SEPTEMBER 2009 EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

Hi, there!

This is the schedule for your exams in September this year:

THURSDAY, 10th
Oral exam (convocatoria definitiva para septiembre)
From 15.00 onwards
Room: 2.4

FRIDAY, 18th
Reading, Listening and Writing parts
From 15.45 to 19.30
Room: 4

WEDNESDAY, 23rd
Marks will be published at 16.00 (approx.)

THURSDAY, 24th
Review of the exam with your teacher (17.00-18.00).

Exam results will be posted on the door of the teaching room.
Exam reviews will take place in the usual teaching room.

HAVE A GREAT TIME THIS SUMMER AND KEEP STUDYING ENGLISH!

GOOD LUCK!

PRACTICE SPEAKING IN MADRID

El grupo de intercambio de idiomas Madridbabel se reúne todos los miércoles a partir de las 21:30 en el Café Madrid (c/ Escalinata s/n - metro Opera) para charlar, conocer gente y divertirse. No te lo pierdas, encontrarás gente de todo el mundo y aprenderás idiomas gratis!

Más información: http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/madridbabel

ORAL EXAM: Intermedio 2 Grupos D y E

Congratulations! Almost all of you passed the listening and reading parts of the exam!
Now click on the links to check your turn for the oral exam:

Convocatoria a examen oral, miércoles 10/06/09

Convocatoria a examen oral, viernes 12/06/09

Remember that you will have to do 2 tasks. In task 1 you will have to interact with the other students in your group and in task 2 you will have to talk about a topic individually. Task 1 will cover discussions ranging from planning a weekend with your friends to setting a business together. Task 2 will feature topics ranging from education to housing.

Please, be punctual and good luck!

Exam Workout: Speaking

Here you have a couple of language-learning communities where you can speak English for free:

SharedTalk is a Web page made up of a community of people interested in exchanging and learning languages. You’ll be able to find that native speaker with whom you can substantially improve your level of English.

Soziety is based on Skype. Search for other users based on language, age, gender, country, and "karma" (favorable feedback).

Of course, be careful what you reveal about yourself online!

Exam workout: Writing

I post some links where you can practice for the writing part of the exam:

Sample letters

Useful phrases

Postcards

School applications

Job applications

Formal and informal emails

Complaints

Description of people and places

Exam workout

Here you can download the audio file about marriage in Britain that we did in class to complete the task. You can also play it here:

If you want to do more exercises about listening, check this site. It's highly recommended!

Keep up the good work!

Listen!

This is a sample task for the listening part, the one where you have to fill in the gaps with the words you hear. Try it and see if you can do it!

Here you have a multiple choice exercise with the same text. It's a timed reading, so you must try not to exceed the time limit to answer the questions!

Modelos de tareas

Aquí tenéis los modelos de tareas nuevas que se van a introducir este año en el examen y que ya os repartí en clase el jueves pasado. El martes corregiremos las tareas 3 (Aloe Vera) y 4 (New York) correspondientes a la comprensión lectora. Intentad no sobrepasar los 15 minutos estimados para realizar cada tarea. También tenéis los modelos de tareas para la expresión escrita, y dos sets de tarjetas para la expresión oral. El jueves lo dedicaremos a practicar el examen oral con estas tarjetas. Ya queda poco, así que ¡ánimo!

Tarea 3 C. Lectora

Tarea 4 C.Lectora

Tareas 1 y 2 E.Escrita

Tarea 1 E.Oral

Tarea 2 E.Oral

See you in class!

Linking words and Passives

Here you can practice the use of linking words:

Sentence Connectors-Review and practice

Contrast linkers

Addition linkers

Purpose or reason linkers

Time linkers

And here you can revise the basics of the passive voice and do some exercises:

Passive - focus on the object

Deciding when to include the agent

Placing emphasis on the receiver of the action

Verbs with no passive form

Recognizing verb tenses

Enjoy!

Practising Cloze Tests and Matching Texts and Headings. Answers

These are the answers to the text about spas:

Headings to match with the numbered texts:

Text 1: A. Healthy Escapes for a Change
Text 2: D. What Are the Hot Trends?
Text 3: B. How do I Plan a Healthy Escape?
Text 4: E. What Types of Spas Are There?
Distractor: C. How Do I Find Out?

