Second Conditional & Practical English!

Week23^rd –25^th June

 This week we finished or started ( because the students who came to class this week, weren’t the same who had come the week before, so, for them, it was ‘start’ not ‘finish’) the story of Grace.

Grace was a lady who had a little hotel in the countryside. One day a man came to stay in the hotel and she immediately recognized him. He was Jim Stewart. Twenty years before, Sam-Grace’s son- fell in love with Fiona-Jim’s daughter. Jim thought nobody was good enough for his daughter and shot Sam one night while the boy was climbing up a tree outside Fiona’s bedroom. As Jim was very wealthy(rich) and powerful (important), nothing happened to him. He disappeared and nobody knew where he was. But that day, twenty years later, here he was, entering Grace’s hotel.

Grace walked upstairs taking the whisky Jim had ordered and poured (put a liquid in a container, glass, cup etc.) poison in the glass so as to get her revenge.

After that she ran to the police station and told the police officer what she had done.

We explained the second conditional. It expresses:

·        Unreal or imaginary situation.

If + past simple ------------------ would / wouldn’t + infinitive

                                                   (present conditional)

If I were you, I wouldn’t wear these shoes with that suit.

(You can use ‘were’ with all person of verb ‘to be’ in 2^nd conditional clauses)

·         Possible but very improbable situation

If + past simple ------------------ would / wouldn’t + infinitive

                                                  (present conditional)

If I won £5,000,000 on the lottery, I wouldn’t tell anyone, except my family.

If a bear attacked you, would you climb up a tree?

What would you do if you were in the country and a bull came towards you?

Second Conditional

More exercises on second conditional

Listening on Second conditional

And … we didn’t do a test because the students who suggested taking in a test didn’t come to class. And the ones who came were the ones who didn’t feel like having a test!

We finished the week with listening from practical situations: at the restaurant, shopping, at a hotel, on the plane. Etc.

CD - ROM with vocabulary and grammar exercises

See you tomorrow!!!

What do you do if...? Picture Description

Week 16^th – 18^th June

Hello!

It seems most of you are on holiday! Classes finish on 30^th June.

We continued working on conditional sentences: zero and first conditionals.

We did an oral exercise so as to practise the zero conditional,  the real conditional, which refers to a real situation or a fact. We unscrambled (rearranged, put in order) some cards.

They went something like this:

“If a friend lends you something and you break it or lose it, …

Do you ….? Or …?”

So, first we had to work out the three parts of the question and then, answer it!

We learnt that:

·         If a waiter forgets to put some expensive drinks on your  bill, you remind him / her to add them to the bill. (Or at least, that’s what you told me! And I  trust (confide) you! You  look like (seem to be)  honest people)

·         If you hit another car when you’re  parking and the damage is rather big (considerable), you leave a note. (Quite honest, too)

·         If people push into a queue in front ofLoli, she sends them to the back of the queue.(Sensible behaviour! People should learn to wait their turn!)

·         If a friend asks Carlos to borrow some money to buy a lottery ticket, he asks him/her to share with him. (That’s a right thing to do! You never know where luck lies!)

Real situation : If + present------------------------  present  (ZeroConditional)

We also practised the first conditional talking about possible laws for Murphy!

We reviewed vocabulary by describing pictures in detail. Later we used the pictures to tell a story.

You should revise vocabulary related to clothes and adjectives to describe appearance as well as feelings.

·         What can you see in the picture?

·         How many people are there? Where are they?

·         What are they wearing?

·         How are they feeling?

·         Why do you think they’re feeling like that?

·         Are the people in the picture related?

·         What are they doing?

·         What do you think is going to happen next?

·         What do you think it happened?

In the first picture we could see three people. A young couple and a hunter. The hunter was wearing a brown raincoat, a checked cap, brown trousers and a jumper. He was carrying a bag on his shoulder and he was holding a gun, a rifle. He was hunting deer, because we could see some deer in the background of the picture.

The couple were wearing summer clothes. The girl was wearing a sleeveless white top, a long patterned skirt and trainers. The boy was wearing a white polo shirt, casual trousers and trainers, too. They were walking in the countryside near the river. The couple looked surprised. Maybe because they didn’t expect to bump into(meet by chance) the hunter, who probably was the girl’s father. The hunter looked angry or annoyed.

… and so we continued describing the pictures… Then we listened to the story.

And this was about it!

Remember that I’m giving you a test on Wednesday. At least that’s what some of you agreed on…

See you!

Don't Lose your Pen...

Week 9^th – 11^th June

Hello!

Last week we continued talking about the passive. But this time we used a quiz.

