B1 class 30/11/2015

We have started the lesson with the idiom of the day; in the last few classes we've seen different ways of giving advice so this idiom is related to that: A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Then we checked the homework on page 21. In pairs we acted out the conversations between Tim and Bob, and between Mia and Liz. I explained an activity that will appear in the december exam, Rewriting. Students are given a sentence and a word in brackets they must use in order to write another sentence with the same meaning:

Maybe you should send her some flowers.

(sending)

Have you tried sending her some flowers?

I will post more activities on the blog to practise rewriting.

Then we did the listening activity on page 22; I had modified the activity and turned the exercise into a multiple choice one. If you want to do it again, you can listen to the audio on the cd-rom and here are the items:

Listen to Megan and Clive talking about their jobs. Choose the correct answer.

MEGAN

1. Megan has lived in Canada…

a) all her life.

b) for a few years.

c) since she got her 1^st job.

2. Most of Megan’s clients…

a) go hiking for the first time.

b) get into dangerous situations.

c) really enjoy the experience.

3. The guy who got lost…

a) spent three days alone in the mountains.

b) didn’t have a GPS to find his way back.

c) has left the hospital very recently.

CLIVE

4. Clive admits that…

a) he is not very happy with his job.

b) he has little experience with hotels.

c) their hotel in the Lake District is quite old.

5. Clive complains that…

a) summers are difficult for the business.

b) there are lots of cars during the high season.

c) customers leave their rooms very dirty.

6. Clive explains that…

a) it’s hard to find time to go on holiday.

b) they close their hotel every December.

c) they’ve never been on holiday since they opened.

After the listening activity we checked the exercises 3d and 6 on page 23. I explained again the difference between present perfect and past simple, and the past participle of the verb go - gone/been.

To finish the lesson we had a look at the reading activity on page 24, exercises 3 and 4.

For homework students must do exercises 1 and 2 from page 24.

Vocabulary about sleep

Loading Vocabulary about sleep

My last sleeping night

Last night I was working until 1:00 because I had to meet a deadline. When I went to bed I was very tired. I had had a difficult day with a lot of mishaps and I felt absolutely shattered.

I went to bed and, fortunately, I was fast asleep but a “fascinating” travel started. I was in the cockpit of an airplane next to the pilot. I was the co-pilot, but I don´t know anything about as piloting an airplane! It was the first time that I was in a cockpit; in front of me it there was the instrument panel with many lights and buttons. We were flying from Madrid to New York. At the beginning of the fly flight, the pilot taught me to use the controls but it was very difficult to for me. After an hour, he said told me if I wanted I could sleep a few little before we arrived to in New York. I had was very tired and I took his advice and I fell asleep out of exhaustion. I don’t know how long I was sleeping but I woke up when I noticed some turbulences. I opened my eyes I looked around and I was really surprised because the pilot wasn’t in his seat! I thought, “It’s possible he’s in the bathroom”, but he didn’t come back and I decided to go to looking for him. I got up from out of my seat, I opened the door and I was absolutely amazed because there was no one… I was alone in the airplane… I was scared to death!

I came back to the cockpit, I sat down and closed my eyes, and after a few minutes I fell asleep once again. When I woke up at 3:00 I was very confused and I felt extremely strange. I was more exhausted than when I went to bed, I was very nervous and there wasn’t any plane…!? But in the pillow there were some wing badges like the ones pilots takes have in the reverse of their jackets. I didn’t understand anything… It was seven o’clock and my alarm clock rang. I had had a sleep inside a sleep. I felt absolutely worn out!

Great composition Mayte!!! very fluent piece of writing, you know how to catch the reader's attention; very good use of vocabulary: gradable and strong adjectives, adverbs, collocations, phrasal verbs... 
Check the mistakes regarding prepositions: arrive in, get up out of, difficult for; adjectives in -ing or -ed: fascinating;the difference between said and told; and the difference between few and little. 
Thanks a lot, you're doing a terrific task in English ;-)

Idioms

Idiom of the day:

A night owl.

