Reviewing, Revising, Studying, Finishing ...the Course!

Thursday 28^th May

Hi! How’s everybody?

You must be really busy.

I haven’t seen some of you for two weeks! So, I hope that Jorge and Óscar are using their time in a positive way and they pass their exams!

Pilar, Alejandro and David were the three students who attended class last Thursday. Alex had to leave after the break so we couldn’t have ‘Flipped class.’

We commented on the latest news related to bullying. How terrible!

Then, we recorded your voices to describe the first stages of the ‘Design for Change’ project. So, we have the stage ‘Feel’, ‘Imagine’ and we weren’t able to continue with ‘Do’ because of your absenteeism. (Not coming to class)

School principal suspended after disabled student commits suicide

Official did not do enough to help bullied 16-year-old, says Madrid education department

ELISA SILÓ / PILAR ÁLVAREZ / F. JAVIER BARROSO Madrid 25 MAY 2015 - 17:32 CEST

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The gates of the Ciudad de Jaén school on Monday. / KIKE PARA (EL PAÍS)

The Madrid regional educational department has suspended the principal of the high school attended by a 16-year-old disabled girl who committed suicide last week after she was reportedly bullied by another student.

Luis Carlos Pérez Aguado, the head of Ciudad de Jaén High School, did not “follow standard protocols in reporting the alleged school bullying incident when he learned about the case,” said a Madrid education department spokesman in announcing a disciplinary investigation.

The girl’s parents had filed police complaints on at least two occasions, one as recently as last week Pérez Aguado, who was suspended until the inquiry is concluded, should have taken his complaint to the district level or directly to education inspection authorities, the official added.

The girl’s parents had filed police complaints on at least two occasions – including one as recently as last week – about their daughter’s treatment by a fellow student, police sources told Efe news agency. The police’s family services unit is investigating the matter. On Friday morning, the girl, who had learning and mobility disabilities, said goodbye to her friends through WhatsApp before throwing herself from the sixth floor of the apartment complex where she lived with her parents and younger brother in Madrid’s Usera neighborhood.

“I am tired of living,” she wrote.

The family blames another student at the high school for allegedly demanding money from their daughter

Her parents blame another student at the Ciudad de Jaén High School for allegedly demanding money from their daughter and sending her threatening messages.

“The school has bent over backward for this girl, attended to her diversity, and has been on top of the problems that she had, and detected and put into action all possible measures to resolve this,” explained Pérez Aguado in a statement posted on the school’s website on Monday.

“Our conscience is clear because we did everything possible to help her,” he wrote, adding that the school district and education inspection authorities had been notified. However, Madrid regional government officials dispute this.

The suicide occurred shortly before 9am as classes were about to get underway.

According to the girl’s uncle, his niece had taken up a part-time job so she could pay the other student.

Our conscience is clear because we did everything possible to help her”Ciudad de Jaén High School principal Luis Carlos Pérez Aguado

“She would take care of elderly people and saved €50 so she could pay that scoundrel,” the uncle told EL PAÍS on Saturday.

The girl had mobility problems, as well as learning disabilities that “made her act like a 10-year-old,” he said.

She failed a grade and was in a special education class at her school. According to sources at the school, several of her classmates had to be treated for “anxiety attacks” on Friday when they learned about the suicide.

The uncle explained that she told her teachers about the bullying she had been receiving from another boy at school and showed them the messages he was sending her.

“She wasn’t the only one at the school who was scared of him. But she was the only one who complained,” he said.

Neither her parents nor other family members saw the messages because she erased them from her phone before the police complaint was filed. The teachers had called the parents to a meeting scheduled for Monday to discuss the issue because they had noticed that she was “very nervous” last Thursday.

Teachers and parents have been demanding more resources for the 1,200 students

Meanwhile, the Association of Mothers and Fathers of Students (AMPA) has said that Madrid education officials have not given the school or the pupils any support since the incident – an allegation denied by the education department spokesman, who said a psychologist was sent over to Ciudad de Jaén on Friday and more are expected to go to the school this week.

Ciudad de Jaén High School has a long history of complaints. For years, teachers and parents have been demanding more resources for the 1,200 students, 60 of whom have disabilities.

