Laser B1 Unit 13

Hello, everybody:

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

• Reported questions

1. Read carefully the grammar explanation. Click HERE
2. Exercise ONE. Finish the sentences using Reported speech. Always change the tense, although it is sometimes not necessary.Click HERE
3. Exercise TWO:  Put in order. Click HERE
4. Exercise THREE.  Mix and match. Click HERE
5. Exercise FOUR. Match up the sentences. Click HERE
6. Exercise FIVE. Complete the sentences. Click HERE 

•  Vocabulary: Jobs 

1. Crossword ONE. Find the correct words and complete the crossword, then click on "Check" to check your answer. Click on a number in the grid to see the clue or clues for that number. If you are stuck, you can click on "Hint" to get a free letter. Be patient, the website takes some seconds to open.  Click HERE

Module 1 English in Mind 3

Simple Present

• Reading: Revise its use by clicking HERE
• Exercise one. Click HERE
• Exercise two. Click HERE
• Exercise three. Click HERE 

Present Continuous

• Reading: Revise its use by clicking HERE
• Exercise one. Click HERE
• Exercise two. Click HERE

 Present Simple or Continuous? 

• Exercise one. Click HERE
• Exercise two. Click HERE
• Exercise three. Click HERE

Pronounciation:  Schwa is the name for the most common sound in English. The phonemic symbol for this sound is

It is a weak, unstressed sound and it occurs in many words, such as articles and prepositions.

• Turn on your speakers or put on your headphones and let's listen and repeat what we will see in this video (click HERE if it is necessary clik on "download this video" which will take some second to download). 

 Writing

• Look at the right side on the screen
• Enumerate in "comments" the new gadgets that appear in the blog 
• Give your opinion about them.  
• Check spelling before submitting your comment
• Remember to include your name and course code in your comment.

I Got A Feeling (Video)

Hello, everybody:

Here is a video which was made by students. 
Watch it and answer the following questions in comments :

• Which band is singing in this video?
• Where are the students from?
• How old do you think they are?
• What is your opinion about their work?

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Module 12 in Laser B1

Hello everybody:


Grammar: You studied Past Perfect (Simple and Continuous)

• 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

Pronounciation: 

•  Turn on your speakers or put on your headphones and let's watch some video activities which will  help you to improve your listening and speaking skills. Pause the videos for more time.

Reading :  Would you like to read what students posted about technology in 2009? The topics were "Dangerous Facebook", "Fantasy and Science Fiction" and "Technology: computers and cellphones. Click HERE

Writing an informal mail: Writing an informal mail allows breaking formal writing rules but there are universal mail rules that you must follow. These are called netiquette. 

Netiquette (Online etiquette) is a neologism formed from "network + etiquette". It involves the conventions of politeness and respect recognized  in mailing lists, in live chat systems and on other electronic forums. These conventions address the relationship between netizens, and outline a dynamic set of guidelines for conduct that is conducive to pleasant, efficient and agreeable interaction. Click HERE to read about the rules

Your task is to answer these questions in "comments"  

• Did you know about these rules? yes or no? (give a full answer)
• If yes, do you follow them? If you don´t, give the reason.
• Which one are you going to adopt immediately? Why?
• What would you do if you received an e-mail breaking these rules? 

That's all for now. See you in two weeks, Nelba

Leaving posts in other blogs

Here is a link of a blog where you can read posts written by other students and leave them comments. 

http://kidblog.org/ourgoodnews/

You will see a list of different topics: cartoons, best friend, mystery, have you ever....?.

Module16 English in Mind Book 2

1- Let's revise some grammar first: The third conditional (also called conditional type 3) is a structure used for talking about unreal situations in the past. Click Here and read the explanations carefully. Any doubt, ask your teacher.

• Exercise A:  You will practise forming the third conditional. Complete the third conditional sentence by filling in the spaces. Click here
• Exercise B: Now you will revise types of conditionals in this interactive activity. Click here

2- Let's revise some grammar first: Read the explanations about Reported Speech - Simple statements carefully : Click here 

• Exercise C :  Finish the sentences using Reported speech. Click here
• Exercise D :  idem. Click here

3- What is a suffix? (write the answer in comments)

• A group of letters with a special meaning appearing at the end of a word .
• A group of letters with a special meaning appearing at the beginning of a word.

• Now let's practise the use of -ation and -ment online. Click here

Friendship day

Hello everybody,


In July we celebrate friendship day. Let´ s watch a video:


Activity one: write the name (not surname) of your best friend/friends and say why you love him/her/them in "comments"

Activity two ( Reading): Choose one of the quotations that appear in the following website about Friendship (click here) Which one do your like best? Tell us about your choice in "comments" together with Activity one :-)

Remember to sign your comment with your name and course code. 

If you are a visitor, please tell us where you are from. Thank you!

Can we all help to protect the environment?

Introduction

You are a member of an environmental group similar to Greenpeace in La Plata. Your team has been assigned the project of creating two posters to make teenagers aware of the environmental problems in the city and how to be more concerned about the situation.