Taken after the name of the bird that hunts at night, this idiom refers to people who usually prefer staying up til late at night. It's the opposite of an early bird.

B1 class 25/11/2015

Sorry for the delay but I couldn't post yesterday the review of the lesson; here it is.

One of the activities for homework was to find the opposite the idiom early bird and some of the students actually found it, it is night owl.

Also for homework students had to do exercise 8 from page 19. They had to complete the sentences with an adverb that was followed by a gradable or a strong adjective and finish the sentence with information about themselves. They checked this in pairs and then all together out loud.

We then had a look at the activity 4 on page 20. We learnt different ways of asking for advice, showing concern, giving advice and responding to advice. After this they did an activity in pairs in which they had to give advice to each other about different problems using the structures we had just seen.

We continued with unit 3A, phrasal verbs related to travel. Students had to guess the meaning of the phrasal verbs and then ask each other the questions on exercise 1 page 22. 

Then we had a look at different uses of the present perfect simple and past simple and the students had to match the different rules to the examples that were presented on the blackboard.

For homework they must do exercise 7 from page 21, exercises 3d and 6 from page 23, and exercises 3b and 4 from page 24.    

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

An early bird

As we've been seeing a unit about sleep and sleep problems here comes an idiom related to this topic. It refers to people who have no problems in getting up early in the morning. Another idiom very similar to this is the early bird catches the worm which means if you do something immediately, or before someone else does it, you will be successful. 

For homework students must find the opposite of an early bird.

B1 class 23/11/2015

Again we have started the lesson with the idiom of the day: an early bird and another idiom that is similar to this one: the early bird catches the worm. For homework students must find the opposite of an early bird.

Then we continued with a listening exercise about the habits of sleep in the UK before checking the homework. The text on page 19 and exercise 6; this text is about a guy who has a very serious problem with insomnia. They also had to do exercise 7 from page 19; in this last vocabulary exercise we had a look at gradable and strong adjectives. They also had to find out the gradable adjective for awesome, knackered, terrific and humongous.

Then students talked about their last night's sleep using vocabulary from exercise 1 on page 18. We also learnt a new expression: not sleep a wink which means not sleep at all.

We continued with section 2D, about giving advice. Students discussed the three questions in exercise 1 and then we did the listening exercise on that same page.

For homework they must do exercise 8 on page 19 and exercise 4 on page 20.

Work collocations

Loading Work collocations

Idioms

Idiom of the day:

Piece of cake

This idiom is used when you find something is very easy to do or easily accomplished.

- Did you have any problems with the homework?
- No, it ws a piece of cake!

B1 class 18/11/2015

We started the class yesterday with a speaking activity to revise work collocations, modal verbs and expressions that meant permission, ability and possibility. Students were given a set of cards with different jobs written on them. They were divided in groups and the other members of the group had to ask yes/no questions in order to guess the job that was written on the card. Some of the questions asked included:

Are you supposed to meet deadlines?

Should you have a university degree?

Are you able to take time off work?

Do you have to work overtime?

After this we looked at the idiom of the day, this time related to food: piece of cake. Although no one got it right, some students came up with interesting theories.

We continued the lesson checking the homework, state verbs versus activity verbs and a text on page 17 to be completed with the present simple or continuous.

We started then unit 2C. We had a look at the vocabulary section: expressions related to sleep. 

be wide awake / snore / have a nap / be fast asleep / be a light sleeper 
You can practise these expressions doing this online exercise.

And to conclude the lesson, while students were yawning, they talked in pairs about their sleeping habits.

For homework students must do the reading exercise on page 18 and exercise 7 from page 19. They must also write about how they slept the previous night.

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

Work for peanuts.

As we have been studying collocations related to work I have introduced an idiom related to work as well. The mening of this is a job that pays a very little salary or no money at all.
-Are you happy with your new job?
- It's ok, but the salary is terrible, I basically work for peanuts.

My Last Holidays

When I started the summer holidays last year I was very upset. I was sick so I couldn't go to the trip that I had planned with my friends. When I felt better, I decided I deserved to have a good holiday.