Words to fill in the gaps:

	TEXT ONE		TEXT TWO		TEXT THREE		TEXT FOUR
1	walk	1	spas	1	most	1	aromatherapy
2	more	2	fitness	2	to go	2	wraps
3	two-hour	3	on	3	need	3	proper
4	ends	4	management	4	critical	4	active
5	massage	5	as	5	embark	5	thinking
6	allow	6	include	6	best	6	on
						7	well-being
						8	on
						9	illness
						10	mud

Unit 10. Reported Speech/Verbs+TO+infinitive or +ING

Reported Speech

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by eoimarisa

These are links where you can practice the verb patterns we learnt in this unit:

Reported speech. Revision of common structures + exercises

Theory and Practice with explanations in Spanish

Gerund and infinitive explanation with exercises

More exercises on verb patterns 1, 2, 3

Have fun!

Learn English through movies

Here you have 2 links to learn English through movies. Have fun!

Lingualnet

English trailers

Word of the week 11 - 17 May 2009 SWINE FLU

Swine has two meanings:
1. Any of various omnivorous, even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae, including pigs, hogs, and boars, having a stout body with thick skin, a short neck, and a movable snout.
2. A person regarded as brutish or contemptible.

Entry taken from http://self-learning-eoicoruna.blogspot.com

Practising Cloze Tests. Answers

Here you have the answers to the cloze "Packing Your Suitcase":

1. privileged
2. to travel
3. given
4. skill
5. valuable
6. Place
7. which
8. on
9. edge
10. up
11. upwards
12. toilet
13. in
14. Finally
15. legs

Units 8&9: Modals and Linkers

Hi, these are some useful links to practice with the grammar of the units 8 and 9:

Modals explanation

Permission, obligation and prohibition online activity

Contrast linkers explanation

Contrast linkers practice (click on answers to check)

JUNE 2009 EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

Hi, there!

This is the final schedule for your exams in June this year:

FRIDAY, 5th
Reading, Listening and Writing parts
From 15.45 to 19.30
Room: 2.4 for NI2D and 4 for NI2E

WEDNESDAY, 10th
Oral exam for NI2D
From 15.00 onwards
Room: 2.4

FRIDAY, 12th
Oral exam for NI2E
From 15.00 onwards
Room: 2.4

THURSDAY, 18th
Marks will be published at 16.00 (approx.)

MONDAY, 22th
Review of the exam with your teacher (19.00-20.00).

NIVEL INTERMEDIO 2 PRUEBA FINAL

PARTES	Porcentaje	Puntuación	Mínimo	Duración
Comprensión de lectura	25%	25 p	15 p (60%)	75’ aprox.
Comprensión oral	25%	25 p	15 p (60%)	40’ aprox.
Descanso				20’
Expresión escrita	25%	25 p	15 p (60%)	75’ aprox.
Expresión oral	25%	25 p	15 p (60%)	20-25’ aprox.

*Exam results will be posted on the door of the teaching room.
*Exam reviews will take place in the usual teaching room.

See you in class!

You can't make this stuff up

Here you have the episode from the popular show by Jim Ribble that we worked on in class. If you want to download it you must have iTunes (it's free). Once you set it up on your computer you just have to go the CNN site and click on the iTunes icon under the name of the show. Listen to one of the episodes, choose one of the stories and write a summary to publish on the blog if you received my invitation, if not, send me your email asap!



Here you have the answers to the cloze:

Writing skills: News story

Here is the lesson that I gave you in class to help you write a story. Follow the guidelines to do your homework: choose one of the headlines and write a story yourself. Then, if you send me your mail and you are a blogger already, you can publish your story on the blog if you want.

Cheers!

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to your blog! I've finally set it up. As you already know, we'll use it as a way to supplement our lessons. I hope it helps you improve your English skills!

To start with, I noticed some of you didn't know what a podcast is. Here is a video that explains it and if you look at the right of the page, under "English Online Resources", you'll find many sites where you can download podcasts. I highly recommend that you start using them, they're fun!



That's all for now...