Listening activities

Understanding oral English may be the most difficult activity for students. So, here is an interesting proposal to develop this skill "Lyrics Training" website where you will be able to fill in gaps and enjoy music and a video at the same time. 

"Lyrics Training is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills like English through the music and lyrics of the songs."

 

Once you have chosen the song you want to listen to, select the "game mode" : beginner, intermediate or expert. 

Then a new window will appear with a YouTube video + incomplete lyrics. The picture below shows the song "My Heart Will Go On" from the movie Titanic ( it is so romantic!!! )

You have to fill in the blanks while you are listening to the song. You get instructions about how to use the tool and/or get hints to fill in the gaps by clicking on HELP (see picture below)

You can do the listening activity as many times as necessary. Remember: if you get a high scoring doing the beginner level, you can step to intermediate or experienced!

Activity  Go to http://www.lyricstraining.com/index.php, choose a song, do the fill in the gaps activity at the different levels, then tell us in comments : 

• Which song you chose 
• The reason for doing so
• Which was the level you felt more comfortable (beginner, intermediate, expert) 
• What  your opinion of this listening practise is 

Deadline: September 21st

I hope you like the proposal. See you soon, Nelba

Module 11

Hello, everybody:

We are going to practise the following topics in this post:

• Obligation and permission

Activity one:  "can, could, to be able to" Click HERE

Activity two: talking about what is necessary / not necessary. Click HERE

Activity three: " might     must     should" Click HERE

Miscellaneous. Rearrange the lines. Click HERE 

• Linking words:

1-This quiz will help you practice using contrasting conjunctions, HOWEVER, ALTHOUGH, WHEREAS, ALSO, DESPITE, IN SPITE OF. Click HERE

•  Wordspot: 

1.  Improve your vocabulary by studying the most common uses of the verb "do" .Click HERE
2.  Learn how words associate with the verb "do". Click HERE
3.  Online game to revise the use of the verbs "make" and "do"

Let's play a game to check what you remember about  the common uses of do and make. Read the instructions carefully. Click HERE to start.

• In a previous post (Module9) , I asked you to write predictions in an online tool called "Wallwisher". Here is the result:

• Video: John Lennon Tribute. 

9th Oct, 2010 would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday.

Interesting Free Online Course

Hello, everybody:

While I was multitasking on the net and came across this interesting website which offers a free online course consisting of a comprehensive revision of English grammar.

It is designed for those already fluent in English, but who want to improve their writing. It covers punctuation and grammar, from commas and colons to adverbs and prepositions.

It says that by completing this course, you will see a marked improvement in your written English!!

Each section breaks down the rules into easily assimilated explanations. There is a section on spelling. This course is ideal for anyone looking to improve their written and indeed spoken English.

It also contains audio, so ensure that you have speakers or headphones ready. A text transcript is also available. Isn´t is promising? 

Are you interested? Here is the link

Best, Nelba 

An Amazing Story Module 10

Hello everybody,

Here we are in a new module.

You have studied Past Perfect.Let's revise a bit of grammar. Read the material by clicking on:

• Summary
• Use
• Signal words
• Form of affirmative, negative sentences and questions
• Spelling
• Special verbs
• Diagram
• Long forms and short forms

Now let's do some interactive exercises:

1. Exercise 
2. Execise
3. Exercise
4. Exercise 
5. Past Simple or Past Perfect? Exercise
6. Put the verbs of this paragraph in the correct tense. Exercise 

You have also analized the differences between the reporting verbs:

"say" and "tell". Let's study these explanations: Click HERE

And now do this exercise to test your knowledge. 

Exercise One

Exercise Two

Exercise Three

Say, Speak, Talk or tell?????

This module presented elements to tell a story. To make a story more vivid, you use adverbs of manner to describe the action in detail. Let's see this power point presentation to revise this grammar point and do some activities. Important: Do the activities on a sheet of paper, then check your answers with the KEY at the end of the slideshow.

Adverbs of Manner - spellings

View more presentations from cdnosfe.

Feedback to comments on previous post

Dear students:

I am very pleased beacuse you liked  the listening activities I posted. Your comments were quite long and very good! Here is  my feedback on some common mistakes.