I was in touch with someone who was organizing trips around Iceland by van and some days afterwards I prepared the backpack and I took a plane to Reykjavik.

The days before i I felt very excited. I had always wanted to travel to Iceland. I'm keen on outdoor activities and from my point of view, there are some of the most beautiful  landscapes in the world.

By the time a red van arrived to pick me up from the airport I had already met the other travelers, a young couple from Italy and two French boys who travelled on their own like me.

We went hiking next to rivers and superb waterfalls, close to cliffs and black sand beaches, glaciers and mountains. We went along lagoons full of icebergs by kayak and we climbed volcanoes....

It was an interesting experience, I felt calm and pleased. Now, when I'm fed up with work or my son gets on my nerves I try to remember it !!!

Hi Carme, I've made a few more corrections, but in general it looks great. I'm really glad you've used some of the vocabulary we've seen these last few weeks.

B1 class 16/11/2015

We started the lesson yesterday sith pronunciation again. Specifically we had a look at the pronunciation of: live / lives / leave / leaves

• Live (verb) /liv/ - My parents don't live here in Valencia.
• Live (adjective) /laiv/ - Last night we went to a live concert.
• Leave (verb) /li:v/ - Tomorrow we won't leave until 10 am.

• Lives (3rd person singular of live) /livz/ - My son lives in Alicante.
• Lives (plural of life) /laivz/ - This vaccine will save thousands of lives.
• Leaves (3rd person singular of leave or plural of leaf) /li:vz/ - Look at the leaves falling from the trees.

We then saw the idiom of the day: to work for peanuts. Most students got the meaning right and a few of them came up with interesting possible meanings.

Afterwards we continued checking the homework: exercise 5 from page 15. Students had to choose the correct verb forms.

After having seen that we started unit 2B; this section is about street food. In pairs they had a look at vocabulary about food and different ways of cooking. Some students didn't know the meaning of beans, lamb, flour, cucumber, avocado or stir fry. Other students explained to their classmates the meaning of these words. Then we all talked about our favourite food and what we usually have for breakfast and lunch.

We continued with the reading activity on page 16. It's about a photographer who travels around the world trying street food and writes about it on his blog. Students asked each other out loud the questions on exercise 3.

The text had different examples of present continuous and present simple. And we matched the different examples with the rules for both tenses. For homework students must do exercise 6 from page 17.

See you Wednesday!   

Composition 2: My last holidays Arturo

My writing about holidays Arturo

Last summer, I went to visit Cantabria. This place was beatiful and rural. My family hired a rural house in a small village called Esles. This town was on the outskirts of Santander. I felt chilled-out in this house because it was in the middle of the field. In the morning, we saw the cows and they were near to ours us. On holidays you can get away with the daily routine. I enjoyed surfing in Somo beach. I had never surfed before! In summer, I used to sail and I worked to take sailing lessons in Burriana.

Moreover, I felt so happy when we swam in puddles in the mountain. The water was so cold but so relaxing. In the evening, we rested in the rural house and I played Trivial and we watched Tv. Sometimes I was so tired in the evening.

From my point of view, I think that if you want to have good holidays, you don't have to go so far.

Well done Arturo!! I've just made some minor changes; maybe it was a matter of copying from the paper to the computer or I didn't notice the first time I checked it.
Thanks a lot again!!

Improve your skills: Listening

Watch and listen to Carl Honoré, author of the book In Praise of Slow, talking about how to live a slow life. Choose the correct option for each question.

My last holidays

My first trip to the African continent: a mixture of warring emotions warring

I was nervous about the three-weeks trip with people I didn’t know, getting up very early and travelling in a truck around Kenya and Tanzania’s landscapes, but it was one of my dreams: to visit the African continent. I was very interested in the world’s largest refugee camp and, on the other hand, I dreamed of going to the Masai Mara and Serengueti, among other, game reserves where I could see all the big animals of Africa (“the big fives”) and I could look at some of the most beautiful landscapes and sunsets. I was very happy with the idea of staying in a tented camp surrounded by wildlife, too. My first trip to the African continent was a mixture of warring emotions warring.

