EOI Year 3

www.sergiovinals.com & www.escuelaoficial.com

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:17:00 +0000

Hi

This is just to let you know that my personal website has been updated. From now on, I'll be posting new contents, exercises, etc. in that new website. It comprises not only Year 3, but also other levels and lots and lots of things related to the English world.

You can access the site by entering www.sergiovinals.com or www.escuelaoficial.com into your favourite browser.

I hope you like the new site, and I really look forward to seeing you there. By the way, if anyone is interested in collaborating with the site, please let me know. Feel free to send me any news or material you consider useful for the site.

Thanks for your collaboration.

Sergio

Radio Vaughan

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 09:56:00 +0000

Hi everybody!

For all of those who have failed the listening part, or just want to practice their listening skills this summer for the sake of it, here's an interesting website called 'Radio Vaughan'.

It's an online radio programme in English, very suitable for English learners, as they speak of a great variety of topics, including interviews, exercises, etc. Those who have followed the programme can verify that it really works.

Here's the link:

www.vaughanradio.com

This company also edits their programmes in MP3 format, so if you search well you can download those files to practice anywhere, any time... :)

Enjoy it

Funny stuff - The 22 Worst Place Names in the world

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:15:00 +0000

Now that I've finished this year's duty at the EOI, I spend my time searching the Internet and trying to find my next holiday destination.

And it was then that I found this peculiar website. How exciting would it be visiting Titty Hill (Sussex, England), or Hookersville (West Virginia). Can you imagine the smell of flowers at Middelfart (Denmark)? And how about that Fucking town (Austria)?

These are just a few of the 22 worst place names in the world. But... wait! Who told you Cartagena does not mean anything funny in Swahili? One never knows...

The 22 Worst Place Names in the World

Extra Vocabulary: Parts of the Body

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Thu, 31 May 2007 11:04:00 +0000

See large 1
See large 2

Test your vocabulary

Health: Is something wrong with... ?

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:43:00 +0000

Look at these dialogues:

A: Is something wrong with your body?
B: Yes, there is. I have a sunburn.
A: You should put on some lotion.

A: Is something wrong with your head?
B: Yes. I had a bump while I was playing football.
A: You'd better apply ice to reduce swelling.

Now play out some dialogues with your partner based on the following problems, using 'should', 'ought to' and 'you'd better' for giving advice:

1. I have a mosquito bite.
2. I have a bee sting.
3. I have an allergy.
4. I have a black eye.
5. I have a pink eye.
6. I twisted my ankle.
7. I stubbed my toe.
8. I have a blister.
9. I feel dizzy.
10. I have a bump.
11. I have a nosebleed.
12. I have a broken nose.
13. I have a runny nose.
14. I feel itchy.
15. I have a rash.
16. I have a burn.
17. I have a stomach cramp.
18. I have a stomachache.
19. I have a headache.
20. I broke my leg.
21. I have a cut.
22. I just got bit by a dog.
23. I feel like throwing up.
24. I am choking.
25. I have a cough.
26. I have a sore throat.

You can add any useful expressions you may find in the Comments section.

Extra Grammar: Make / Do

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Mon, 28 May 2007 09:35:00 +0000

1. Look at these sentences:

I enjoyed making model planes when I was a child.
Make the tea, will you, while I do the washing-up.

There is no rule which says when to use make and when to use do, but if you look at the expressions above you should be able to complete these guidelines with one word or the other:

1. We often use ....... to talk about work.
2. We often use ....... to talk about constructing or creating something.

2. Would scientists do or make the following? Write the correct word in front of each one:

a. ............... a discovery.
b. ............... harm.
c. ............... a promise.
d. ............... certain.
e. ............... damage.
f. ............... an attempt.
g. ............... a plan.
h. ............... an excuse.
i. ............... better.
j. ............... their best.
k. ............... an experiment.
l. ............... a choice.
m. ............... a suggestion.
n. ............... progress.
o. ............... notes.
p. ............... an effort.

3. Write a short sentence about yourself using a form of do or make with each of the expressions below.

Example: I did my homework last night.

some mistakes - well at school - me angry - a noise - friends with somebody - nothing at all - some housework - everyone laugh - sure - an exercise - a phone call - the First Certificate exam

Extra Vocabulary: Health and Healthcare - Illnesses

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Mon, 28 May 2007 09:17:00 +0000

- Health and Healthcare -

Illnesses
ache
earache
headache
stomachache/stomach ache
toothache
sore throat
cancer
cold
cough
flu
heart attack
heart disease
infection
infectious disease
pain
virus
germ
hay fever
rash
high cholesterol
high blood pressure
migraine

Minor Injuries
bruise
cut
graze
wound
sprain
fracture

Treatment
bandage
check-up
dose (of medicine)
drugs
injection
give some an injection
medicine
take medicine
operation
pain-killer
pill
plaster
tablet
tranquilizer
X-ray
eye drops
low-fat diet
antibiotics

People
dentist
doctor
general practitioner
midwife
nurse
patient
specialist
surgeon

Places
hospital
operating theatre
surgery
waiting room
ward

Verbs
catch
cure
heal
hurt
injure
operate on
prescribe
prescription
treat
treatment
vomit

Adjectives
fit
ill
sick
feel sick
be sick
healthy
unhealthy
painful
unwell
well

Other vocabulary
thermometer
prescription

Grammar: Reflexive, Intensive & Reciprocal Pronouns

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:30:00 +0000

Hi all,

Please, have a look at the following website for extra information on Reflexive, Intensive & Reciprocal Pronouns. Notice there are some exercises below that you can do & check on your own.

