It's time to say goodbye, or maybe just see you next year, who knows?
Another school year is over and I really hope everybody has improved their English a bit more. I would be satisfied if at least some of you could agree with me.
I just wanted to say that you have all been wonderful this year and I will keep all the good moments we spent together in my memory. Thanks for your hard work, enthusiam and interest in the English language
I'm going on holiday and I will stop writing on this blog till September, but you can always send me an e-mail or write on the comment section to share your summer experiences with the rest of the classmates. I would love to get some news as well as summer pictures from all of you. I promise to reply. It could be a good way to keep your English alive.
HAVE A NICE SUMMER!!!
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If you would like to revise any skill, I recommend you to visit the following webpage, learnenglish-online
You can also find some good advice to improve your speaking skills in the following webpage,
LET'S TALK ABOUT TOYS Throughout the world, boys and girlsprefer to play with different types of toys. Boys typically like to play with cars and trucks, while girls typically choose to play with dolls. Why is this?
A traditional sociological explanation is that boys and girls are socialized and encouraged to play with different types of toys by their parents, peers, and the “society.” Growing scientific evidence suggests, however, that boys’ and girls’ toy preferences may have a biological origin.
In 2002, Gerianne M. Alexander of Texas A&M University and Melissa Hines of City University in London stunned the scientific world by showing that vervet monkeys showed the same sex-typical toy preferences as humans. In an incredibly ingenious study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, Alexander and Hines gave two stereotypically masculine toys (a ball and a police car), two stereotypically feminine toys (a soft doll and a cooking pot), and two neutral toys (a picture book and a stuffed dog) to 44 male and 44 female vervet monkeys. They then assessed the monkeys’ preference for each toy by measuring how much time they spent with
each. Their data demonstrated that male vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys, and the female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys. The two sexes did not differ in their preference for the neutral toys.
All you need to know about the REPORTED SPEECH When we report what another person has said, we usually do not use the speaker’s exact words (direct speech), but reported speechor indirect speech. Therefore, you need to learn how to transform direct speech into reported speech. The structure is a little different depending on whether you want to transform a statement, question or request.
Inthe following videos, you will find all the necessary explanation to understand this structure.
If you need to put into practice what has been explained to you in the videos, don't miss the following exercises
1. bullying : bullying - to hurt or frighten someone who is smaller or less powerful than you, often forcing them to do something they do not want to do.
2. burglar - burglary : burglar - a person who illegally enters buildings and steals things
3. drug dealer : a person who trades in selling drugs
4. drink driving : driving a vehicle after drinking too much alcohol
5. fine (noun) : fine (noun) an amount of money that has to be paid as a punishment for not obeying a rule or law
6. gang - gangster : gang - a group of young people, especially young men, who spend time together, often fighting with other groups and behaving badly a group of criminals who work together
7. graffiti : words or drawings, especially humorous, rude or political, on walls, doors, etc. in public places
8. hooligan - hooliganism : hooligan - a person who acts in a violent way without thinking and causes damage
9. judge : judge a person who is in charge of a trial in a court and decides how a person who is guilty of a crime should be punished, or who makes decisions on legal matters
10. to rob – robbery - robbers : to rob – to take money or property illegally from a place, organization or person, often using violence the crime of stealing from somewhere or someone someone who steals by using a weapon
11. shoplifting : the illegal act of taking goods from a shop without paying for them
12. speeding : driving faster than it is allowed in a particular area
13. theft : dishonestly taking something which belongs to someone else and keeping it
14. violence : actions or words which are intended to hurt people
Now, put these vocabulary into practice. Fill in the gaps with the following words.
1.A ____ broke into our house while we were away this weekend and stole our video.
2.Drug ____ who sell heroin to teenagers are among the worst kind of criminals.
3. Car ____in this area is increasing. Fifty cars were stolen last week.
4. Fourteen football ____were arrested after the match. They were fighting and throwing bottles onto the pitch.
5. He should have taken a taxi home after the party. He got stopped by the police and lost his licence for ____. He was doing 80 kilometres an hour in the centre of town. He was caught ____on a camera.
6. He's scared to walk home from school on his own because last week some ____ in the year above him broke his personal stereo.
7. If you park on a double yellow line, you might get a parking ____.
8. In court, the ____said he should stay in prison for the rest of his life.
9. She was arrested for ____. She stole a pair of jeans and a sweater from a clothes shop.
10. Some people think that the ____on TV and in films leads to crime.
11. The health centre wall has some big red ____ on it. They'll have to repaint the wall.
12. Two armed bank ____ got away with £50,000 yesterday. Two guys ____a friend of mine recently and ran off with her handbag.