When I was preparing for the trip I was worried about the food in Kenya but, actually, it was delicious and it wasn’t no problem. It had hearty gingery soups and refreshing salads, and now, after these weeks in Africa I’m very keen on ginger biscuits!

I was so excited when I was in the game reserves snapping away on my new camera. In a few hours, I could see zebras, buffalos, antelopes, lions, herds of elephants, giraffes and a cheetah. There really aren’t no words to describe the feelings of seeing these animals in their natural habitat.

We visited the Great Rift Valley and Lake Nakuru, where we saw plenty of baboons, buffalo and flamingos. Baboons interacted with us; they are very clever and crafty and I ended up getting fed up with them! Afterwards, we went to the Masai Mara with its vast planes plains and incredible silence. I was very pleased with the fact of staying in a tented camp surrounded by wildlife and looked looking up at the sky even though I was frightened by the howls of the hyenas.

The Mara was amazing, especially when two lions walked right in front of our truck. It was a very special moment that’s hard to describe in words. Another “magical” moment was when our first outing on the Masai Mara brought us to a cheetah sleeping on a mound of dirt. He didn’t seem worry worried about anything. He wasn’t nervous about the safari vans pulled up beside it. I was very surprised by the close proximity of our van to the mound of dirt because the Masai Mara has strict rules and vehicles can’t go off the path. Between my new reflex camera and the proximity of the animal, I managed to capture some pretty photos of this cheetah. He looked back at us in a relaxed manner and then continued to ignore us. Another vehicle came along and refused to turn off his its engine. I was so angry about that because I think that loud engine was disrupting the cheetah. The driver told our guide that he had a battery problem and couldn’t turn off his truck so we all suffered, including the cheetah. Within a few minutes the cheetah had enough and was stood up and walking walked away.

Kenya is more magical and spectacular than I had imagined. It’s a country full of warmth. It surprised me by its landscapes, by its huge plains with acacias and by its people. It was silent, it was magical and special, I fell in love with Africa’s culture and people… It’s Africa.

Great composition Mayte! and great travel too!! Very good use of vocabulary, especially adjectives followed by prepositions we have seen in unit 1.
Have a look at the form and tense of some of the verbs, -ing, past simple, past perfect...
When we use the adverb no the verb goes in affirmative. Have a look at page 9 from the book.

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

Go bananas

This idiom is used when someone goes crazy or behaves in a crazy way.

He entered the shop and went bananas, he bought absolutely everything.

My last Holidays...

I LOVE NEW YORK

I always wanted to go to New York. Since I did have done it, I always want to go back to New York. I like urban tourism, and when we were preparing for our trip, we (saw) read many tourist guides and we spent any some time re-watching films on in which New York appears appeared.

When we arrived, we was were surprised by a very big city, with very big buildings, and very high human activity. We couldn’t imagine that it was possible. Quickly, we went to the hotel to leave our luggage and began to walk across the city. It was a wonderful week, that I hope I can repeat at in the future.

The first day, I walked around 21 kilometres, going from Midtown to uppertown until Harlem, and going later to Battery Park, in on the opposite side of Manhattan island, to see the statue of Liberty from distance, and come back to our hotel.

When I travel, I like spending the first day walking around; that helps me to decide what things I want to do the next days. At In this travel, the best visit in New York isn’t visit the museums, buildings or stores, is foot but to walk around the city.

The second day, we took our guide notes, and went with other people to make on a guided tour by car. After this, we bought some hot dogs and coke and went to Central Park to make an unexpected picnic. At In the afternoon, the Empire State Building was waiting for us. We were nervous about the lift that had to transport us to building the roof. I choosed chose the late afternoon to go up the Empire State, because we love photograhy, and we wanted to take photos of New York at in the afternoon and at evening, to compare them. Photos of Times Square are really amazing at in the evening. Lights of advertisements (made) created a very special atmosphere.

