Present Perfect Simple and Continuous/Progressive

For more explanations and exercises click here

Zodiac Signs and Personality Traits

It is not that I am a great fan of astrology. In fact, I think it is all a load of old mythological gibberish. But it can actually be as good an excuse as any other to start up a conversation on people's personality. Here is the activity I suggest: go to Youtube.com and do a search with your star sign with the words :

"All about astrology: the sign (here you must key in your zodiac sign) in astrology."

In case you cannot remember the spelling, the list is: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.

Listen to the 2 to 3-minute long video and then post a comment on which things from your sign description could be used to define you and those which are a far shot (not characteristic of you by far). Here is my own sign as an appetiser.

Also, click on this a link to the personality traits by sign we looked at in class.

Expressing the Future

Watch the two videos below for explanations about different ways of expressing the future in English.





And for exercises and other links, click here.

What is a family?

For the script of the video above, click here

Click here for words and expressions you may need to look at before watching the video.

Sports: Goofy on How to Play Baseball

This post intends to be a humorous introduction to the sport of baseball, very important in the Anglo-Saxon world. You may find the language slightly complicated, but in anticipation I have tried to transcribe a large part of the language in it, so that you can read it first, look up the difficult words in a dictionary and enjoy the cartoon more after that. You will be able to download the transcript by clicking here.

At a restaurant

Watch the video below for expressions to recognise and use at a restaurant:



Here you will find the video script with blanks, the solutions and one more exercise.

Kitchen appliances and utensils

The importance of phonetics

For more practice scroll down nearly to the bottom of:

http://carballoplus.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

Fruit and nuts

Hello, Intermediate II students!

This is my first post on the blog this school year. I hope you enjoy it.

Watch these two videos as a reinforcement of the vocabulary we have been looking at in class.

Below, a couple of sites where you can do exercises on the same topic. Please, note that what we have learned in class as "courgettes" and "aubergines" are known in American English as zucchini and eggplants respectively. Also "tomato" is pronouced differently in AmE.

http://www.eflnet.com/vocab/dictionary/vegquiz3.php

Phrasal verbs.

Here is a link with exercises with phrasal verbs.

Video on Question Tags

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO THE VIDEO: IN THIS VIDEO THEY TREAT "HAVE" AS AN AUXILIARY VERB, WHICH IS NOT STRICTLY WRONG. HOWEVER, WHEN "HAVE" FUNCTIONS AS A LEXICAL VERB ("I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME" -POSSESSION- OR "I'M HAVING A SHOWER/A HAMBURGER" -TAKING OR EATING-) IT MORE OFTEN THAN NOT WORKS AS A NORMAL VERB THAT NEEDS THE AUXILIARY "DO" IN THE QUESTION TAG.

EXAMPLES:

HE DOESN'T HAVE MUCH TIME, DOES HE?
HE HAS A HAMBURGER EVERY FRIDAY EVENING, DOESN'T HE?

CONTRAST WITH:

THEY HAD DONE THEIR HOMEWORK, HADN'T THEY? -IN THIS CASE, "HAVE" IS A REAL AUXILIARY VERB.

Question Tags and Indirect Questions

Here is a link with grammar theory and exercises on INDIRECT QUESTIONS. Do the exercises.

And here are some links for you to practice QUESTION TAGS.

EXERCISE 1
EXERCISE 2

The third conditional, exercises.

IF HE HAD NOT GORGED ON JUNK FOOD ALL HIS LIFE...



Here are some links to exercises to practice the third conditional:

Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Exercise 4

Superstitions with Mr. Duncan

One more video in Mr. Duncan's series. You may want to explore his other videos on YouTube, as they are both informative and great fun. He is quite a character! Enjoy

Revision of Communicative Functions.