Try the following quiz about crime vocabulary, click here
Let's study the gerund and infitive forms Watch this video and listen to someone explaining the verbs that are followed by both forms, gerund and infinitive.
For more information about Gerund and Infinitive, visit the following tutorial part 1 and part 2.
Let's practice the gerund and infinitive forms with the following exercises
Most of us express dissatisfaction with our memory, especially when we want to recall some detail and we can't. Some examples are, an address or a telephone number, the time of a meeting, somebody's name, etc. Even people who I think have an excellent memory, complain that they forget things. Memory works like a bank. You can get to it, only if you put it there. If you didn't deposit it, you can't collect it when you need it.
A lot of people insist, "My memory is terrible, or "I can't remember anything." In most of the cases, their memory is fine. The power to remember is certainly there. They just need to take the time to learn ways to "register" the events more clearly, so they can 'recall" them more successfully, later Do you agree with these statements? Does this happen to you quite frequently?
A good video that can help you improve your memory.
Look at what Dr Angela Chang says about our memory: "You WERE NOT born with a poor memory. Remembering is a process that must be learned, just like walking, talking, eating, telling colors apart, distinguishing sounds, and telling time. You learned these when you were a child, and now you can perform them without effort, without being conscious of the mental processes involved. You can learn the process of using your memory just as thoroughly, and when you do you will have in your power a hundred times the knowledge and experience you actually put to use now. Anyone can do it."
A video that shows you the basics to improve your memory.
Let's practice the quantifiers. Take the following exercises and check how good you are in the issue.
This is what this lamb may be thinking:'Hey, I live here too! You know, I think humans are sometimes the meanest animals on earth. You aren't always nice to other people, but you are also hurting animals like me everyday. Fortunately, some nice people want to change this. They want to help the animals before it's too late. If you feel like they do, please help us animals out!'
Here you have some CARTOONS about animals with audio to have a bit of fun
How much do you know about polar bears? Take the following quiz and check it, click here Listen and read at the same time a story about a polar bear: The Polar Bear's dinner story.
So, I’m a polar bear, right? Got that? A polar bear. Not one of those brown bears that live in forests and on mountains. One of those big white ones, you know, surely. Where do I live? On an iceberg of course, not that far from the North Pole. We never go too near the North Pole though, it’s much too cold up there. We prefer to live in places like Greenland. You must have seen one of us on one of those tv documentaries. Or perhaps in a zoo somewhere. People think we’re cute and friendly. Unfortunately, I have to say that’s not entirely true. We don’t often attack people, probably because there aren’t many people up here to attack. I guess if you just leave us alone, we’re perfectly happy. So, I’m sitting on my iceberg, perfectly happy, it’s my favourite iceberg this one, a great place for sitting around, hanging out, chatting to a few friends every now and then, catching fish and whatever else I can find. I’m sitting on my iceberg when I notice something strange. My favourite iceberg is getting smaller. Well, either my iceberg is getting smaller, or perhaps I’m getting bigger. Now then, if I’m getting bigger it means I’m getting fat. But I can’t be getting fat, because I’ve also noticed that recently I haven’t been eating very much at all. I sit on my favourite iceberg, hanging out, chatting to friends, you know, the usual, but I do notice that there are far fewer fish around now than there were a few years ago. Let me tell you a few things about polar bears. We only live at the North Pole, not the South one. And no, I’ve never met a penguin. You know why? Because penguins only live in the South Pole, and not the north one. It’s a long way from one pole to the other, so we rarely meet. There was a cousin of mine though, who ended up in a zoo, and they put him in the enclosure next to the penguins. He said the penguins were ok, but they were pretty noisy. Let me tell you something else about polar bears: we get cold. Yes, that’s a surprise, isn’t it? I bet you thought we’d have layers of fur and fat to keep us warm from the arctic cold. Well, we do, but it’s never quite enough. We still get cold. I do anyway, and so do most of the other polar bears I talk to (and, believe me, I talk to a lot of polar bears.) So, where was I? Sorry, yes, I was telling you that I was sitting on my iceberg, noticing that the iceberg was getting smaller and the fish were getting fewer, when this walrus arrives. Now, I’m a pretty easy-going polar bear (as long as you don’t try and put me in a zoo!), but there is one thing I hate. Walruses. Perhaps you’ve never met a walrus. If you haven’t, don’t. They’re awful. Loud and smelly and stupid. Always bothering us. I mean, I know we eat them sometimes (we polar bears are happy to eat anything), but that’s no reason for them to be so offensive. There’s nothing that’s going to ruin my day as much as a walrus, and here comes Mr. Walrus. I tried to catch him, but it was no good, he was too quick for me. He just splashed around in the water making that terrible noise they make and shouting at me. “Hey stupid!” he shouted. “Yes you! Big stupid polar bear! What’s the matter? Can’t you catch me? Of course you can’t! You know why? Because you’re iceberg’s disappearing! