Thursday, 27 January 2011

We had a look at Norwegian Wood and listed all the verbs in the lyrics with their infinitive and both past tenses. We then continued with unit 15a to practice talking about the past with memories and comparing then and now.
Next week we will list all verbs of the appropriately named Yesterday.

Thursday, 20 January 2011

We ended up spending the entire session on our autobiographies which turned out to be very educational. We revised sentence order, how to say dates and, of course, the simple past tense of regular and irregular verbs. For next week, listen and read along to Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, write down all the past tense verbs you can find in the lyrics and then add the basic verb (the infinitive) and, if you feel like it, the present perfect.

For example: I once had a girl
have had had

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Once again we started our session, the first session of 2011, with updates about the group members. What did you do during the last three weeks? Did you do anything special for X-mas or for New Year's Eve? How did you celebrate? Did you go away during the holidays?
Do you have any New Year's Reolutions? Do you believe in New Year's Resolutions?
I handed out the vocabulary list for unit 14 you can also find here. You can find information on how to import this, and the other lists, to your own wrts account so you can practice your vocabulary with it in my blog entry of 2 December 2010. We finished the unit by having a look at the self-study section and we then moved on to the penultimate unit of our book, unit 15, which deals with The Past.

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Our last session before Christmas and our ninth of this winter. Time flies when you are having fun. How was 2010 for you. What was the best that happened for you? What happened that you would rather forget? After this looking back at the year that was, we continued in our book with unit 14b on art and finished it. I have added the vocabulary list to unit 14 here and I will also hand out a printed version of it after the Xmas holidays. We finished with reading the text Controversy over Czech EU art together and we talked a bit more about what is art and what isn't.

Hope you will all have a wonderful Christmas and may the new year bring you nothing but joy, good health and happiness!

Thursday, 16 december 2010

We started with having a look at the text, Rollover Accident, I handed out last week and we talked about past experiences in driving and traffic accidents. We continued talking in the past tense discussing things that happened to us in the past week or month.
We then returned to our book to work on talking about favourite pastimes and what you consider to be art.
I ended the session by handing out a text about a controversy concerning an art work. You can read and listen to the text and vocabulary here. With this article, Controversy over Czech EU art, came a homework excercise. Next week we'll discuss what you think is art and what is not.

Thursday, 9 December 2010

How was your week? Did Sinterklaas bring you presents? Any other news you would like to share?
We finished unit 13 by having a look at the self study section which you prepared at home. We could then start unit 14 about Entertainment and Art. What do you like doing in your spare time? What do you enjoy?
We ended our session with reading Who's to blame, a poem about the difficulties and inconsistencies of the English spelling. More of those can be found at the site of The English Spelling Society

Thursday, 2 December 2010

Snow in abundance on this second day of December. We talked about the weather and the problems it causes in everyday life. Does it affect you? Do you enjoy it? We also discussed Sinterklaas. Will you be celebrating it? If so, how do you celebrate?
I handed out the vocabulary lists to unit 13 City Life. It can also be found here. You can import this list, and the other Let's Talk vocabulary lists I created, to your own account at wrts. Once imported you can add your own words and use the 'extra' option to listen to the correct pronunciation. How to import lists to you own account can be seen here.
To end our session we discussed the two texts I handed out last week and we prepared our homework for next week.