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!!!