This is All, Folks!!!

Wednesday 18^th June

Hello again!

 Last day of class! Alberto what happened to you? Carlota, I haven’t seen you for three weeks! What are we going to do with the play? I have another actress to substitute you, as you haven’t come to the rehearsals and I don’t know if you are going to be on the play!

Carlota, Alberto, If we don’t see each other before the holidays, have a nice summer and enjoy a lot!

Remember that we are performing together with another group (as our actors have slowly dropped out of the play- they are not coming-). The play is on Thursday 26^th. Venue: José Saramago Library. Time: 10-12 a.m. Be punctual and try to arrive at least 10 minutes earlier, that is 9.50.Carlos, Noelia and Sandra, I trust you. I know you’re going to learn your parts for the play very well! Study them this weekend! If you want to see the rest of the plays your classmates are performing, you can do it. They are on Tuesday 24^th .Same place, same time.

Enough of the play! What did we do on our last ordinary class?

We talked about holidays!!! We learnt types of holidays and accommodation.

·         We can go on a beach holiday, on a safari, on a skiing holiday, on a sightseeing tour, on a backpacking holiday, camping or on a cruise – and if the ship is smaller, on a sailing holiday!

·         We can stay at a hotel, in an apartment, in a bed and breakfast, at a relative or a friend’s house, in a hostel… 

Let’s talk about past and future holidays:

What kind of holidays do you usually have?

Where do you usually stay?

Where did you go on your last holiday?

Did you stay in a hotel or at a friend’s house?

What was the weather like?

Did you have a good time?

Who did you go with?

How did you get there?

What did you do?

What did you see?
Where are you going to go this summer?

Where are you going to stay?

Do you think you are going to have good weather?

Are you going to enjoy?

Who are you going to go with?

How are you going to get there?

What are you going to do?

What are you going to see?

We played a holiday game.

We had to pick out a card from a three different piles of cards: types of holidays, letters and numbers. We match the letter with the number so as to find out which object –from a list- it refers to and we make a sentence like this:

We are going on a ________  (beach holiday) and we’re taking ___________ (thread and needle) because ______________ (if our swimming costumes tear, we can sew it)

And of course, we rehearsed the play for the last time before the performance. The prizes for our games will be given on 26^th after the show! See you then!

GAME 11

Player 1	7
Player 2	----
Player 3	----
Player 4	7
Player 5	7
Player 6	7

Remember that instead of our class on Wednesday, we will have the class on 26^th with the end of term activity; as we told you in the note we gave you for your parents three weeks ago!

Carlota and Alberto, have a nice summer holidays. Sandra, Carlos and Noelia, see you on Thursday 26^th!

Enjoy your holidays!!!

My Grandparents' School

Wednesday 11^th June

Hello again!

Carlota, where are you? You haven’t come to class for two weeks! What it is really strange is the absence of Sandra because she never misses a class! Yes, you are disappearing little by little.

I hope to see Carlota next week because I don’t know if I need a substitute for the play! At least I’m sure about Carlos, Noelia and Sandra. And I know that Alejandro and Alberto aren’t coming. But they helped us to rehearse in your absence! Thank you to both of you! As for Carlos and Noelia, well done!!

Before the rehearsal, we continued with our last lesson of this course!

Last week we compared school subjects. This week we compared schools in the past with schools in the present.

We listened to the teacher’s father telling us what differences there are between his school days and schools now.

·         In his days, there were more children in each class and they were separated in big groups.

·         The kids didn’t sit around tables. They sat in long rows of wooden desks.

·         There weren’t pictures painted by the children on the wall. There were only photos of horrible head teachers.

·         They didn’t write with pens or had paints, They only used pencil.

·         They didn’t have computers or calculators.

·         Their subjects were different. They studied a lot of Latin and Greek.

·         Teachers were stricter.

·         They couldn’t speak in class. They had to be quiet.

Look at this chart and compare:

	PRESENT	PAST
Affirmative	He studies maths and Spanish at school.	He studied Latin and Greek.
Negative	She doesn’t study maths or Spanish at school.	He didn’t study Latin and Greek.
Question form	Does she study maths and Spanish at school?	Did she study Latin and Greek?
Short answers	Yes, he does. No, he doesn’t.	Yes, he did. No, he didn’t.

We make the past simple of regular verbs by adding “- ed”. We only use the verb ended in “-ed” in affirmative sentences. In negative sentences and questions we use “didn’t” or “did”. So, the verb doesn’t change. It’s always in infinitive.

And we learnt how to pronounce the past of regular verbs, that is the group “-ed”

DON’T PRONOUNCE “e”, ONLY AFTER “t” OR “d”

Want   wanted         end     ended           wait    waited

                   /ɪd/                           /ɪd/                            /ɪd/

When the verb does not end in “t” or “d”, “e” is never pronounced. Sometimes it sounds like “d”; sometimes it sounds like “t”. Don’t be lazy and try to read it in Spanish because native people won’t understand you and it sounds awful (terrible!)

If you want to practise pronunciation, follow this link.

