SATURDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2017

In English we make a difference between finished and unfinished time. When thinking of the past we must think about the time in which the action happened. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVXc3VjQ0VVVRZ0U/view?usp=sharing

When we talk about a past action in a past time, we use the past simple. When we talk about a past action in an unfinished time we use the presesnt perfect have / has + past participle.The uses of the present perfect are 
1. To talk about a past action in an unfinished time - I have drunk two coffees today
2. To speak about an experience at an unspecified time of the past - I have been to America
3. To speak about something that started in the past and continues now -I have lived in Italy for 8 years
4. To bring something from the past closer to the present because it is news, or because there is a consequence now.
You have cut your hair!
This is a good book for grammar, Units 7 + 8 and 13 + 14. - http://vk.com/doc8069473_202956457?hash=5ce925651868f7ad3c&dl=aa922cf229371819a9

Irregular verb forms can be hard to remember. You can try putting them in groups of verbs that change in the same way.

Try these worksheets

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVksxcWZ2aFRPYkk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslUGgxV0JnQXZkZnM/view?usp=sharing

or watch these videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zhFJlCAbGU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNaDvAYC0Jw

Then complete the questions on Page 3 on this document.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslS3N4cFl2N3VGRlk/view?usp=sharing

WEDNESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2017

Reading can be an excellent way to learn new words and review grammar in a natural context. However reading a book in the original version can be difficult. There are books, by famous authors or biographies or non fiction books written in simplified English so that they are not to difficult to understand. one publisher is Macmillan.

Here you can read sample chapters from their books before you decide what you want to buy.

http://www.macmillanreaders.com/resources/sample-chapters

For example here is the first chapter of Frankenstein

http://www.macmillanreaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Frankenstein.pdf

You can but the book with a CD on Amazon

http://www.amazon.it/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=macmillan+reader&tag=slhyin-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=24992154275&ref=pd_sl_1rlmfv3k54_b

Or you can sometimes find them online.

http://mggu-sh.ru/sites/default/files/frankenstein.pdf

I have some books in pdf format. Ask me if you are interested.

When talking about the past, as well as the past simple you can use the past continuous and the past perfect to add different levels to your story.

You can read about these tenses here

http://www.vivquarry.com/wkshts/narrative.html

and also on Page 121 of PET Result

There are some exercises on these tenses on Pages 21 and 51 of PET Result.

and try the exercises on narrative tenses here

http://www.eltbase.com/quiz/201_02.htm

Two ways to understand these tenses better are 
1) reading and
2) using them to talk about your life or experience

Think of  year in the past, for example, 2005, and answer these questions thinking about your situation at the time.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVE45VDRIaEk2a0U/view?usp=sharing

MONDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2017

Watching films is a great way of learning more informal English, that can include -

- contractions e.g. I'm, I'd

- phrasal verbs - get on, get off

- abbreviations - CDs,  ATM, ASAP

- informal phrases - catch you later!

- incomplete sentences - got the time?

For more examples of informal language, go to English Club

https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/contractions-informal.htm

In the above list, perhaps the most difficult are the phrasal verbs. These are verbs composed of one verbs and one preposition that can have literal or figurative meanings. It is impossible to learn them all, but you can start to understand them better by considering verbs that you can make matching a common verb with different prepositions

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/take-phrasal-verbs

Or by thinking of verbs to use in common situations

http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/your-english/phrasal-verbs/your-english-phrasal-verbs-in-the-news/551473.article

This is a great book for learning phrasal verbs

https://vk.com/doc177534154_437754297?hash=958f73f9bcc3b17fb3&dl=875b31c6888dbc1d77

SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017

When talking about the past, as well as the past simple you can use the past continuous and the past perfect to add different levels to your story.

You can read about these tenses here

http://www.vivquarry.com/wkshts/narrative.html

and also on Page 121 of PET Result

There are some exercises on these tenses on Pages 21 and 51 of PET Result.

and try the exercises on narrative tenses here

http://www.eltbase.com/quiz/201_02.htm

Two ways to understand these tenses better are 
1) reading and
2) using them to talk about your life or experience

Think of  year in the past, for example, 2005, and answer these questions thinking about your situation at the time.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVE45VDRIaEk2a0U/view?usp=sharing

FRIDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2017

Reading can be an excellent way to learn new words and review grammar in a natural context. However reading a book in the original version can be difficult. There are books, by famous authors or biographies or non fiction books written in simplified English so that they are not to difficult to understand. one publisher is Macmillan.

Here you can read sample chapters from their books before you decide what you want to buy.

http://www.macmillanreaders.com/resources/sample-chapters

For example here is the first chapter of Frankenstein

http://www.macmillanreaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Frankenstein.pdf

You can but the book with a CD on Amazon

http://www.amazon.it/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=macmillan+reader&tag=slhyin-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=24992154275&ref=pd_sl_1rlmfv3k54_b

Or you can sometimes find them online.

http://mggu-sh.ru/sites/default/files/frankenstein.pdf

I have some books in pdf format. Ask me if you are interested.

