B2.1 - To Have/Get Something Done

Remember that at the revision of unit 3you have an exercise about how to use HAVE. In class we saw the difference between HAVE and HAVE GOT and the typical mistakes we make by using them, and we also saw the structure TO HAVE/GET SOMETHING DONE. Let's work on it.
To see a bit about how to use it (the grammar point), go to this link.
If you want to do some practice, here you are some:

•  exercise 1 exercise 2    exercise 3    exercise 4    exercise 5    exercise 6

We also did an exercise with the structure: TO HAVE/GET SOMEONE TO DO SOMETHING. In this case you have the person who is going to do the service, so the structure changes as it is not a passive any more; this link leads you to a blog entry which explains this: click here. Here you are an exercise to do: click here. Pay attention to the infinitive which can be with TO or without it. 

Then compare the previous exercise with this one. You'll see that it's not you who did the action but somebody else; however, you don't know or don't care who was exactly the one who did it.

Hope it's useful. See you in class

NB2.1 - 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. If you need more exercises you can find plenty of them on the internet but I'd rather you use it in your daily life, in your habitual speech. The typical situations are:

• to retell a conversation on the phone: Yesterday my mother called me to ask me if...
• who doesn't like gossiping? : Last weekend I saw Peter with a wonderful girl but she wasn't his girlfriend so then I asked him who she was and he said...
• a piece of news has a lot of examples as well: According to the news, the government said they were going to ...

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. Another webpage which is very useful is VOA (Voices of America): click here

ALCINE: Short Film Festival. November, 2018.

Remember we'll meet on Friday November, 9th at 9.30h to get in altogether to the cinema. I'll wait for you at Teatro Salon Cervantes, in the city centre. Be on time, please.
This is the programme:

• Flea (Vanessa Caswill): here you are a trailer and this link will help you to understand the film: click here and here
• Negative Space (Ru Kawahata, Max Porter):  this is the trailer and this link shows you some facts like the numerous awards, the same as this one
• Poles Apart (Paloma Baeza): here you are this link with information about this film.
• The Next (Jamie Jones): this is the trailer and a bit of info here
• We Love Moses (Dionne Edwards): here you are this review and this is another review

See you there!

B2.1 -

In class we saw this link for ANY MORE and STILL: click here. If you want to practice, do this exercise.
There are doubts about the difference between anymore - any more - any longer. I've found this post so click here. There is another link which deals with this problem as well: click here. I hope it'll help you.

B2.1 - Narrative tenses

In lesson 3A we are working with narrative tenses. The tenses we saw are simple past, past continuous and past perfect, used for telling a story, an anecdote or something that happened to you.
There are many exercises to practise with them and here you are some of them:

• a short story talking about a personal experience: click here
• this is another text in order to use narrative tenses: click here
• and another one: click here
• these are very similar exercises but past perfect continuous is included: click here and here

As I told you in class, it's very important to practise with pronunciation for past, not only with irregular verbs but regular -ED ending as well. Here you are a very interesting link with some information about this topic: click here

If you want to practise with phrasals, here you are some exercises:

• exercise 1: you can choose the level and then go further to improve your knowledge
• a video to explain phrasal verbs: click here
• this other video talks about phrasal versus prepositional verbs: click here and this is another example

As this lesson is about relationships, here you are a funny video with informal English with phrasal verbs which are not the ones you're used to:

• To gross out - to pick on you - to hang out - to find out

To watch the video about to have a crush on somebody song children, click here 

Hope this will be helpful. 

Happy Halloween (31st October)

If you want to know about Halloween, here you are the link to wikipedia: click here. Another posibility is to hear (or read) this introduction (especially for NI1) to the topic: click here. Here you have some funny activities just in case you are interested in the topic:

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL:

• a short video with vocabulary of the topic; click here or this one
• a video about the history of Halloween: click here and also here

ADVANCE LEVEL:

• some idioms about "dead": click here
• if you want to know something about this festivity related to history, go to this link or to this alternative one
• this link is rather difficult but it's quite interesting, with ghost stories and videos with the text below, so you can use them for both reading and for listening; click here

This is an exercise of listening. Although they say it is for advanced students, there is a simpler version. Have a try and click here.

If you have children, there are lots of sites on the internet to get ideas. These are a couple of them:

• http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/category/topics/halloween : a page for learning English for children.
• http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/halloween: a page for activities and crafts with children
• these are very simple songs for children: click here or here. This song is with a skeleton but it helps children to revise parts of the body; click here
• some jokes about Halloween: click here

But Halloween is famous for its parties, which are not only for kids but also for adults. If you are thinking of organising a party you might visit these sites:

• For adults: you have this or this
• For kids: this is one and this is another one

I hope to be helpful for all of you. Have fun and enjoy Halloween!

Preparing and writing stories for Halloween

One of the most typical things in Halloween is to tell horror stories, something scary, spooky. Sometimes the story is really short, like the ones you can find on this site, but if you really like this sort of stories here you have a page which includes many of this kind; click here

There is going to be a competition of scary tales in class. If you want to take part, write a spooky story no longer than 150-200 words. Here you have some help to do it:

• a PDF with questions to help you with the story: click here
• this is another link with steps to be followed while to write your spooky story: click here

Good luck for everybody!