myskypeenglishteacher: October 2017

Thursday, 26 October 2017

SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017

Today we spoke about education and learning, including some strategies for learning and developing your vocabulary and did some exam practice.

Formal learning after school is known as Adult Education. Are you studying anything in your free time?

We looked at different courses with the Lead in exercises on Page 24. This task is similar to the interactive task in the Cambridge Speaking exams. You can find more examples in the Cambridge handbooks that explain each part of the exam in detail

for Preliminary

http://www.liceocrespi.it/Inglese/pet%20handbook.pdf

or First

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/cambridge-english-first-handbook-2015.pdf

We also tried the reading exercises.
Thinking about synonyms, or paraphrasing, are also very important in the Cambridge exams and are a good way to expand your vocabulary.

http://esl.about.com/od/learningtechniques/a/Synonyms-Antonyms-ESL.htm

FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017

There are couples or sets of words that we usually put together like 'fast food' or 'science fiction'. Knowing these can help you to sound more natural in English.

For more information see here

Collocations | EnglishClub

Here, on Page 2, we first looked at some common verbs in English

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslU05uVWVXc0tSSkE/view?usp=sharing

Then we put these verbs together with certain nouns, on page 3.

We looked at these verb - noun collocations in the text 'My working day' on Page 5.

Then we looked at adverbs of frequency using the exercises on page 26 of PET Result.

For more practise with adverbs of frequency, see here

https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/adjectives_adverbs/adverbs_of_frequency.htm

Thursday, 19 October 2017

WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2017

Today we read about twins on Page 10 of FCE Result.

You can find useful vocabulary for speaking about life, from birth to death on this website

https://www.learnenglish.de/vocabulary/lifeanddeath.html

Ask me for a worksheet to help you think about your own childhood by answering questions.

MONDAY 16 OCTOBER 2017

Today we did the listening exercise on Page 14 of FCE Result.

As we said last week, before listening you can prepare for whatt you might here by thinking of paraphrases for the words in the questions, or rather different ways of saying the same thing.

Look at these phrases from the questions and the answers in the audio

According to some scientists there is still a lot of disagreement

may exist within 30 years perhaps less than 30 years away

they are beginning to understand scientists are coming to understand why our bodies
why and how our bodies change deteriorate with age

overcrowded too many people

Learning synonyms is great way to increase your vocabulary.
Try the exercises on Page 16.

We then tried another paraphrasing activity all together.
Be careful, these are difficult! (Page 5)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslbFhvRkZ1eU9vbVk/view?usp=sharing

SATURDAY 14 OCTOBER 2017

We learnt some words for talking about education on Page 28 of PET Result.
You can put the words into different sub categories as we did before with the holidays and travel words.
A good way to learn new words is to practise describing a photo.

When describing a photo you can think of different elements.

You can find them here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIsleU15QlFXakhKSFE/view?usp=sharing

To learn how to talk about position in a photograph see this document, pages 3 and 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslMUNSTUZkc2lwcms/view?usp=sharing

For more information on how to describe a photo see PET Result Page 28, Speaking exercises 1 to 3.

You describe what the people are wearing, what they are holding and what they are doing. You can use the present continuous., formed by

am/is/are (not) + verb + ing

The students are doing research.
One boy is raising his hand.

We can also use the present continuous to talk about tendencies in society, when things increase, decrease or stay the same.

See here for more examples.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslZllEaXhZWDR5bzQ/view?usp=sharing

Use these pictures to describe other trends in society.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslTno2RlJPcXQ5VFk/view?usp=sharing

FRIDAY 13 OCTOBER 2017

We started talking about holidays and travel

Which ways of travelling do you use most often?
When do you use them?
Which forms of transport have you never used?
Which would you like to try?
Where you do you prefer to stay on holiday?
What do you enjoy doing?
Tell your partner about somewhere in your country that is popular with tourists.

Listening can be the most difficult skill. It is important to practice as much as possible.

