I Wish ...

Week 20^th – 22^nd May

Hello, boys!  What’s the matter with you?

You let us down last week! Hadn’t been for Chus, I’d have been on my own the two classes!

I guess Eduardo will be snowed under (loaded) with work, studying for his exams. Good luck!

I haven’t heard from Gabi, but I expect us to see him this afternoon. Anyway, I hope his knee is better!

What did we do last week?

We corrected ‘Use of English’, test 2. I included the ‘key’ in the stack of copies I’m keeping for you!

But if you’d rather check the answers by yourselves, you can do it on this link

http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/tests/   Test 2

The sections of this test paper were headed as ‘Sound Advice for Language Learners’, ‘Pre-History’, 21^st Century Workplace’, and, of course the sections of ‘Gapped Sentences’ and ‘Key Word Transformations’

We revised the uses of the unreal past.

Sometimes the verb tense we use does not coincide with the time. Bear in mind that “tense” isn’t the same as “time”.

Time: present, past or future.

I wish I had Sue’s telephone number. So, I could tell her about the lecture.

“Had” is past simple tense but the time it refers to is present. It refers to a present situation.

·         When Bill and I got married, his attitude to money amused me.

·         If Bill got promoted, our standard of living would go up.

·         I wish we were better off.

·         I was so jealous when I heard about Carol’s weekend in New York.

·         I think it’s time we moved to a bigger house.

·         I’d rather my daughters married a man with money.

·         I wish I’d married my first boyfriend!

·         If I’d married Sean, I would have a better standard of living.

Tenses In bold red really correspond to past time.

Tenses in bold green, use the past but refer to present or future situations.

 Summing up

·         Use wish + past simple to refer to things we would like to be different in the present or the future (but which are impossible or unlikely)

If only I knew the answer!

I wish I knew the answer.

·         Wish + past perfect, to talk about things which happened and we now regret.

(Instead of ‘wish’ you can use ‘if only’ in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, ‘if only’ is more emphatic).

 If only you hadn’t forgotten the map, we’d be there by now!

I wish you hadn’t forgotten the map.

·         We use would rather + subject + past tense to express preference.

I’d rather you left your dog outside. I’m allergic.

We can use would rather+ infinitive without ‘to’ when there is no change of subject.

I’d rather not talk about it.

·         We use the past simple after it’s time + subject to say that something has to be done now or in the near future.

It’s time (high time) the government did something about unemployment.

We can use it’s time +to+infinitive when we don’t want to specify the subject.

It’s time to finish this.

And we finished the classes reading and speaking about the topic ‘I wish I had married for money, not for love!’

See you this evening!

Reduced Infinitives, Synonyms, The world of Work and a lot of Work!

Week 13^th -15^th May

Hi! It’s been ages!

There’s an old British adage that says “No news is good news”, but I prefer to hear from you rather than not having news!

We had very good news indeed last week. Gabi restarted the lessons and he told us that he had passed his First Certificate Test “With flying colours!” (Successfully; with good marks).Well, first goal, achieved! Now let’s focus on CAE!

On the other hand, there was a bit of an annoying fact, his knee. We expect you get better soon and thanks for coming, even though you came in crutches! Be patient.

What did we do in the last weeks?

We worked on a “Use of English” paper with the following headings:

“Phobias”, “Stress”, “Turn a hobby into a business” and of course, gapped sentences and word transformations.

You can do this test again online if you wish to practise.

            http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/tests/   Test 1

We tried to widen our vocabulary with synonyms or near synonyms expanding our thesaurus (a dictionary of synonyms). Can you think of synonyms of faith, skilled, persuade, to lie, tactics, carefully, annoying, very important, dangerous, scared?

Remember:

·         Little girls giggle when they think something is funny, with their hands in front of their mouths.

·         Little boys snigger, laugh unpleasantly, when they are laughing at someone who has done something they think is stupid.

·         To chuckle is a nice way of laughter.

·         You burst out laughing when you suddenly laugh very loudly.

·         When you laugh so much that it starts to hurt, you are in stitches.

And also:

·           If you really hate something, you loathe it or detest it.

·           Abhor is quite formal.

·           When you despise someone, you dislike them strongly because you have absolutely no respect for them.

Reduced infinitives.         

Don’t forget to use reduced infinitives so as to avoid repetition:

·         “Haven’t you done the washing up yet?” “No, I’m just going to.”

·         “Are you coming for a walk?” “No, I don’t want to.”

“To be” is not reduced to “to”.

·         She’s less moody than she used to be. She’s less moody than she used to.

·         I wasn’t as impressed as I expected to be. I wasn’t as impressed as I expected to

We also learnt vocabulary related to the world of work.

A challenging job tests your abilities and keeps you motivated. It can also be stressful at times; especially if you have to meet deadlines and you feel under pressure. On the other hand, a monotonous, repetitive, dull, tedious job isn’t rewarding at all. You just feel bored! There are highly demanding (they require a big effort) jobs that take up most of your time and don’t allow you to have a work-life balance and that ends up in working overtime and not seeing your family.

