A Leap Year : February, 29

Today it's a very special day and it won't be repeated in 4 years. It's 29th February and this is a leap year. If you want to know something about this, go to this link. If you want to know about strange traditions, here you are another link.
If you want to do this listening exercise (Upper-intermediate) about the topic, click here
Enjoy this leap day!

That's English - Unit 2: In the market

This topic is connected to business English and the vocabulary is very specific but useful. Nevertheless, as you are in an advanced level you should be able to speak about the topic using this vocabulary and expressions as it is a very usual topic for a conversation.
Let's start with general questions and then we'll see the grammar included in this lesson and the exercises to do.

• What kind of business would you like to set up and run? Have you got any expertice to live on?   
• What are the main problems to run a business? On page 23 you have DO's and DON'T's to success in business.

• Compare two nationalities about doing business, how they make money; in the book you have Finns and Arabs but you may use Spanish, French, American...

In this lesson we work with connectors or linking words. If you want to practise you have this link with many exercises: click here and this is the exercise we did in class (click here) just in case you liked to do it again at home. Here you have another one.

About the reduced relative clauses, they are similar to Spanish so they shouldn't be difficult:

• The man sitting at the table is my boss  --- El hombre sentado a la mesa es mi jefe

But sometimes it's not so similar like in this example:

• If you have a problem this is the person to speak to  ---  Si tienes un problema esta es la persona con la que tienes que hablar

If you need a further explanation, you may be interested in this link which has exercises included; click here

To finish with, let's practise with business English; you may use this BBC link to practise and get familiar with this kind of English: click here. This is the short exercise we did in class: click here

and here you are some short exercises about business English: click here

NI1 - Unit 5A: Sporting superstitions

This lesson deals with the topic of sports but in grammar we have seen the use of past tenses. Here you have a couple of exercises but be careful because past perfect continuous is included and we haven't seen it yet. I hope it will be helpful: exercise 1   exercise 2
If you want to practise with past perfect, here you are an exercise to do: click here

NA1 - 2B

This is the reading about teenagers. As a curiosity, have a look at the end of the article and you'll find the way that some youngsters speak; click here
Here you are the video we saw in class related to the reading in this lesson. This is the initial part (click here) and this is the part talking about how to live on youur pension (click here)
In the grammar section we talked about the order of adjectives. This page has a good explanation about this and you can find exercises at the end; click here. If you need more exercises, here you are:

• exercise 1         exercise 2          exercise 3          exercise 4          exercise 5

In this lesson we revise the topic of clothes so let's see going shopping as well. Here you are the listening we heard in class so you can practise on your own; clik here. This is another exercise but you have to use 2 links, this is for the questions and this for the audio (look for a symbol of audio about Ralf Lauren). The last one is about shopping; click here

NA1 - Preparing the exam and a film to watch

Today we've been working on how to prepare the oral exam. Let me remind you that next Thursday, February 18, we'll have the written part and then the following class day we'll do the oral test.
One of you has talked about a book which is very important in British literature: Three Men in a Boat. Here you have the link to the movie: click here

NA1 - Unit 2A: Call the doctor?

This lesson is about illnesses and medical problems. To start with you should revise the parts of the body so here you are the drawing we saw in class: click here
You can find on the internet some good pages to learn more about this topic. Here you have some vocabulary exercises to work with, if you want. the one in the link is for intermediate students, but you casn find some more; click here.
The song Like a  Pill with lyrics is here.

NI1 - Unit 4B: Modals of obligation

We go on with modals and this lesson deals with obligation. As we saw with CAN, we'll find some problems with tenses and with meanings.
About tenses, remember that MUST is only for present; if you need past tenses you should use HAD TO, but be careful with the negative form which is DIDN'T HAVE TO. Look at the examples:

• I must think about that  ------  I have to think about that  (very similar meaning)
• I had to think about that  ------ I didn't have to think about that

About meaning, there is a slight difference between MUST and HAVE TO. This second is more an external obligation than the other. In negative the difference is bigger like in these exemples:

• I mustn't think about that  -----  it's bad to do it
• I don't have to think about that ----- it's not necessary to do it..

To understand this difference we saw this exercise in class: click here. However, in past tenses we use only DIDN'T HAVE TO with no difference between obligation or not necessary.

If you need more exercises about these modals, you should click here; but if you want to know some more meanings of these modals go to this page which also has exercise.

Although it's not exactly this level, here you are an exdercise to work with SHOULD and SHOULD HAVE ....; click here

As we sere talking about good manners, have a look this video about good manners in English; click here