Thursday 26th July

We started a new topic: travelling. During this session the students thought about their dream holiday and compared it to a survey carried out on the net.

After that, we talked about problems while travelling, the students told their personal experiences and checked the vocabulary related to airports.

We continued discussing about those things we must or mustn't do in an airport and about airport/aircraft security.

Then, we learnt how to give and ask for advice and listened to several conversations to practise these new structures.
To consolidate this point, the students had to create sentences of advice/warning using some prompts and correct the mistakes in other sentences.

To finish the class, we listened to 6 different announcements in an airport and the students had to complete the gaps in a table.

Tuesday 24th July

We finished the topic related to working life. To start with, we corrected the pending exercise about look,seem and appear. Then, we quickly explained the main differences in use between as/like. The students will have to complete the grammar exercises at home and they'll be corrected next Thursday.

After that, we studied and reviewed the grammar of the question tags. To do so, the students had to elicit the grammatical structures and  their main use. In this case, we focused on its functions of looking for confirmation. We could also practise the intonation and consolidate our knowledge by means of a role-play activity.

Then, we tried to practise the new grammatical structures in an oral activity. The students were asked to role-play as job seekers and job interviewers. They needed to prepare a dialogue for job interview as a head chef in a Korean restaurant.

To finish the class, the students were asked to watch a video job application and analyze its visual impact, the tone of the candidate's voice and his qualities or attributes for the post.

Thursday 19th July

During this session we continued studying how to write an online profile. We kept on working on the example and analyzing its content and structures.

Then, we listened to 4 different people talking about recruitment in their countries: Venezuela, Ireland, England and China. The students could also read about some useful  advice when applying for a job in a foreign country.(audio+script uploaded)

After that, we analyzed a job advert published in a Spanish paper. It was full of mistakes (grammar, false friends…). The students had to identify them and try to correct them. Then we did the same with an applying letter.

To finish the class, we learnt more about copular verbs: look, seem and appear. They have similar meanings but they can differ grammatically.

Tuesday 17th July

We finished the first topic about friends and relationships dealing with flat problems. The students had to listen to two tenants phoning their rental agent and complaining about an unsolved problem (audios section).
After listening the students had to write about a possible problem in their flat and then role play a dialogue with a classmate who acted as a rental agent.
Go to grammar section, read about the passive voice (have something done) and do the exercises online.
 
Then we started a new topic: working life.
To introduce it we did a matching exercise, in which the students had to find definitions to certain words. After that, we listened to someone being interviewed for a charity and the students not only answered some comprehension questions but also completed some expressions to describe skills and talents.

To consolidate the new structures students did an oral activity: they had to describe an odd job.



 To finish the class we learnt about online profiles. We read and analysed an example given in one of the photocopies.

Thursday 12th July

We started the lesson revising the topics to be asked when interviewing a new flatmate. Thus, we could also review how to make questions in English.
The students paid attention to a slide projected on the board with some incomplete questions. They needed to listen and complete them and then, identified different types of questions:
-indirect questions
-subject questions
-with prepositions
to consolidate this grammar point, the students had to make questions using the prompts.
(go to grammar section to download this document).

We continued the class studying the vocabulary related to personality.
They first read the descriptions from a flatmate finder site, discussed who they'd like to live with, and then, matched some phrases in bold from those texts with their definitions. Finally, we read some descriptions and matched them with some personlaity adjectives.

After that, we did a role-play activity. Half the class were looking for a room and the other half had a spare room to share. The activity consisted of interviewing each other to find the perfect lodger. Here's an example of a possible dialogue:




We finished the class watching a video about flatsharing (go to videos section) and answering some comprehension.

Tuesday 10th July

During this session, we corrected the comprehension exercises about the text "Rent a friend" and the students could also discuss in pairs some other questions about the idea presented in this text.

We continued the class working on writing skills. First, we read a short informal email, analysed its content and form and then, we identified some common mistakes made by foreign language students (go to documents page- Hi Jorge).
After that, the students were asked to write an email to their classmates talking about their current living situation (place, who they live with...) and for homework, they have to write an answer to that email.

We finished the lesson speaking about flat sharing. We talked about a new way of finding a flat in UK- by means of "speed flatmating". We listened to some people who joined this programme and finally discussed some comprehension questions (you have access to the script and the audio on their pages).

First class

We started this intensive summer course introducing each other in a different way.

The students had to write at least 5 names of people or places and figures connected to them,their classmates had to guess why these data were so important for each person.
We continued the session talking about friends and relationships. To introduced the topic the students analysed one slide projected on the board and they explained the way those beings were connected.
After that, we explained some common sayings about relationships:

Blood is thicker than water
A friend in need is a friend indeed

Like father like son
No man is an island

     

 Immediately after,we saw the rest of the slides and found the proper expression to describe them.

Then, we work on the photo of an orangutan and a dog and listen to a radio programme taking about them. The students had to answer some comprehension questions and complete the gaps in some sentences.
As a vocabulary reinforcement, we studied some expressions to describe relationships and some phrasal verbs to describe actions and we put them into practice in an oral activity where the students had to write the names of 3 friends of theirs and describe them to their classmates using the expressions learnt.


To finish the class, we read an article about a new way of meeting friends: Renting a friend.
For next day, they had to answer the comprehension questions whcich will be corrected in class.