Reading these books we can learn about the past simple in English.

You can read about the past simple in PET Result page 121.

We also use 'used to' to talk about habits in the past.

Try the exercise on page 99 of PET Result.

MONDAY 13 NOVEMBER 

Each Cambridge exam has its own handbook

PET (B1) - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/168150-cambridge-english-preliminary-teachers-handbook.pdf
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/167804-cambridge-english-advanced-handbook.pdf

FCE - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/167791-cambridge-english-first-handbook.pdf
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/167804-cambridge-english-advanced-handbook.pdf

CAE - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/167804-cambridge-english-advanced-handbook.pdf
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/167804-cambridge-english-advanced-handbook.pdf

You can also find practice tests here

PET - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-tests/preliminary/preparation/

FCE - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-tests/first/preparation/

CAE - http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-tests/advanced/preparation/ 

You can find more practice tests here

https://www.examenglish.com/

https://www.flo-joe.co.uk/

There is a lot of speaking and listening practice on Youtube

Listening - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=first+certificate+listening

Speaking - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=first+certificate+speaking

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

SATURDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2017

We started with a general knowledge quiz.

see Unit 29 of this book

https://www.slideshare.net/beathetrix/236901188-rewardelementaryresourcebook

All the questions use comparatives and superlatives.

Today we learnt vocabulary for talking about films.

Watching films is a great way of learning more informal English, that can include -

- contractions e.g. I'm, I'd

- phrasal verbs - get on, get off

- abbreviations - CDs,  ATM, ASAP

- informal phrases - catch you later!

- incomplete sentences - got the time?

For more examples of informal language, go to English Club

https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/contractions-informal.htm

In the above list, perhaps the most difficult are the phrasal verbs. These are verbs composed of one verbs and one preposition that can have literal or figurative meanings. It is impossible to learn them all, but you can start to understand them better by considering verbs that you can make matching a common verb with different prepositions

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/take-phrasal-verbs

Or by thinking of verbs to use in common situations

http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/your-english/phrasal-verbs/your-english-phrasal-verbs-in-the-news/551473.article

This is a great book for learning phrasal verbs

https://vk.com/doc177534154_437754297?hash=958f73f9bcc3b17fb3&dl=875b31c6888dbc1d77

Try to describe a film you saw recently in the writing task on Page 43 of PET Result.

FRIDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2017

Today we talked about our progress so far.

When comparing methods use comparatives and superalatives.

Flo joe has some interesting exercises on this and other points of grammar.

http://www.flo-joe.com/preliminaryenglish/pet-grammar.htm

Here is a very clear explanation video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G096Jdl2XVo

On this site you can learning some more interesting adjectives

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/what-are-extreme-adjectives

https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/extreme-adjectives

https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/extreme-adjectives-0

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8 2017

To speak English more naturally, it is important to identify and copy phrases that mother tongue speakers use and copy those.

This applies to both written and spoken English.

You can find examples of formal language to use in writing on Page 30 of FCE Result.

To understand some of the characteristics of formal and informal language  see this video on Flo-joe.

https://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/formal-language.htm

This site has many interesting resources for exam preparation, including the writing section.

https://www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/index.htm

You can find more phrases for writing emails and letters, as well as Useful phrases for other situations, here.

https://www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/index.htm

Try the exercise on Page 31 of FCE Result.

MONDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2017

Breakingnewsenglish.com. is a website that everyday publishes an article about something in the news - current affairs, the environment, culture. There are many exercises that can help you learn new words and expressions and very useful to prepare for the PET and FCE exams.

You can find the article here

https://eslholidaylessons.com/11/guy_fawkes_night.html

Scroll down and look for the PHRASE MATCH that can help you to learn the new words in the article.

It is important to know many different ways of saying the same thing for the Cambride exams, because you need to paraphrase questions to find the answers easier.

Some words just naturally go together, like for example fast food, some verbs are followed by prepositions and the next exercise Phrase match can help you with that.

One exercise on the site, Language cloze, is typical in both the PET and the FCE exams.

There is a test with some gaps and you have to chose the right word to complete the phrase.

It is a good idea to follow this method.

1. First read the text and think what word you would use to fill the gap.

2. Read the options and choose the answer that correspons most to yours.

Practise more here

http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/vocabulary/pet-collocations.htm

In the article there are many examples of words that we usually put together - health and beauty, on behalf of, be in the planning stage.

These are known as collocations and identifying and using them can help you to sound more natural in English.

You can read about them here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIsleTE3ZDdtZXpzdGs/view?usp=sharing

And in the book English Collocations in use that you can easily find online in pdf version.

