The Last Blog of the Course 2013-2014

End of course blog!

Hi! This is my last blog for this course.

I am on holiday at last! But I haven’t been away yet. I’m just enjoying getting up late, meeting friends, not going to work and socializing!

Some of you will be back from your school trips now but you still have the whole summer in front of you. You may go to the beach, to your villages or your friends’ villages, to a summer camp … wherever you go, have fun, relax, enjoy and make lots of new friends. Study a little, if you have to, and write something in English so as to let me know how your summer is going.

I am sure Óscar and Pilar will have had lots of fun at Port Aventura. I also think that Alejandro will have enjoyed his tour of Italy. I’m sorry I couldn’t say ‘good-bye’ to Óscar because he didn’t come to class before the school trip.

I want to thank Andrea for coming to class on the last day; otherwise I would have been alone! Although David and Jorge told me they were coming! I saw Jorge in the morning, he did come to see our plays but I guess he got bored and decided he needed a holiday! As for David, congratulations – again- in passing your Trinity exam and the rest of your exams, which I’m sure you did.

 To all of you, it was a pleasure teaching you this course. I hope to have a group as nice as you next year!

Enjoy your summer!

On Thursday 26^th, we saw a film called ‘O Brother’

 It’s a comedy based on the Odyssey by Homer, the Greek author. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson. The story is about three prisoners who run away from prison. They escape persuaded by Everett Ulysses (Clooney), who tells them about a treasure. They run towards freedom and in search of the buried treasure, living the adventure of their lives!

 'O Brother' Trailer

Finally, here you have a summary of what we did in the last term of our course.This is what you learnt in 3^rd term: 

VOCABULARY
Numbers	Dates, years, centuries, fractions, currency, money, decimals, percentages.
Sports
Names	Places	Equipment		Verb	Sport			People
Badminton Ice- hockey, Figure skating Golf Boxing Fencing Football	Court Ice rink Golf course Boxing ring Gymnasium Pitch / field	Rackets, shuttle Sticks, puck Clubs, ball Gloves, helmet Mask, sword Ball, sheen pads		go		Swimming climbing		Swimmer climber
				do		Boxing Athletics Fencing karate		boxer athlete fencer
				play		Tennis Football Golf		Tennis player umpire Football player referee footballer Golfer, caddy
Other sport verbs	Kick, throw, hit, dive, shoot, dribble
Food	people		weather				Towns / cities
Delicious, spicy, bland, healthy, delicious.	Welcoming, helpful, relaxed, reserved, healthy, dangerous		Wet, freezing, changeable, windy				Polluted, crowded, touristy, welcoming cosmopolitan, industrial, dangerous
Adverbs (frequency)			Adverbs (manner)
Never, occasionally, sometimes, often, usually, always			Badly, fast, hard, regularly
Clothes (nouns)			Clothes (adjectives)
Combats, hoodie, sweatshirt, cardigan, flat shoes, wellies, apron, waistcoat, robe.			Long, short, baggy, loose, tight, flowery, spotty, plain, striped, checked.
The Mousetrap			Scotland
Guest house, snowbound, stranded, killed, foster, abuse, stash, settle			Scotch, kilt, tartan, bagpipes, Scot, Scottish, Gaelic, tartan, Edinburg festival

GRAMMAR
ZERO CONDITIONAL
If + present simple                  Present simple (for facts –Real conditional)
If you press the white button, the light goes on.	If it rains, her mother gives them a lift to school. If it doesn’t rain, they walk.
FIRST CONDITIONAL
If + present simple                  Future ( possible conditional)                              Will /won’t + infinitive
If you wait until the sales, you won’t find your size.	If you buy your team’s shirt, you’ll get a cap for free.

SECOND CONDITIONAL
If + past simple                        would /wouldn’t + infinitive
Would you go on a spending spree if you won a lot of money? Or would you save it?	If a stranger offered buying me a drink, I’d refuse.

MODAL VERBS
Obligation / Must / have to/
In tennis you must hit the ball over the net.	You have to kick the ball with your feet, in football.		The referee has to show a card if there’s a foul.
Necessity / don’t have to / don’t need to / needn’t
You don’t have to buy the tickets on the net.	He doesn’t have to wear a mask to do boxing.		Children under four don’t need to pay to see the match. Children under four needn’t pay to see the match.
PASSIVE VOICE
New York was called New Amsterdam until 1800.	The first Levi jeans were worn by miners		The rooms are cleaned daily.
DIRECT SPEECH		REPORTED SPEECH
“Your nose is cold” he said to her.		He said that her nose was cold.
“Have you been out?” he asked her.		He asked if she had been out.
“What did you buy?” he asked her.		He asked her what she had bought.

SPEAKING

Expressing preferences

Expressing necessity and obligation

Expressing purpose

Expressing frequency

Describing what people wear

YOU CAN TALK ABOUT
SPORT: ‘A sport I enjoy’	FASHION: ‘What is fashion?’
·         What it is and reasons why I enjoy it. ·         How I started to play this sport. ·         Differences between playing and watching. ·         The equipment I need and its purpose. ·         How good I am at this sport. ·         What I hope to do in the future.	·         Who influences what we buy? ·         How fashion changes. ·         What the best / worst fashions have been. ·         A description of the latest fashions. ·         Which fashion designers are best, and why? ·         Why designer clothes are so expensive (and, are they worth the money?)

Passives Quiz, What if...? and a Song!

Thursday 12^th

Hi everybody!

Well, I guess Pilar, Óscar and Alejandro will be already enjoying their end of course trips in Potaventura and Italy, respectively. I couldn’t say goodbye to Óscar because he didn’t come to our last class, but I hope you to have lots of fun. I did say bye to Pilar and Alejandro.

Due to their trips we couldn’t perform our play, which is a pity because all of you seemed quite enthusiastic while we were writing the script. Remember that we have class on Thursday 26^th; and remember that we agreed on seeing a movie. I’ve thought of a comedy. A detective comedy, as we had thought about detectives for our show.

As Jorge, David and Óscar didn’t come to our last class, I’ll tell you what we did. By the way, congratulations to David on passing his Trinity exam. Well done!

In our last class, we unscrambled groups of cards and we asked and answered the questions on them.

This served us to revise the zero conditional, which is the one we use to talk about facts or events. It’s the real conditional.

We learnt what you do if …:

·         If a waiter forgets to put some expensive drinks on your  bill, you remind him / her to add them to the bill. (Or at least, that’s what you told me! And I trust (confide) you! You look (seems to be) honest.

·         If a shop assistant mistakenly gives you too much change, you keep it. Where’s your honesty now?

·         If people push into a queue in front of Andrea, she sends them to the back of the queue.(Sensible behaviour! People should learn to wait their turn!)

·         If a friend asks Pilar to borrow some money to buy a lottery ticket, she asks him/her to share with her. (That’s a right thing to do! You never know where luck lies!)

Real situation : If + present------------------------  present  (Zero Conditional)

Then, we did a quiz to revise the passive voice.

Did you know that …:

…until 1800 New York was called New Amsterdam?

…chess was invented by the Chinese?

…the Italian flag was designed by Napoleon?

….the first Levi jeans were worn by miners?

…the Indiana Jones films were directed by Steven Spielberg?

Some facts you knew, others, you didn’t!

And after talking about holidays, clothes and frequency, we listened to the song “Sk8ter Boi” by Avril Lavigne.

Sk8ter Boi

And our last points went for:

GAME 9                                              

Player 1	10
Player 2	---
Player 3	7
Player 4	12
Player 5	---
Player 6	---
Player 7	---

See you on Thursday!