The education community “has for a long time been filing complaints at all administrative levels – local, regional and with juvenile prosecutors – about the failures and needs at the school,” said AMPA president Germán Suela, reading from a statement at the school entrance during a ceremony held for the dead girl.

Her photo, along with a flowers and an altar with candles, was placed in the schoolyard.

There’s no class on Thursday 4^th as it is a festival day in Madrid, this year; so, our next class will be on the 11^th June. Remember or Notice! that we have an assessment test on that date.

The test consists of grammar and vocabulary sections. Reading, listening and writing.

Grammar to cover: reported speech, question tags and verb patterns. Vocabulary related to the world of work, public figures and murder mysteries.

Articles related to celebrities, bullying and Jack the Ripper.

You can revise using the posts on the previous blogs.  

  

         

   GAME 6

Player 1	---
Player 2	---
Player 3	---
Player 4	7
Player 5	7
Player 6	7
Player 7	---

                      

See you on Thursday, 11^th

Revise a little for the test!

Cheers!

Intonation in Question Tags and Debate on Teenager's Concerns

Thursday 21^st May

Hello guys! The course is finishing and you still don’t do homework!

Paco and Pilar got 3 points for handing in homework on verb patterns and Pilar also got 3 more points for homework on ‘would rather / would prefer’. The rest of you don’t get any points for homework.

We started the class with a role-play to practise the use of question tags in conversation.A was a police inspector and B was the suspect. The suspect had to answer the questions made by the inspector. The officer took notes. When the interrogation finished, the inspector checked the information he had recorded by making question tags.

This is how the intonation influences question tags:

Falling intonation

This is not a real question. It means, ‘Agree with me, talk to me’. (We know the intonation falls because we stress the auxiliary verb)

It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?

The film was great, wasn’t it?

Rising intonation

We really want to know something because we aren’t sure about the answer. (We know the intonation rises because we stress the pronoun)

You didn’t say that to him, did you?

They won’t take my car away, will they?

We went on checking intonation watching some videos. It’s a bit difficult but after a while I could see that you got the gist (the main point) of it!

We listened to an interview with a member of ‘Take That’. Again, this served as to practise question tags.

 

Then, we continued talking about verb patterns. I posted several lists on the previous blog. We also did some exercises in class.

The only way of getting accustomed to using these verbs is reading a lot and doing as many exercises as you can. You can always memorize a list before the exam but…what’s the point doing that? You’ll forget which verb to use after the test!

And we finished the class with the topic of ‘Bullying’. We finished t
he exercises on the article ‘Bullied kids at higher risk of mental health problems’.

After that we role played a debate where each one of you had a set of instructions. The interesting point was that you had to follow your lines and sometimes you didn’t agree with the part that you had to play. For A, the biggest thing that kids have to worry about is bullying. For B, exams; for C, parents and for D, money. You should state three reasons to support your argument.

It was quite interesting listening to you!

And that was all!

WARNING: next Thursday we have ‘Flipped class.’ The topic is summer holidays and summer time. Prepare something to teach in your class. No crosswords on word searches allowed!!!!

Some ideas: teach them how to write a postcard and have them exchanging postcards from the places where they are on holiday. Tell them or show them a video about Midsummer’s Night, teach them vocabulary related to different kinds of holidays or play a board game based on holidays…

         

         

  GAME 6

Player 1	4
Player 2	8
Player 3	---
Player 4	6
Player 5	3
Player 6	9
Player 7	---

                      

See you on Thursday.

Cheers!

Question Tags, Indirect Questions, Bullying ...

Thursday 14^th May

Hi guys! So, we are starting a new week. Do you have many exams this week?

What did we do last Thursday?

We started reviewing verb patterns, again! Only David did homework. I would appreciate you to do that photocopy for next Thursday, please!!!

And don’t forget to do this week’s homework: Would prefer and would rather structures.

We role-played a dialogue to practise question tags.

Some of you were tourists in London and the other ones were tourist information staff (personnel). You had different information about two of these places: The Chamber of horrors, the London Dungeon, The Sherlock Holmes Museum, and The Bloody Tower. You wanted to know when those places were opened, how much the tickets cost, what the nearest tube station was etc. It also served us to practise indirect questions.

·         Question tags

A question tag is a short question made up by an auxiliary verb and a pronoun. If the sentence is affirmative, the tag is negative and the other way round; if the sentence is negative, the tag is affirmative.

