Obligation and Advice in English

Click on this link for exercises and their solutions.

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.