel like no-one is correcting you, play the audio CDs that come with the readers. Read aloud,then listen to the same text and correct yourselves.

We were also revising the use of narrative tenses. Here you have the key to handouts 7 and 8.

And the key to handout 10 (use of the article)

Next Tuesday you will have to read your stories about Daniel, the mutant cockroach and another extra-character. Remember the strategies you have to use (The grammar, the vocabulary, the textual structure, and sequencing adverbs).

Now the "dark" news: Homework:
- Complete your workbook units 1B and 5B
- Pages 144-145 in the student's book
- Grammar units 1B and 5B in the student's book (pages 130 and 138).
- Listen to some stories from the link I wrote in last week's entry.
- Practice pronunciation reading aloud and revising phonetics symbols using your CD Rom.

Finally, you can see here our Halloween party, with Daniel,our winner!!
I hope this will be soon published on the School Youtube channel.


eoi granada halloween from maribel alvarez on Vimeo.

Key handout 42 and another song!

Hi everyone,

Here you have the key to handout 42.

Patricia suggested this song, which includes a lot of examples of second conditional sentences. Thanks Patricia!!

Try to understand the song without looking at the lyrics, and check how many phrases you can get. The lyrics are below.



All I want is you. Juno Soundtrack

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, when the cold winds blow.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

See you tomorrow!

twenty-eight week

Hi everyone, how are you?

Last Tuesday we had Juan de Dios talking about an interesting topic: banning veils at school in the UK. If you have not read his article yet, click here and have a peep.

Next Tuesday, José Antonio will talk to us about a very special plane. Don't forget to read his article and prepare some questions for him. Maybe I will prepare some questions for you! ;-)

We listened to a woman talking about her first day at school and revised vocabulary about houses. Four people were talking about their ideal home. What would your ideal house be like? Feel free to answer adding a comment below!!

We were using second conditional sentences. There are many songs which use them, so I am going to upload here an activity with one of them: If I were a boy, by Beyoncé.
I dedicate it to Tíscar, as I know she likes this song a lot.

Download the activity here

Listen and watch YOUTUBE VIDEO


Well... here is a funny version of it: If I were a girl


If I were a girl,
even just for a day
I'd roll out of bed in the morning
and wonder what just happened to me

Oh no don't tell me they're real
Yeah I think they're real
Something else is missing
Where the hecks my PEN15!

If I were a girl,
would I still look like a guy?
No I wont put on make up,
but I might just want to give that bra a try.

If I were a girl
I could mess with the guys
No, no not like that I mean
When we get a nice dinner I'll make sure they buy

I could seduce them
Show them my nice behind
Yo Zach check out that a... oh my god
I got you, You totally like guys

If I were a girl,
I'd have the nicest legs
I refuse to cook in the kitchen but
I'm pretty dang good with the microwave

If I were a girl,
please don't get mad if I'm mean
I'm not used to my body
this monthly thing is kinda new to me.

No I don't really know if I want to change back,
Because I like my new hair
and the guys love my my my my my
FACE what?

Oh if I were a girl (oh if i were a girl)
I don't think I'd ever understand (i don't think i could understand)
How it feels to be a girl,
God please change me back to a man

If I were a girl
If you want more songs with the second conditional, you can check out my last year entry (click on "Music and Fun" on the right and find May 12).

Finally... Here you have the key to handout 41 about house vocabulary.

I want to thank those who came to the Spring Concert on Thursday. I think we all liked it. I hope more of you can come next year!

See you on Tuesday.

Twenty-fourth week

How are you this week?

I guess a little bit nervous... well... don't be.

Our last two lessons were quite interesting. On Tuesday, Taran taught us some useful expressions to keep conversation going, and then Miguel talked about Lemurs in Madagascar. Here you can read his article, if you haven't yet.

Then we were solving some questions you had about relative clauses.

You can download the key to handouts 33 and 34 clicking on this link.

Thursday was devoted to Aung Sang Suu Kyi, as we celebrated the International Women's Day this week. Here you have the two videos that we watched. I think that you will have better sound quality in your computers and you will understand them better.

BBC Profile

Aung Sang Suu Kyi on the Non-violent Approach:



And, of course, "Walk on" by U2, a special edition, Live from London:





Next week we will have exams: the written part on Tuesday (reading, listening and writing) and Speaking on Thursday (dialogues). I hope you can find time to revise and all of you get good results.

By the way, St. Patrick's Day is on Wednesday. It is an important celebration in many English-speaking countries, especially in Ireland, and one of the things they do is to wear something green, as it is supposed to bring good luck. Why don't you wear something green to come to class this week? Thus, we could celebrate this party and at the same time it will be a kind of charm! Here you can read more about St. Patrick's Day and how it is celebrated in different countries. The most important symbol this day is the shamrock, as St. Patrick said it represented God.

Watch this funny "biography" of St. Patrick:



You can also read my last year's entry on this celebration here.
Good luck!!

Twenty-third week

Hiya!

Last week we learnt a lot of new things!

We learnt how to write an informal letter (you had to write one for last Thursday),
we revised how to manage in the London Tube, and we also learnt about Relative clauses and -ing/-ed clauses (also called "Reduced relative clauses").

Ed Ing Clauses

View more presentations from mariaelenatapia.

Relative Clauses

View more presentations from mariaelenatapia.

Here you have the key to handout 32 and next week I will upload the key to handouts 34 and 35.



For homework, you had to do these handouts and you finish unit 3 in your workbooks. If you have time, you could also read the text on page 93.

This week we will be with Taran and Virginia, and I have really interesting activities to do with you.