Pronunciation of Regular Verbs

Remember the past of to be:

Present                     Past

I am                                        I was

S /he /it is                  s/he/it was   

we /you / they are    we/you / they were

Homework: I know I didn’t give you homework! Revise everything we have learnt because next day we are going to have a games competition for our last games!!!

But this was the result for last week’s games

GAME 10

Player 1	----
Player 2	6
Player 3	----
Player 4	8
Player 5	10
Player 6	8

It’s boiling hot, so I suppose you are going to the swimming pool!

 Have a nice weekend!!!

Let's Compare School Subjects! & ... A Geography Quiz!

Wednesday 4^th June

                 

Hello Everybody!

What’s happening?

Carlota, where are you? We need to rehearse our play and you need to prepare for the Trinity test! I know. You have exams and it’s nearly the end of the course and of course, you have to make the last effort before the summer holidays!

What happened with your homework, Player 5? You have always done homework during the course! Sorry, you didn’t get the points awarded for it!

We continued comparing people.

·         Marcos is shorter than Sergio.

·         Amara is taller than César.

·         Jorge is younger than Sergio.

·         Amara is older than Marcos.

·         Jorge is noisier than the girls.

·         The girls are quieter than Sergio.

And we also had a ‘Geography’ competition.

Our two teams had to guess the right answer.

·         Which country’s population is bigger, Brazil or Bangladesh?

·         Which mountain is lower, Annapurna or Makalu?

·         Which city is more crowded, Mexico City or Brazil?

·         Which is smaller, North America or South America?

·         Which river is longer, the Yangtze or the Nile?

Can you remember the words which match these definitions?

·           It’s a body of water narrower than a river.

·           It’s higher than a hill and has a pointed end.

·           It’s bigger than the sea.

·           It’s like a mountain but the temperature is much hotter because it’s got fire inside.

·           It’s a shallow place between two or more mountains.

·           It’s a place hotter than a valley or a mountain and with no vegetation.

We talked about your school timetable and school subjects.

Let’s talk about your timetable (during the course. I know that this month it’s a bit different)

·         How often do you have maths?

·         How many times a week do you have P.E.?

·         Do you study ‘Business’ at school?

·         Which subjects do you study at school?

·         Which year do you study I.T. in?

·         What does I.T. stand for?

·         What does P. E. stand for?

·         What’s your favourite subject?

Let’s compare subjects:

·         Which subject is more useful?

·         Which one is easier?

·         Which subject is more difficult?

·         Which subject is more interesting? And more boring?

Although Carlota was missing, we rehearsed our play, ‘Island for Sale’. The date is 26^th of June. Time: 10 – 12. And that’s definite! I’d like to know who I can count on because we may have to make some changes. And thank you to Marcos because he’s going to perform his character with two different groups!

Thank you very much, Marcos!!!

Don’t forget to do homework! Write four sentences using comparisons.

          GAME 9

Player 1	9
Player 2	8
Player 3	-----
Player 4	8
Player 5	5
Player 6	9

School Subjects

More Exercises on School Subjects

See you on Wednesday!

Let's Guess the Word! Let's Talk about the Past! Let's Rehearse!

Wednesday 28^th May

Hello Everybody!

We started the class checking homework.

Noelia, Carlos and Sandra had three points for homework. Carlota only two because she didn’t write it down! Sorry for the rest, but you didn’t do homework so you didn’t get points!

After that, we played a game based on definitions. We have to ask and answer questions so as to guess the word written on the card you had picked out (selected)

You had to make a sentence, for example:

You usually do this in summer.

·           Is it a sport?

·           Do you do it with your family?

·           Do you need some transport? A car, a train etc.?

·           Do you go to the beach?

·           Is it travelling?

·           Is it when you finish school?

·           Can you stay in a hotel?

Is it ‘going on holiday’? Yes, it is!  And so on…

Then, we reviewed the past of irregular verbs.

·         What did you buy yesterday? I bought a pair of jeans.

·         What did you do yesterday? I watched TV.

·         What did you eat yesterday? I ate a chicken sandwich.

·         Where did you go on your last holiday? I went to the mountains.

·         How did you get there? I got by plane.

And we continued our review playing ‘families’. In that way we grouped the verbs according to pronunciation.

Buy bought bought – teach taught taught – catch caught caught – think thought thought

Drink drank drunk- sing sang sung – ring rang rung – swim swam swum

Know knew known – draw drew drawn – fly flew flown –

Put put put – read read read- cut cut cut- cost cost cost- set set set

Etc.

Irregular Verbs

CD - ROM with vocabulary and grammar exercises

For homework write five sentences in affirmative, five questions and five negative sentences using the past of the verbs.

We wrote questions about clothes for our ‘Trivia Game’

And we rehearsed our theatre play.

Although I don’t know who is going to perform; because Alejandro and Alberto are not coming on 24^th or 26^th of June.

Please confirm attendance!!!!

GAME 8

Player 1	9
Player 2	6
Player 3	7
Player 4	7
Player 5	10
Player 6	10

See you on Wednesday!

 Go to the blogs of April if you want to review the past!

2^nd, 16^th and 30^th