Gerund or infinitive? (BACHILLERATO)

Please revise when to use the gerund and the infinitive in this presentation.



You can also check out this unit on BBC Learning English to do some exercises.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/lower-intermediate/unit-10/session-1

As usual, Agendaweb.org is a great source of exercises to practice this. https://agendaweb.org/verbs/infinitive_gerund-exercises.html

Here is a fun collection of songs that use gerund or infinitive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyr5WhdXoE8

I've also created a small playlist of songs that appear in the presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFy9rQLLBWSYoQ0sb0zdXdAl0f9wfITTM

American vs. British English.

Just a fun TikTok video about some of the differences between British and American English. We can see cleary whose side the author is on. 😉

Credit: https://www.tiktok.com/@justsammorris

The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was a famous journalist from the 19th and 20th centuries. He is better known for his work, The Devil's Dictionary, where he compiled funny definitions of thousands of terms.

Here are a few of the most celebrated. Which one is your favourite?

You can try to come up with your own Devil´s Dictionary. If you are out of ideas, you can try an online list like https://www.randomlists.com/things and see how many things can you define... badly (it also works with people and places!).

Also, Bierce's original dictionary is available, like many other classics, from http://www.gutenberg.org

BBC Learning English

BBC Learning English is a fabulous website by the BBC. Among its many resources there is a Youtube Channel  full of explanations about grammar, vocabulary and other aspects of English. The video I'm sharing today, for example, explains how to use some linking words. This should help you with your compositions.


 

Learning to cook with Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver is a well-known British cook.  He started working as a cook at an Italian restaurant. In 1999, when he was 20 years old, he started a program with the BBC called “The Naked Chef”. He’s become very popular because he is young, funny and cooks recipes that are healthy and easy to make. In two of his shows he also made recipes that took 30 or even 15 minutes to prepare.

In 2005 he started a campaign to improve the quality of Britain’s school meals. He convinced the British Government to spend £280m on school dinners. In 2011 he filmed “Jamie’s Dream School”, where he tried to help students with problems achieve their dreams. He also conceived and established the “Fifteen” charity restaurant, where young people with problems can learn how to work in the hospitality industry. After the first restaurant in London, more “Fifteens” have opened around the world, in Britain, the Netherlands and Australia.

In this video we can see how to cook a tasty roast chicken and pasta.




Find the answers to these questions. (There are English subtitles if you need them):

a) How long does it take to cook the chicken? How about the pasta?

b) How many ingredients does the recipe need? What are they?

c) At what temperature does he roast the chicken?

Giving directions

picture by Ramon Cutanda, Flickr


We've been reviewing how to give directions today in class. I stumbled upon this fantastic site from the BBC World Service that sums up all the points really well. It's got listening and vocabulary exercises as well as the language you'll need  --go check it out!


Giving directions



Ps. The video we watched about Stockholm belongs to this Youtube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/PandaCruises

As I said, it's a very nice way of seeing the actual experience of a tourist on a cruise tour and see some Baltic highlights :-).

Exercises for 1st ESO

These are the exercises you can try for today:

Review on this website: http://www.actiweb.es/scigarran/unit_6.html

Practice BE-CAN-DO-HAVE (especially the CAN exercises in green)

Practice the possesive adjectives AND the possessive pronouns (start with the green exercises)

Practice the vocabulary of the house

Practice the vocabulary of animals


Remember: there are things that will go in the exam we cannot practice today. Remember to study them anyway!!

Oh! those apostrophes!

I ran into this video through the @AdviceToWriters twitter account and I thought it was quite funny:



Deciding when to use an apostrophe is hard for learners of English as well as for native speakers. The most problematic one is definitely <'s>.

So just to make it clear, these are the three situations where <'s> is grammatically correct:

1) When it indicates possession: This is Christine's backpack.
2) When it substitutes the i in IS: Kevin's happy.
3) When it substitutes the ha in HAS: She's got a nice cat.

That's IT!! So, NEVER use <'s> for plurals!!! (you'll find plenty of those mistakes in the video)

Be precise!

Back to school!

Ok, we returned a couple of weeks ago, but I really didn't have much to post about.

This year I want to start with a video that's slightly harder than usual, but I think it's a great poem and it definitely stresses a good point --it's important to speak your mind clearly, and be precise!

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Ps. If you want the full text of the poem, you can find it here

do a test that's not for school!

The website blogthings has a lot of funny tests to do in English. If you want to practice English and have a laugh, why don't you give it a try?

You Have Your Life to Smile About

It's funny to ask you what you have to smile about, because you always have something that's making you happy. You are a naturally smiley person, and you are happy with your life. You feel like you have to be. You see happiness as something under your control. You don't think there are any big secrets to being happy. If something isn't going well, you fix it. You're proactive in making sure that you're living the best life possible.

What Do You Have To Smile About?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

Happy, by Leona Lewis

Some of my students of 3rd of ESO are great fans of Leona Lewis, so I'm dedicating this song to them!



Notice how Leona uses a lot of contractions for common expressions in English, for example:

'cause =Because
gotta= have got to
wanna= want to
tryna= trying to
outta = out of

(This is because prepositions and connectors in English sometimes are pronounced with a weak sound, a sort of weak "a").


Some other linguistic notes:

safe as could be = as safe as possible

So what : (click on this link)

In vain (click on the link)