WEEK 18 21ST - 27TH APRIL 2014

Hi,

Did you enjoy your holidays? I hope so.

We had a class to improve vocabulary through video.

We looked at a lot of vocabulary related to going to the dentist. We watched Mr. Bean at the dentist, we checked vocabulary related to everyday life too.

There were different questions after the videos. We talked about going to the dentist: how often do you go? Do you like going to the dentist?

We also reviewed pronunciation of third person singular in present and also regular past verbs. We described the scenes in English using the vocabulary we have just learned.

All our classes were aimed at improving your conversational and communicative skills.

During the lessons:

• We have used the video to learn more vocabulary and use it when describing the video clips.
• We have worked a lot on vocabulary and structures. 
• We have focused on improving our pronunciation.
• We have discussed topics as "travelling" and "learning a language".
• We have had listenings related to the topics in the syllabus.
• We have learnt vocabulary related to those areas.
• We have used conversation as a means of improving your speaking abilities.
• We have worked collaboratively as a way of learning from peers.

Sonia

WEEK 17 7TH - 13TH ABRIL 2014

Hello students,

How are you doing?

On Monday we had our last session about learning a foreign language. As we had a lesson on learning online the previous class, we continued creating more ideas on the topic. You wrote questions about learning online and you had to interview all your classmates and write their answers, then we checked them on the board. After that, we had a multiple choice quiz which everybody answered quickly.

Sergio had to describe a picture and the rest drew the picture according to Sergio’s directions. It was fun and the best part was to see what everybody had drawn!!!

Then we moved on to our next topic: health and fitness. We started a mind map with the following tags:

• ·      Doctors
• ·      Illnesses
• ·      Parts of the body
• ·      Administration
• ·      Places

We started with parts of the body, we saw more vocabulary related to body parts. We also had a look at vocabulary for symptoms.

HOMEWORK

Read and complete the handout about symptoms for next class.

We will continue working on the topic next class after Easter. Class starts on 21^st. Since then have a great time, enjoy yourselves, relax and review please.

Have a great holiday!!!

Sonia

WEEK 16 31st March - 6th April 2014

Hello students,

How are you doing?

On Monday we had a look at several ideas about learning online. We had a bit of talking about online learning. All of you preferred face-to-face classes, where you have teacher-centred environments.

We talked about different websites that can help you in your day-to-day learning like: KHANACADEMY where you can learn maths, science, etc.

Then we had a lesson plan centered on learning online and we listened to some teachers explaining their ideas about it. We had a jumbled-sentence exercise, a listening-gap exercise and we also had a role-play discussion in which you realised the difficulty to hold and defend positions.

This is the link to the lesson we saw on Monday: learning with technology 

HOMEWORK

There are a lot of documents but if you scroll down the page:

you will get to number 10: multiple choice quiz, please do it and we will correct it next Monday.

number 13: online learning discussion, please complete A and B and we can try to have a discussion about it on Monday.

Just to finish, please have a look at this dictionary:

visual.merriam-webster

If you have any problem, please contact me at my email address.

Have a nice week.

See you on Monday

Sonia

WEEK 15 24TH - 30TH MARCH 2014

Hello students,

How are you this week?

First, I want to welcome Jessi to our class. It was great to meet her!!!

We started with a game: silly sentence. It was fun, wasn´t it?

Then we moved to finish our handout about comparatives and superlatives: the more you study, the more you learn or the one we saw in class: the sooner, the better. To practise more please click on the following link:   

the more the more

Then we learned more vocabulary about learning and high school: to cram: are you cramming for the exam? and also verbs with exam: to pass, to fail, to sit for, to take an exam. We also learned

new phrasal verbs: get through, hand in, get on, get down to. 

education idioms: a piece of cake, as easy as ABC

idiomatic expressions: play hooky, learn by heart, teacher's pet and my favourite: you are the apple of my eyes!!!

vocabulary referring to people: cheater, eager beaver, bookworm, copycat.

Then we watched a video about high school rules and we answered true/false statements.

Then we talked more about learning a language through a game: snake and ladders.

OK, students, I hope you revise and take the exam I mentioned in the previous class!!

Have a nice week.

See you on Monday

Sonia

WEEK 14 17th March - 23rd March 2014

Hi dear students

How are you? Now that you have finished your exams, let’s focus on going on learning a little bit more. We are still on “learning a language”. In previous classes we discussed why it is important to learn a language. In this class we discussed how to learn a language:

going abroad was top-ranked answer, followed by talking, listening and watching films.

