2015.11.25 Class 8

Today's class was short due to my meetings with your parents from 16:00. We revised and corrected the exam you did in Class 7. It is very important to keep this exam, as you are going to need to study it. The results were mixed.

In general at this point, to be ready for the exam next summer, it's best to be getting about 45% and above in the Use of English and around 50% in the Reading. If you got lower than that, it's still possible you'll be ready, as often students perform poorly on their first exam, but you definitely need to take your work seriously. In February, we'll be doing a full mock exam and I will use your marks on that and this most recent practice test to assess whether you should register for the exam in the summer.

In the meetings with your parents, I'll be talking about your grades. FYI (='For Your Information') I also had an email sent to them with some general points about the class. Below the homework you can see what it said.

Homework:

1. Review what I explained about 'say' and 'tell' in class 6 and then check your understanding of by doing this quiz: http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/say-or-tell-exercise-1.html . If you get less than 16 correct, you need to study this more.
2. Begin to study Parts 1 and 3 from the Use of English practice exam you did. Even if you missed class, you can start studying in Quizlet - look for the lists with 'UE1' and 'UE3' in the title.
3. The Hand that Feeds Me (a short story I handed out in class or which you can get here)
1. Read the story twice (on two different days).
2. Underline 8 different lexical items (i.e. words or expressions) that you think are important for you to learn. Copy them into your notebook (I'd recommend you use the Vocabulary section in the back) and onto a piece of paper you can hand in to me. 
3. Look up the lexical item (in a dictionary, in google, however you want) to understand what it means. Make some notes on the meanings on the piece of paper that you can hand in to me.

This is the email that was sent to your parents:

Queridos padres,

Soy el profesor del Instituto Británico de la clase que está cursando su hijo/hija. El miércoles 25 (16:00-17:30), estaré a su disposición para comentar las notas que ha sacado su hijo/hija hasta ahora y mi impresión de su progreso.

Por si no pueden venir el miércoles, a continuación tienen otros cuatro temas que mencionaré el miércoles:

1. Hay un blog de la clase en: http://kaspfirst.blogspot.com.es/ . Están más que bienvenidos a mirarlo y quería mencionárselo más que nada para que sepan que su hijo/hija lo pueda consultar para saber los deberes cuando falta a clase. 

2. Deberes - es que hay varios estudiantes que no están tomando en serio los deberes. Entiendo que van muy cargados, pero con solo asistir a clase, no es nada seguro que estén preparados para el examen para el verano del 2016 - para la gran mayoría, hay que trabajar fuera de clase también.

3. Su hijo/hija tiene una carpeta azul donde guardar sus redacciones. Para el 25 de noviembre, debe haber como mínimo cuatro redacciones. Algunas de estas se han realizado en clase, pero, relacionado con el tema 2, es muy importante que no salten los deberes, sobre todo cuando se tratan de redacciones.

4. En general, es imprescindible que su hijo/hija tenga contacto con el inglés fuera de clase y fuera del cole. Lo mejor sin duda es leer - las lecturas no tienen que ser literatura, lo mejor es que se trate de un tema que les interese - pero también va bien que miren la tele o películas en inglés. Propongo una hora a la semana. Si les pudieran facilitar el acceso a oportunidades para tener este contacto, estaría muy bien.

Gracias por su colaboración.

Cordialmente - Kirk Moore

2015.11.18 Class 7

Today we started class by revising the homework from Class 6. You then did a practice Reading & Use of English paper from the First For Schools (FCE) exam. There are a few things to remember about this exam:

• This exam is diagnostic in purpose, i.e. it will give us an idea of how prepared or not you are for the full exam next year.
• Although this is only one of four parts of the exam, it counts for 40% of your exam grade. It's also the part of the exam which I think best predicts your preparedness for the exam.

After talking about how the exam went, we watched a couple of very short clips that showed the use of 'highly unlikely' and 'get out'. 

Homework:

1. Remind your parents to come see me next week between 16.00 and 17.30 in the auditorium in the basement. They should get a phone call for an appointment time.
2. Study the vocabulary in Quizlet.
3. Write a summary (150-200 words) of Signs (see Class 6 to watch Signs) on paper to hand in to me.

