Improving your skills in English

 If you want to improve your skills, this is a summary with good links to help you:

LISTENING

• Elllo.org
• Test English
• This page has a lot of information on this topic
• British Council

WRITING

• Cambridge: Write and Improve
• Another tool for writing: Grammarly
• Hemingway app
• British Council
• Samples of wrting for B2: the ones for EOI (Asturias) and these ones for FCE Cambridge

READING

• You can use graded readings (with different levels of difficulty):  English E-reader
• Read many different texts, like news, articles, etc: CNN news, ESL Gold (articles for learning English- USA)
• Reading exercises: Test English B2
• British Council

SPEAKING

• Use different samples from CCAA, but not all of them have oral part : EOI Alcalá de Henares
• Record your speech and check it later
• Use Google oral messages or turn on subtitles on MEET: you should use any programme to convert an oral message into words; if the app/programme doesn't write your own words, that menas you haven't done it properly; try it again until your message is identical.
• Use a compilation of typical phrases for oral practice: This blog entry is a very long list so check it and take the expressions you feel more confortable with.

Hope this may be useful for you. Keep on enjoying English!

Adjectives ending in -ED or -ING

 As I explained in class about these adjectives, when you use -ED the meaning is a bit "passive" or you feel the consequences or result of the action, while when you use -ING adjectives they are "active" and you focus on the action itself.

We have something similar in Spanish, when we say "interesante" (interesting) and "interesado" (interested) or some more like "amante/amado" or "estresante/estresado". The problem is that in English this kind of adjectives are much more frequent and we don't have a similar adjective in Spanish, like "boring" or "tiring" (aburriente? and cansante?)

Compare these two sentences:

• She's a loving mother : she loves her children very much, so it's an active meaning, based on the action itself more than in the result.   
• She's a loved mother : she's loved by her children so the meaning is passive; she receives the consequences, the result of the action, not the actor of the action.

If you need further explanation, you may go to the this link of the British Council.

Here you are some exercises:

• exercise 1  (from Perfect English)      exercise 2  ( a list of exercises from agendaweb)       exercise 3  (from Test English)      exercise 4  (quite long but interesting)
• some other exercises to parctise just in case: exercise 1       exercise 2

I hope it'll be useful but remember to use these forms in spoken language as well so try to use these questions/topics to check how usual they are. Practise with some other mates or friends:

• What hobbies are you interested in? What hobbies do you find interesting? Why?
• Describe a thrilling activity you like doing.
• What are the most boring programmes on Spanish TV channels? Give reasons. And the most amusing ones?
• Tell me/us the most exciting place you've ever been to.
• Do you get tired/bored/excited easily? What for?

Keep in touch!

Contractions

 Contractions or no contractions? That is the question

We use a contraction in informal English and especially when we speak. To mark that there’s something missing in the sentence, we use the apostrophe (‘). We CANNOT use contractions with principal verbs but just with auxiliaries, as you can see in these examples:

• I’ve got a car (right)    but    I’ve a car (wrong)  I have a car (right)

• We’ve got to go (right)     but    We’ve to go (wrong)   We have to go (right)

• They’d like to go with us    but   You had to be careful (right)   You’d to be careful (wrong).

As usual, the only exception is with the verb TO BE because it’s principal and auxiliary at the same time (remember the negative and the interrogative forms of that verb) but when the verb “to be” is in a short answer, it can’t be contracted either:

• Aren’t they British? Yes, they are. They’re from Bristol.

The main problem with contractions is to know which verb is the one you’ve used and that’s easy if you pay attention to the following verbal form. Let’s see some examples:

• He’d like to go   (WOULD as it’s followed by infinitive without TO)

• He’d been busy   (HAD because it’s with a past participle; compare it with He’d BE busy)

• He’d have been busy   (WOULD as it’s a perfect infinitive: have been not has been)

• He’d better stay at home   (HAD, a special modal verb, also followed by infinitive without TO)

There are some contractions which are so frequent that it's difficult or weird (or even impossible like “o’clock”) to find them without being contracted. These are some examples but there are some more:

• Let’s…  You’d better…   I’d rather…   If you don’t mind…  What’s wrong/the matter?   I’d love to.

But there are some occasions where contractions are not used, no matter if they’re right or wrong; the principal rules are these:

• very formal/academic writing: I cannot accept that    or   Let us explain that issue further

• to give emphasis: I do not like that shirt (as when you say I do like it)

• in positive short answers: Yes, I am     but    No, I’m not.

• very old fashioned forms, especially in negative: shan’t    oughtn’t   mightn’t

If you need more explanations or you’d like to know more about this matter, you can visit these pages or links:

• Cambridge dictionary

• How to use contractions

• Grammarly (very short but clear)

• Contractions in spoken English (very specific and long)

To sum up, use contractions as much as possible, especially when you speak, because it sounds more natural; however, take into account that if you’re writing something formal or if you want to be emphatic, don’t use contractions.

Coming back after Christmas!

