Reading & writing: What really gets on my nerves!!

Do you want to know what really gets on my nerves? Going to weddings! yes, that's it. First of all you must wear a suit and tie, which is something I don't like at all. I just don't feel comfortable in such formal clothes, and I usually sweat a lot in them. I'm used to wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and if I could, that's what I would wear to my own wedding.

Then, it's the whole ceremony; I'm not very keen on seeing two people exchange expensive rings and give each other a kiss, I prefer to be in the bar having a drink until it's all finished. Actually, the wedding reception is all right, I mean, I wouldn't say I really enjoy it, but you get nice food, some decent wine, and free drinks afterwards; the problem comes the next day when you realise you've had a little too many.

And finally, it's the party afterwards what drives me crazy. You know, I can't bear the thought of spending three or four hours dancing to some music I really can't stand. I'm into heavy metal music, and, as you can imagine, this is not the kind of music you would normally expect at most weddings, so I usually find a spot near the bar and watch the old people make a fool of themselves while I have a beer or two.


Now that I've shared with all of you the thing that I hate the most; I would love to hear your stories about something you like or you dislike. Please go to the comments section and share your thoughts. Please use the vocabulary we've seen these last few days.

Composition of Arturo

In 1997, a crime happened in a small village called Ezcaray. This crime was investigated by two policemen. These policemen were Sanchez and Martinez. They arrived at the crime scene at midnight. The victim was a journalist called Juan Pastor. Sanchez and Martinez were fascinated by the violence of the crime scene. They found the victim in the kitchen. In this room, there was a lot of blood. The agents didn't find any clues but they believed the killer was a professional and he had experience in her criminal life. Policemen decided to investigate the life of the victim.

Recently, Juan Pastor had written an article that talked about the bad actions of the mayor in Ezcaray. Sanchez and Martinez realized that the mayor could know something about the victim. The agents went to the town hall. They interrogated the mayor. When the interrogatory finished, Sanchez realized that the mayor had in her table the newspaper article which Juan Pastor had written. This information was suspicious. Moreover, the article was underlined in the mayor's newspaper.

The policemen decided to check the crime scene. In Juan's flat, they discovered a threat letter. This letter was written by the mayor. Martinez compared the caligraphy of the letter with public documents. The caligraphy was very similar. The mayor of Ezcaray was declared guilty and he lived the rest of his life behind bars.

-ed/-ing adjectives

Loading -ed/-ing adjectives

Idioms

Idiom of the day:

Couch potato.

There are two other nouns that refer to the same concept as couch: one is settee (not very common either) and the most common is sofa, which is the one we normally learn at school.

This expression refers to someone who spends lots of time sitting on the couch, usually watching TV, as well as eating crisps and/or drinking beer. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, no one better than the man in the picture to illustrate the meaning of this idiom.

Google images

A sail trip

We arrived in Moraira at sunset. We were fascinated by the sailing ship that our friend Juan had got to do the trip. Formentera was our goal.
Immediately, we began to prepare the boat: ropes, sails, GPS, automatic pilot, motor, fresh water, compass, and of course, food and drinks to start a night trip.
At midnight, all of these requirements were ready and the trip began. First, we discussed about the convenience of saving gas-oil, using sails only, but the discussion didn't make sense, because the wind was very slow. We expected to arrive in Formentera as sunrise, but we knew that was impossible.
After two miles, Juan had to change genoa sail, and thirty minutes afterwards, signal of GPS was lost. Luckly, Juan is an expert captain, and he calculated the route with a nautical chart, a compass, and the stars.
The rest of the travel, we had a quiet sea, and enjoyed the silence, only perturbed by sails sound in their fight with the wind.
At ten o'clock, we arrived in Formentera. Since this trip, I'm addicted to sailing and I practice racing dinghy every week.

B1 class 28/10/2015

We have started the class today with the idiom of the day: couch potato. Elias came up with an interesting theory about its meaning: an ugly sofa; nice try, but he got it wrong. I'll write a post tomorrow about this idiom.

Then, after giving the compositions back, we had a look at some of the mistakes that appeared frequently on some of the compositions:

- Arrive at + building, place. The police arrived at the crime scene.

- Arrive in + city, country. We'll arrive in New York tomorrow at 6 pm.

- Verbs with the preposition at followed by the noun home:

   Stay, sleep, be, eat at home. I don't feel like going out tonight, I'll stay at home.

- Verbs with no preposition followed by the noun home:

  Arrive, go, drive, walk Æ home. Don't take the bus, I'll drive you home.

Afterwards we continued checking the homework. Questions from exercise 6 page 7 were asked out loud among students and then in pairs to practise questions & answers in different tenses. Then we read out loud the text from page 8 and checked the exercise 4 from page 9.

