That's English! - Module 5 - unit 7: Cooking

Food and cooking are becoming more and more popular so it's a very common topic not only in Spain but in UK as well. This lesson deals with this so let's start with general questions and then we'll work with the specific points, especially about grammar.

General questions

• Can you cook well? What's your favourite dish and how do you make it?
• Have you ever been to a Chinese/Thai/Indian/Greek restaurant? What was it like? Did you enjoy the food? Why/why not?
• What do you think about American food? Have you ever been to a Tex-Mex restaurant?
• Do you know anything about the Mediterranean diet? Do you eat it? Why/why not?
• Have you ever been on a diet? What was the experience like? Did you lose weight?

Grammar: quantifiers

If you want a further explanation about this grammar point, you can go to this link with a lot of examples; click here

If you want to practise with these quantifiers you can use these pages or exercises:

• a list of exercises, click here  or choose these  exercise 1    exercise 2

As a summary, here you are a diagram to deal with quantifiers:

UNCOUNTABLE* (+ singular)	COUNTABLE* (+ plural)
Some any no (a) little (not) much too much how much	Some any no (a) few (not) many too many how many

* I prefer using singular and plural to avoid problems such as coffee or coffees.  You have this sentence using both:  How much coffee do you drink?  ---- Too much, I think. I drink many coffees at work but I don't drink any in the evening. 

Grammar: giving advice (SHOULD/OUGHT TO/HAD BETTER)

These modal forms are used when you want to give advice or for strong recommendations. If you want to see the difference between these forms, you could go to this video with an explanation or go to this one for more examples. But if you need just an introduction about these modals, go to this link which also has examples and exercises.

Remember that when you use them you must be careful with the following verbal form, like in these examples:

• SHOULD+INFINITIVE     If you want to lose weight you should eat less fat food
• OUGHT TO+INFINITIVE    She ought to be careful with that knife
• HAD BETTER+INFINITIVE    You'd better stay in bed if you don't feel well

But another form which is also used and it's not in your textbook is If I were you I wouldn't do it; remember the use of second or hypothetical conditional. The example is similar in meaning to You'd better not do it but this sounds a bit stronger than the conditional.

ORAL PRACTICE

• Think of a recipe and explain it
• I like/don't like cooking because...  (time / cleaning / shopping / my mum's cooking...)
• ADVISE about: to do exercise, to buy a new telephone, to have a cold, to lose weight, to study a degree, to save money, to go on holiday...)

Here you are some exercises to practise with: exercise 1     exercise 2     exercise 3 : this is the one we did in class all together.

That's English! - Module 5 - unit 6: holiday

This is a very nice topic, isn't it? Let's start with general questions:

• What kind of holiday do you prefer: a family trip, a relaxing holiday, adventure...?
• How do you plan your holiday? Do you go to a travel agency or do you book everything on your own? Do you look for information before going away?
• Where did you go last holiday? Give as many details as possible: when, where to, how long, how, the weather, the food, the people...
• Where would you like to travel if you could? Why?
• What are the main differences between a tourist, a holidaymaker and a traveller? (p.64)

About grammar, we have the first and second conditionals. If you want to practise, have a look to previous posts or go to these links:

• first conditional is also called probable or possible conditional and it usually takes present/future tenses; e.g. if you don't hurry up you'll be late.  For exercises, click here , here and here
• second conditional is called improbable or hypothetical conditional and it's like in this example: if I had a better car I could travel more. For practice you can go to these links: click here, here, here or here
• If you like music, remember a famous song by Beyoncé: If I were a boy

ACTIVITY 1

In groups, one student starts with a probable conditional sentence such as If the weather is fine, I'll go to the countryside next weekend.Then the following student takes the result to use it for another first conditional: If I go to the countryside next weekend, I'll call my friend Peter. The round continues until you can't say anything else.

ACTIVITY 2

Then you should do the same with the second conditional, starting with If I could afford it, I'd buy a new car - If I had a new car, I'd go to France and so on.

ACTIVITY 3

If you want to practise with conditionals you may use this game with cards: go to this link . The aim is to join an "if"-card and an action-card. We'll play the game in class. Then you should try to turn the first conditional into a second conditional.

ACTIVITY 4

This link is another game we'll play in class. Again the idea is to finish an if-clause. This game uses first conditional but we can use it for second as well.

