Sydney, Australia or Sydney, Canada?

Week 11^th -13^th

In the last episode…

…Emma and Raoul’s plane landed at a small airport. They walked to the information desk and showed their tickets to the woman.

- “When does the next plane leave?” asked Raoul.

- “The next plane?” asked the woman. “This is the end of your journey. “Where      

   did you want to go?”

Were they in Sydney? Yes, they were.

Were they in Australia? No, they weren’t. They were in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada!

Be careful if you buy tickets on the net! Don’t make a mistake!

Look at this chart and compare:

	PRESENT	PAST
Affirmative	The plane lands at 5	The plane landed at 5.
Negative	The plane doesn’t land at 6.	The plane didn’t land at 6.
Question form	Does the plane land at 6?	Did the plane land at 6?
Short answers	Yes, it does. No, it doesn’t.	Yes, it did. No, it 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.

We tried to find people who…

travelled by plane last year.

Did you travel by plane last year? Yes, I did.

Where did you travel? I travelled to Berlin.

Who did you travel with? I travelled with my family.

When did you travel? I travelled in August.

…cooked a meal yesterday.

Did you cook a meal yesterday? Yes, I did.

What meal did you cook? I cooked lunch.

What did you cook for lunch? I cooked “cocido” for lunch.

When did you cook it? I cooked it in the morning.

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                land     landed                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

A Tale of Two Sydneys

Week 4^th -6^th

This week we read an article titled: “Water – facts and myths”

We found out ( discovered) that we don’t need to drink less water when the weather is cold. This is because we wear more clothes and sweat more, so we lose water. It’s false that Coke and coffee make us dehydrated. They contain a lot of water.

And finally, we learnt that it can be dangerous to drink a lot of water. A British actor nearly died after drinking eight litres of water a day for several months!

Don’t try to do it at home!

We talked about our favourite day and we learnt to use connectors.

Juan likes football and motorbikes.  + and +

She likes going to the cinema but she doesn’t like going to the theatre. + but -

Nuria doesn’t like coffee or tea. – or -

On Saturdays, I go out or watch TV.I do one thing or the other, but not both                       

                                                          at the same time.

We started listening and reading a story called “ A Tale of two Sydneys”

Two British teenagers wanted to go to Australia but the tickets were very expensive. They looked for cheap tickets on the Internet. They arrived at the airport, checked in and waited for the plane to leave. After six hours they landed at a big airport and changed planes. The second plane was very small. After one hour, the plane landed at a small airport. They wanted to know what time the next plane was. But the lady at information said: “This is the end of your journey.”

 Do you think they were in Sydney?

 Most of you think they weren’t in Sydney. But, you’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out! (discover)

TO BE CONTINUED…

See you on Tuesday!

Food and Water

Week 28^th – 30^th

Last week we went on (continued) talking about food and we also talked about drinks, - water, in fact -

Let’s revise vocabulary on food.

Can you name:

6 vegetables?             6 pieces of fruit?   6 things you usually have for breakfast (food and drink)?    6 desserts or snacks?

We played “Food families”.

Do you have an onion / any bread /any mushrooms?

And I won!

We had a survey on “How much water do you drink?

Juan doesn’t drink much water.

Nuria drinks tap water and she sometimes drinks mineral water.

Juan doesn’t drink any mineral water.

And we think that water is perfect when we are thirsty!

Remember:

I don’t drink any water.               XXX

I don’t drink much water.            +

I drink quite a lot of water.          ++

I drink a lot of water.                    ++++

 Don't forget that if you travel to the United Kingdom you will have to specify if you want still mineral water, otherwise they’ll serve you fizzy mineral water!

Summing up

		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?

This week we’ll finish talking about food and drink and we’ll start talking about the past.

Get ready! See you!

Listening "Best Burgers in Town"

Can Men Cook?

We listened to a program called “Can men cook?”

And we learnt how to make spaghetti Bolognese according to Colin.

He needed:

Some spaghetti

An onion.                              We use a /an for singular countable nouns.

A carrot

Some mushrooms               We use some for plural nouns or uncountable

Some meat                           nouns.

Some butter

Some red wine

Some tomato ketchup

Some cheese

The result wasn’t very good!