A great website to help you with this is listenaminute.com

On this website you can find 500 small texts in conversational English. These texts can help you to improve your pronunciation and identify common words and phrases that mother tongue natives use. Learning and copying these can both help you to sound more natural in English.

In the lesson we looked at one the texts about travelling.

http://www.listenaminute.com/t/travelling.html

Here you can the worksheets we used.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslTGNaUVpfUEttTWM/view?usp=sharing

In the text we looked at you can find many verbs expressing likes and dislikes.

See here for more

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/communication-lesson-likes-dislikes.php

You can also mark the text to remember some important aspects of pronunciation, in particular word stress. For more information on this see

https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/

You can also try the dictation exercises here

https://www.englishclub.com/listening/dictations-short.htm

WEDNESDAY 11 OCTOBER 2017

We started discussing the advantages and disadvantages of modern technology and took the technophile, technophobe quiz on 129 of FCE Result.

The quiz contains examples of conditional structures. In English we have 4 types of conditional from 0 to 3.

0 - always true in a condition situation or condition
When you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils
When I eat nuts, I am sick
if / when + present simple, present simple

Try the quiz here

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/0cond1.htm

1 - real possibilties or alternatives for the future

If the weather is good on Saturday, I will go to the sea

If + present simple, will + future

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/1cond1.htm

2 - imaginary or not very likely situation in the present or future

If I won a million euros, I would travel

If + past simple, would + base form of verb

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/2cond1.htm

3 - alternative for the past

If I had known you were sick, I would have visited you

If + had + past participle, would + have + past participle

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/3cond1.htm

In all cases it is possible to invert the order of the phrases, so start with the condition and then the consequence, or the consequence and then the condition

PHRASES SEPARATED BY COMMA NO COMMA
When I eat nuts, I am sick I am sick if I eat nuts
If I won a million euros, I would travel I would travel if I won a million euros
If I had known you were sick, I would have I would have visited you if I had known you were sick
visited you

In the 0, 1st, 2nd, 3rd conditionals, you can substitute will with may, might, can, and would with might, could or should to express different degrees of certainty.

will / would = 100% certain
can / could = 50 / 60%
may / might = 20/30%

Unreal conditionals (types II + III) sometimes can be mixed, that is, the time of the if clause is different from the one of the main clause.

Read more about conditionals on Page 174 of FCE Result. There are also exercises on Page 133.

Wednesday, 18 October 2017

MONDAY 9 OCTOBER 2017

When we talk about future plans we use different forms.

You can read about these here

http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/future_forms.htm

and click on the link for the quiz.

Look at these questions about future forms.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslM2xEYVZjMXFlaUU/view?usp=sharing

There is an explanation of talking about the future on P165 of FCE Result and some exercises on pages 12 and 13.

There are two other tenses for talking about the future which are the future continuous and the future perfect. You can read about these here.

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/futurecontinuous.html

In this grammar book you can find a good exercise that makes the difference between the tenses clear.
Unit 24 exercise 24.1

https://vk.com/doc8069473_207129479?hash=94cd970d0d980ac461&dl=5a539c9622c51a9bc2

Thursday, 12 October 2017

SATURDAY 7 OCTOBER 2017

How do you learn new words?

To improve your English it is important to learn new words. To remember new words it is important to be organised. Putting words into categories according to subject or word type can help you to find the words again, and memorize them through word association.

Try to put these words into categories and then add more words to each category.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIsleURIQlM2SUI0SG8/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslWVBYbzZkRlpGRW8/view?usp=sharing

You can do this in a list form or in a more visual way, like the example with travel we saw yesterday

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslazd5c1ZFX0pTN0k/view?usp=sharing

In the first chapter of the book, PET Result, you can learn some vocabulary about Holidays and Travel.

There are lists of vocabulary in categories from Page 113.

For the PET exam there is are lists of vocabulary that you should know. You can find them here.

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/84669-vocabulary-list.pdf

For FCE and other exams, there is no list, but the following books can help you to increase your vocabulary in some common areas.