See you in class!

That's English - Module 5 - unit 4: Sports

This is a very common topic because we usually like sports and do exercise; what's more, to do exercise has become more and more important in our lives. Here you are some questions to discuss with your partner(s):

• Do you play any sports? Which one? Why? (If not, give resons for not doing exercise)
• Do you think to do exercise is important? explain your point of view.
• What kind of sports do you prefer: individual sports or team sports? Compare both types and say advantages and disadvantages of both.
• Have you ever been in a match as a player / as a supporter? What about the experience?
• Choose one sport and describe it as much as possible.

You might have problems to know how to use GO-DO-PLAY; you can see this video to see the difference. To summarise and just in case it is not clear enough, remember the general rule:

• you play games and you usually play with a ball (football, tennis, basket...)
• you go+ ing (an activity): you go running, go skiing, go cycling...
• you do exercise and activities based on exercises like yoga, judo, karate, aerobics...

If you want to practise some listening comprehension, here you have one about a sports centre: click here or  this other link. This link is the fanny video we show in class about squash click here

About grammar, this lesson pays attention to modals, especially those expressing probability and certainty. Here you are some exercises to work with MAY, MIGHT and COULD but there are some other modal forms included:

• exercise 1   exercise 2  and click here to practise with more modals if you like
• this song is a good example of the topic and of the modal CAN/COULD: click here to listen to Hall of Fame, the song of the Olympic Games in London.

That's English!- module 5 - lesson 3: Life in the future

As you can guess this topic deals with future tenses,especially with WILL and GOING TO. We are studying the difference between them but as you can see in your book, WILL is for undetermined events or predictions while GOING TO is for something planned or arranged. Sometimes you can use both with a similar meaning as it happens with predictions, but if you use "going to" it's due to the fcact there is more clear evidence for the prediction. Let's see both examples:

• Tomorrow it will rain in the north of Spain: there is a possibility of rain. Mañana lloverá en el norte de España.
• Tomorrow it's going to rain: there are many clouds in the sky and the weather is getting worse and worse so it's very likely to rain. Mañana va a llover.

If you think of these sentence,s the difference is similar to the Spanish use but we don't use future simple so often in Spanish. Nevertheless, the diference is not so big and you can use both in the same conversation. Here you have an example: click here

In some other cases, the use of one tense or another has different meanings:

• something it's been arranged; e.g. I'm going to study a new language next term) 
• however, when it's something not planned, just a sudden decision or not very sure we use "going to", especially with if-clauses;e.g. I'll start a new language next term if I have some free time or Don't stand up, I'll open the door

For further explanation and exercises, go to these links:

• a listening comprehension about the future TV; click here  and this one is about education
• these videos explain the future forms: click here and here
• this is a link about grammar with exercises at the bottom: click here

The other point of grammar is about comparative and superlative forms. Here you are a link to see an explanation about this topic: click here or here. Remember that the rules for the spelling for past simple can be applied for -ER or -EST: consonant + vowel + consonant and the stress on the vowel, you should double the last consonant; e.g. big - bigger, sad - sadder, thin - thinner, etc.

ORAL ACTIVITIES

Use these questions as we did in class in pairs but take into account these questions may be used in the individual task of the exam.

• What are your plans for next weekend? What are you going to do?
• How will these things change in the future: education / technology (smartphones, computers, tablets, etc.) / television / housing, etc.
• What changes will you make in your life: a new house, a new car, a new job...?

I strongly recommend using your mobile to record your performance. Remember to makke the question clearer by repeating the idea in a different way, by giving more information and not only a yes/no answer, making an introduction or summarizing or giving further explanation of your opinion...
See you in class!

That's English! - module 5 - unit 2: Science

This topic is about inventions, discoveries, scientific research and so on. Let’s start with some questions as usual:

• What inventions are the most important to you? Why?
• What appliance do you most use at home? Is this your favourite one? Why?
• Do you think science is changing very quickly? In what way?
• There haven’t been too many women who have been inventors. Why do you think this is true? Can you remember any? (in page26 you have an example)

Here you have a listening comprenhension about amazing facts.

