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!

Going shopping

I know this sounds ridiculous but sometimes we don't revise typical situations we are supposed to have learnt and we don't improve them properly. I'd like you to have a look to these videos to see and check what you already know and what you can improve by adding expressions, vocabulary or just taking into account that this is American English instead of British. Here you have the links:

• buying shoes; click here
• buying clothes; click here
• some common expressions; click here

Anyway, I hope it'll be useful.
See you in class!

An interesting link to work with

One of my students gave me this link to work with videos, music, and so on in English. It is graded so you can choose what you need. I hope it'll be useful. See you.
http://www.multimedia-english.com/contenidos/busqueda

No longer, any longer and still - SO/SUCH .... THAT

The other day in the class of That's English! for intermediate level we saw these forms. Here you have some exercises to practise:

• No longer (with possitive verbs), any longer (with negative ones) and still (when you keep on with the same situation): exercise 1     exercise 2   
• We only saw the form she's so tall that se could play basketball, but there is another possibility with such; here you have a tutorial and at the end you'll find exercises. Click here 
•  If you want to visit this old post of my other blog about conditionals, you should go to this link
•  A student asked me where she could find more exercises about cloze test and here you have a good link with different topics and levels; click here

Just to finish with, here you have the video for the song If I were a rich man; go to this link

See you next week!

British versus American English (module 7-unit 2)

Here you are some practice to see the difference between American and British English. Although the text we use is British, the influence of American English is getting more and more spread all over the world, especially thanks to the internet. Let's have a look the main differences:

• Vocabulary: here you have an exercise with a list of words. Click here
• This is a list of exercises with both kinds of English. Go to this page
• The British Council has this exercise with a link. Click here
• This last link is pretty complete. Click this

If you want to practise with listening, here you have some links:

• this a video about both pronunciations and vocabulary. Your can click here or click  here
• this one is about vocabulary connected to cars 
• this is about the difference in general with a person showing the principal differences. Click here

Just for fun, here you have two more videos about American and British English; they are rather difficult but I think they worth a visit:

• Eddy Izzard's video
• Hugh Laurie's video

English language

This information will be helpful for That's English! students of module 7 - unit1. Here you have some information about English as a language:

• history of English: click here
• this link is about history as well, from the BBC
• this is a video about RP pronunciation: click here

See you in class!

Using YouTube to learn English

Here you have some videos to learn English. Some are series, some others are just for pleasure or funny and some others are for learning English especifically. Here you have some examples:

• Just for fun: what would happen if your friends acted as dogs or cats? Click here for the answer.
• For learning English: apart from the video bar you already have on the blog, you can find some people who have their own classes on the internet. Some examples:

1. Learning English with Misterduncan: watch this simple lesson about greetings but there are lots of lessons. He even has a channel for his videos.
2. Learning English with Jennifer: an American teacher with interessting vieos like this one about pronunciation of vowel sounds. There are loads of videos about grammar, pronunciation and so on.

There are plenty of videos in Youtube. You'll be able to find many if you use the topic or the tense and you add +ESL (English as a Second Language) on your serching.

See you!