2015.11.11 Class 6

Reminders:

• In Class 7 (18 Nov), there will be a practice test (Reading & Use of English) in the first half of class – please be sure to attend!
• In Class 8 (25 Nov), there will be class from 15:00–16:00. After that, I will be available to speak with your parents in the basement auditorium. Please ask your parents to attend.

After reviewing the homework (see answers at the end of this pdf and this new Quizlet vocabulary list) and your summaries of Tick Tock (from the last class), you did a Vocabulary Quiz on Miscellaneous - Classes 4&5.

The most important point I mentioned from your summaries of Tick Tock is the difference between 'say' and 'tell'. There's a good summary of this on this Cambridge Dictionary page or this BBC page, or you can also remember:

tell + somebody (+something) e.g. I told them (the story of my trip to Tibet).
say + something (to somebody) e.g. I said 'thanks' (to the waitress).

Brackets () indicate something optional. The important point is that 'tell' always needs an indirect object and that 'say' does not. Please ask me about this if you don't understand it well; it's an important point for the FCE.

We then turned to the SB to continue preparing for the FCE, especially the Reading & Use of English paper, as that is what you will find in the practice test next week. We worked on SB p.16 and also looked at Part 4 Transformations on flo-joe, which is a great practice and reference site for you.

We then talked about the topic of cities and what it's like to live in one. Next we watched a short film called Signs and discussed it briefly afterwards. In the next class, you'll write a narrative (i.e. story) of the film as practice for Writing part 2.



Homework:

1. Study the Two Peas in a Pod vocabulary list on Quizlet
2. WB p.8, p.10 and p.11
3. If you haven't watched Signs, watch it before the next class.

Model essay (SB p.13)

This is a quick model answer I wrote in response to the question on p.13 of the SB, which was assigned as homework for Class 5. It's a bit longer (227 words) than the recommended length of 140-190 words.

It is often said that the elderly can teach the young valuable lessons based on their experience. I agree with this idea, though I think the young must also be sure to think for themselves.

Older people certainly know the history of their time period better than the young and also have the benefit of a longer life experience. This often enables them to see the present more clearly than the young and they can tell us how they dealt with similar situations in the past. When I tell my grandfather about the things I'm worried about, his advice is almost always good.

Many people say that the older generation doesn't know anything about technology, but this is completely false. They may not know about the latest digital technologies, but my grandfather never took his car to the garage - he always repaired it myself. And my best friend's grandfather built the house my friend lives in, without anyone else's help!

Finally, we can also learn from the older generation's mistakes. In their time, for example, sexism and racism were normal and caused a great deal of suffering to many people. We can learn about the ill effects of these attitudes and better avoid them ourselves.

It is therefore abundantly clear that the elderly can pass on valuable knowledge and perspectives that will help today's young people.

2015.11.04 Class 5

1) To start off class today, we revised your summaries of Mind the Gap, which you wrote in class last week and which I made a few corrections on. I suggested the following as a model summary and we considered the fact that sometimes you have to summarise when writing, for example, a review for Writing part 2.

This short film is about an elderly woman who visits an underground station every day. At first, we don't know why. Then, one day, when the voice of the announcer that says 'Mind the gap' changes, she begins to cry. We discover at the end that the woman went to the station every day to listen to the announcement, which had been recorded by her late husband.

2) We then watched Tick Tock again, but not backwards:



I asked you to think about Emit's regrets and/or the regrets the palliative nurse found among the terminally ill (in the article we read in Class 4). We use forms such as the following to express regrets:

Emit wishes he had done X.
He was sorry he had called his mother stupid (or: for calling his mother stupid.)
Many older men regret having done Y (or: doing Y).

You then wrote summaries of Tick Tock, mentioning some of his regrets.

3) You did a quick vocabulary quiz on the Miscellaneous - Classes 1, 2, 3 list. Those who studied did well; those who did not, didn't.

4) I then announced that we'll be having a Practice Test (Reading & Use of English part only) on 18 November (=Class 7).

So as to be familiar with all the parts in the R&UE, we continued working in the book on pp.14-15 (R&UE Part 6) and p.17 (R&UE Part 3).

5) We ended class with an informal speaking task about traveling.

Homework:

1. Study the Miscellaneous - Classes 4 & 5 (regrets) vocabulary list for another quiz in Class 6.
2. Read and do the exercises on the short story Two Peas in a Pod. (If you missed class, click on the link to get the story.) You can also listen to the story.