To finish the lesson we had a look at the grammar point on page 9: Positive and negative forms, words and phrases.

Complete this sentence: I've gone blind, I can't see with ______ of my eyes.

For homework, exercise 6 from page 9 and exercise 1 from page 10.

See you on Monday. 

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

Like a dog with two tails!

The meaning of this idiom refers to happiness, it means really happy. It takes its meaning from what dogs do when they want to express they feel happy, they start to move their tail. Therefore a dog with two tails may express even more happiness.

I've passed all my exams, I feel like a dog with two tails.

B1 class 26/10/2015

First of all I have to thank everybody who has either posted their composition up on the blog or given it to me on a sheet of paper. I hope you post them up once I return them marked.

We have started the lesson today having a look at adjectives with -ing and adjectives with -ed (boring - bored). Example: if the teacher is boring, the students get bored.

Then we had a look at the idiom of the day: Like a dog with two tails. Congratulations to Raquel and Pablo for guessing the meaning right. I'll write a post sometime tomorrow explaining the meaning.

After these warm-up activities we continued with a listening exercise followed by a grammar explanation of questions forms, subject and object, and questions ending with prepositions. 

- Who came to the party yesterday?

- Who did you go to the party with?

Exercise number 6 is for homework.

Finally it was time for some speaking. First we had a look at different ways of expressing likes and dislikes: gets on my nerves, can't stand, drives me crazy, keen on, can't bear... With these expressions plus vocabulary from exercise 2 (waiting in queues, getting up early, cooking...) we had a speaking activity to talk about things we like and things we don't like. The purpose was to improve the fluency talking about our preferences using simple language but fluently.

Finally we had a look at pictures B, C and D from page 9 and exercise 4 was given for homework.

See you all on Wednesday. 

A TRUE STORY

Last Thursday, when I went to take the car to go to work my car wasn't in the garage.

I felt shocked because I thought someone had stolen my car!

I took quickly the mobile phone and I called the police but while I was talking to the police officer I remembered everything. The day before I went had gone to my English class by car because it looked like it would rain. I not don't usually drive around the city. I'm mad about bikes so I prefer to go cycling. When I left the Languages Center, I forgot I had driven and I came back home by valenbici.

At that moment I realized that my car was in Aragon Avenue!!

Well done Carme! Very good use of narrative tenses (past simple, past continuous, past perfect) and vocabulary we had seen in class (steal, realise, mad about). Thank you very much for posting your composition up onto the blog.

Regards

Miguel

Write a story

STUDENT'S CORNER: Homework

“Beep beep, Beep beep, Beep beep” *

“Hey! Psst…! Listen to me! I’m here, in the photograph of the “Artistic Section” twelve page left upper margin. My dear fellow, I’m Mark. Erm…, don’t you recognize me?”

It was unbelievable, I had the feeling that I continued dreaming, but as a matter of fact, there was Mark with his usual stupid appearance that characterized him – I’ve known him since I was a child and I’ve never had been fond of him! -. I didn’t know what to do, that fellow continued shouting at me and I only looked at all directions trying to find a reasonable solution (explanation). I felt ridiculous when I asked a newspaper photograph: “What on earth are you doing there?”

His answer was amazing: “Well, I’m paying a call”.

My confusion became bigger every moment. My friend was in the photograph of a painting of my last exhibition.

“For heaven’s sake, how have you achieved to get into my painting?”, I asked.

He answered calmly: “Hmmm… Well, I’m very interested in your work and when I saw your name in the newspaper, I started to read the article to know if the critiques were bad or exceptionally good. Erm, little by little the words became more and more little, and I came up to the newspaper, when suddenly I was caught in it without being able to come out and waiting desperately for that you reached this page. But, although I feel fine, I can travel free by bus, I listen to talks without being seen… I’m afraid of finishing up in a rubbish bin or at the bonfire of some tramp, and therefore I want to come out”.

When he finished talking, I stared at the photograph at the same time that the worry, which was written across my face, changed into a satisfaction look. “Hmmm… Yeah! At last I will be able to get rid of this bore boring guy. I’m tired of him”, I thought.

Nevertheless, Mark hastened to add: “Look out! Before you act you should think about the possible consequences. Well, firstly, you will become a murderer. I know now you don’t worry about that because until now you haven’t assassinated anybody, but I also know you have committed some villainous deed as…”.

“Oh, that is nonsense!”, I said quickly. I was losing my patience.
“It isn’t. It’s a great truth. I’m fed up with yours lies. You plagiarized a friend of yours’ painting, an unknown painter, who continues living in misery while you have won fame. Secondly, erm, you will make away with one of your paintings and it won’t be an ordinary painting but your favourite, the one that has received the best critiques, and according to what I've read in this article, the most expensive painting of a living artist”.