Task

Your posters will be made in PAINT programe and consist of text and an image/images encouraging teenagers to keep the city clean, save water and recyling and reducing rubbish. Your team will need to decide about the topic, type of font and format of the poster, text and illustrating images. Pay attention to the Evaluation item that appears at the bottonm of this post !

Finally, your team will send the poster to escuelaunlp@yahoo.com.ar in attached files. Include the your names, course and your teacher´s name.

Process

Your team will work  either face to face, vía chat or email when exploring and researching on the internet. Teams cannot have more than four members.

Stage 1

Teams will explore the sites that appear below about environment problems to pick up ideas and specific vocabulary. Click on the links and then on the backwards arrow on the left top of the screen to come back to the blog:

Vocabulary

Buenos Aires Doesn’t Escape Air Pollution

Water pollution

Help to reduce pollution and waste

Prevention of Water Pollution

Sea Pollution

If you have problems with the vocabulary or don´t understand a word, look up the words in this dictionary. Click HERE

Possible Images:

photos taken by yourself will get a higher scoring

Water pollution in Argentina

Pollution in the city

and answer questions on a pollution questions template.

Your team will meet after you have explored to share your findings.

Stage 2

You will design a poster having in mind the following:

* Warn readers about an environmental problem

* Persuade readers to avoid polluting activities

*Be original, creative and avoid plagiarism

Evaluation

Your work will be evaluated with a student rubric .
Deadline August 15th

Created in July 2010 by Nelba Quintana

Use of articles

Let's revise the use of articles ;-) 

Here is a good link to revise theory and here are some links for online practise:

http://www.better-english.com/grammar/counta.htm

http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/article_ex.htm

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/artikel.htm

YouTube video "The annoying orange"

Hello, teens. How are you? I hope you are fine. 

I imagine you watch videos  in YouTube. Well, I came across the "Annoying Orange" which seems to be very popular.

Please, watch this "Annoying Orange" video (probably you should watch it more than once) and answer individually the questions below in "comments". Please, do not answer the questions in isolation, but take them as a guide for writing a whole paragraph:

• Do you find this video funny? Support your opinion. Include a reported statement.

• Which other adjectives would you use to describe the video?

Deadline June 25th

Improving our English Pronounciation: Do you like singing?

Hello, 

May 25th



How are you? Enjoying this looonnnnnggg weekend? 
I am sure you are!  so am I ;-)

I like music and singing - who does not? I listen to music as often as I can: when I go walking, do some housework or work. I sometimes find it difficult to concentrate on work when I listen to music because if I like the song, I stop working and start singing!!! 

Surfing the net, I came across this website  http://www.karaokeparty.com/
 and loved it. Isn´t it cool for practising your English pronounciation ?

You only need a microphone, a good voice (ideally), choose the song you want to sing, wait till it is buffered and the lyrics appear to be sung at the pace of the music.

You get a mark after singing. I am afraid my mark on 
intonation - not pronounciation- is not very good 

Activity:  Visit Karaoke party website, choose a song, sing it and take a shot of the screen showing your result (like the one above), then open PAINT and paste the image.  Save it as  *.JPG file and send it to me (escuelaunlp@yahoo.com.ar) + some lines saying why you chose that song + your opinion of this tool to improve your pronounciation. Remeber to include: Name + course

DEALINE: June 15th

May first Activity

Dear teens:

I am posting this because I think the proposal is interesting and helpful. 

Technology is part of your life. Using the Internet, mobile phones, blogging, participating in Facebook, etc. may be  funny and postivive experiences or not :_(  It depends on YOU! 

Chicos Net is inviting creative kids and teens to participate in a contest and share their knowledge in a video about how to use these digital tools safely.

Personally, it is a great opportunity to show your digital skills and imagination. Do you want to join the project? Visit this website!

http://www.tecnologiasi.org.ar/

Please, if you get enrolled in the contest, let me know  ;-) by sending a mail to escuelaunlp@yahoo.com.ar 

The video which won the contest in 2009  appears below. 
TASK: Please, write in comments your opinion about the video in no less than 40 words. Remember to use an online dictionary (See LINKS on the right of your window)
Deadline: May 15th

Reading

Reading:

Have you ever heard about the theory of multiple intelligences? It was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing ( I.Q. stands for intelligence quotient), is far too limited. 

Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:logical-mathematical intelligence, verbal intelligence, musical intellgence, visual intellgence, body intellgence and intepersonal intellgence. 

Revise Unit 11, "English in Mind". If you are not using "English in Mind", you can read  this short article to know about the topic.

Writing:

PAIR WORK     What is your strongest intelligence? Answer this question following these instructions :  

1. Open a Word document
2. Customize it as follows: font 12, double spaced, language (American or British English)
3. Write your answer giving good reasons in no less than 50 words including 2 modal verbs, the verbs enjoy and hate, the expression "good at".
4. Check spelling by clicking on F5. Spelling mistakes will be in RED and grammar ones in GREEN. Make the necessary corrections. (Remember: Sometimes the grammar checker may not be accurate, so ask your teacher if you have a doubt)
5. Once you have finished, copy and paste your writing to "comments" to this post. Remember to include your name and course to your comment.