Another important fact is the pronunciation of -ED in regular past forms. Here you are a video to see how to pronounce it correctly: click here

Let’s do some activities to work with the main grammar points in this lesson:

PAST SIMPLE/PAST CONTINUOUS

Here you have some exercises:

• https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/past-continuous-and-past-simple an explanation with and exercise at the end
• http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-simple-past-continuous-exercise-1.html
• http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro
• http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/pastsimpleorcontinuous/menu.php

ACTIVITY 1

Explain something that happened to you yesterday using WHILE/AS/MEANWHILE ; e.g.: While I was watching TV, my brother phoned me to tell me he was coming for dinner. I had to go to the supermarket to buy something because the fridge was empty.

ACTIVITY 2

The use of past simple and continuous is very common while telling stories. Think about one and write the main actions and then tell your story by linking them.

ACTIVITY 3

Listen to this story and try to summarize it after listening to it. This is Jack London’s story:

http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/The_Story_of_an_Eyewitness_-_By_Jack_London.html

But here you have some more stories with MP3 audio:

http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/

USED TO

This form is used to refer an action in the past you don't do any more. Have a look these links:

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/usedto/menu.php: a page with a good explanation and some exercises can be taken from http://www.michellehenry.fr/used_to.htm

ACTIVITY 1 

Work with your partner and say what you used to do as a child: at school, at home, with your friends...

ACTIVITY 2

Think about great changes in your town; what did it use to be like some years ago? What was it like?

ACTIVITY 3: “Past times were better” do you agree with this? In what way? Give reasons for your answer.

For present perfect and past simple uses go to the post for the other intermediate level within this blog.

That's English! Module 5 - unit 1: Globalization

This is the plan for the lesson we'll have at school. I'll try to use the blog to show students who can't attend classes what we do in class. When you come to class, you should have seen the topic/the lesson before so you can work on what you have studied before. 

The structure of the class is:

Conversation Starters

Some people say the world is becoming a kind of "global village". Discuss with your partner about this idea of globalization, starting with the questions below:

1. What products do you use that were not made in your country?

2. What movies, songs or books do you enjoy that were not produced in your country?

3. Can you think of other ways that globalization has affected your life?

4. Generally speaking, do you think globalization has improved people's lives?

5. What has your country contributed to globalization?

Discussion Questions

Now try to have longer English conversations using these "open-ended" questions about globalization. It's not an easy topic, but do your best!

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of globalization?

2. What do you think globalization will be like in fifty years?

3. Do you think globalization will make us be all the same in the future? Why/why not?

4. Which countries might like or hate globalization the most, poor countries or developed countries? Give reasons for your answer.

5. How important is the Internet in globalization? Try to name positive and negative aspects of the internet regarding globalization.

Now let's practise listening with some videos on the internet:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oTLyPPrZE4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0nFD19eT8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPD477FuqtY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1ECZSYBvQE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovFjvcd6q1w

Here you have exercises to practise grammar:

• present perfect/past simple:  http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs5.htm
• present perfect simple/present perfect continuous: a long explanation and some exercises at the end http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/prepersim-preperpro

To finish with, remember to bring your weekly composition to practise with writing. Choose one of the suggestions you have in the lesson.

See you in class!

That's English! - module 5 -unit 5: Leisure

This unit is about what you do in your free time so it deals with leisure, hobbies, reading, movies and so on. As usual, let's start with some general questions:

• What do you like doing in your free time? When do you do it? When and how did you start that activity? How long have you been doing it? (Pay attention to the verbs expressing likes and dislikes, which are followed by -ING form)
• Speak about a friend's hobby: what it is like, why your friend likes doing it, if you've ever tried to do it with him/her...
• What's the best activity for summer? And the best for winter?
• Have you ever tried a risky activity? What was that and why did you choose it? If not, why don't you fancy a risky activity? 
• what is the most strange thing/activity you've ever tried? Describe your experience.

If you want to work with the vocabulary, you may want to see this page: click here

To see a model about what to say about your hobby, here you are a listening comprehension: click here

The grammar point of this lesson is about verbs expressing likes and dislikes followed by -ING form and verbs about orders, desires and commands followed by TO+infinitive. Here you are a short list to help you to remember them:

LIKES AND DISLIKES		ORDERS, DESIRES, COMMANDS
I love I enjoy I like I don't mind I dislike I hate I can't stand	FOLLOWED BY _____-ing	I wish I want I need I'd like I hope I try	FOLLOWED BY to + infinitive