"I've read the book. I've seen the film."

Week 21^st – 23^rd October, 2014

Hello everybody! How’s your weekend going?

“I´ve read the book. I’ve seen the film.”

‘When a book becomes a bestseller, we know the film version is soon going to appear. But which is usually better, the book or the film?’

This was the introduction to a radio programme. The question was “Do good books make good films?” people phoned and gave their opinions.

One of the listeners said it is a good thing they make the movies because some people buy the book after seeing the film. If there wasn’t a movie, people wouldn’t read the book. Another listener said that it depends. Sometimes the book is very good and the film isn’t or the other way round: the book is bad and the film is great!

What’s your opinion?  Do good books make good films? Have you ever read the book because you saw the film and felt curiosity? Have you read a book and after that went to see the film to see how close it was to the story in the book?

Just tell me!

The title of our lesson was “I’ve read the book. I’ve seen the film.” There was a song in the 70s called “I’ve seen the film. I’ve read the book.” You can listen to it in here:

book/www.maxilyrics.com › Jigsaw 

 I read “Millennium” because I saw the poster for the first film. The film was called in Spanish “The men who didn’t love women.” I saw the poster in the underground and I felt curious because of the title. I didn’t go to the cinema but I bought the book, in English. The title of this first book in English is “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” The writer was Swedish. I don’t know what the title of the book is in Swedish. When books are translated into different languages, you don’t have to translate literally because sometimes those words don’t make sense into the other language. So, the translator reads the book and choses the title which best describe the story. I saw the films a long time after I had read the books.

In my view (opinion) the films are as good as the books.

Of course, we went on (continued) practising present perfect. And first, we played a bingo with participles. I think we are going to play bingo with participles to see if I get you to learn them. Meanwhile you can practise listening and repeating with this video.

On Tuesday, we´ll talk about our most important possessions and we’ll learn the use of ‘for’ and ‘since’ with present perfect.

Enjoy your Sunday! We slept longer last night! One more hour!

Videos on Present Perfect!

Week 14^th – 16^th October, 2014

Hello again!

Last week we went on (continued) talking about general experiences.

First, we listened to Rob and Charlotte arguing about where to go on holiday.

Rob hasn’t been to Paris. Charlotte likes the hotel.

 Suddenly, Rob’s mobile rings. It’s Jessica. Rob doesn’t want to talk to Jessica on the phone. Charlotte gets angry with Rob and leaves the house! Yes, she is jealous!!

We revised pronunciation and the three forms of irregular verbs.

Your pronunciation is improving. Well done!!

As I said above, we went on talking about general experiences; but this week we focused on films.

·         Have you ever cried in a film? Which film was it? Why did you cry?

·         Have you ever seen a movie more than three times? When was the last time you saw it? What film was it?

·         Have you ever bought a “soundtrack” from a film? What film was it? Did you like the film?

We practised questions and answers using the three forms of the verbs:

·         Have you ever spoken to a tourist in English?

·         Yes, I have.

·         When did you speak to them?

·         I spoke to the tourist in English last summer. When I went to London.

·         Have you ever broken anything expensive in your house?

·         Yes, I have.

·         What did you break?

·         I broke a very expensive vase of glass.

·         Have you ever found any money in the street?

·         Yes, I have.

·         How much did you find?

·         Not much. I only found €5.

You can practise with this exercise

... and you can try this video exercise, too

Present Perfect - Sherlock Holmes video

And that was all! See you tomorrow!

Are you Jealous? Charlotte is!

Week 7^th – 9^th October, 2014

Hello again! How are you?

I hope you are enjoying your weekend after so much rain! It seems that today it’s a bit sunnier…for the moment.

What did we do in class last week?

We listened to a couple (boyfriend and girlfriend) trying to decide where to go on holiday. They wanted to go abroad (to a foreign country) but there was a little problem. They couldn’t agree. Charlotte didn’t want to go to any country that her boyfriend had visited with his previous girlfriend! She was a bit jealous!!!

We reviewed adverbs of frequency with some exercises.

Remember the position of adverbs of frequency:

Before the main verb	Danny hardly ever does housework.	George never goes to the dentist.	Mary usually does sport or exercise.
After the verb “to be”	Christine is never at home in the morning.
In questions, after the subject.	Is Liza often late for work?	Do you often buy flowers?
Expressions of frequency, at the end of the sentence.	Steve goes to the hairdresser’s twice a year.	Christian goes on holiday three times a year.	Miranda  sees her best friend every weekend.

We continued practising ‘Present Perfect’ to talk about general experiences.

It is very important that you learn the participles of the verbs, otherwise you won’t have vocabulary to use this tense!!!

Luis asked Laura:

·          Have you ever been near a dangerous animal?

·          No, I haven’t. Just in the zoo.

·          Have you ever driven a very expensive car?

·          Yes, I have.

·          What car did you drive?

·          I drove a Porsche Carrera.

·          How long did you drive it for?

·          I drove it just for a few kilometres. Between two villages.

We also learnt that Luis has been on TV! He went to a musical programme called “Aplauso” and more things…But we didn’t have time to finish, so we’ll continue next day.

If you look above, you will see that we need to know all the three forms of the verbs. Participle to talk generally about the past; infinitive for the questions and past simple to talk about finished actions. So, you have to study them!!!

Learn Irregular verbs on this link

 Another link for studying irregular verbs

And that was all folks! See you on Tuesday!

Talking about our Experiences!

Week 29^th September – 2^nd October

Hello! How are you doing? (This is the same as ‘How are you?’ but more colloquial)

Last week I was very happy because you spend the whole class speaking or trying to speak English! Well done!

Yes, Nuria told us about her huge (very big) family and their pets! Juan told us about a good friend of his. They met when they were at school and they have been friends for a long time (a lot of years) but now, they don’t see each other very often.

In pairs, we interviewed our partners so as to find out (get to know, discover) countries they have visited, books they have read, films they have seen, songs they’ve listened to, food they’ve tried etc. We used present perfect because we talked about general experiences.

·         Have you ever been to Turkey? Yes, I have.

·         Have you ever been to Australia? No, I haven’t.

·         Have you read ‘Hamlet’? Yes, I have.

·         Has Nuria listened to the news? Yes, she has.

We used “Have you ever…?” because they are general experiences and we don’t ask or say “when” we had them. The structure of present perfect is the same as in Spanish, but its use is different, so don’t translate from Spanish into English!!!!

Use “Have you ever…” to talk about general experiences. Use “Did (past simple)” to ask about the details, (follow – up questions).

·         Laura hasn’t been to Greece.

·         Luis has been to Morocco.

·         Has Luis ever been to Morocco? Yes, he has. (General experience)

·         When did he go there? He went to Morocco two years ago.(We ask ’when’)

·         How did he get there? He got there by plane.

You have some exercises in here; click on the sentence.

Present Perfect Exercises

Present Perfect Conversation

And we finished the week talking about  jealousy (envy) and jealous people!

See you tomorrow! And, don’t be jealous!