Listen to the podcast about the royal baby George Alexander Louis, The Duke and Duchess' of Cambridge son, and decide if the sentences are true (T) or false (F): 1. The baby's full name is George Alexander Lucy. 2. He was born 21 July 2013. 3. The queen is great-grandmother. 4 .Only the British are interested in the new baby. 5. The sex of the baby was a surprise. 6. The baby was expected 30 July so it was early. 7. The name was decided 2 days after the birth. 8. Prince William's name was decided immediately. 9. Prince Charles' name was decided 4 weeks after his birth. 10. George is a traditional name. 11. George is the king of 7 names in the past. 12. George VI was really called Albert 13. After Elizabeth II Prince Charles will be king. 14. Prince William cannot change his name to Georfe. 15. Jackie wants George to be a king one day. Look at the photos below. Kate is holding George and Diana is holding William. What do they look like?
ANSWER KEY: 1. F 2. F 3. T 4. F 5. T 6. F 7. T 8. F 9. T 10. T 11. T 12. F 13. F 14. T 15. T
1. Complete the sentences with the correct possessive adjective. 1. Do you like ..............job? 2. I know Mr Watson, but I don't know .............. wife. 3. Alice and Tom live in London. .............. son lives in Australia. 4. We're going to have a party. We're going to invite all .............. friends. 5. Anna is going out with .............. friends this evening. 6. I like tennis. It's .............. favorite sport. 7. "Is that .............. car?" "No, I haven't got a car". 8. I want to phone Maria. Do you know .............. phone number? 9. Do you think most people are happy in .............. jobs? 10. I'm going to wash .............. hair before I go out. 11. This is a beautiful tree. .............. leaves are of a beautiful colour. 12. John has a brother and a sister. .............. brother is 25, and .............. sister is 21.
2. Complete the sentences with the correct possessive adjective.
1.She's goes to the gym with me. .............. name is Jane.
2. We're in room 5. .............. teacher is Michael.
3. New York is famous for .............. theatres.
4. How do you spell .............. name, Ricardo?
5. My friends are from Italy. .............. are Tito and Micaela.
6. This is my husband. .............. name is Steve.
7. I live in Oxford. .............. adress is 1 Ross House, Southcote Road.
8. Rita is in my class, but .............. husband is in a different class.
9. Italy is famous for .............. ice-creams.
10. We are neighbours. .............. house is next to your house.
ANSWERS: 1) 1. your 2. his 3. their 4. our 5. her 6. my 7. your 8. her 9. their 10. my 11. its 12. his / his. 2)1. her 2. our 3. its 4. your 5. their 6. his 7. my 8. her 9. its 10. our If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
Listen to the song in the blanks with a correct verb. The
verbs can be in the present simple, past simple, present perfect or in the
future form with “going to”.
I'm not surprised
Not everything lasts
I(1) __________ my heart so many times,
I (2) __________ keeping track.
Talk myself in
I talk myself out
I get all worked up
Then I let myself down.
I (3) __________
so very hard not to lose it
I came up with a million excuses
I thought, I thought of every possibility
And I (4)
__________ someday that it'll all turn out
You'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid, that I'll give so much more than I get
I just (5) __________ you yet
I might have to
wait
I'll never give up
I (6) __________ it's half timing
And the other half's luck
Wherever you are
Whenever it's right
You (7) __________ out of nowhere and into my life
And I know that we
can be so amazing
And baby your love is (8) __________ me
And now I can see every possibility
But somehow I know
that will all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid, I'll give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet
They (9)
__________ all's fair
In love and war
But I won't need to fight it
We'll get it right
And we'll be united
And I know that we
can be so amazing
And being in your life is (10) __________ me
And now I can see every single possibility
Mmm
And someday I know
it'll all turn out
And I'll work, to work it out
Promise you kid, I'll give more than I get
Than I get, than I get, than I get
Oh you know it
will all turn out
And you'll make me work, so we can work, to work it out
And I promise you kid, to give so much more than I get
Yeah I just haven't met you yet
I just haven't met
you yet
Oh promise you kid
To give so much more than I get
I said love, love,
love, love, love, love, love
I just haven't met you yet
Love, love, love, love, love, love
I just haven't met you you Now watch the video with the lyrics and check your answers.
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"Like" is a common word in English and it has different uses. Match the questions with the correct answers. 1. What's she like? 2. What does she look like? 3. What does she like? 4. What would she like? A. She likes everything, but she prefers fish and vegetables. B. She's quite tall and slim and she has long blonde hair. C. She'd like a glass of wine. D. She's very nice. I'm sure you'll like her. ANSWER KEY: 1.D 2.B 3.A 4.C
Now put the words in the correct order to make sentences. 1. go I never shopping. 2. hardly come ever to they class. 3. the she doctor goes rarely to. 4. English always he is he tells people. 5. work we never are late for. 6. on cat the always the sleeps bed me with. 7. books you do always your carry? 8. talking does never he stop? 9. often I school drive to. 10.you are they meet happy always to. ANSWER KEY: 1. I never go shopping. 2. They hardly ever come to class. 3. She rarely goes to the doctor. 4. He always tells people he is English. 5. We are never late for work. 6. The cat always sleeps on the bed with me. 7. Do you always carry your books? 8. Does he never stop talking? 9. I often drive to school. 10. They are always happy to meet you. If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
Let's start the school year by making sure we all know how to speak about our daily routines. For this, we need to use the present simple. Read the notes, watch the videos from British Council:Learn English and do the activity below.