Below, you'll find links to expressions (most of which we have seen throughout the year) essential to hold a conversation and keep it going. I would advise you to revise them one by one and try to memorise some of them, at least half from each category, or perhaps one third -the essential ones. One good method would be to translate the expressions into Galician or Spanish and, based on that translation, try to translate them back into English going over them several times. REMEMBER: THIS IS EXCELLENT MATERIAL FOR THE ORAL EXAM.

make yourselves a plan from now to the end of the course, decide how many categories you will do each time, and be persistent! Half an hour every day can make all the difference!

Here we go, then:

ADVICE. APOLOGY. ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION. CAUSE AND EFFECT. CERTAINTY. COMPLAINING. DISSATISFACTION. EXPLAINING. EXPRESSING PURPOSE. HYPOTHESIS. INDIFERENCE. INVITATIONS. LIKES AND DISLIKES. NECESSITY. OFFERS. OPINIONS. PERMISSION. POSSIBILITY AND IMPOSSIBILITY. PREFERENCE. PROBABILITY AND IMPROBABILITY. PROHIBITION. REGRET. REQUEST. SUGGESTING. SYMPATHY.

Relative clauses.

Here is a link with grammar theory and exercises on relative clauses.

Passive voice.

Here is the link with the grammar theory, and here some exercises.

Enjoy!

Reported Speech

Click here for theory and exercises on reported speech.

The Use of Articles. Uncountable nouns.

Here is a link to the exercises we have done in class.

Quantifiers.

Quantifiers are determiners that express quantity (some, all, any, few etc.)

Here is a link to more exercises to continue our work in class, and here some more grammar notions that you may need to look at in case of doubt after you do the exercises.

Job interviews

Here is an exercise where you will have to complete and read a job interview.

Work. Vocabulary & exercises.

Click here for vocabulary related to professions and different issues related to work.

You'll find the exercises we've done in class here.

Work

Here is a video on work-life balance



By clicking on this link you'll find a listening exercise to do while you watch it.

Sending an e-mail

Watch this video. The corresponding listening tasks will follow shortly.

What is a friend?

Listening exercises on this video will follow shortly.

Falling out with friends and making up.

Publish your homework as comments!

Harry Benson

Parody on life in the 19th century.

physical description again with solutions

Here is a link again to revise physical description, but this time with the solutions. Click here

Listening Computers/stress

Understanding computers and computer terminology is essential for modern life, that is why I consider this listening activity I propose very useful for you.

Go to web page http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/pages/level2.shtml and play podcast number 57, but before, try to download by clicking here and here two activities designed for it.



And what to say about stress, some of you have listened to this podcast in class, some others haven't (we did not have the time). This is a chance for you to do it at home. Again, go to the same page as above and play podcast number 56. You'll find exercises for it here

Expressing possibility and ability.

Link for exercise with can, can't, must, could, may, might to express possiblity here

Link for exercise with can, could, couldn't be able to and manage to express ability here

Adjective pairs ending in "-ed" and "-ing"

Here is what we have done in class about this topic.

Can/could/be able to. Expressing ability.

Two links with theory and exercises on this topic. Click here and here.

In order to be able to use the links with google.docs, you must send me an e-mail address and ask me to include you among my readers.

Teachers must be evaluated too!

Here is a debate I propose, as feedback from students is fundamental for teaching:

I suggest you take part in it anonymously...

1) Do you consider classes are adequate to your needs? i.e. Do you think they are helping you make progress?

2) What do you like and dislike about the teaching methods?

3) What things could be improved?

Feel free to add more points to the ones I've suggested if you deem it fit.

Appearance vocabulary

Here is a link with the vocabulary items we have been learning in class to describe people's appearance.

Irregular verbs test again!

Some of you have asked me for the irregular verbs test, as you wanted to do it again. You can download it through this link

Intermediate II. Situations to practice for oral exam.

You know that the February test is just round the corner. In order to prepare for the oral exam (which, as you know will consist of a 3-minute presentation and a dialogue based on a situation), here is a link where you can find situations very similar to the ones in the exam. Click here to download it.

Intermediate II. You Have Your Own Blog Now

Hi, Intermediate students from the Carballo EOI!

This is YOUR OWN BLOG, you don´t have to share it any longer with advanced sutudents.