Understand phone conversations in English

Hi everyone!

Here you are some more language to help you with phone conversations. Enjoy!

Reading test

Hello! Here you are some interesting reading practice to learn and get ready for the final exams.

Please do the following exercises, self-correct and send me your final result.

- Test
- Answers

I hope you enjoy the practice.
Have a nice weekend!

How to make sure your pronunciation is right

Sometimes we're not sure about the pronunciation of certain words, and we don't have the time to look them up, one by one.

The good news is that we already have online software to help us with this issue. Please visit ReadSpeaker and try it yourself.

Steps:
1- select the language and the accent you expect to hear
2- type your sentence
3- click on Listen

That's it! I hope you enjoy it.

Have a nice weekend.

See, look or watch

Watch this video from a wonderful site called Simple English Videos and see if it helps:

What´s going on in this picture?

Hi! Another teacher suggested this wonderful website and I'd like to share it with you.

It's on The Learning Network of the New York Times. They publish a photograph every week and they challenge students to guess what's going on in the picture. You can try and write your description in the comments section.

This week, the picture was the following:

What's going on? What do you think? If you want to know the answer, you have the solution in this post.

To access all the challenges, click here.

The website has other interesting sections too, such as:

- The Word of the week
- Quiz for English Language Learners
- A Film Club

Enjoy!

Prepositions practice

Are prepositions a nightmare for you? Never more! I'll try to help you, but you also have to work hard to learn them once and for all.

You can start by reading a general summary here.

IN, ON AT: Are you never sure about how to use IN, ON and AT?  Would you like to try the BBC's Grammar Challenge to see how these prepositions are used to talk about TIME? Then click here.

Do some more EXERCISES about prepositions of time and place here. You have more exercises here and here.

GAMES: Listen and pick the right picture in this game. A very nice interactive game here. Would you like to play basketball and practice your prepositions? Then go to this site to try.

Good luck!

Listening test to practice

Hi! Why don't you try this listening test? Here's what to do:

1- Download the test here.
2- Download the first audio, the second and the third.
3- Read the instructions carefully.
4- Listen to each task twice.
5- Do the exam.
6- Self-correct with this answer key. You can read the transcript of the tasks too.
7- Send me your results.


Thanks for your time!

How to improve your pronunciation

Hi! Today I'm going to give you several tools to improve your pronunciation. Although you already know the secret: listen to real English examples and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

1- Remember the video we saw in class? This is the website where it was taken from: Rachel's English.
It has lots of different videos on pronunciation, intonation and rhythm.

2- The book we're working with also has interesting exercises to try. Click here to visit the site.

3- We also mentioned this website the other day. It contains many video tutorials on several topics. The ones on pronunciation are here.

And finally, just for fun, the video with Rafaela Carrá we enjoyed in class last day:

Activity in English: "Descubriendo nuestras costas"

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Descubriremos un entorno que reúne valores científicos y paisajísticos únicos, y comprenderemos el valor de la barra de Las Canteras, un espectacular espacio natural con contenido fósil del Cuaternario reciente.
¡Ven con nosotros a practicar tu nivel de inglés de una manera sencillamente diferente!
La cita será el sábado 31 de octubre a partir de las 10:00 h.
Precio: 12 euros.
Información y reservas en http://www.sendabiosfera.com/p/descubriendo-nuestras-costas.html

Present simple vs Present continuous

Hi everyone! What's the difference between "I study English in the School of Languages" and "I'm studying the present continuous"?

Some of you have asked for extra help with this grammar issue. Here are some resources online that might be of help:

1- If you click here, you'll find an explanation of form, meaning, spelling, together with exercises to practice.
2- More exercises here and here.
3- Spelling rules about doubling consonants explained here very clearly. If you prefer a video, here is a website that contains free video lessons on many different topics.

Enjoy!