• in or at the beginning/the end?

at the beginning means the first part; e.g.: The front matter is at the beginning of the book. The place where something begins or is begun: at the beginning of the road.

in the beginning - with reference to the origin or beginning

primitively, originally

in the end -means finally, at the end of the day.  e.g: Despite all the problems of putting on the play, it was a grand success, and that was all that mattered in the end. 

At ended, I have remembered a lot of things which made me feel good.

• It was “Hole in my soul” by Aerosmith and that was hard difficulty (mmm.... This is not a very clear sentence, I am afraid )

• I don´t know how can I say en English (word order: I can say)

Well, that is all for now. 

Oh, before finishing this post, I would like to give you one more listening activity, but this one is about a song for South Africa Football World Cup,  " Wavin' Flag " by K'nann. If you pay attention, you'll find more interactive activities at the end of the song. Click HERE

Best, Nelba

Module 6

Hello, students!

Welcome to this new post where we are going to begin revising and practising a grammar point:
 -ed/-ing adjectives.

As we did in the previous module, I want you to revise this topic in your book on page 148. Now you are going to check if you  really know which form is the most suitable in the following online exercise. Click HERE

You have also studied Extreme Adjectives Let´s read a blog post and do this fill in the gaps exercise.Click HERE 

I was surfing the net looking for listening activities about movie reviews and came across this interesting website: http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/subject/Listening

You cannot complain! There is a varied list of videos (some of them are movie trailers!) with online activities (click on "Read more").

Oh, by the way Héctor from Adults 5A asked me for online classical short stories and here is the link! 

http://www.classicshorts.com/abc.html

I hope you will enjoy these activities and online resources. 
See you next month,
Nelba  :-)

DEADLINE: May 31st

Feedback

Dear students:

I am very :-)  for two reasons: First, you made fewer mistakes than in the first post. Congrats!!!! That means you are making an effort to improve your English. Second, most of you found the interactive activities interesting and helpful, so I will keep on offering you more in the blog.

Well, I'll make some comments on the mistakes you made:

• some exercise is not right :-(  The correct version is some exercises
• I lost the line of the game at the finish :-(  You should say at the end. 
• I like very much the third exercise.(word order problem) You should say I like the third exercise very much
• The first and the second points were differents  Remember that adjectives do not have plural forms 
• i've liked the excercise number 4  You keep on forgetting the capital letter for the pronoun "I"
• this activities :-(   these activities.
• Mercedes and Héctor did not mention the courses they belong to. Remember to sign you comments properly!!!

Before leaving, I would like to thank Emiliano from Adults 5D for the links he gave us for further practice. (check comments in Module 5 post)

Finally, I would like to invite you to become "authors" in this blog. Gustavo and Fabia from Adults 5A have already accepted and have their own spaces in this blog to write about any topic they like.

If you want to become a blogger, let me know by sending me a mail to escuelaunlp@yahoo.com.ar with the subject: I want to become a blogger. 

Bye bye, next week there will be a new post!

Module 5

Hello participants!

Here we are with new tasks in our blog. This post is a bit challenging and it will take you a little more time to fulfill it.  

Remember that the activities in the blog are not to do completely at the school computer room. You may start the activity/ies in class and continue or finish it/them at home. The purpose of the blog is to expand your exposure to the English language. 

•  Online self-check exercises

Please, revise your notes on Future plans and intentions on page 147. Then, click on the links which will take you to different online exercises. Read the instructions carefully , do them and finally check your answers. If you don´t pass the exercise, revise your notes again. Do the exercise again and if you keep on making the same mistakes, take notes of your mistakes and ask your teacher for further explanation.

