We are on holiday!

Now it's time for relaxing, enjoying family, having fun, spending time on your hobbies... and time for English as well!
Let me suggest some links which could help you to improve your English during holiday time:

• Wrting: if you go to this link you have a tool to write a text and you are given a feedback of your performance; click here
• Speaking: although it's easy you could find foreign people to speak in English, you may improve your oral skills by recording your speech about a topic. If you want to find some as an example you could go to this link but there are many if you try to find them on your own. Go to any browser and search for speaking topics+B2.
• Reading: this is the perfect time for reading. Go to the links you have on the useful links that you can find on this blog. This is just an example: click here
• Listening: remember you can go to www.elllo.org and find the level you need. Another way is by searching on the internet listening comprehension+B2 and you'll be able to find many links.

Nevertheless, thanks to the internet you can find many tools for learning English and you can use some of these links:

• Cambridge University: this is just an example of all the activities you can do; click here
• Hilfen is a traditional German link with a lot of materials: click here
• Go to this article with 11 recommeded web pages to learn English: click here

I hope this post will be useful but not overwhelming; the last but not the least recommendation is: take it easy but don't give up; there's time for everything if you manage your time well. See you in September.

GOOD HOLIDAY FOR EVERYBODY!

Useful links for the oral exam

Useful sentences: click here
Mind the vocabulary: you can find good pages for it but remember to put B2 at the end

More practice for the exam

If you want to practise a bit more, try to use all the material provided for FCE (First Certificate) for all the skills but especially with listening and reading. Some pages are:

• Listening: this one or this
• Reading: this one  and  this
• Writing: After finishing your writing, remember to pay attention to the following tips
• Be logical and mind the layout of your piece of writing (style, paragraphs, punctuation...)
• Write about the topic including the points given
• Correct grammar (-s for 3rd p. in sing, modals, no plural for adjectives, tenses, etc.)
• Variety of vocabulary (avoiding repetitions, connectors, specific words, using adjectives and adverbs, etc.)
• Be specific and bear in mind that the reader doesn't know what you wanted to say but what it's written on the paper.
• Speaking: remember to say what you have learnt and your level is upper-intermediate

Remember this is the last week so if you have questions or doubts you have short time to get answers before the exam. Next Thursday (May 9th) we`ll have our last class (11,45h)

Final Revision: Some Tips for the Exam

Just in case you have some doubts, let's see some useful links to find tools to improve your English.

• WRITING: 
• Connectors and linkers; this is a long list to check which you remember - click here
• Use the photocopies I gave you or the samples in the book to see how to organise your writing.
• If you want to see some more samples, look for examples on the internet if possible but you can see some on the web page

• SPEAKING: 
• Monologue: use topics from the books and try to be logical and give details; e.g. What do you do to improve the environment? What would your ideal job be like? Tell me something weird that happened to you.
• Dialogues: you could use the ones at the end of the book (p. 162-181) for pair work. If there are 3 people, the tendency is to have the same card for all the candidates; e.g.:  A mutual friend wants to start learning French. Give him/her advice about what to do and problems this person would face. 

• LISTENING: you may use some of the web pages I've already given you to practice but you could do these other exercises from a page to prepare FCE: click here or here

• READING: this same page has a link to prepare the reading tasks of FCE: click here

Try to make the last effort for the final exam. We're finishing the classes!

NB2.1 - Unit 7: Verbs with prepositions

As I told you in class, the best way of learning this grammar point is by practising with exercises. Here are you some but you can find many more on your own:

• exercise 1     exercise 2    exercise 3  (a list)    exercise 4    exercise 5

Let's practise with some listening comprenhesion exercises for B1+ and B2:

• Talking about places to visit, this video is about Detroit: click here
• About other ways of travelling: click here
• About personality, in this case Frida Kahlo: click here

In this lesson we also have quantifiers. You should use your textbook but remember what I explained about uncountable/singular and countable/plural nouns and use the link we saw: click here

Thursday, 4th April : Extra material to practise (NB2.1)

Next Thursday I'm not coming to class (I have to take exams) so these are some exercises to practise.

• Reading: go to this link to do exercises similar to our exam - click here
• Writing: here is it an exercise to tell you how to write a pro and aginst essay - click here
• Listening: the same - click here

You should do the exercise of rading on you textbook 7A (p. 81) and the mediation I gave you in class about the rules of an owners' community. Next Tuesday I'l give the fotocopy to those who couldn't come last Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday to finish lesson 7.

B2.1 - IF ONLY and I WISH

Once we've finished with conditionals, let's see these two forms connected to the conditionals but they express regrests and complaints. The grammar explanation is compiled in these links:i

• Learn English Today
• English Grammar
• Learning English British Council
• Perfect English

As usual, let's do some exercises: exercise 1    exercise 2 (explanation+exercise)    exercise 3   exercise 4  (there are 2 more exercises)

In this lesson 10 you have ways of saying things. The one you've got is how to express doubts but there are some which are really useful for the speaking exam:

• Expressing uncertainty: click here
• Giving your opinion: click here
• Expressing agreement and disagreement: click here