The next days, we visited a few museums, Brooklin Bridge, Central Park again and again, Rockefeller Center, and a lot shops and restaurants. I’m very pleased with good food, and a travel is not complete if I can’t taste try the gastronomy and flavours from the place I’m visiting. In that case, steak house and lobster restaurants made me feel good.

New York, I love you, I miss you…

Well done Fran!! we still have a lot of work to do with prepositions and articles. 
- In the morning / afternoon / evening but at night 
- Want to + infinitive / Like + verb-ing
- The first / second / next day
- Choose (irregular verb) - chose - chosen
- Next class we'll have a look at the difference between try and taste
A few adjectives followed by prepositions have been used (surprised, nervous, pleased). You could have mentioned something you were disappointed with, satisfied with, keen on, worried about, an embarrassing situation...
In terms of structure it is a good idea to divide the composition according to the different days you spent there. Good use of vocabulary: atmosphere, unexpected, made me feel...

B1 class 11/11/2015

We have started today, as usual, with the daily idiom: to go bananas. Then we have checked the homework, exercise 6 from page 13. Students worked in pairs making the sentences with the question tags and responding according to the information from the listening activity in the previous page. Next piece of homework was exercise 1 from page 14. Students chose the right collocation explaining the meaning of the expression afterwards. You can do this activity about work collocations.

We then continued with a listening exercise in which Carl Honoré explains what to take it slow at work means. I'll post another listening exercise related to this at some point. In the listening activity certain grammar structures were introduced:

• Ability or possibility: can and be able to
• A person is expected to do something: be supposed to
• Permission to do something: can and be allowed to
• Something is necessary (obligation): must and have to
• Give advice: should and ought to
• Not allowed (prohibition): must and can't
• Not necessary: don't have to

All these expression are followed by an infinitive.

We finished the lesson talking about our dream job. The purpose of this activity was to practise the use of the grammar structures above and the vocabulary about work.

For homework students must do exercise 5 from page 15, exercise 3 from page 16 and a short composition describing an unusual job using the structures and vocabulary we have studied today. I have added a video to the student channel to give you ideas about weird jobs.

Have fun!!

Improve your skills: Listening to a song

Listen to the song A Little Time by the British pop band The Beautiful South. Fill in the blank spaces and also choose from the pairs of words.

I need a little time

To _____ it _____

I need a little place/space

Just _____ _____ _____

I need a little time

To find my freedom

 I need a little...

Funny how quick the milk turns sour/flour

_____ it? _____ it?

Your face has been looking like that for hours

_____ it? _____ it?

Promises, promises turn to bust/dust

Wedding bells just turn to rust/gust

Trust into mistrust

I need a little room

To find myself

I need a little space/place

To _____ it _____

I need a little room / moon

All alone

I need a little...

You need a little room for your big bread/head

_____ you? _____ you?

You’ll need a little space for a thousand beds/bells

 _____ you? _____ you?

Lips that promise - fear the worst/thirst

Tongue so sharp - the bubble cursed/burst

Just into unjust

I _____ _____ a little time

To find the proof/truth

Now I _____ _____ a little room

To check what’s wrong/gone

I _____ _____ a little time

And I still love you

I _____ _____ a little...

You had a little time

And you had a little run/fun

 _____ you? _____ you?

While you had yours

Do you think I had gone/none

_____ you? _____ you?

The freedom that you wanted bad/back

Is yours _____ _____

I hope you’re glad/mad

Sad into unsad

I had a little time

To _____ it _____

Had a little room

To _____ it _____

I found a little garage/courage

To _____ it _____

I’ve had a little time…

I’ve had a little time…

I’ve had a little time…

I’ve had a little time…

Check out the solutions here.

Idioms

Idiom of the day:

Google images

Out of the blue.

This idiom is used when something happens suddenly and unexpectedly, without any warning. 

The blue refers to the blue sky from where something unexpected falls.

We hadn't seen Juliua for several weeks and then she turned up out of the blue, we were very surprised.