My gaiety vanished. “What do you mean by that?”, I asked with faltering voice.

Mark, with his typical irony answered: “Exactly what I have said. Poor thing! ... If something happened to the newspaper, you would kill your better work and me … Hmmm, Oh! by the way, sincerely your painting is very good, although I’m very surprised you were able to paint it. It would be a pity something happened to it, wouldn’t it?”

My confusion was on increase. Everything was too absurd and I wasn’t able to distinguish reality from fantasy. But, “Oh, my God!... Why can’t absurdity become reality?”

When I was a child I believed and I was fascinated by hard-working elves who lived under mushrooms, so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity of returning to the wonderful children’s world and I decided to follow his directions in order to release him from such an unbelievable captivity.

He said I had to come into the newspaper editorial office and try to develop the photograph in which was my painting was so that the fool of Mark, who had done my painting his home as the bizarre fancy takes “his/my” imagination, should could go out.

I came into the photograph laboratory… I gave me myself a pinch because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, lots of elves laboured amongst films and developers. My dog, called Zipi, said told them, “Make it snappy! Your work is very important! My master has to achieve it!!!” One of the elves turned round to look and winked at me. “Don’t worry!”, they said to me in unison…

“Beep beep, Beep beep, Beep beep…*”, my alarm clock rang and as every morning I switched it off. I tried resigned to return to the alive world when I saw hung “my painting” hanging up on the wall of my room in front of me and then I realized that all had been a dream.

I sat up in bed and when I took one cigarette I saw a note under the pack of cigarettes that said: “Thanks for setting me free. Mark”.

Note 1. * Characteristic sound given out by electronic alarm clock.
Note 2. All characters appeared and situations related in this story are fictitious, whatever similarity may exist with reality will be a pure coincidence.

Congratulations Mayte!! this is a very interesting composition and really exciting to read. I've crossed out the mistakes and marked in red the corrections. Thanks a lot for posting up your story onto the blog.

Regards

Miguel

Adjectives + prepositions

Complete the sentences with the correct prepostion:

1. My dad is tired ____ of getting up early. He just wants to retire!

2. I'm fed up ____ this computer, it takes ages to do anything!

3. My friend Susan is addicted ____ smoking, she always has a cigarette in her hands.

4. My girlfriend is not that keen ____ football, I always go to matches by myself.

5. My mum is obsessed ____ that new TV series but it's so boring.

1. of     2. with     3. to     4. on     5. with 

Improve your skills: Listening

Watch this clip from the TV series Friends and predict what will happen next in the conversation.
Answer the questions (a, b or c) and then listen and check. You will find the solutions at the end of the video.

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

Once in a blue moon!

This idiomatic expression means "very rarely", something that doesn't happen frequently.

- How often do you go the cinema?
- Oh once in a blue moon, I have no time for that. 

B1 class 21/10/2015

An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meaning of the words that are part of it. We have started the lesson today with the idiom once in a blue moon. On a different post we will explain the meaning of this idiom and little by little we will gather a list of the expressions we have seen throughout the course.

After that we have started with the coursebook (Face to Face intermediate). Today the lesson has focused mainly on vocabulary + speaking. From page 6 we have studied weekend activites (go to concerts, have a quiet night in, tidy up the house...) and how often we do them, and we have also talked about the different reasons for happiness (family, friends, money, religion...) and why we consider them important. To finish the lesson we have three pictures with one common topic: what makes us happy. The activity consisted on describing the pictures and going beyond what we see in the picture.

Students were reminded about the composition they must write for homework: a story using past tenses and the vocabulary we have seen on the first two days of the course. I have sent you the invitation to collaborate with the blog posting the compositions you write thoughout the course. Please use this tags (etiquetas) when you post your composition: Story, Writing.

See you all next Monday!

Idioms

The idiom we have seen today in class is:

It's raining cats and dogs!

This expression related to the weather is used when it's raining a lot.
This is not an expression we would use frequently here in Valencia but it's very appropriate for these last few days.

B1 class 19/10/2015

This is the second day of the course and we still haven't used the books since only a couple of students had them.

First of all every student introduced themselves talking about their studies or job. The purpose of this activity is to explain why they have chosen that particular degree or career and give details about it. In class we have a mixture of university students and professionals.

After that we checked the homework, a sheet of paper that was given the first day with 3 activities: the first one dealt with adjectives + prepositions and the other two were about confusing verbs. The sheet can be downloaded here.

At the end of the class the students were asked to write a composition: a story using the adjectives + prepositions from the first activity and the verbs from activities two and three. The use of narrative tenses (past simple, past continuous and past perfect) is a preferred in this type of composition.