·         You live near here, don’t you?

·         You weren’t at home yesterday, were you?

·         Indirect questions.

They are used to make questions in a polite way. As it is not the direct question, there’s no inversion in the structure and auxiliary verbs aren’t used.

·         Do you know what time The London Dungeon opens?

·         Do you know what time does The London Dungeon open?

·         Could you tell me what the nearest tube station to the Sherlock Holmes Museum is?

·         Could you tell me what is the nearest tube station to the Sherlock Holmes Museum?

And we finished talking about ‘Bullying’. We read the article entitled ‘Bullied kids at higher risk of mental health problems.’ You can listen and read the article again clicking here http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1505/150501-bullying.mp3

We worked on vocabulary and grammar. After that we started a discussion. We’ll continue discussing this issue next Thursday. It’ll be useful as we are running out of time (time is finishing) and you hadn’t materialized your project on ‘Bullying’ yet.

                                              

           GAME 5

Player 1	6
Player 2	7
Player 3	5
Player 4	10
Player 5	5
Player 6	6
Player 7	6

                      

See you on Thursday.

Cheers!

Jack, the Ripper. A Mistery...

Thursday 7^th May

Hello! How’s your weekend going?

Nearly finished, I’m afraid.

What did we do in our class last week?

We started with a review of verb patterns.

You had to classify different verbs and expressions in three columns: V+to +infinitive, V+ bare infinitive (infinitive without ‘to’) or V+ -ing. In some cases the same verb could go in two different columns. Most of the times, there was a change in meaning.

The easiest group of pattern verbs to learn, are the ones followed by bare infinitive. They are modals (can, could, will, would, should, must, may, might, shall plus let and make. Also see or hear when they mean that the action was completed).

Verb patterns: verb + infinitive or verb + -ing?

from English Grammar Today

Verbs followed by a to-infinitive

Some verbs can be followed immediately by a to-infinitive:

afford	demand	like	pretend
agree	fail	love	promise
arrange	forget	manage	refuse
ask	hate	mean (= intend)	remember
begin	help	need	start
choose	hope	offer	try
continue	intend	plan	want
decide	learn	prefer

I can’t afford to go on holiday.

It began to rain.

She hopes to go to university next year.

My mother never learnt to swim.

Did you remember to ring Nigel?

See also:

• Help somebody (to) do
• Want
• Verbs followed by a direct object and a to-infinitive

Verbs followed by -ing

-ing but not to-infinitive

Some verbs are normally followed by the -ing form, not the to-infinitive:

admit	deny	finish	mind
avoid	dislike	give up	miss
(can’t) help	enjoy	imagine	practise
(can’t) stand	fancy	involve	put off
consider	feel like	keep (on)	risk

I always enjoy cooking.

Not: I always enjoy to cook.

We haven’t finished eating yet.

Not: We haven’t finished to eat.

She keeps changing her mind about the wedding.

New subject before -ing

Some of these verbs (e.g. can’t stand, dislike, imagine, involve, mind, miss, put off and risk) can be used with a new subject before the -ing form (underlined in the examples below). If the new subject is a pronoun, it is in the object form (me, him, her, us, them):

We just couldn’t imagine Gerry singing in public.

Do you mind me being here while you’re working?

I don’t want to risk him losing his job.

See also:

• Verbs followed by -ing

Verbs followed by a to-infinitive or -ing

Hate, like, love, prefer

Hate, like, love and prefer can be followed either by -ing or a to-infinitive. The difference in meaning is often small. The -ing form emphasises the verb itself. The to-infinitive puts the emphasis more on the preference for, or the results of, the action.

Compare

-ing form	to-infinitive
I love cooking Indian food. (emphasis on the process itself and enjoyment of it)	I like to drink juice in the morning, and tea at lunchtime. (emphasis more on the preference or habit)
She hates cleaning her room. (emphasis on the process itself and no enjoyment of it)	I hate to be the only person to disagree.(emphasis more on the result: I would prefer not to be in that situation.)
Most people prefer watching a film at the cinema rather than on TV.(emphasis on the process itself and enjoyment of it)	We prefer to drive during the day whenever we can. (emphasis more on the result and on the habit or preference. The speaker doesn’t necessarily enjoy the process of driving at any time of day.)