You should also revise for the exam, as solving your problems and answering your questions will be my priority.

See you in two days!

Keys quicktest 3

Hi there!

Here you have the key to Quicktest 3 (corrected).



Sorry for the mistake!

Twentieth week

Hello everyone,

This week we have met Virginia, who will be with us every two Thursdays for half an hour. I think she is great, don't you? She taught us a song and expressions like "Hold on to that feeling", "Everyone wants a thrill", among others. Well, of course, we also were with Taran on Tuesday playing guessing games and using modal verbs of deduction.

On Tuesday we were listening to a guitarist whose mother was Spanish and whose father was English.

On Thursday Damián told us about servience in Paris, according to a British journalist with a broken leg. She was quite unlucky indeed! I liked this text, in spite of the difficult vocabulary. You can read it here. Thanks Damián!

We were also talking about our abilities: What we CAN do now, what we COULD do when we were five years old, what we would like to BE ABLE TO do, what we have never BEEN able to do, etc.

I am going to upload the keys to the handouts you have to check. Please, ask me any questions in class.

Describing people's appearance and personality

Grammar 3A and 3B:




For homework, you have to read the text in unit 3C and complete it with the correct sentences. Practice reading it aloud, as we will read it aloud in class. You also have to do grammar 3C on page 135 in your books, finish unit 3B in the workbook and update any handout or workbook unit which you have not finished yet.

Next Tuesday Juan is going to make his oral exposition. I am curious! Please, read his article before coming to class. (Juan, don't forget to send us the link!)

Have a happy St. Valentine's day!

Are you revising?

Hi everyone,

Are you having a nice Christmas? I hope you are revising too and practising as much as you can!

You can download here the key to the revision pages of unit 2 in your book.

You have plenty of support material on this link

I especially recommend WEBLINKS to improve and get ideas about the topics for the oral exam. I sent an email to all of you with the possible topics. If any of you did not get it, please, email me and I will send it again.

Remember that we will start these oral tests on Jan 14th.

See you soon!

Thirteenth week

Hello everyone,

Last Thursday Loli was talking about India, explaining the socioeconomic problems in that country. Thanks a lot Loli!

We were revising Present Perfect Continuous and we learnt "strong" adjectives: filty, great, starving... etc. Click here to download a crossword on extreme adjectives.


We were also revising comparatives and superlatives. We did the speaking activity on page 30 (exercise c) and we learnt some new comparative structures, like "The sooner the better", "The more I know her, the more I like her", "Things are getting better and better", etc. Here you have the key to handout 20. This is all new for you, so do not hesitate to ask in class next Tuesday if you have any problem.

For homework, you had to finish handouts 19 and 20 and read the text and do the exercises on pages 28 and 29.

I hope more people give me the formal email to a health magazine next week (or send it by email), and do not forget to complete your workbooks!

This is the program for our Christmas Party on the 21st and 22nd of December. I hope you all come:

Christmas hamper draw: 17.30
Gastronomic contest 17.45-19.00 (Prize to the best recipy will be given at 18.00)
Karaoke 19.00-20.30 (Prize to the best singer at 20.30)

See you in a couple of days!

Sixth week

Hi there,

Did you enjoy our classes last week?

We were revising past tenses, we were learning about the structure of narrative texts and I gave you some hints to write argumentative texts. Don't forget to write your compositions and your opinions.

We also learnt how to use "Time clauses" with a preposition and a gerund , as well as how to speak about habits in the past with "used to" and "would", to be both aspects included in your compositions.

Thanks to Tíscar, Verónica, Juan and Loli, who told us some jockes and gave us some information about a sportsperson.

We also chose our students representatives! I know you two will do your best!

Don't forget your homework (Time clauses, workbook 1B, and compositions), try to practice as much as you can, and next week we will start learning the future.

Here you have the key to handout 9 (past tenses and articles)

Third week

Hi there,

This week we have been talking about food...(yummm) and our linguistic focus was on phonetic transcriptions and on the present simple and continuous.

We also met our language assistant, Paul, who showed us what Afternoon Tea is.

As for homework, you can click on the numbers to get the key to handouts 2 and 3.

Here you have an extra reading activity to practice True/False sentences. Thanks to my colleague Laura Jiménez, who recommended it.

See you in class!

Last keys and... HOLIDAYS!!

Hello everyone,

We have finished our course now.It has really been a great teaching experience for me and I have met really nice people, so thank you everyone. I hope we can work together next year too!

Here you have some recommendations for the summer, as some of you asked:

To read, I think the best thing you can do is to have a look at this site and click on READERS CATALOGUE on the left. There you can choose any level (I recommend you start reading INTERMEDIATE), and once you have chosen your level, you can also click on any book to read a brief summary and check that you like it.

So here is the link: http://www.macmillanenglish.com/readers/resources.htm

I also like this site: http://www.blackcat.vicensvives.es/ . It is the same editor as Sherlock Holmes' Stories that you have already read.

I hope this is useful...

If you want to practice Grammar, I specially like R. Murphy's English Grammar in Use (with answers). The editor is Cambridge.

There is a similar one on Vocabulary (Redman's English Vocabulary in Use) by Cambridge as well.

Intermediate English Practice (MacMillan) is also very good, and it contains both vocabulary units and grammar units.

They are very complete reference and self-study books. Sometimes I chose some handouts from them as homework for you.

By the way! Here you have the key to our last handout on -ing and -ed adjectives.


Good luck with the exams. The grades will be published on the school notice board on Monday 22nd of June at 16.00.

Well, that's all from me by now.

Have a nice holiday and I hope to see you next October!