We had the continuation of the exercise on word formation. We will go on working more on that.

We did a long listening full of new words about British people learning languages. Do you remember the second most spoken one? Yes, exactly, Polish. I´m posting the link for you to listen to it again. If you click on the link below it will take you to the BBC Learning English page, to see the script and to listen to the audio click on the top right-hand corner (downloads: audio and text). Then you will be able to listen to it again, which I recommend you.

Learn 1000 words

Then we had a quiz: how good are you at language learning ?. All of you had high marks so let’s practise the idea of learning a language and review vocabulary.

HOMEWORK:

1. FINISH THE EXERCISES ON THE EXAM. BRING THEM TO NEXT CLASS.
2. RECORD YOURSELF ON YOUR MOBILE: PRACTISE SAYING THE VERBS IN PAST FROM LAST POST.
3. GO THROUGH THE LISTENING WE HAD IN CLASS, REVIEW NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS.
4. TWO EXERCISES ON WORD FORMATION, CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK.

WORD FORMATION EXERCISES

WEEK 13 10th - 16th March 2014

Hello students,

How are you?

Today we have missed Samuel, I hope to see you in next session. Good luck with your exams, guys.

Let’s review what we have seen in the class today.

We have seen the tests and I hope you have learned from them. As homework we have to take the test again and see if we can understand the difference between future continuous, perfect and perfect continuous.

We went on with the topic: “learning a foreign language”, we read some quotations and decided which was the one we agree most and we discussed them. We have some micromoments in which you, students, built on each other’s responses, I loved and love that, it was really interesting how you defended your opinions. Well done.

We have talked about the reasons of learning a foreign language: we have to decide about the order of some statements given. Sergio and Mario did it pretty quick. You agree with each other’s order of importance. We talked about the difference between being “knowledgeable” and “wise”. It was an interesting discussion.

We also had a look on word formation, doing an exercise in which you had to decide which word was the correct one and how to form it from the roots given. We will have to do more exercises on word formation, it will help you to enrich your vocabulary.

I pointed out the importance of phonetics and we have seen in detail how to pronounce the /t/, /d/ /id/ in past. We saw the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants and we had a pronouncing session of past regular verbs. We also did the exercise I posted on the last blog. We also saw some common verbs and their difference in pronunciation: “walk”, “work”; “love”, “laugh”.

I’m posting you a link in which you can actually listen to the correct sound and link it to the phoneme: 

phonemic chart

We end up with a game in which you have to pick the correct ending to a given starter to review some modals: ought to, need to, should, shouldn’t and structures like “want to”

I hope you have a good week, good luck with your exams. See you next Monday.

WEEK 12 3rd - 9th March 2014

Hello students,

How are you? 

Today we have seen some new traveling compounds and also “normal” adjective with extreme ones:

Hot-boiling

Big-enormous, gigantic

Nice-delicious

Small-tiny

Tired-exhausted

Cold-freezing

Bad-awful

Dirty-filthy

Old-ancient

And some more, then we had the opposites, just to review some vocabulary.

We corrected homework: rephrasing sentences with comparatives. We stopped at the structure: the more you pay attention in class, the more you should learn. We will see this structure next class.

Then, we have a test to review what we have learned through last month, in February and also I wanted to make sure you went through all we have seen in class.

We have started a new lesson: “learning a foreign language” we talked about “why it is important to learn a foreign language?” and we have seen how to express purpose through an infinitive: “You learn a language to communicate with others.”

We had some examples with /-t/, /-d/ and /-id/ in past simple. We pronounced some regular verbs and you will have some exercises to practise: 

FIRST EXERCISE.

Place these verbs in the right column and bring it to next class:

helped, stuffed, laughed, missed, fished, marched, objected, looked, fixed, diced, stayed, grabbed, exited, hugged, saved, oozed, pleased, lied, freed, honored, peeled, signed, resumed, breathed, massaged, decided, tasted,

/-t/,                                                            /-d/                                                              /-id/

SECOND EXERCISE.

Record yourself in your mobile phone. The topic today is your everyday life in past to practise the regular endings.

THIRD EXERCISE

Try the exercise on word formation on the page about “learning a foreign language”.

FOURTH EXERCISE

Check this video on the pronunciation of regular verbs in past simple: regular past simple and please pronounce the verbs with the video.

Hope you have a nice week!!!, see you on Monday!!!!

Sonia