We went through the list of questions related to job interviews, ‘Building your answers’

They are split into several sections: motivation, interpersonal skills, decision-making and creative or practical?

We did an exercise that consisted of finding a suitable job for the possible candidate. Each student had a list of three or four jobs. They had to make questions related to skills, abilities or experience that matched the requirements of those jobs. After the job interview, they had to offer the job which better fitted the candidate’s skills.

           

It seems that Gabi is going to start working as a conference organizer, although he isn’t  very organised. (A white lie at the interview!)

And Chus will be a shop manager. She seems to be better organised!

We ended the week listening to a poem called ‘Hints on English Pronunciation’

It just was an excuse to practise the pronunciation of the group “ought”

Do you remember how to pronounce tough, bought, cough, dough, thorough, plough, enough, through?

I’ll check it this evening! See you!

Use of English, Reading, Use of English and Books!

Week 22^nd - 29^th April

We are working basically on “Use of English”, which seems to be the part of the test you feel more worried about.

So, we did exercises under these headings: “Getting to the Root of Bonsai Crime”, “Lost Luggage”, “Jogging”, “Opera Review”, “Crime Prevention Leaflet” and “Waste Not…”

We also did another “Use of English” and a “Reading”.

We reviewed modal verbs and expressions.

We’ve gone through the different uses of Modal verbs. Here’s the summary:

+	-	Modals of probability ( present and future)
Will	won’t	They express what we strongly believe to be true about the present. Based on our knowledge of people and things: routine, character etc.	Is that the phone? It’ll be John. He said he’d ring around now.
Must	can’t	Must is used to express what we infer or conclude to be the most logical or rational interpretation of events. (less certain that “will”) / “can’t” is the negative of must.	- Look over there! That must be Jon’s new car. - She can’t have a ten-year-old daughter! She’s only 25!
Should	shouldn’t	It expresses what may reasonably be expected to happen; also that we want that whatever is predicted to happen.	- Our guests should be here soon. (If they haven’t got lost) - This homework shouldn’t take you long.
May	may not	It expresses the possibility that sth will happen or is already happening.	- We may go to Greece for our holidays. We haven’t decided yet. - We may not have enough money to go abroad this year.
Might	might not	It expresses possibility bur in a more tentative way.	- It might rain, but I doubt it. - I might not be back in time for supper, so don’t wait for me.
Could	might not	is used in a similar way to “might”	- It could rain, but I doubt it. - It looks like it could rain, but it might not.
*The negative “couldn’t” has a similar meaning to “can’t,” only slightly weaker. She couldn’t have a ten-year-old daughter! She’s only 25!
Can		We use it to express what it is generally and all-time true. It cannot be used to predict future possibility.(Will be possible or will be able to)	Cycling in town can be dangerous.
Modal  auxiliaries in the past
All the modal verbs given above are also used with have + past participle to express different degrees of certainty about the past.

·         You met a man with a moustache? That would have been my uncle tom.

·         It won’t have been Peter you met at the party. He wasn’t invited.

·         It must have been Simon. He looks like Peter.

·         It can’t have been a very interesting party. No one seems to have enjoyed it.

·         Where’s Henry? He should have been here ages ago!

·         He might have decided not to come. He could have had an accident.

·         He can hardly have forgotten to come.

·         “Can have” is only used in questions or with “hardly, only or never”.

·         Where can he have got to go?

·         They can only have known each other for a few weeks.

Remember:

·         You’d better (had better) go with them or they’ll get lost. You should go with them or they’ll get lost. You ought to go with them or they’ll get lost.

·         I’d rather (would rather) go by train. It’s cheaper. I’d prefer to go by train. It’s cheaper. BUT I’d rather you cooked. (When you want sb to do sth and you use “would rather” you have to use the verb in the past).

·         He wasn’t used to driving on the left but he got used to driving on the left while he was living in the U.K. (to be used to/ get used to +-ing)

·         When we were children, we used to go to the village every weekend. (used to + infinitive. Repeated actions or states in the past)

We revised the use of “in, at, on” for place.

·         He lives in the south of England. BUT He lives on the south coast of England.

·         I’m sitting on a chair. BUT I’m sitting in an armchair.

·         Write your name at the top / bottom of the photocopy. BUT Write your name on the front /back of the photocopy.

·         Children have to sit in the back of the car; not in the front.

·         We could see the performance perfectly because we had seats at the front of the hall. BUT in the front row.

And we had some time to talk about books.

·         Which book did you find heavy- going?

·         Do you like reading thought-provoking books?

·         I don’t like fantasy books because their characters are implausible.

·         I absolutely adore thrillers because they are intriguing, gripping and usually fast-moving.