Click on the following links (IMPORTANT: Once you finish with the activity click on the button "backwards" to return to our blog):

1. I imagine you are revising the grammar section  about future plans and intentions on page 147 of your book as I suggested. So, let's see what mark you get after doing this questionaire.                            http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com/test/future_tenses_quiz
2. Will or be going to? Complete the text boxes that appear in this exercise with the appropriate tenses, then click the "Check" button to check your answers.   http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs20.htm
3. Shall or will? Once you finish ticking the option you consider the suitable one, click on "grade me" and the results will appear.                                                          http://www.1-language.com/englishcoursenew/unit29_grammar_exs.htm
4. Now let's revise word order and jobs. In this exercise you should click the words in order to build correct questions/answers. Once you finished, click on "check" and then on "next".                                                   http://pagesperso-orange.fr/michel.barbot/cap/voc/jobs/mix1.htm
5. Writing: Write in comments which activity of the ones above you found most helpful and which one, the most difficult. Remember to sign your comment with your name and course.
6. DEADLINE: April 30th

That's all for now!

See you, Nelba

Feedback to comments in Welcome Post

Hello, Adults 5 students. 

I hope you have had a Happy Easter. This post will give you some feedback on your comments.

First of all I would like to tell you that I am very pleased with your participation. Most of you have written very good comments. 

• The most common mistakes I have found are spelling ones :=(   Examples:

Maria has a facebook adress

Juan is a cyber pirata

I use all the sistems in English
I chat whith friends 
I weast the time

I am almost sure you know how to write these words properly (address, pirate, curious, systems, with, waste) , but when you are carried by inspiration you may forget the right spelling. 

In order to avoid this problem, here is a TIP I would like you to put into practice: open  a Word document, customize your document in English  language.  

How? go to the tool bar, click on TOOLS-> Language->select language.->American English. Once you have finished writing, check spelling and grammar by clicking on F7 and make the necessary corrections. Spelling mistakes appear in red and grammar mistakes appear in green.  

MIND YOU, the grammar checker is not perfect and some phrases may be underlined in green but they are OK. So, if you are not sure about the suggestion, ask your teacher!!

• Another thing I would like to point out is the following. Do not use capital letter in all your writing because it means "shouting". Example:

I´ M A BIT CURIOUS

I USE INTERNET EVERYDAY

• Do not forget capital letters in :

I am ( some of you wrote "i" )

English not english

• Write your comments in English, not in Spanish

Well, that is all for now.  

I am preparing a new post with activities. Meanwhile, you can read your classmates comments to the Welcome post in order to know each other better. Some of you are Facebook fans, for example. 

Please, vote in the poll that appears on the right of the window by clicking on one option.
See you soon, Nelba

MODULE 12

Dear Students:

Welcome to our new blog!! Due to conection problems with the previous wiki, I have opened a new one. I hope you like the design. Let's start working:

In Module 12 you have studied modal verbs. Modal auxiliary verbs may sound difficult but in fact they're easy. They are invariable (no conjugation), and the main verb is always the "bare infinitive" (the infinitive without "to").

I will offer you some online interactive grammar exercises to revise them. First, you can read the explanation of the use of that modal verb and then, do the practise.

1- Can have / Could have
2- Should have
3- Would have in Third Conditional Sentences

http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/thirdconditional/exercise1.swf

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/thirdconditional/exercise2.swf

http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/thirdconditional/exercise3.swf


You have also studied expressions using the verb THINK. Please, revise the expressions you studied on page 125 of your book. Here is a link with more expressions to study: http://www.carolinebrownenglishlessons.com/thinkphrasals/menu.php

At the botton of that window, you will find three exercises to check what you remember.

4- Soap Operas: Why are Argentine “ novelas” , Mexican “culebrones” called soap operas in English? Read in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera

And now some listening and listening comprehension activities:

The BBC's Learning English online resources used to produce a soap opera online for the benifit of English learners. Want to read more about the characters? Click Here

“The Flatmates” provides various grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation points with each episode.

This soap opera features a young, multicultural cast of characters who are living in the U.K., working or studying and sharing their flat.
Once you click on this link:

Click on the listen button in the “ Listen to the episode” box on the left of the screen.
If you pay attention to the right side, there is a “Episode 204 Links” box, explore the different possibilities: Episode, Language Point, Quiz - I recommend the last one ;) because it is fun.

Well, that is all for now.

Enjoy the activities and send me feedback to escuelaunlp@yahoo.com.ar!