That's English! - module 5 - unit 2: Science

This topic is about inventions, discoveries, scientific research and so on. Let’s start with some questions as usual:

• What inventions are the most important to you? Why?
• What appliance do you most use at home? Is this your favourite one? Why?
• Do you think science is changing very quickly? In what way?
• There haven’t been too many women who have been inventors. Why do you think this is true? Can you remember any? (in page26 you have an example)

Here you have a listening comprenhension about amazing facts.

Another important fact is the pronunciation of -ED in regular past forms. Here you are a video to see how to pronounce it correctly: click here

Let’s do some activities to work with the main grammar points in this lesson:

PAST SIMPLE/PAST CONTINUOUS

Here you have some exercises:

• https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/past-continuous-and-past-simple an explanation with and exercise at the end
• http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-simple-past-continuous-exercise-1.html
• http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro
• http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/pastsimpleorcontinuous/menu.php

ACTIVITY 1

Explain something that happened to you yesterday using WHILE/AS/MEANWHILE ; e.g.: While I was watching TV, my brother phoned me to tell me he was coming for dinner. I had to go to the supermarket to buy something because the fridge was empty.

ACTIVITY 2

The use of past simple and continuous is very common while telling stories. Think about one and write the main actions and then tell your story by linking them.

ACTIVITY 3

Listen to this story and try to summarize it after listening to it. This is Jack London’s story:

http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/The_Story_of_an_Eyewitness_-_By_Jack_London.html

But here you have some more stories with MP3 audio:

http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/

USED TO

This form is used to refer an action in the past you don't do any more. Have a look these links:

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/usedto/menu.php: a page with a good explanation and some exercises can be taken from http://www.michellehenry.fr/used_to.htm

ACTIVITY 1 

Work with your partner and say what you used to do as a child: at school, at home, with your friends...

ACTIVITY 2

Think about great changes in your town; what did it use to be like some years ago? What was it like?

ACTIVITY 3: “Past times were better” do you agree with this? In what way? Give reasons for your answer.

For present perfect and past simple uses go to the post for the other intermediate level within this blog.