So, we learnt that uncountable nouns don’t have plural form. And that we use:

	AFFIRMATIVE	NEGATIVE	QUESTION
SINGULAR	There’s an apple	There isn’t an apple	Is there an apple?
UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS	There’s some sugar	There isn’t any sugar	Is there any sugar?
COUNTABLE NOUNS	There are some mushrooms.	There aren’t any mushrooms.	Are there any mushrooms?

Let’s have a look at Healthy Hannah’s shopping basket:

         ·            There are some carrots.

         ·            There’s a bottle of mineral water.

         ·            There’s some fruit juice but there isn’t any orange juice.

         ·            There are some tomatoes but there aren’t any onions.

         ·            Is there any bread in her basket?

         ·            Are there any crisps?

What’s in your fridge? Mine is empty! There isn’t anything. I have to go shopping!

Listening- cooking competition

Are you Hungry? Let's Talk about Food!

Week 14^th -16^th

Hello again!

We checked homework related to adjectives.

·         Today, Juan isn’t angry because he’s not hungry. He had lunch before coming to class.

·         Laura is pleased (happy) because she slept well last night.

·         Mamen told us that the surroundings of Vicente Calderón are always crowded when the team plays home.

·         Eugene is a hardworking person. He caught up with his homework. (updated)

·         Luis doesn’t like selfish people.

·         Javier isn’t mean, he is an austere person.

Look out! (be careful)

It’s easy for us to use words that come from Latin because we are Spanish. But most of the times, these words are very formal and they aren’t used colloquially. Sometimes it’s also possible that native people don’t know what they mean.

We learnt to make the difference between “-ed” and “-ing” adjectives.

Compare these sentences:

·         I’m bored because the teacher is boring.

·         He’s interested in the news because they are interesting.

·         I need to find new friends. Mine are boring.

We could say that “-ed” adjectives express how somebody feels. “-ing” adjectives refer to the reason for that feeling.

·         Why are you bored?

·         Why is he interested in the news?

·         Why are you looking for new friends?

And we finished the week talking about food.

·         How many meals do you have a day?

·         Do you have something at tea- time? A sandwich, a snack, a piece of fruit?

·         Can you name three drinks, vegetables, pieces of fruit, desserts?

·         What do you have for breakfast?

·         How many times a week do you eat fish?

Remember to have lunch before coming to class because our next classes will be focus on food!

Typical English Breakfast

Welcome back!

Week 7^th – 9^th Happy New Year!

I’m pleased (happy) to see you again, although some of you are still missing!

I see you had good relaxing holidays. Well, Eugene didn’t have holidays but that was because he had them before.

Most of you spent Christmas with your families, ate a lot, drank a little and had a lot of presents. Is that right?

We used the holidays as an excuse to revise the past.

Can you answer these questions?

Where did you have dinner on Christmas Eve?

Who did you have dinner with?

What did you do after dinner?

Did you stay in your house or did you go away (travel)?

What did you eat for dinner?

What did you drink?

When did you start work again?

Enough of Christmas because now they are over (finished)!

We focused on (paid attention to) adjectives to describe:

Places

 ·          Madrid is a noisy city.

 ·          Villages are quiet.

 ·          Downtown (the centre of) Toledo has narrow streets.

 ·          Puerta del sol was crowded on New Year’s Eve, waiting for the clock to strike midnight.

 ·          The glass of the window is very dirty.

Personality

·            Who is a selfish person?

·            What’s the opposite of mean?

·            What’s the adjective for a person who makes friends easily?

·            Who is talkative in your family?

·            Do you know any shy people?

·            A lazy person is a person who…

And also, feelings

 ·          Juan was angry because he was hungry.

 ·          Eugene was tired because he had worked very much.

 ·          Javier feels stressed when he has a lot of work.

 ·          Laura is frightened of flying.

 ·          I was annoyed because I waited for the gasman all the morning and he didn’t come.

So, this was our first week in 2014.

Don’t forget to do your homework:

Write five sentences using adjectives of feelings and three sentences more using adjectives that describe personality.

(The vocabulary is on the back of the photocopy with the information about the presidents of the US)


Adjectives