Did you know that …:

…until 1800 New York was called New Amsterdam?

…chess was invented by the Chinese?

…the Italian flag was designed by Napoleon?

….the first Levi jeans were worn by miners?

…the Indiana Jones films were directed by Steven Spielberg?

Some facts you knew, others, you didn’t!

 We started studying “Conditional Clauses” with an important piece of advice:

“Don’t lose your pen!” If you lose your pen, you’ll die.

If you lose your pen, you won’t be able to take notes.

If you aren’t able to take notes, you won’t pass your exams.

If you don’t pass your exams, you won’t get a degree.

If you don’t get a degree, you won’t find a job.

If you don’t find a job, you won’t earn any money.

If you don’t earn any money, you won’t be able to buy any food.

If you can’t buy any food, you’ll die.

So, if you lose your pen, you’ll die! Don’t lose your pen!!!

Remember the structure of the first conditional.

We use if + present simple                                            will / won’t + infinitive

If it doesn’t rain on Saturday, we’ll go for a walk.

We won’t buy milk if there’s some in the cupboard.

You can begin with the “if” clause or not. When you begin with “if” you need to use a comma.

And this is an example of Zero conditional.

We use if + present simple                                   present simple

If you begin the sentence with “if”, you have to use a comma.

Conditional exercises 

http://www.englishvideolesson.com/4101-zero-conditionals-video-lesson-english-with-jo.html

http://www.englishvideolesson.com/2721-esl-conditionals-first-type-conditionals-type-1.html

Tomorrow we’ll continue talking about conditional clauses and “Murphy’s Law”

We also carried on (continued) talking about business letters.

We talked about response letters, inquiries and quotations. We also talked about company advertising.

We’ll go into detail tomorrow. See you then!

How have you Changed? / What's it Famous for?

Week 2^nd – 4^th June

Hello!

How’s your weekend going?

 Well, let’s revise what we did in our last classes.

We started the week talking about how we have changed.

·           Some of us used to watch “Sesame Street” after school! Others, don’t even know what we are talking about!

·           When I was younger, I didn’t use to watch the news.

·           Juan didn’t’ use to have a pet but he has a cat and a dog now!

·           Jorge used to listen to punk music.

·          What kind of music did you use to listen to when you were a teenager?

After that, we explained the passive voice of the verbs.

This is how we make passive sentences:

Farmers	grow	bananas	in the Canary Islands.
Subject	V	Object
Bananas	Are grown	In the Canary Islands
Subject	Passive V
Shakespeare	wrote	Hamlet.
Subject	V	Object
Hamlet	Was written	by Shakespeare.
Subject	Passive V	Agent

The object becomes the subject of the passive sentence. The subject becomes the agent. When the agent isn’t important or it’s a pronoun, it isn’t necessary to write it.

The verb changes into passive voice by writing the verb “to be” in the same tense as in the active sentence + the participle of the verb used in the active sentence.

Like this:

Present simple	produce		Present simple of “to be”	Am / is/are	+	participle	Is produced
They produce coffee in Brazil.			Coffee is produced in Brazil
Past simple	wrote		Past simple of “to be”	Was/were	+	participle	Was written
Dickens wrote ‘Oliver Twist’			‘Oliver Twist’ was written by Dickens.
Future simple	Will sell		Future of “to be”	Will be	+	participle	Will be sold
They will sell hundreds of tickets.			Hundreds of tickets will be sold.
Infinitive	buy		Infinitive of “to be”	be	+	participle	Be bought
You can buy the tickets on the net.			Tickets can be bought on the net.

We talked about what they’re famous for.

Why did you write “El Concierto de Aranjuez”?

Because it was composed by a Spanish musician.

Why did you write “The Others”?

Because it was a film directed by a Spanish director.

Why did you write “Don Quijote”?

Because it’s a fictional character created by a Spanish writer.

 More passive exercises

And to finish the week, we explained what request letters are.

A request letter is a kind of business letter. Its purpose is to ask for information, samples, quotations, catalogues, brochures etc.

·         Include the information that wil help the receiver answer your questions satisfactorily.

·         Say why you are making the inquiry (question).

·         State your request as a question or statement(affirmative or negative sentence)

·         Identify specifically what you want: catalogues, brochures, information etc.

Opening sentences:

·           I saw your advertisement in /on… (in a paper, on a website)

·           We are interested in …

Inquiry (question)

·         Could you please send us/me …?

·         I/We would like to know if / about …?

·         I would be grateful if you could inform me / us about …?

·         I would also like information / details about …?

And …that was all!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!