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

General questions
Do you believe in ghosts? Do you like those stories? And fairy tales?
Do you remember any legend? Think about El Cid, la Santa Compaña, La Dama de la guadaña, etc.
what are the main characters of a fairy tale? What do they represent? (go to Activity 5 to read about this topic)

Activity 1
Think about a fairy tale, a legend or something similar and tell the story; pay attention to details and the questions you need to frame the story: where, when, who, how, what happened, why...

Activity 2
What did you use to do/go on holiday when you were a child?

Activity 3
Think about an anecdote or a strange event that happened to you. Explain it to your mate and give as many details as possible.

Activity 4
Think about an important character and try to tell his/her story: Don Quixote, Picasso, Ramón y Cajal, Isabel de Castilla...

Activity 5
If you want to know about symbols in fairy tales you may use these two links: this one is about the main characters; the other one is about the typical stories and their interpretation.

Preparing the exam

• Revise the grammar and the vocabulary for both oral and writing parts.
• When you are writing remember to have an outline of your composition but don't write it twice because you don't have enough time. 
• When you finish, read your own composition and pay attention to the most typical mistakes: the -s for the singular 3rd person in present, adjective berfore nouns, no plural for adjectives, most modals without to, tenses according to the reference of time and spelling.
• When you are in the oral exam, try to speak slowly and clearly; if possible, repeat the question in another way to clarify, listen to your mate and be collaborative; try to use as many tenses and vocabulary as possible.
• To practise with oral exam you could use the general questions you find in each lesson in this blog. If you could record and check your performance, you'd improve it a lot.

That's English! - Module 6 - unit 7: Play time!

This week we work with games, giving instructions, giving explanations and so on. Here you are the activities will do in class just in case you want to revise at home.
About grammar, you should revise modals and grammar points connected to rules, orders, commands, strong recommendations, etc. Some examples are:

• MODALS: must or have to (obligation), can and to be able to (possibility), should or you'd better (strong recommendation)
• TENSES. imperative and the form LET'S, used to (habits is the past), present tenses...
• CONNECTORS: Once you've done this..., Before starting.., After throwing the ball...

Activity 1

Work with your partner and think about what games you like playing, what you used to play as a child and if you still play it, how long you've been playing it.

Acitvity 2

Guess the game: ask your partner as many questions as possible in order to find out the game he/she has in mind (p.71)

Activity 3

A friend of yours is going to have a weekend getaway with their family/some friends. Give as many suggestions as possible about where to go, what to do, where to stay and so on. To finish with this activity you may tell your mate the last time you went to a leisure park or you spent a weekend away.

Activity 4

Taboo is a very popular game. Describe something written on a card without saying the word and your partner has to guess it. Then swap your roles.

Activity 5

We did the role play which is in page 77. You can practise with it and you can also practise with individual questions with exercise 9 in this same page.

We saw a video in class about the Tower of London. Click here. If you use the subtitles, remember there are quite a lot of mistakes.  You can also practise with this video about Beyoncé; click here

See you in class!

That's English! - Module 6 - unit 3 - There's no place like home

As usual, let's start with general questions about this topic:

• If you moved to a new house, what features would you consider most important?
• What's your favourite room in your house and why?
• Have you ever been involved in works at home: redecorating, changing electrical wiring, a new bathroom...? What was your experience like?
• Think about the main problems you can have at home (or in your hotel room!) and discuss with your partener about how to solve them: a leak, a blocked drain, a leak...

Vocabulary
Here you are some exercises to review the vocabulary of housing: exercise 1
You can also visit this blog with adjectives to describe

Activity 1

Imagine you are in a hotel and you have problems in your room. Ring the reception desk to complain: a blown fuse, a leak, a blown light bulb (or burnt out light bulb), a blocked drain ...Then exchange roles.

Activity 2

Describe your house and what you'd like to change. If you've made any works recently explain what you did and what it was like to do it. Then exchange roles.

Activity 3

Imagine you want to rent an appartment for 6 months in Great Britain; you go to an estate agent's to hire what you need. Then exchange roles.

Activity 4

Discuss with your mate about the main problems of the housing bubble and the following housing crash. Is it important to have your own house? Is it better to rent a house?

Listening exercises

• Go to this link to hear some videos about this topic. The problem is that the vocabvulary could be a bit specific and there are no activities or exercises connected to these videos. Click here
• This link is a conversation about housing complaints, with a listening exercise included but rather difficult; click here
• This link has lots of models about housing: renting an apartment, problems at the flat, etc. Click here

Reading

Here you are an article about the problem of housing in Spain. The level is a bit high but you can find very useful vocabulary

That's English! - module 6 - unit 2: Lifestyle choices

Life can change in many ways for different reasons. Think about those reasons and discuss with your partner how life might change due to them; you may think of these among some others:

• Having children  /  a new job, especially in another town / a serious illness / to break up with your partner / winning the lotto / meeting an important person in your life

Have you ever been in one of these situations? Do you know anybody who has? Which of these reasons do you think is the most important for you?

Activity 1

Describe your lifesyle to your partner giving details about where you live and work, your hobbies and free time, what things you'd like to change in your life and why and some of your plans for the future.

Activity 2

Working with vocabulary: choose 5 words from this unit and ask your partner about the meaning and then think about a sentence using that word; e.g.: neighbourhood - sources - compassionate - challenging - choice - belief - to trust - to feed - staff - living off-the-grid

Activity 3

Describe a person you know well (as you can find in your textbook in exercise 4 p.21) using as many adjectives as possible and then explain why you've chosen that person.

You can also do this listening comprehension exercise; click here

Activity 4

What do you prefer ...? Choose between the options given below and explain your choice:

• Living in a big city / living in a small town or a village
• Working for a big company / working on your own
• Living in a flat in the city centre / living in a terrace house in the suburbs

Grammar

In this unit we are working with indefinite pronouns; here you are some grammar explanations like this one  or this, and some exercises:

• exercise 1    exercise 2   exercise 3  exercise 4 and a link with many more exercises

The other point of grammar is about neither / either / both and here you are some good explanations; the one from BBC Learning English, this simpler one or this longer one. Once you've seen the explanation, here you are some exercises:

• exercise 1    exercise 2    a list of exercises

That's English! Module 6 - unit 1: Expressing preferences+ expressing likes and dislikes

In unit 1 the topic is about holiday and the grammar prompt is expressing preferences with structures such as:

• prefer + -ing form or + to+ infinitive 
•  would raher + infinitive (without to)

To get a clearer idea, go to this link for further info and click here for practice and here or here

About likes and dislikes, this is a topic we usually have among the ones of the first level and we don't revise later, but we should. Let's have a look to these two videos to see this topic and check it is not so easy as we could think:

• expressing likes
• expressing dislikes

Pay attention to the relationship with verbs followed by -ING form. In this group you can find: like, dislike, hate, fancy, feel like, adore, love, enjoy or the expression don't mind.

I hope you'll find this useful. See you in class!