VERBS +PREPOSITIONS

Brief explanation and exercises

More exercises

CONNECTED SPEECH!

Hi guys,
Interesting video on how to sound natural by using connected speech to understand native speakers and make yourselves understood to them!!

ENGLISH with LUCY

Here's an interesting video where Lucy is explaining us some  idiomatic expressions, slang and phrasal verbs with verb HAVE.

Expressions  like, " are you having on me ?

                           " I  wasn't  invited to his party last week, but  I had the last laugh when two months later, his mother invited round for dinner."

WRITING: A Report

Choose one of the following tasks  to write a 350-word report:

• More and more young people must leave Spain in order to find a job. Invent facts and figures for the last ten years and write a report based on your "imaginary" data.
• Crime rate is increasing in your area. There are more thefts, robberies and burglaries than ten years ago. Invent facts and figures and write a report based on your "imaginary" data.
• The number of young people betting on football matches results /numbers of goals scored, etc.  has risen dramatically in the last five years. Invent facts and figures for the last ten years and write a report based on your "imaginary" data.
• You have given out a questionnaire to your classmates to check how happy they are with the amount of time devoted in class to the 4 skills (Writing, Reading, Listening and Speaking). Write a report to your teacher showing your findings and give some suggestions.

Deadline: 8th/9th January

Report Writing

WRITING TASK:

· Impersonal Report Structures
· Report Sample (200 words)
· Report Phrase Sheet
· Statistical Reports (extra info, not compulsory)

INVERSIONS

If you feel like reviewing all type of inversions, click here.

Some exercises to get extra  practice on them. Click here

Interesting articles on WORK from EL PAIS

Hi guys,
Here's some more interesting articles on WORK from which you can pick out interesting expressions and collocations to build up and expand your comunicative skills.


"Daddy: Why not stay at home if you can?"

Average salaries in Spain: more work, less money. New salary trap

What happens when your child finds out you don't like your job?

7 tips for delivering an awesome rant

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While ranting is a key business and interpersonal skill, it can be a tricky one to master. This explanation will hopefully give you a few pointers to get you started:
1) Choosing the right rant topic
Decide on a subject that you feel really passionate, angry or crazy about. It doesn’t actually matter if you are right or wrong, just make sure that you feel strongly enough about your topic that you are willing to share this with others, whether you are invited to or not.
Note that the whole point of a rant is that you don’t actually need any specialised knowledge in the area, as long as you have an opinion and a strong emotional attachment to the subject, you are ready to rant about it.

2) Finding your audience
Your audience does not need to know that they are going to be listening to your rant. In fact it is usually better if they don’t know and ideally they should be a captive audience. This could be someone you are sitting in the car with on a long journey, or a group of people that you are presenting to. That way it is difficult to interrupt you or leave.
3) Practice, practice, practice
As with anything, practice makes perfect. Perfect your ranting style by ranting often.
Pets are a great captive audience for practicing your ranting technique. In my experience, cats tend to be disinterested, reptiles impartial but dogs are perfect as they are easy to read. Carefully watch the dog for a reaction, so that you can gauge whether your rant is having the desired affect.
Ensure that the pet understands that you are ranting to them and not at them.
4) Preparing the mind
Prepare mentally for your rant by winding yourself up in your head. Why do you feel so strongly about your rant topic? Does it make you angry? What makes you care so passionately about it? What could you do better and differently? If you are a shy person or new to ranting you may want to fuel your rant with some alcohol.
Bottle the emotion and try to look outwardly calm and collected. It is important to get yourself really worked up about your subject matter, and remember you’re right.
Leave your listening skills behind – ranting is not about listening.
5) Delivering your rant
Start your rant as you would an ordinary conversation or presentation, best not to give away that you are about to rant about something at this stage.
Build up slowly and gradually but with increasing momentum and pace. That way, by the time your audience has realised that they are listening to a rant it’s too late.
Make sure that your facial expression and physical gestures express your feelings, flail your arms about, roll eyes and use a lot of inflection in your voice or swear (anything beyond mild emphatic swearing is not recommended). Take care that the pitch of your voice doesn’t go too high, or you may find that you are whingeing instead of ranting.
6) Closing effectively
Build up to the conclusion of your rant. I find the best rant finale is to peak with a grand gesture such as throwing your arms in the air and slamming your hands palm down on a table in front of you. For maximum effect, follow up your grand gesture with a swift and humble close. This tends to leave your audience in stunned silence.
7) Other ways to rant
There are many other ways that you can rant; by email, using social media such as Twitter or Facebook or even create a blog to rant on.
The important thing to remember about a written rant is to deliver it as you would to an audience. Use little or no white space; reiterate the main points by using capitals, bold text and underlines. For additional impact, you may want to consider using red font in some sections.
Final points:
Ranting is an art not a science – find your own way to rant that complements your personality.
You may have to find a continuous flow of new audience members for your rants. Networking is a good way to do this, online and offline.
Remember, ranting is not a popularity contest and there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
As you all know, there's no a better  ranter than Homer Simpson. Find an episode where he's ranting about as an example.

SPECULATION & DEDUCTION

Here's  a far clearer explanation of ways of expressing speculation and deduction in the past in the form of ppp.(Click here)
Once you've read the grammar  do this exercise

COLLOCATION EXERCISES

 Hi there,
Here's some more quizzes to work on collocations.