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Like I said, I hate walruses. “I know that, ugly” I shouted to him. “If you can tell me why it’s happening then perhaps I won’t have you for my dinner!”“You’re as stupid as all polar bears!” replied this extremely cheeky walrus. “Global warming! Never heard of it, have you? Bye now!” And then the walrus dived back under the water and splashed away. I did have to admit that I had never heard of global warming, so when a few of the other bears were around, I asked them if they’d heard anything about it. “Oh yeah” they said. “It means the sea is getting warmer, so the ice is melting.”“What’s causing it?” I asked.“Humans, of course” they replied. Honestly, as if zoos weren’t bad enough. Now they’re trying to melt our ice as well. “It’s always humans” said one of my friends. “That’s why there aren’t as many fish now as well. The humans are eating them all.” This really was bad news. No iceberg; no fish. No dinner for me. Other than the occasional walrus if I manage to catch one. “The problem is” continued my friend, “there’s very little we can do about it. I mean, how can we stop the humans?”“Look” I said, “If there are no fish, then that’s bad news for the walruses too, isn’t it? They eat fish too.”“I guess so” said my friend. “So that means...”“Exactly...”“No!”“Yes...we’ll have to team up with the walruses if we want to do anything...”“No way! Impossible! Absolutely out of the question!” shouted all the others. You see, I’m not the only polar bear who doesn’t like walruses. So, the next day, I’m sitting there on my favourite iceberg again, and along comes the same cheeky walrus. “Caught anything yet? Ha! Ha! Ha!”“Listen ugly” I replied to him. “You’re right about global warming, but what you haven’t realised – probably because you’re stupid as well as ugly – is that the humans who are causing global warming are also eating all our fish.” The walrus didn’t say anything, so I carried on. “The only way we can stop them is if we work together...polar bears and walruses and everyone else who lives here...”“Work with you!!! No way!!!!” shouted the walrus, and off he went. So, I’m sitting here on my iceberg, and my iceberg’s getting smaller everyday, and I’m getting hungrier everyday. Some other polar bears, I hear, the ones who live closer to places where there are more humans are going to the humans’ rubbish bins and eating everything they can find there. That’s one solution, I guess, but I’d rather have some nice fresh fish – or big juicy piece of walrus – than humans’ rubbish. I’d really like there to be a happy end to this story I’m telling you, but at the moment there isn’t. What am I going to have for my dinner? THE END
After reading the story, try the comprehension activity, click here
PRESENT PERFECT VIDEOS
People at the street answering questions
Two virtural lessons of the Present Perfect Simple and Continuous
Some Present Perfect Simple and Continuous practice: Exercise 1
Understanding The Differences Between Men And Women
For centuries, the differences between men and women were socially defined and distorted through a lens of sexism domination. The goal of equality in which men assumed superiority over women and maintained it through between men and women are now growing closer, but we are also losing our awareness of important differences.
I think men and women are equal but different at the same time. I mean that men and women have a right to equal opportunity and protection under the law.
I suppose you will agree with me when I say that men and women are physically different.
Men are essentially built for physical confrontation and the use of force, that's obvious. Women, on the other hand. have four times as many brain cells (neurons) connecting the right and left side of their brain.
Some of these differences can be shown very clearly in some aspect of life, like the following ones.
1. Relationships between men and women are not impossible or necessarily difficult. Problems simply arise when we expect or assume the opposite sex should think, feel or act the way we do. It’s not that men and women live in completely different realities. It's just our lack of knowledge and mutual experience which gives rise to our difficulties.
2. Using the telephone
Men see the telephone as a communications tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.
3. Human relationships.
Women tend to communicate more effectively than men, focusing on how to create a solution that works for the group, talking through issues, and utilizes non-verbal cues such as tone, emotion, and empathy whereas men tend to be more task-oriented, less talkative, and more isolated. Men have a more difficult time understanding emotions that are not explicitly verbalized, while women tend to intuit emotions and emotional cues. These differences explain why men and women sometimes have difficulty communicating and why men-to-men friendships look different from friendships among women. 4. Cars
When someone has bought a new car, women usually ask what colour it is - men ask what sort is it
5. The way of talking
Men speak in sentences. Women speak in paragraphs.
6.When men want something they ask for it. When women want something they make a point distantly related to the subject and wait for a response.
7. Men cannot watch sports and talk to their wives at the same time.
8. Feelings
Women excel at knowing what people are feeling; men have difficulty spotting an emotion unless someone cries or threatens bodily harm.
