NB 1 - OF HOUSES AND FURNITURE: THERE IS/ARE - THERE WAS/WERE

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Unit 8 of our book deals with the vocabulary of the house, and its rooms and furniture. Why don't you take some time to have a look at this? You will surely find it useful.

First of all, we need to practise THERE IS/ARE a little bit, don't we?

• Grammar of THERE IS/ARE
• Practice 1
• Practice 2
• Practice 3

Now read the description a 10-year old English boy makes of his house:





1. The kitchen
2. The living room
3. The bathroom
4. The bedroom
5. The garden

Why don't you visit our VIRTUAL HOUSE ?

We also talked about haunted houses. A haunted house is a place inhabited, visited or appeared to by a ghost or other supernatural being. We used this as an excuse to refresh our knowledge of prepositions of  place and there was / were. 

• THERE WAS / WERE: exercises
• Prepositions of place: see photo below.

Enjoy!!

NB 2 - Have you ever heard of something called the PRESENT PERFECT?

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Are you, by any chance, studying the PRESENT PERFECT in class? Are you a bit lost? Would you like some extra help?

You've come to the right place!!

Click here for some theory and exercises on the present perfect tense. Here you will find an explanation of the formation and the different uses of this tense.

In class, we faced a dilemma when talking about past participles: GONE or BEEN? Click on each word below to get a brief explanation on when to use one or the other, together with some exercises to practise:

GONE & BEEN

Did you know that you can practise your English with a soap opera? Yes, you have read well, a soap opera, The Flatmates. Click on the picture to meet them.

Now that you know them, listen to episode 18: EMERGENCY. Thanks to The Flatmates you can:

• Listen to the episode with or without the text
• Download this or any episode in your computer
  Check the language point of the episode for more info (in this case, on the present perfect)
• Take the quiz.

Now listen to some present perfect. We are the champions, by Queen. A classic!!

Enjoy!!

NB - Learn English through stories

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Here I am to present you something I'm sure you're going to love. It is a great resource to practise your listening comprehension skills through stories, thanks to Youtube. 

Thanks to Charo, a student of NB2, who showed this to me!!

Here you have an example. Enjoy!!

This resource will be permanently linked to the sidebar, under the heading 'LISTENING WEBSITE'. Go and search the stories you like!!

NB1/2 - Past simple revisited: regular e irregular verbs

Dear students & readers of this blog,

The past tense is always a challenge for us. We have to learn a lot of things, like how to form and pronounce the regular -ed forms, a long list of irregular verbs...Let's see if I can help you from here. Have a look at the resources below:

Regular past tense

• English grammar lessons: past simple
• Exercises 1
• Exercises 2
• Exercises 3
• Exercises 4
• Exercises 5

• Game: Tower defence 
• Regular verbs: angry farmer 
• Regular verbs hoop shoot 

Past simple negative

• Past tense negative: tower defence
• Penalty shootout

  Questions in the past simple

• Questions in the past tense

Form full questions from the following prompts, and click on COMMENTS to write your answers.

What / your friends / do / yesterday?
Where / your parents / go / on holiday?
When / you / go to bed / last night?
You / were / happy / yesterday?
you / like / this lesson / last night?

Irregular past tense

There is also another link to practise your irregular verbs in an easy and fun way. Would you like to find out? Click on IRREGULAR VERBS.

It will be permanently linked to this blog on the sidebar, under the heading "Vocabulary & grammar".

•  Irregular verbs: angry farmer

If you want to pronounce regular -ed forms of the past correctly, watch the video below:



Some practice:

• Practice 1
• Practice 2
• Practice 3
• Practice 4
• Practice 5
• Final exam

(Sources: engames.eu, englishmaven.org & MacMillan)

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