Using correct collocations will make your English sound more natural. Test your knowledge of collocations by trying these exercises

How smart are you? Try this QUIZ

 Do this quiz and see how many right answers you can get. I must admit it was a bit hard.¨:)

ADVERB/ADJECTIVE COLLOCATIONS

 

 THE ADVERB / ADJECTIVE COMBINATIONS YOU SEE ABOVE ARE KNOWN AS COLLOCATIONS. Collocations are word pairs that are expected to come together. Good examples of this type of word pairing are combinations with ‘make’ and ‘do’. You make a cup of tea, but do your homework. Collocations are very common in business settings when certain nouns are routinely combined with certain verbs or adjectives. For example, draw up a contract, set a price, conduct negotiations, etc.

WE ARE GOING TO CONCENTRATE ON ADVERB / ADJECTIVE COLLOCATIONS FOR THE MOMENT.

Adverb + Adjective Matching 1

Some adverb + adjective collocations are often fairly strong. Match each adverb in List 1 with an adjective in List 2.












Now complete each of these sentences with one of the expressions from the lists above:
1.The election is very …….. at the moment. Either party could win.
2.The new production of ‘Hamlet’ was …….. by the first night audience.
3.She’s too …….. for the job – we don’t want someone with a degree.
4.The house is …….. , ten minutes from the sea, and ten minutes to the mountains.
5.If you think I’m going to agree to that, you’re …….. .
6.The disco was already …….. when the fire started.
7.His words were ……..to ensure they appealed to different sections of the audience.
8.The President has been…….. with the idea from the start, so he’s very anxious that it is a success.

Adverb + Adjective Matching 2

 Match the adverbs in List 1 with the adjectives in List 2.

 

1.The group’s new tour was …….. and tickets were  supposed to be ……….. but in fact they were ……….. to two per person. I was …….that I couldn’t get any tickets all.
2.A new …….. biography of Princess Diana has just  appeared. It seems to have been ……. by interest in America. There are some new, rather personal photos, supplied by so-called friends of hers who have, no doubt, been ……….. for supplying personal details. Famous people often don’t realise their reputation can be …….. by so-called friends. I’m  glad I’m not famous.

Other words for VERY

 

Try not to use the adverb ‘very’ too much. There are many other words with a similar meaning which are stronger or more precise. For example: highly qualified and bitterly disappointed. Add a word that means ‘very’ to each of these adjectives:
exhausted encouraged disorganised unexpected
handicapped recommended disillusioned prepared
greedy impractical
inaccurate offensive remarkable ruthless
sceptical sure theoretical unacceptable
grateful honest


 KEY TO EXERCISES HERE

DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS LINKS

 Hi,
Here's some activities to get specific practice on verbs, nouns and ajdective + prepositions.
hope it's of great help to you all.

DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS LINKS:
Ex 1  Ex 4 Ex 5 Ex 6 Ex 7 Ex 8 Ex 9 Ex 10

WRITING: COVER LETTER

Hi there,
This is to inform you about the 2nd writing assignment  I'd like you to do for next week.
Follow the instrucctions on the Guideline hand-out and then choose one of the adverts to write your COVER LETTER about.









Guidelines to write a COVER LETTER
Choose one of the adverts to write your COVER LETTER

TO MAKE/ DO or NOT TO MAKE/DO!!

Hi there,
here's an interesting video a classmate of yours who
  suggested me to put it up on the blog for those of you who might have some problems in the use of MAKE  and DO.

TED TALK: How to stay calm when you're under a lot of stress

 Hey there,
Interesting video by Daniel Levitin  on how to cope with stressful situations.
Watch it twice and do the  first two set of questions on the hand-out I gave you out in class for next day.

How to stay calm when you're stressed out

MAIN ABBREVIATIONS USED in CORRECTIONS OF WRITINGS

 Hi therer ,
This is the hand-out with the main symbols I'll be using when correcting your writings

ABBREVIATIONS USED in WRITING CORRECTION

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

 

 

 

Violence against women and girls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facts and Figures 

Should schools ban slang from classroom?

 Hey there,
 Here's an interesting mini-debate worth taking a careful look at.

Be more descriptive

OPEN CLOZE USE OF ENGLISH and some READING TESTS

We 've done some of these as well in class of for homework. Note that  one of the Reading tests in the Certificacion test will be very similar to these ones. Hope you can get the kicks out of them!

Open Cloze 1
Open Cloze 2
Open Cloze 3
Open Cloze 4
Open Cloze 5

• Advanced Use of English- Cloze Usage- The one-eyed game-tester
• Advanced Use of English- Cloze Usage- Health and cigarettes
• Advanced Use of English- Cloze Usage- A discontented parent 
• Advanced Vocabulary – Sentence Gap Fill 1

 A couple of readings too with varied answer type.

• READING COMPREHENSION PRACTICE: 
•  Cloze Multiple Matching- OLYMPIC GAMES
•  Advanced Reading – Paragraph sequence- The business of sport

WORD FORMATION activities

Hey guys,
Here's some more activities on word formation so that you get a bit of more extra practice

Word Formation Exercise 1
Word Formation Exercise 2
Word Formation Exercise 3
Word Formation Exercise 4
Word Formation Exercise 5
Word Formation Exercise 6
 Word Formation Exercise 7
Word Formation Exercise 8
 Word Formation Exercise 9
Word Formation Exercise 10
Word Formation Exercise 11
 Word Formation Exercise 14
Word Formation Exercise 15
Word Formation Exercise 16
Word Formation Exercise 17
Word Formation Exercise 18

Word Formation 1
Word Formation 2
Word Formation 3
Word Formation 4
Word Formation 5