Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Indirect Speech

When we work with this topic we think of "transforming" direct into indrect speech or vice versa, but we should take into account how frequent it is in our daily life, especially when we "reproduce" a previous conversation. Let's see an example:
"Yesterday I saw Peter and he told me he was working in another place and that he wanted to move his apartment for a big house in the countryside. He said he had met a girl two years ago and he wanted to get married soon so he was looking for a new house. I gave him my congratulations and asked him if I knew the girl but he said he didn't think so".
We also worked in class with the structure: COMPLEMENT + INFINITIVE; let's see some examples:
  • "Don't close the window, will you?" --- She asked me not to close the window
  • "Can you come with me, please?" --- He asked me to go with him
To finish with, pay attention to the use of TELL and SAY; the first one is used with personal complement while the second goes without it as you can see in these examples:
  • Tom told her/Susan he had to work until late
  • Tom said he had to work until late
Here you are some exercises to work with this: exercise 1   exercise 2    exercise 3    exercise 4

Remember the exception of using TELL without personal pronouns: to tell the truth, to tell a lie, to tell a story/a tale, to tell a joke.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

That's English! - Module 6 - Unit 10: Stories and Legends

In this unit we are dealing with past tenses in different ways: past simple, past continuous, past perfect, used to and would. If you need more information about used to and would, go to this link
What is the main difference between WOULD and USED TO?

  • WOULD is used in repeated actions in the past and it's only possible with static verb
  • USED TO is referred to a habit in the past that you don't do any more.
When I was a little girl I used to go to the cinema with my parents and we would eat pop corn while we were seing the film.
I hope it's clear but don't worry too much; you'll be able to use it little by little.

Monday, April 28, 2014

That's English! Module 6 - Unit 9: Theatre

The title of this lesson is "The World Is a Stage" and it's about theatre. Apart from the vocabulary specific about this topic and some other shows, you can get words connected to expressing satisfacction or critisicism. As a summary here you are the principal adjectives used for doing this: 

Really possitive
Rather negative
Possitive
Amazing
Brilliant
Outstanding
Fantastic
Great
Terrific
Extraordinary
Gorgeous
Awful
Dreadful
Rubbish
Disappointing
Dull / Plain  
Boring
Annoying
Worthless 

Nice
Amusing
Entretaining
Witty
Clever
Enjoyable
Pleasant
Fine

Remember these adjectives can be used in other contexts or for other general comments such as literature, painting, movies, etc.
To finish with, if you want to have a good idea about how to write a review, here you have a link which is quite useful; click here

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Education

We have started lesson 7A which is about Education. Here you have a video with a documentary about education; it's a bit long and not very easy but quite interesting: click here. If you want to increase your vocabulary, go to this link with drawings: here