Crime and punishment

Here you have some exercises to work with this topic, just in case you want to practise some more:

• http://www.eslpartyland.com/quiz-center/crime.htm: a multiple choice exercise on line
• http://www.englishclub.com/english-for-work/police-crime.htm : quite interestin with "useful" questions and a list of words related to the topic
• http://www.english-at-home.com/vocabulary/english-words-for-crime-and-punishment/ : an alphabetical list of legal terms connected with crime.

Let me remind you the vocabulary you have in your own textbook and about the grammar point of this lesson you can use th entry of gerund and infinitive.

Indirect speech

This is a point of grammar that many students understand as an exercise to translate direct speech into indirect speech. Although this is a good way of learning I must say it's useless if you don't understand that it's much more frequent in our common language than we could think and not just a grammar exercise.
We use indirect speech to rephrase what you or other people have said before, especially in sentences or situations such as this one:
Yesterday I phoned my mother to ask her what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said she didn't fancy doing anything special but I suggested going to a new African restaurant. She accepted the suggestion and asked me if I could organise everything and I said I'd do it as soon as I could. She reminded me to call my brother Peter but I asked her to do it herself. She agreed and said she'd do it that afternoon. 
If you want to work with this grammar point you can use these websites:

• http://esl.about.com/od/grammarintermediate/a/reported_speech.htm :with an explanation and at the bottom you’ve got some exercises of transformation and a list of reported verbs.
• http://esl.about.com/od/grammarchants/a/l_repspeech.htm : this is a page with resources for the teacher. There are a couple of exercises to be done at class.

Remember you can find some more exercises on your own on the internet. See you in class.

Complaining about shopping - complaint letters

When you go shopping sometimes you've got problems what you've bought so you should complain about your purchase. Here you have a video explaining what you should do in Great Britain:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=cz4ThDI0Qu8 : a listening about what to do when you buy something and you have a problem: how to complain, what to do, etc.


A very common way of complaining is by writing a letter or sending an email. Here you have very good pages to teach you how to write it with templates or samples:

How to write a complaint letter: very good page with the structure of the letter and some examples of each part and of the whole letter. http://www2.elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/eiw/complaint_letter_constructor.htm

Official complaint letter: page of the USA government to help you to write a complaint letter. Quite interesting but you should take into account this is target to American people. http://www.usa.gov/topics/consumer/complaint/complaint-letter.shtml

The Australian complaint letter simple: the same as the previous one but related to Australia. http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/815324

Printable complaint letter: this page is a page where you can subscribe for free to get models of complaint letters depending on the topic (buying, restaurant, holidays, services, etc.) The problem is you have to subscribe but it’s supposed to be free. http://www.complaintletter.net/

Curso de escritura en inglés - cartas de queja: this is a course to learn how to write in English. The problem (or not) is, it’s in Spanish but it has quite a lot of useful sentences and some examples. It helps pretty well. http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/OMWRITE/personal/unit49.htm

Complaint letter templates: this is a British page to show you templates to write a complaint letter. The problem is, it’s very difficult to read unless you do a couple of examples but it’s quite useful. http://www.howtocomplain.com/info/cl-template.shtml

Passive voice

The passive voice in English is formed in this way:

TO BE (tense)   +   PAST PARTICIPLE (meaning)

We've seen in class that this form is much more frequent in English than in Spanish because it's used instead of impersonal sentences in Spanish. Take into account it's not possible to have a verb without its subject in English so when this subject is not important, not known or not said we should use passive voice. Have a look at these examples:

• Most people say...   =   It is said ...     (Se dice que....)
• We can speak English here   =   English is spoken here   (Aquí se habla inglés)
• They opened a new exhibition yesterday  =  A new exhibition was opened yesterday (Ayer se abrió una nueva exposición)
• Someone sent an email yesterday   =   An email was sent yesterday   (Se envió un email ayer)
• Someone has sent a letter to Susan   =   Susan has been sent a letter  (A Susan le han enviado una carta)

Some other typical expressions or examples of passive voice are:

• This book was published in the UK 
• The conversations are being held in secret (Las conversaciones se están llevando en secreto)
• America was discovered in 1492 (América fue descubierta / se descubrió en 1492)
• The film is directed and starred by G. Clooney 
• I've been told you're getting married next Monday (Me han dicho que te casas el lunes que viene)
• John was given the job after the interview (A John le dieron el trabajo después de la entrevista)

Here you have a very easy page which explains the use of passive. If you want to have a look go to this link: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html

To finish with here you are some exercises to practise:

• http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/passiv.htm : this is the exercise we did in class
• http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/passive : here you have a really good explanation of passive and then you can find exercises at the bottom. The level is not too high but quite useful.
• http://www.e-grammar.org/passive-voice/ : again exercises and explanation
• http://www.autoenglish.org/gr.pas.i.htm: very easy but quite complete
• http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/passive/exercises?05
• http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/esl-passive-voice-exercise2.html

Infinitive or Gerund? (NI1 y NI2)

The use of gerund or infinitive is rather hard for Spanish speakers although we have a similar construction. Pay attention to the difference in meaning between these two sentences:

Vi a tu hermano jugar al futbol           ------            Vi a tu hermano jugando al futbol

The problem is that after certain verbs we use infinitive (with or without TO) or gerund. And there are some which can be followed by both, with or without change of meaning. 

It’s difficult to explain the rules for using one or the other but in general you might say that infinitive has a certain idea of future, potential action while gerund is usually referred to present or past ; e. g.: Remember to buy some bread but I remember buying some bread at the baker’s when I was a child.

Here you have a link which is quite useful to understand how to use these two no personal verbal forms: http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/part_1.htm and then you should see this http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/part_2.htm; but if you want to have a larger explanation you can go to http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/ 

Apart from the links above, there are many lists of verbs you can find on grammar books or on the internet. This page is another example :  http://www.iei.uiuc.edu/structure/structure1/gerinfvbs.html

It’s hard and difficult to learn ths list by heart so you’d better do some exercises with a context to practice with this. Some possible exercises are about filling in the gaps or multiple choice. There are quite a lot if you use the internet like these ones:

• http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/gerund_infinitiv.htm
• http://a4esl.org/q/h/9801/el-to-ing.html
• http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/index.htm with different levels of difficulty
• http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/test1-exercise1/
• http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/test1-exercise2/
• http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/test1-exercise3/
• http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/test2-exercise1/
• http://www.e-grammar.org/infinitive-gerund/test2-exercise2/

If you want to do something different to learn this prompt of grammar, go to

http://anasuarezingles.blogspot.com/2009/04/infinitive-vs-gerund.html : you have two videos about the use of infinitive or gerund.

Someone like you

One of my students asked me about this song and I must say it's one of my favourite ones so here you have an exercise to practise:

•  Go to this video and try to understand the conductor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qemWRToNYJY . Try to do this exercise of filling the gaps with the introduction of the conductor of the programme:

"There's nothing quite like the ___________________ when you listen to the song ___________ by someone you don't know, you've never met but ______________ she's managed to _______________ exactly how you've felt in a _______________ moment in your ____________ -

This next artist has __________ able to do this ___________ after ___________. And it's for that ______________ she's carrying number one in astonishingly ________ counties. If you've ________ had a broken heart, ..... (sorry, but I don't understand the last sentence)

• This link is with the lyrics on top of the video and subtitles with the translation into Spanis at the bottom, just in case you want to know the meaning:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5w5v6jzU0Y&feature=relate

I hope you'll have a good time with this exercise.

Exams of Comunidad de Madrid

This is the last therm and we should take into account how short time we've got left before the exams so let's practise with them. Here you have the link to the official sample for the exams. You can take the exams on your own and remember the key is within the document so you can correct almost everything by yourself. The link is:
http://www.educa2.madrid.org/web/eoi/nuevas-pruebas-de-certificacion;jsessionid=694AA4E350AC057E102A0B86D440B147
Nevertheless I'd like you to do the first task of writing ( the short one) on the official sheet you can find on this link. Please print it and give it to me as a class exercise of writing. I'll mark it as if I were in the exam so do it in the recommended time and pay attention to what you're asked to do.
Bring it to class for the following week, please. See you!