My Ideal Trip

Week 9^th – 11^th December, 2014

Hello dear students!

I hope you have your projects ready because we’re going to tak about them on Thursday!

I’m looking forward to listening to Juan talking about Christmas in Argentina; to Luis talking about Christmas in Finland; to Nuria talking about Christmas in the USA and to Laura talking about Christmas in Germany.

Do you need some Christmas vocabulary? Click  here!Christmas-vocabulary

http://www.orientacionandujar.es/2011/12/11/christmas-activities-and-christmas-vocabulary/

Well, last week we talked about the kind of experiences we would like to have as a present, (pay attention Father Christmas or Three Kings, any of you!)

Most of us would like to live the experience of either flying in a balloon or flying a plane. We’d like to live in the clouds, it seems to me!

We reviewed the superlative. Do you remember?

		ADJECTIVE		SUPERLATIVE
1-Syllable		hot	long	the hottest	the longest
2 -syllable ended in “y”		dirty		the dirtiest
	REST OF ADJECTIVES
1-syllable not ended in “y”		violent		the most violent
More than  2- syllable adj.		expensive		the most expensive
		IRREGULAR
		good	bad	the best	the worst

And the same rule applies to adverbs.

		ADVERB	SUPERLATIVE
1-Syllable		fast near	the fastest  the nearest
	REST OF ADVERBS
More than  2- syllable		slowly	the most slowly
		IRREGULAR
		much / many	the most
		little/few	the least
		far	the furthest /the farthest

According to some of you the most dangerous experiences are those that involve flying (related to). I think driving a Ferrari could be quite dangerous because it reaches really high speed!

And as somebody put it (said), there are more car accidents than plane crashes!

For me, cooking is the most boring! For Luis, it’s recording your album. Dancing salsa seems to be the funniest, but I wouldn’t like to have that kind of present!

We ended the week talking about the trip we’d like to take.

Laura would like to go to Berlin for a week with her friends. She’d like to eat fast food like sausages. She’d like to go sightseeing.

Luis would like to go on an adventure trip to Africa. He’d like to go to the desert, the jungle, the mountains… He’d like to see the wildlife and the scenery.

I’d like to go on a train trip like The Trans Iberian or The Orient Express. I’d like to enjoy the journey and to experiment the feeling and atmosphere of Agatha Christie’s novels.I’d like to sleep, eat and dance on the train. Something like a cruise but on the railway instead of the sea!

And that was the end of our week!

Would you Like to Drive a Ferrari? Much? A little? A lot?

Week 2^nd – 4^th December  

Hello everybody!  

Did you enjoy your long weekend? I hope you did.

Last week we reviewed the use of ‘much, many, a little, a few, a lot’. These are called quantifiers.

Remember how they are used:

		Big Quantities	Small quantities
Singular / uncountable nouns	+	A lot (of) /plenty (of) /Lots (of)	(a) Little /(very)little
	-	much
	?	How much?
Plural / countable nouns	+	A lot (of) /plenty (of) /Lots (of)	(a) Few/ (very) few
	-	many
	?	How many?

“Much” and its compounds for singular; “many” and its compounds for plural.

You can practise with exercises clicking here:

       


 Much, many, a lot

         A little, a few

·         When do you give presents?

·         What kind of presents do you give?

·         How long does it take you to choose a         present?

·         What kind of presents do you like to be 
      given?

·         Have you ever been given a present    
      you didn’t like? What did you do with it?

And this was the introduction to our next topic ‘A really special present?’

Do you know what ‘WHSmith’s Amazing Adventures’ are?

Surely you know.  This kind of “Experiences” are very fashionable nowadays. In my opinion they are very useful, especially when you don’t know what to give somebody.

We are going to read about different kinds of experiences, some are dangerous, others, exciting, others difficult and others could be boring! We’lll find out what you think about them… tomorrow

Planning a Trip. Have you Done it yet?

25^th – 27^th November, 2014

Hello everybody! How is it going?

Do you remember that expression? We said it’s the same as ‘How are you?’ but more informal.

Introducing  each other.

Formal	How do you do?	How do you do?
Informal	Nice to meet you.	Pleased to meet you.

Greeting  people.

Formal	How are you?
Informal	How are you doing?	How are things?

Colloquial / slang  What’s up?

Last week we did a listening comprehension. It was a phone call between two friends.

One of the friends, Mel is going to work in Cairo and her friend called her to ask about the preparations for the journey.

Mel has already sold the car and she’s already transferred the money to her bank.

She has already renewed her passport but she hasn't got the visa yet.

She’s already booked the hotel room for the first week but she hasn’t packed her suitcase yet. She’s going to pack the cases on the same day of her departure.

We decided to organize our trip. Each one of us had a list of four things to do. We ticked (ü) two (things we had already done) and crossed (û) the other two (things we hadn’t done yet) and then we had to phone each other asking about the arrangements of our trip.

It seems that Juan’s already booked the ferry ticket for him and the car but …what about the rest of us? We were supposed to travel together! Where are our tickets?

On Thursday, as it was Thanksgiving Day in the USA, we watched a video about this celebration. Here it is.

We have to do the reading comprehension for homework, OK?

And we finish the week talking about our end of term project.

It’s going to be on Tuesday 16^th December. Because all of you will attend to class on that date.

The title of the project is “Christmas celebrations around the World”. Find information about your choice country, write a composition and talk about it on 16^th.

And if you can, bring some typical Christmas products of that country, or cook something typical if you feel like it!

Luis is going to speak about Christmas celebrations in Finland.

Laura is going to speak about Christmas celebrations in Germany.

Nuria is going to speak about Christmas celebrations in the USA.

I’m going to speak about Christmas celebrations in the UK. And we’ll ask Juan when he comes on Tuesday.
So, that was our week of class last week.

 

The previous week, Juan brought 

the projector and we reviewed present

 perfect with video exercises, video 

lessons and a practical dialogue.

You can watch the videos again here.

Enjoy the videos!!!

 

Our Most Important Possessions!

11^th – 13^th November, 2014

Hello everybody!

Are you thinking about the topic for your projects? You should…there’s very little left.

Last week we talked about possessions; our ‘most important possessions’.

I told you about a china doll which is one of my most important possessions. I’ve had it for a long time; for about thirty years. I got it on one of my birthdays. It was a present from my brother. It’s important to me because it was the first present my brother paid for with his own money!

Then, you told us about things that are important to you. We asked different questions.

How long have you had it? When did you get it? How did you get it? Did you buy it? Where did you buy it? Was it a present? Who gave it to you?

The funniest story was Luis’s Moroccan green vase! He’s had it for several years. He bought it on a holiday to Morocco. It’s a beautiful big green metal vase. It’s important for him because he had to haggle (negotiate the price) when he bought it at the bazar. And because it was very difficult to get through the airport customs with it! We had a good laugh!

Then we talked about the use of already, yet with present perfect.

Already and yet have the same meaning, but their position in the sentence is different. Yet, goes at the end of the sentence whilst already has a mid-position, that is, it goes before the main verb – the same position as adverbs of frequency.

Study these sentences:

?   Have you finished the exercise yet?

 -    I haven’t finished yet.

+    I’ve already finished.

In our next class we’ll revise all that we have learnt about present perfect with videos.

Bye! See you on Tuesday!