Hate, like, love, prefer with would or should

When hate, like, love and prefer are used with would or should, only theto-infinitive is used, not the -ing form:

She’d love to get a job nearer home.

Not: She’d love getting a job nearer home.

Would you like to have dinner with us on Friday?

To-infinitive or -ing form with a change in meaning

Some verbs can be followed by a to-infinitive or the -ing form, but with a change in meaning:

go on	need	remember	try
mean	regret	stop	want

Compare

-ing form	to-infinitive
Working in London means leaving home at 6.30. (Because I work in London, this is the result or consequence.)	I didn’t mean to make you cry. (I didn’t intend to make you cry.)
He went on singing after everyone else had finished. (He continued singing without stopping.)	She recited a poem, then went on tosing a lovely folk song. (She recited the poem first, then she sang the song.)
I tried searching the web and finally found an address for him.(I searched the web to see what information I could find.)	I tried to email Simon but it bounced back. (I tried/attempted to email him but I did not succeed.)
She stopped crying as soon as she saw her mother. (She was crying, and then she didn’t cry anymore.)	We stopped to buy some water at the motorway service area. (We were travelling and we stopped for a short time in order to buy some water.)

See also:

• Mean
• Need
• Remember or remind?
• Stop + -ing form or to-infinitive
• Want

Verbs followed by an infinitive without to

Let, make

Let and make are followed by an infinitive without to in active voice sentences. They always have an object (underlined) before the infinitive:

Let me show you this DVD I’ve got.

They made us wait while they checked our documents.

Not: They made us to wait …

Help

Help can be followed by an infinitive without to or a to-infinitive:

She helped me find a direction in life.

Everyone can help to reduce carbon emissions by using public transport.

See also:

• Help somebody (to) do
• Let, let’s
• Make

Verbs followed by -ing or an infinitive without to

A group of verbs connected with feeling, hearing and seeing can be used with -ing or with an infinitive without to:

feel	notice	see
hear	overhear	watch

When they are used with -ing, these verbs emphasise the action or event in progress. When they are used with an infinitive without to, they emphasise the action or event seen as a whole, or as completed.

Compare

-ing	infinitive without to
She heard people shouting in the street below and looked out of the window. (emphasises that the shouting probably continued or was repeated)	I heard someone shout ‘Help!’, so I ran to the river.(emphasises the whole event: the person probably shouted only once)
A police officer saw him runningalong the street. (emphasises the running as it was happening)	Emily saw Philip run out of Sandra’s office. (emphasises the whole event from start to finish)

Verbs followed by a direct object and a to-infinitive

Some verbs are used with a direct object (underlined) followed by a to-infinitive. These verbs include:

advise	hate	like	persuade	request
ask	help	love	prefer	teach
challenge	instruct	need	recommend	tell
choose	intend	order	remind	want
forbid	invite

I advised him to get a job as soon as possible.

Did Martin teach Gary to play squash?

They want me to go to Germany with them.

(“Verb patterns: verb + infinitive or verb + - ing ?” from English Grammar Today © Cambridge 

Then, we continued with Paco telling - I mean, reading - the story about ‘Jack the Ripper.’

We listened to an interview with Ken Morton, an expert on Jack the Ripper. He was consulted by Patricia Cornwell, the American crime writer, in her investigation about this murderer.

After that, we introduced the grammar topic of question tags.

A question tag is a short question made up by an auxiliary verb and a pronoun. If the sentence is affirmative, the tag is negative and the other way round; if the sentence is negative, the tag is affirmative.

We use this kind of questions to check information so as to see if we have the correct data. They can also be used just to keep the conversation going. This is the reason why, intonation is an important factor. Depending on the intonation pattern, the tag will pursue one objective or the other.

Click here to try an exercise on  question tags

And that was all!

For homework, do the exercises on the photocopy I gave you. You can find the exercises on www.perfect-english-grammar.com gerunds and infinitives parts 1 and 2. On the page with the title, ‘All about me’, rewrite and correct the sentences you wrote because you have to hand it in next Thursday.

GAME 4

Player 1	7
Player 2	9
Player 3	---
Player 4	8
Player 5	3
Player 6	5
Player 7	3

See you on Thursday!