Scientist say that a few fundamental differences between men ans women are biological. Men's and women's brains, for example, are not only different (the male brain is roughly 9% larger than the female variety) but the way we use them differs too. Although they both contain the same number of cells, it's just that in the female brain they are more tightly packed. Women have larger connections and more frequent interaction between their brain's left and right hemispheres. This accounts for women's ability to have better verbal skills and intuition. Men, on the other hand, have greater brain hemisphere separation, which explains their skills for abstract reasoning and visual-spatial inelligence.
"Okay, I understand the problem"you may say to yourself, but - "what's the solution?"That depends on whether you are a woman or a man.
What's your opinion about this controversial topic? Express yourself openly here. These are some of your classmates' opinions.
I think men and women have to share all the housework. Women can't be the only responsible one for it. However every case is different and if in a couple the man works and the woman doesn't, it is not fair that the man has to do the 50% of the housework. But it doesn't mean that a man can't help his partner doing some things. And I also think it should happen the same in the opposite case. If a woman works, she can't do all the housework after work. Then her partner should do the washing at least. In conclusion the most important thing is that both partners should do their share as far as possible. Marian Arabí.
In my opinion, men should do 50% of the housework. Nowadays if men live with female partners and both of them work, men should do their share of the housework. However, I think if only one of them works, the other one should do more. But, I think it all depends on the couple's labour situation, the kind of job they have and how they were brought up by their parents. A.A.
Well, in my opinion we shouldn't talk about the right percentage of men and women doing the housework. It would be better to do a deal with your partner. On the other hand, at home parents should have a commitment with children to do their share. Nowadays society is mature enough to promote housework in a different way. Women didn't use to work outside home, but nowadays they do, and most of them are even the breadwinners. In that case, men should do more than 50% of housework. Lina Torres
Inmy opinion men should definitely do 50% of the housework. They should do their share as women do.The times have changed and nowadays most women work out of home, so men should work at home too. In conclusion, if a person, regardless of whether it's a man or a woman, messes up, obviously they should be able to clean and tidy up too. The difference lies in the willingness to do it, most men don't have it. V.C.
Iabsolutely agree with the 50% of men doing the housework.In the past women were used to staying at home taking care of children and doing all the housework while their husbands were the breadwinners. Nowadays this role has been totally changed by our society. The so-called "new women" work out as long as their partners, so that´s why we should have equal rights and share the household stuff and children care. Vicky Contreras
As times are changing I think men should do their share at home and look after the children as well as their partners. As life is getting more competitive, women have to work outside too, so men should be more cooperative, showing their femenine side and helping at home a bit more. What I really want to mean is that nowadays men should be more domesticated. The role so-called "new man" is more adecuated for the modern life, so for me, it's essencial that men forget the macho attitude of "bread winner" that used to be so common in the past. Martin Candiotti.
I mainly think men and women should be happy and free in this life. When a man and a woman live as a couple (and currently two men or two women, why not?), they have all the right to organize their private life as they wish. Men have been suffering a real feminist dictatorship for a long time: we must do, say and think what feminists want, and I totally disagree. What men and women should do is not what they are told to do but what they think it's the right thing for them. A.G
Inmy opinion, the housework should be shared by both men and women, but it wouldn't always have to be done at 50%. Nowadays many women and men work outside, and in general they don´t work the same number of hours. So, from my point of view, the more free time you have, the more housework you would have to do, no matter if you are a man or a woman. But we shouldn't forget that it should be always shared by both partners. As nobody works 24 hours per day, everybody has some free time to do it, and nobody enjoys doing the housework. JC.M.
In my opinion, men should do part of the housework but the amount depens on the couple's believes and their working conditions.For example, if both work outside, I think, the housework should be 50% for each one (in fact it isn't) The less time one works outside, the more housework this one should do. But personally I think that it is very important to reach an agreement about this with your partner, and that everyone should do what they like most. D.R.
Just for fun, watch these twovideos about some of the communicative differences between men and women.
Here you have some listening comprehension activities with multiple choice questions related to this topic.
Describing a picture can be something difficult if you don't have a model to follow.
Here I'm including some different pictures with a good description of them. You may find this very useful for the final exam. Click on the links and follow the instruction you will see on the webpage.
Let's put into practice what you have learnt. Look at the following picture. Please use adjectives to describe it. Think about the following questions: what do the men look like? what are they wearing? where are they standing? Use your imagination and write something on the comment seccion.
If you want to see what other people said about this picture, click here
Listening 1 (word dictation) Listening 2 (word dictation) Listening 3 Listening 4 (multiple choice questions to be answered while listening) Listening 5 (multiple choice questions to be answered while listening) Listening 6 (multiple choice questions to be answered after listening)
Dear students,
it.