 Welcome to the blog! Happy New Year! I guess everybody thinks 2021 will be much better than the previous one so let's do our best to make it true. This is also the time for New Year's Resolutions and one of them may be to improve your English, review your English book and come up with your homework, have a look at the vocabulary and grammar, watch and read in English as much as you can...

To start with, let's do some exercises to refresh your English:

• Listening comprehension: 
• go to this entry of a blog with this topic about New Year's Resolutions. Then, 
• watch this video about tips for keeping your resolutions, but if you want. 
• Randall's listenings: go to this link
• This is a very easy but funny exercise with the use of "gonna" instead of "going to" about how easy it's to fail your resolutions: click here.

So remember that the aim of new year's resolution is not to get everything immediately, but to be able to keep on working in order to fulfill your expectations...if they are affordable, of course.

I'll try to fo on with the blog regularly. Keep in touch!

Revision Past Simple

 Let's review past simple and  the first thing we should take into account is the fact that there are 2 big groups of verbs:

• REGULAR: verbs in which you add -ED to the infinitive; e.g. work - worked - worked
• IRREGULAR: you have different forms in past and past participle; e.g. find - found -found

If you want more information, click on these links: here

The problem with regular verbs is the pronunciation as there are 3 possible endings:

• / -d / : the most usual one; e.g. played, studied, preferred (ending in vowel sound+-ED); listened, changed, travelled, lived  (ending in voiced consonants) 
• / -t / : with voiceless consonants; e.g. asked, washed, stopped (remember the trick: PetaKaSh; -t is in the following group.
• / -id / : ending in /-d/ or /-t/; you have an extra syllable; e.g. end - ended, fit - fitted

For irregular verbs, look at the list following the pattern (A-A-A, A-B-B, A-B-C or A-B-A) : clikc here

How to learn irregular verbs? There are many activities, but try to do it orally better than writing:

• the alphabet: day as many verbs as you can starting with... (choose a letter:B/H/S...)
• by topics: irregular verbs related to senses; habitual actions; money; learning, etc.
• by pattern: tell me 5 verbs A-A-A, A-B-B, A-B-C, etc.
• by groups of pronunciation: /i:/  /e/  /e/ (read, read, read; feel, felt, felt)  or --- /ot/  /ot/ (buy, bought, bought; catch, caught, caught) 
• by mimic: you show your partner the action by mimic (e.g. swim, eat, write, read, think...)
• What did you do yesterday? (in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening): most of fuese verbos are irregular (wake up/have/leave/buy

If you want to work with written exercises, go to these links:

• exercise 1      exercise 2     exercise 3 (a list of exercises)

To help you with the pronunciation you can go to this link where there are videos to know how to say the most common irregular verbs.

Unit 2A: Present perfect simple and continuous + to have something done

To start with, let's see the difference between past simple and present perfect and then we'l work on present perfect simple and contiunous.

Past simple and present perfect

• Past simple: it's an action with a clear referencence to the past (last month, 3 weeks ago, yesterday, when I was a child...)
• Present perfect: the reference of time is vague (before, recently, lately..). and you refer to an action which starts in the past but it finishes or continues in the present (you may say: UP TO NOW)

Look at the examples to see the difference:

• I've lived/I've been living in Alcalá since 1996 / for more than 30 years (UP TO NOW)
• I started living in Alcalá in 1996 (this is a memory so it's with a past tense)

If you need some practise, these exercises may help you: exercise 1    exercise 2  (this includes past continuous as well)

Present perfect simple and continuous

• Present perfect simple: it is related to the consequences of the action, on the result and it's usually used with adverbs such as JUST, EVER/NEVER, ALREADY and YET, as well as the question Have you ever...? , How many times have you...?.  Use this exercise to focus on the use of adverbs (except for "ever/never").
• Present perfect continuous: it's used to referred to the duration of the action so it's usual in questions like How long have you...? and the typical adverbs used with this tense are SINCE (when you mention the starting of the action) and FOR (with periods of time). It's also used with emphatic expressions such as all morning, all day, etc. This other exercise is about the use of  for/since/during/while but not specifically with present perfect.

If you want to practise with these tenses, go to these exercises and pay attention to the use of adverbs and the reference of time:  exercise 1     exercise 2   exercise 3

Remember we've also seen in class a very specific form of present perfect that we usually use in Spanish as present simple, as you can see in these examples:

• Tengo este reloj desde pequeña  ------   I've had this watch since I was a girl
• ¿Desde hace cuánto que llevas gafas?  ------    How long have you been wearing glasses?

TO HAVE/GET SOMETHING DONE

Remember it's not in this lesson but we introduced this structure because it's usual when you speak about health problems like these examples:

• I had my blood pressure checked   or    I got my arm x-rayed

Although I explained this in class maybe you'd like to see another explanation of this grammar point by watching this video: click here

If you want to go further with this construction, have a look at this entry of Perfect English: click here

How to Write Emails

 In unit 2A you have to practise how to write informal emails, but we'll see both formal and informal in order to understand the differences between them.

There is an interesting link to see this; let's see it: click here