B1 class 09/11/2015

We have started the lesson today with a pronunciation exercise. We had a look at how the grapheme ch is pronounced in different ways, especially in /tò/ as in church or in /k/ as in mechanic. Some of the words written on the blackboard included: beach, stomach, cherry, chemistry. teach, chaos, headache, chalk, choir. Then we had a look at the words machine and yacht where the grapheme ch has a different pronunciation, sound /ò/ in machine and silent (not pronounced) in the case of yacht.

• /tò/: church, beach, cherry, teach, chalk.
• /k/: mechanic, stomach, chemistry, chaos, headache, choir.

We continued afterwards with the idiom of the day: out of the blue. This is another idiom using the colour blue; we have seen before once in a blue moon.

Then, question tags were explained again and, in order to practise, we listened to the song A Little Time by the British pop band The Beautiful South. Students had to listen to the song while filling in the gaps with appropriate question tags, phrasal verbs, expressions, and also choose between pairs of words with similar pronunciation.

We finished the lesson with some more controlled practice of question tags; the purpose was to naturalise the use of question tags to sound more natural when speaking in English. 

In future posts I'll include the song and the exercise associated to it, and I'll also explain the meaning of the idiom of the day.

Improve your skills: Listening

Watch and listen to this short video about the effects of stress on our lives and decide whether the statements are true or false.

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

To be snowed under.

This is an idiom that takes a weather-related word but which is used in a work context. From the literal meaning, covered in so much snow you can't move, comes this idiom means having a lot of work to do, to be extremely busy.

I would like to take some time off but I'm snowed under with work at the moment.

B1 class 04/11/2015

Hello everyone! it took me a while to write this post about yesterday's class but it's finally here.

Yesterday we started the lesson with the idiom of the day: 'snowed under'. Then we checked the homework that was given for that day. It was a reading exercise about laughter yoga clubs, something that Dr Madan Kataria started in Mumbai twenty years ago. This person is a real one and you can see him explaining what Laughter Yoga is in this video. Also for homework was exercise about adjectives followed by prepositions. We used these adjectives to talk about situations in which we felt that way.

We then continued with the listening exercise from page 12 in which two couples have an informal conversation. This listening activity served as an introduction to question tags which are frequently used in conversations:

-You are coming to class next Monday, aren't you?

- Yes, I am. And you will explain again the questions tags, won't you?

As you can notice from the examples, we take the auxiliary verb to form the question tag. If the sentence is affirmative, the question tag is negative; and if the sentence is negative, the question tag is affirmative.

We did in class exercise 3 from page 12 related to question tags and then we had controlled practice of this asking each other some questions and then using the question tags.

You have all understood how we form question tags, haven't you?

For next Wednesday you must write a composition about your last holidays. You must use past tenses and adjectives + prepositions describing feelings. The idea is describe how you felt during those holidays rather than to talk about what you did.

Adjectives describing feelings

Loading Adjectives describing feelings

Idioms

Google images

Idiom of the day:

Under the weather.

This an idiom with a nautical origin since sailors that became ill were sent below the deck and away of the weather. It means to be or to feel sick or unwell, and therefore you must remain in bed. 

This is an example using the idiom: 'Yesterday I got completely soaked in the rain and I feel a little bit under weather today'.

B1 class 02/11/2015

Idiom of the day this afternoon was 'under the weather', very appropriate for a day like today. We started the lesson checking the homework: exercise 6 from page 9 and exercise 1 from page 10.

Then we had a speaking activity using the adjectives that describe feelings from exercise 1. The purpose of the activity was to talk about different situations in which the students, or people they know, felt like that.

After this we did a listening activity about a group of friends who were talking about being a member of a club and different clubs they knew such as a book club. This activity introduced the reading activity afterwards that was given for homework. Students must read the text and do exercises 4c and 5. Also, related to the text, students must do exercise 6. All these activities are on page 10 and 11.

To finish the lesson I introduced the concept of 'small talk' and we were discussing the last time we met a new person, what we talked about and our present relationship with that person.

All the speaking activities we've done today involved student-student interaction first, and student-teacher interaction afterwards. When students work in pairs, the purpose of the activity is to improve fluency, whereas when they talk to the teacher the purpose is to improve correction.

And that was pretty much everything, see you all next class.