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 4 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

Try the listening exercise on Page 41 of PET Result.

FRIDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2017

Because English and Italian are very different languages, it can be useful to create a phrase book of useful phrases and words to use in everyday situations.

On this website there is also the translation in Italian and audio.

http://it.speaklanguages.com/inglese/frasi/

On this site you can find pdfs that will allow you to learn several words and phrases associated with everyday situations.

http://englishpower.jp/moodle/course/view.php?id=224

Here is a document about taking a taxi

https://is/file/d/0B4EN8MtjAE4dTGprMFBoNldQQ3M/view

Look at this situation related to train travel

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslTmYxbGNZUlo0NmM/view?usp=sharing

TUESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2017

Sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly what is happening.

We can use modal verbs to describe how certain we are about something.

 100% - must - He must be a thief

50% / 60% - could - The door could be broken

30/40% - may - The keys may be lost

10/20% - might - He might be a mechanic

0% - can't - He can't be the owner

What do you think is happening in this situation?

You can also use modal verbs to speculate about the past. In this case use the modal verb plus have plus past participle

See here for more examples

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslSGhRUGhfaWFWRGM/view?usp=sharing

and practise here

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/my-drive?ltmpl=drive

For more grammar exercises on modal verbs, see this book

https://fernandamaterial.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cambridge-grammar-for-first-certificate.pdf

MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017

A good way to learn new words is to practise describing a photo.

What can you see in the 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

When you describe  a picture, you can talk about facts ( The sky is blue ) or impressions ( It looks like summer (for more phrases with look ask me for a worksheet)).

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=12141

Here are some more ways of talking about your impressions and opinions:

- might    e.g It might be someone's birthday

- I think   e.g I don't think they're going on holiday

- perhaps / maybe   e.g Perhaps she's tired

- probably  e.g It's probably summertime

Ask me for worksheets.

Try these strategies to describe the photos on Page 27 of FCE Result.

SATURDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2017

In the episode of Extra English we saw yesterday Hector did some shopping and expressed quantities of the products he bought.

In English we have two different types of nouns, countable and uncountable. Countable nouns are obkects that can be clearly identified as a single unit and therefore counted, whereas uncountable, or mass nouns are things that are usually in mass and not easily seperated into individual units or that are abstract concepts.

Watch this powerpoint presentation

https://www.slideshare.net/inmadom/countable-and-uncountable-nouns-4008974

This is important because it changes the quantifier used.

Here there is a good presentation in Italian.

http://slideplayer.it/slide/1010697/

You can use this point of grammar in the reading test, try exercise 2 on Page 33.

FRIDAY 27 OCTOBER 2017.

We learnt some vocabulary regarding clothes on Page 35 of PET Result.

The we saw a PowerPoint with some related verbs

https://www.slideshare.net/inmadom/wear-put-on-and-dress

and completed the vocabulary excercise on Page 34.

Watching films in the origianl language can be a good way to learn everyday phrases. Try watching a film that you already know in Italian, or try watching with subtitles in Italian or better in English.

On Youtube you can find a series of 30 episodes, designed for people learning English - Extra English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a339H_aqXx0

You can also find episode summaries, written dialogues and workbooks to accompany the series.

http://www.channel4learning.com/sites/extra-english/english_teachersnotes.html

http://tobeclever.ru/download/1_episodes_1-15.pdf

WEDNESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2017

Continuing from yesterday, we saw that some verbs can be followed by the verb in the ing or gerund form with a difference of meaning. See pages 25 (exercise 2) and 197 (explanation).

We then watched a video about Redcliff Ascent Widnerness Therapy  and did the listening exercise on Page 26, remembering to predict and anticipate the words or phrases we might hear.

MONDAY 23 OCTOBER 2017

Today we talked about walking and staying in nature.

We started with a speaking exercise to discuss Useful things to talk with you whilst hiking or trekking.

This exercise corresponds to part of the PET and FCE Cambridge exams. Together with the other candidate you must discuss a situation and find the best solution.

Here you can find some useful phrases.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_B2HZ_bIslVjJkUk9GNmZhTFU/view?usp=sharing

Then we read a text about surviving in the Wilderness on Page 25 of FCE Result.

The text contains examples of different verb patterns.

An example of  a verb pattern is that some verbs can be followed by another verb in the ing form and other by the verb with to. Like do and make, it can be  a good idea to make lists but there is also a generla rule to guide us.

For a good explanation and many examples see here

http://www.myenglishpages.com/bac/Gerund-or-infinitive.pdf

Practise with the conversation questions here

https://www.eslconversationquestions.com/gerunds-and-infinitives/

Then try these exercises that come from Flo joe. com, a great resource for anyone wishing to do a Cambridge certification.

https://flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/strategy/transfrm/verbs.htm