Verbs and adjectives with prepositions

Although this is a gammar point we are working with in NI1, I think it's quite useful as a revision for everybody so here you have some links to work with adjectives with prepositions:

• exercise 1     exercise 2    exercise 3

But we also we saw verbs followed by prepositions. Here you are some more exercises to work with:

• exercise 1     exercise 2

Another way of practising is by using a preposition and think about all the posibilities you can find with that preposition. As an example, think of all the possibilities with ABOUT: think about, speak about, worry about, etc.

Hope this will be helpful. See you in class.

NA2 - NI2: Useful language for oral exams

Here you are some useful links to improve your performance while taking the oral exam. They've got good information and tools for doing your best in the exam. The links are:

• a teacher's blog with useful language for the oral exam: click here
• a chart with common expressions about agreeing and disagreeing: click here
• different lists of expressions groups in levels (elementary/intermediate/advance): click here

Apart from these links I'd like to help you with some tips for the speaking exam. Remember you have two tasks to do so we should see how to manage with both, but let's start with one and we'll deal with the other in another post.

INTERACTION

• When you start the dialogue, one of you should start the conversation by introducing the topic and asking the other's opinion:
• Let's start with the conversation, OK? The topic we have to speak about is how to help our friend Peter with his children's problem. What do you think we could suggest? Any ideas about this? 
• Make sure everybody speaks enough, especially if there are 3 people involved in the conversation. Be balance in your turns; don't talk too much or too little and if you see someone is not speaking, address to them directly and help them.
• Listen to your mate. When you say something, try to use what the other has said and go on with that idea. It shows you are paying attention to the others and you may speak longer as well:
• To study a little every day is a really good idea, as you said before, and it also gives you the chance to solve problems as soon as they turn up. Don't you think so?
• It's good to use fillers but don't overuse them. It's also useful to learn some idioms or phrases that can help you, especially when you get lost or stuck:
• Well, you know what I mean, don't you? or that's something I hadn't thought about but I reckon you're right
• When you get a bit stuck, there are two things you should do: 
• a) help your mate when that person doesn't know a word or how to keep on talking   
• b) try to explain your idea by using examples from your own life or your experience.
• Try to show as much vocabulary as posible and as many structures as you can. We should keep in mind that's an oral exam after all. Use structures such as:
• If you were him, what would you have done?   
•  I wouldn't have done in that way but I'm not in his shoes...  
•  It is said/believed that … but I totally disagree with that    
• I know it sounds weird but it is like that so     
• I'm positive that she'll understand it in the end
• Don't forget to use adjectives and adverbs. They give more details and help to clarify your ideas:
• He should study more to get good maks - He should study much harder if he really wants to improve his marks significantly

NI1 - The difference between USED TO+infinitive and USUALLY and SOME, ANY and NO

This is the exercise about USED TO that we did in class in case you want  to revise it: clic here

The use of SOME, ANY, NO. You have this exercise to practise (the one we did in class): click here and here

Christmas time and some reflection about Christmas and New Year

Here you are some videos to know a bit more about Christmas:

• this short video is about curiosities on Christmas celebrations click here (NI1)
• this is about the history of Christmas: click here
• this is about carols or Christmas songs: click here
• this is one of the most famous carol with lyrics: click here

But are you fed up with Christmas, eating so much, family meetings, wasting money and so on? Here you are a funny text with an exercise of filling the blanks: What we hate about Xmas (a difficult text for NI1 but you can try)

If you want to have a good time, here you are the famous video about Mr. Bean at Christmas.

Soon we'll start a new year and it's time for New Year's Resolutions. Here you are a link where you can find out about New Year's celebrations and traditions all around the world; click here to see the video.

As a New Year's resolution, this might be to improve your English by learning some proverbs or idioms. Here you are 5 examples to start with: click here

Hope to see you after Christmas holidays!

MAKE versus DO

This is a very difficult point but here you are a good link to start with: click here. Here you are the exercises we did in class: this one has a long explanation and an exercise at the end and this is the other one with the groups instead of lists.
The best way of learning is to do exercises so here you have some:

• exercise 1    exercise 2     exercise 3      exercise 4

NA2 - Writing an Article

Although you have some information about how to write an article in your textbook, I've also found this helpful guideline to do it and it contains exercises to make it clearer. You should click here. I know it's quite long (12 pages!) but I think it's worth reading it, especially the beginning of the guide with the principal tips for writing a good article.It has exercises with the answer key at the end so I hope it'll be useful for you.

Something a bit shorter but also interesting is this link which will give you some advise, sentences to use and a model of an article. Focused on FCE, it can be applied to our exams.

This is the last link I'll give you. It's very simplified so it could be a good summarize of the topic.

See you in class!

Thanksgiving: 4th Thursday of November

This is a great tradition in America but it's also celebrated in other places. Here you have a video if you want to know a bit about it. It includes vocabulary: click here. If you want to know something about the history, here you have some more videos:

• this is for intermediate level: click here and this one is with subtitles in English
• this video is a bit longer but not much more difficult; click here to see it
• if you want to know something aboutmThanksgiving around the world, click here