·         “The Hunger Games” trilogy is said to be directed to teenagers but I find it gripping and thought-provoking.

·         Is there a book you haven’t been able to put down?

Well, guess what we are going to do this week… ‘Use of English’! and something else…

Money, Money

Week 8^th – 10^th April

Easter is over.

I hope you had time for relaxing and also for doing your homework!

I heard from Gabi and he was glad with his exam. He was optimistic about it, so I think he must have passed.

Do you remember what we did in the week before Easter holidays?

We corrected a “Use of English” paper from a sample test. “Dinosaur Discoveries”, “The Best Books”, “Volunteer Project in Lesotho”, homonyms and rewriting.

As promised, we practised the “speaking” part for the FCE test.

 We talked about money.

Rich, affluent, loaded, wealthy and well-off are synonyms.

·         Which one is rather formal?

·         Which one is very informal?

·         Which one is often used in negative sentences?

Poor, hard up, penniless, broke are also synonyms.

·         Which one is informal?

·         Which one is informal but not used before a noun?

·         Which one is rather literary?

We also learnt some idioms related to money.

·         Do people nowadays find difficult to make ends meet?

·         Have you ever been in the red?

·         Is anybody in your family tight-fisted?

·         Do you know anybody who spends money like water?

·         Politicians think that citizens lived beyond their means and that was the beginning of their economic difficulties.

And we finished with a listening.

We listened to an interview with the vice president of Women’s World Banking.

She talked about how that bank lends money to women in developing countries as a means of making them more independent. In this way, women can also help in the household economy.

She gave three examples of how their bank helped three women in the DR (Dominican Republic), India and Jordan.

Would you like to listen to some songs related to money?

 Here's a link:

 Top 10 Money Songs

Adverb Collocations and Phrasal Verbs

We talked about and listened to sounds and noises.

• Which noise annoys you the most?
• The crunch of people eating crisps?
• The “hold” music on the telephone?
• People tapping the keyboard of their computer?
• The hum of the air conditioning?
• People slurping tea or coffee?

We practised pronunciation of consonant clusters. That is, the combination of two or more consonant sounds. E.g. screech, scream, mumbled etc.

We checked an exercise on adverb collocations and we did other exercises on the same subject and also, adverbs with two forms.

·         I desperately need a holiday!

·         I hate cold climates. I’m sorely tempted to emigrate somewhere warm.

·         Two people escaped unhurt the accident, but unfortunately the third passenger was fatally injured and died on the way to hospital.

·         Bad weather has severely affected the roads this weekend. Driving conditions are treacherous.(dangerous)

·         I work with a highly motivated sales team.

·         The remake of the film is eagerly awaited.

·         She gazed longingly (expectantly, wishfully) through the window, waiting for his return.

·         He deliberately broke (on purpose) the vase her mother in law had giving her for her birthday.

·         He worked conscientiously (with attention to detail, carefully) so as to pass his exams.

·         He apologized profusely (repetitively) when she realized the mistake she had made.

Adverbs with two forms.

·         Manchester won the match easily.

·         Relax! Take it easy!

·         “Can you lend me some money?” Sure! (of course)

·         Surely (tell me I’m right) you can see that your plan just wouldn’t know.

·         She has travelled widely (extensively) in Europe and Asia.

·         When I got home, the door was wide opened.

We carried on with noises, sounds and the human voice.

We did a listening comprehension trying to identify different noises and making up stories or just writing sentences including the “noise” words.

·         We heard a clock ticking, a man snoring, a mosquito buzzing…the man groaned, “Oh, no!” and he banged the mosquito.

·         We could hear street noise, a woman yelling “He’s got my bag”,a door slamming, a car driving off ,cars hooting, the screech of brakes and… a car crash!

·         …the wind was whistling, an owl was hooting, a man and a woman were whispering, we could hear a creaking door opening and the woman screaming…

As you were a bit fed up of noise, we also did a Reading paper.

·         How useful is the term “Non-verbal expression”?

·         Public speaking.

·         Iowa State University: Business and Technical Communication.

·         Chocolate cake wars.

·         Fake art meets real money.

·         Offshore vestments.

And  we finished the week with a speaking game on phrasal verbs.

·         I remember a job opportunity I turned down (rejected). I shouldn’t have.

·         Most teenagers never get round to (find the time to) tidying their rooms.

·         Have you ever nodded off (fall sleep for a little while) in English class?

·         Living in an English speaking country is a good way to brush up (improve, make better) your English.

·         Who usually washes up in your home? Who tidies up? Who messes it up?

·         Do you throw away (discard, put into the rubbish) old clothes, books, etc. or do you hang on to them (keep)?

We’ll continue this evening. We’ll practise speaking for Gabi’s sake!

Gabi, take it easy! Don’t feel stressed out by tomorrow’s test, calm down (relax)

We’ll be supporting you!

Good Luck! You’re going to pass!