Holidays!

What's on? Are you enjoying your holiday? I hope so but as we usually have more free time during this wornderful period, why don't you try to improve your English?

This entry is to give you some tips about what you might do on holiday and how to spend some of your free time improving your English. Here you have some tips for the four skills:

READING - There are many texts on the internet to practise and you should try to read some books, texts or news to increase your vocabulary, to reinforce your grammar and to see models for your own writing. Here you are some useful links:

• NA1: you should use ofiginal versions or high level readings in order to improve your standards
• here you have American short stories with mp3; click here
• if you like sciences this is a link with short stories related to science: click here 
• NI1: you can find short texts here
• very short readings: http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/
• quite easy but the stories have audio: http://www.eslyes.com

LISTENING

• NI1: some pages are
• from British Council: learnenglishteen
• many short listenings but not clear level: 5minuteenglish

WRITING

• For both levels: I've found this link but I don't know yet how it works, to be honest. Sounds good ands it's worth a try; http://lang-8.com/
• NA1: here you can find some tips for improving your formal writing, in particular for papers at university but also useful for learning English; click here
• NI1 (but also NA1): this is a page with recommendations about how to improve your writing. It has a lot of useful information; click here

SPEAKING

• This is page for improving your speaking skills similar to the one of writing; click here
• Speak as much as possible: meeting people (on holiday there are many more chances of doing it); use general topics and say your opinion about it or use the examples of That's English! in this same blog if you like; record your speaking with your computer, your mobile..., and use songs or readings with CD for practising by imitation.

If you want to practice with general exams you could go to these links: 

• NI1: http://www.examenglish.com/CEFR/b2.htm
• NA1: http://www.examenglish.com/CEFR/C1.htm

I hope this will be useful for all of you and for those who have to sit the exam in September, check your grades at CENTROSNET, at the EOI page and your dates for the exams. See you at school in September! Hve fun!

NI1 - Preparing the final exam

One of my colleagues at school has a really good bloog and he has many exercises to revise for the final exam. The link is here
If you want to practise with some other skills, here you are some tips to help you:

• speaking: the best way is revising the speaking parts on the textbook and you should record your performance to see what problems you have: speed, entonation, vocabulary, gaps, etc.
• writing: mind the topic, write a short draft to organise your ideas, pay attention to the structure (introduction - at least 2 main paragraphs - conclusion or ending) - keep in mind variety of structures - last cheking  (read your composition and revise spelling and typical mistakes).
• reading: this link has a lot of reading exercises but go to PET an if you find them easy you can practise with FCE.
• listening: apart from the usual useful links you have, here you are one more; click here and look for your level.

Other exercises we did in class and could help your are:

• say/tell: click here and here
• verbs followed by infinitive or gerund: click here and here

NI1 -Lesson 9B: Quantifiers

We've worked with quantifiers in class. Here you have a couple of pages to work on this topic:
exercise 1    exercise 2    exercise 3
Here you are the funny story of Nobody, Somebody, Everybody and Anybody; click here
This exercise is to see separble and unseparable verbs with particle; click here. But if you want to know the general rule, click here.

NI1 - UNIT 8B: Work

This unit is dealing with WORK and you'll see many examples of the grammar we've seen in the recent lessons like passive voice, reported speech and so on. Pay attention to the vocabulary as it's pretty useful. If you want to do some more practice, here you are a good link; click here.

The difference between work and job is quite simple: work is referred to what you do and job means your post, in general. For further explanation, go to this link with an exercise to practise; clik here

About grammar we have one of the most difficult things for Spanish speakers because it's very different from our language; we tend to use infinitive more than gerund. However, let me give you an example to see this point:

• I saw Peter to play football: Vi a Pedro jugar al futbol.
• I saw Peter playing football: Vi a Pedro jugando al futbol.

Although the difference is small, it exists in both languages: the infinitive is used for the whole action while the gerund is used for a moment of the action. This example might help you to understand the grammar point: verbs followed by infinitive, by gerund or by both. Go to this link for a very good explanation on this topic (not just a list); click here

But the best way of dealing with this grammar topic is by doing a lot of exercises. Here you are some practice:

• exercise 1       exercise 2         exercise 3 (with a video)

NI1 - lesson 8A: Reported Speech

This topic is a typical grammar point but I'd like you to see it as a natural way of speaking. We use it very frequenltly in our conversation in Spanish and it's very usual in English as well. You must be logical and you'll find this topic much easier than expected. A list of changes is already in your own book. Here you are a video explaining this point, click here, but it's rather simple for you. However, for a good but long explanation, click here. Remember you can do some exercises at the end of the explanation.
Let me remind you that direct and indirect speech are very common in our daily life as well as in the news. If you read or watch some news you'll see it. Click here to check it: BBC news
The other problem was the use of if and whether. Here you are a good page to see the difference between them; click here

NI1- lesson 7

In the practical English part of this lesson we are working with suggestions. Here you are a link with some models of suggestions and how to accept them or refuse them; click here Remember how important suggestions are in our daily conversations as we usually work with them. Try to be polite while suggesting.

NA1 - unit 7A: Don't Argue

This lesson deals with a lot of vocabulary and some typical expressions but there is a grammar point I'd like to focus on: the use of RATHER. Go to this link to see a good summary of that; click here
Some students have asked the list of adverbs of degree and you can go to this link, but I think it's a bit too dificult; this one might be easier, click here. If you want to practise, here you are some examples:

• exercise 1    exercise 2  

 Here you are the link to see the difference between ROB and STEAL; click here