Now to practise a little bit, re-order the words to make correct questions: 1. you / at / what / weekends / do / the / usually / do ? 2. from / are / family / where / your ? 3. in / you / house / a / live / do / a / or / in / flat ? 4. to / prefer / what / tea / you / coffee / do / drink / or ? 5. do / music / like / to / what / listening / kind / you / of ? 6. instrument / do / play / musical / you / a ? 7. have / children / many / got / how / you ? 8. TV / what / you / watch / programmes / do ?
ANSWERS: 1. What do you usually do at the weekends? 2. Where are your family from? 3. Do you live in a house or in a flat? 4. What do you prefer to drink tea or coffee? 5. What kind of music do you like listening to? 6. Do you play a musical instrument? 7. How many children have you got? 8. What TV programmes do you watch?
Now make correct sentences using the present simple. 1. Tom / start / work at 8 am. 2. We / go / to school by bus. 3. My grandparents / live / next door. 4. Sheila / not like / animals. 5. They / be / in your class? 6. You / eat / meat? 7. Where / Mary / play tennis? 8. They / not have / children. 9. His sister / study / with my daughter. 10. I / not like / chocolate. ANSWER KEY: 1. Tom starts work at 8am. 2. We go to school by bus. 3. My grandparents live next door. 4. Sheila doesn't like animals. 5. Are they in your class? 6. Do you eat meat? 7. Where does Mary play tennis? 8. They don't have children. 9. His sister studies with my daughter. 10. I don't like chocolate. If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
I thought it is necessary to speak about listening. Listening is usually the most difficult skill to master by foreign students. When you speak to native speakers, you don't usually have difficulties talking but the problem arises when they reply, you don't understand... You put on the TV to watch an American film or TV series and you don't understand. But how come I can speak quite fluently but I am not able to understand a single word I hear??? This is what you normally ask yourselves. Well, the answer is very simple you don't listen enough. It's hard to accept but it's the truth, in order to be able to understand native speakers you need to practise much much more your listening. I'll give a clear example. My 2 year-old daughter is starting to speak now, she can put together two or three words now and she can transmit very simple messages related with her needs and priorities. She's now starting to speak, however, she's been able to understand us for more than a year. She does not understand everything completely, but I dare say she understands 80 % of what we say. And when she does not understand she doesn't care, she repeats what we say and laugh and probably next time she will understand what we say. Why am I talking about my little girl now?? She's also learning a language and so are you. In my opinion we should all learn from her if we want to master a foreign language. Babies start listening to the language the will learn before they are able to utter a single word, they listen and listen for around a year and a half before they actually start saying their first words. Then, they start repeating the same words over and over again. They don't miss a chance to show off and let everybody know the new words they have learnt, when they don't understand something, they don't get frustrated or demotivated, instead they repeat what they hear without even understanding what they are saying but they are confident they will pick up the new words and one day will understand them. So what is the lesson here: 1. Start listening more (and more and more). 2. Don't be demotivated if there are things you don't understand. 3. Learn to live happily with that level of "not knowing and not understanding". 4. Practise the new vocabulary, if you learn it you will be then able to recognise it. 5. Practise pronunciation, if you know how words are pronounced, it will be easier for you to recognise them. 6. Practise your speaking, the more you'll speak the more you'll listen.
7. Enjoy your learning experience because it can be lots of fun!! If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
What do you prefer coffee or tea? Listen to some people answering this question:
I'm a coffee person! I like drinking my coffee every morning in front of the computer, but sometimes I also enjoy a nice cup of tea. What about you?? Tell me in a comment! If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
This is a quick post about writing to remind you about its importance. In class teachers normally focus on speaking and listening because these are the skills you need the most. However, we cannot overlook the importance of writing. You normally practise writing at home when you do the grammar activities, answer the reading comprehension questions or when you do a composition. In class we hardly ever write and, when we do, is normally very small things. For this reason you need to write more. You need to find opportunities to learn new things and revise the language you already know and writing is a good method.
Writing gives you a good opportunity to learn new words, revise the words you already know and expand your knowledge of them. Writing also helps you to practise grammar structures and patterns studied at the previous lessons. In addition, the more you practise the better you write. By practising writing your reading, listening and speaking skills also improve.
All the works you hand in are marked and corrected very accurately for you to learn from your mistakes, but sometimes you need to write just for the sake of writing and communicating and this is what you need to do more. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes, it doesn't matter if your text isn't perfect, the simple fact of writing will activate your knowledge and this will help you learn and fix the structures in your brain.
Try to find opportunities to write (and therefore learn):
1. Write your shopping list in English
2. Write your "To do list" in English
3. Text or whatsapp your friends in English
4. Write the comments in our Facebook group in English
5. Write comments to my blog entries (this is particularly useful because you always have a writing sample that you can copy so it's an excellent opportunity to revise the language we've seen in class)
Can you think of other ways of improving your writing? Do you reckon you will start writing more in English from now on? If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog for free.