PET - https://ymerleksi.wikispaces.com/file/view/Check+your+vocab+for+PET+Book.pdf

FCE - http://vk.com/doc243798239_300780464

CAE - http://www.e4thai.com/e4e/images/pdf/Test%20Your...Vocabulary%204%20(Upper-Inter%20to%20CAE)%20-%2049p.pdf

IELTS - http://www.ycdc.gov.mm/download.php?pdffile=ebook-13

Here you can find a vocabulary list per CEFR level.

http://www.englishprofile.org/wordlists

Friday, 6 October 2017

FRIDAY 6 OCTOBER 2017

To start we looked at some expressions that you can learn by heart to use automatically when we meet for our lessons

Try to match the questions to the answers

1. Good afternoon
2. Sorry I'm late
3. I'm...
4. Come in
5..Have seat
6. Thank you
7. How are you?
8. Goodbye
9. See you later
10. Have a good evening

A. See you
B. Don't worry
C. Thank you
D. You're welcome
E. You too
F. Nice to meet you
G. I'm fine thanks
H. Thank you
I. Good afternoon
J. Bye

But that is the easy part. After that you need to continue the conversation. A good way to do that is to ask questions on personal information. The exercises here can help you learn some important words and questions.

https://sirteachenglish.wikispaces.com/file/view/M01_LPD_WKS_GLB_5650_PDA.pdf

You may have to spell or ask for the spelling of some words. To do this you can use the police or international alphabet.

http://www.englishgratis.com/1/risorse/corsodibase/0-scheda-spellingtelefono.htm

Here are some common acronyms

http://reallifeglobal.com/acronyms/

Can you spell them?

Here are some tips for reading website and email addresses

http://www.londonschool.com/language-talk/language-tips/signs-and-symbols/

WEDNESDAY 4 OCTOBER 2017

Before an important meeting or conversation, we can imagine what type of words or phrases we will hear, for example if you have an interview you can think about the questions the interviewer can ask you and you can prepare some answers. You can use the same skill for English.

Here you can read some information about how PREDICTION can help you to understand better.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslV0lLLW1nQnVQTWc/view?usp=sharing

You can try out this skill on listenaminue.com. On this website you can find 500 small texts in conversational English. These texts can help you to improve your pronunciation and identify common words and phrases that mother tongue natives use. Learning and copying these can both help you to sound more natural in English.

http://www.listenaminute.com/a/autumn.html

Before trying the listening gap fill exercise you can guess which words may be missing from the text based on your knowledge of the situation or of grammar and vocabulary.

Then compare your answers with the tape script. You will understand that it is not always neccesary to understand all the words to understand the general sense.

You can also mark the text to remember some important aspects of pronunciation, in particular word stress. For more information on this see

https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/

Listening is very difficult. On English club you can find many dictation exercises that start from short phrases and questions. These can help you to understand the difference between how words are pronounced and how they are written.

https://www.englishclub.com/listening/dictations-short.htm

MONDAY 2 OCTOBER 2017

A good way to continue a conversation is to ask questions.

We practised asking questions with the following worksheet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslWHJ0ekJYcWVZXzA/view?usp=sharing

Answering familiar questions are the part of the Cambridge speaking tests.

Revise the grammar in this grammar book, Units 2 + 7

http://ilsclasses.com/Essential%20Grammar%20in%20Use.pdf

SATURDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2017

Italian and English are two very different languages, so is a good idea to recognise phrases that mother tongue people use in certain situations and copy them, just like children do. This is the best way to sound natural and avoid translation.

Look here for some useful phrases. Match the 'questions' on the left with the 'answers' on the right.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVFdHaGVMbGU2cEk/view?usp=sharing

To learn more phrases to use when you meet someone for the first time see here

Greetings power point - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslamZwNkx2MGhoVDA/edit?usp=sharing

Greetings worksheet - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslR0d4WDd4TW1JZlk/edit?usp=sharing

Here you can listen to some phrases - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslbnJJQTI4VXAxWTg/edit?usp=sharing