Irregular Noun Formations (gender & number)

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:51:00 +0000

Please, have a look at the following pages to revise the formation of irregular plurals of nouns:

- Irregular plurals (number) - In alphabetical order - Another list

Here you can find information on the gender of nouns:

- Gender of nouns

Extra Grammar: Compound nouns made with SOME, ANY and NO

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 22 May 2007 13:09:00 +0000

http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/Determiners7d.cfm

Compound nouns made with SOME, ANY and NO

Some +	-thing	-body	-one	-where
Any +
No +

Compound nouns with some- and any- are used in the same way as some and any.

Positive statements:

Someone is sleeping in my bed.
He saw something in the garden.
I left my glasses somewhere in the house.

Questions:

Are you looking for someone? (= I'm sure you are)
Have you lost something? (= I'm sure you have)
Is there anything to eat? (real question)
Did you go anywhere last night?

Negative statements:

She didn't go anywhere last night.
He doesn't know anybody here.

NOTICE that there is a difference in emphasis between nothing, nobody etc. and not ... anything, not ... anybody:

I don't know anything about it. (= neutral, no emphasis)
I know nothing about it (= more emphatic, maybe defensive)

More examples:

SOMETHING, SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE
a. I have something to tell you.
b. There is something to drink in the fridge.
c. He knows somebody in New York
d. Susie has somebody staying with her.
e. They want to go somewhere hot for their holidays.
f. Keith is looking for somewhere to live.

ANYBODY, ANYTHING, ANYWHERE
a. Is there anybody who speaks English here?
b. Does anybody have the time?
c. Is there anything to eat?
d. Have you anything to say?
e. He doesn't have anything to stay tonight.
f. I wouldn't eat anything except at Maxim's.

NOBODY, NOTHING, NOWHERE
a. There is nobody in the house at the moment
b. When I arrived there was nobody to meet me.
c. I have learnt nothing since I began the course.
d. There is nothing to eat.
e. There is nowhere as beautiful as Paris in the Spring.
f. Homeless people have nowhere to go at night.

ANY can also be used in positive statements to mean 'no matter which', 'no matter who', 'no matter what':

Examples:

a. You can borrow any of my books.
b. They can choose anything from the menu.
c. You may invite anybody to dinner, I don't mind.

Reading Comprehension Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:04:00 +0000

Here's some Reading Comprehension tests so that you can practice for your exam in June. Good luck!

Reading 1. Campodimele
Reading 2. Fed up? The Truth About Low-Fat Diets
Reading 3. Cigar bars and Smoking Clubs (Madrid) Key
Reading 4. Greeting Big Brother with Open Arms Key
Reading 5. You will start to feel very sleepy Key
Reading 6. Television addiction Key

Unit 9. Reported Speech (Extra)

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:23:00 +0000

Extra theory

Extra exercises

Unit 9. -ing/-ed adjectives

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:10:00 +0000

Complete the pictures with the correct forms of these verbs: frighten – tire – bore – amuse

Funny stuff - Listening: "Car Complaint"

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:26:00 +0000

Hi all,

As you may have noticed, these days I've been adding lots of extra stuff to the blog so that you can practice as much as possible before the E-Day (which, by the way, is taking place two days before D-Day. Strange coincidence, isn't it?).

Yesterday, a Group H student, Pedro, sent me a 'peculiar' listening practice exercise . Although the topic is a bit 'weird', you can still do it for a laugh. :)

Definitely, this is a perfect example where the well-known idiom, 'Shit happens', applies :)

Enjoy it:
Car Complaint Listening

The Environment: Green Day + NRDC: Moving America Beyond Oil

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:25:00 +0000

Pop-punk trio Green Day has partnered up with NRDC to help with a new campaign to Move America Beyond Oil. Via the website, visitors can send personal messages directly to political leaders, asking them to get behind solutions like improving fuel efficiency standards and setting more stringent CO2 regs for power plants.

And recognizing, perhaps, that "kids these days" are big fans of "the texting," NRDC has also added a new tool allowing messages to be sent to lawmakers and corporate leaders via cell phone by sending "GD" to 30644. (Standard text messaging rates probably apply.)

Below the fold, a video of Green Day talking about the issues and urging you to act. So get on your GD phone and do it already, if only for the I-just-texted-G-Dub coolness factor.

Source: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/21/143434/58

QUESTIONS:

1. Can you remember some of the words connected to the environment that are mentioned in the video?

2. According to Greenday, what measures can we take to save oil?

3. Billy Joe, Greenday's frontman, says:
'We've got the solutions, but............................................'

4. What do you do to save energy?

Unit 9: Work (Conversation)

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:05:00 +0000

Discuss the following questions:

1. What do you do?

2. How long have you been doing it?

3. Do you enjoy it? Why/why not?

4. Do you have the following things at work?

a. Variety
b. Responsibility
c. Friends
d. Good conditions

5. What would youd ideal job be? Why?

6. Have you ever done any part time jobs?

7. Number the following five jobs according to which is the most stressful and which is the least:

a. banker
b. miner
c. teacher
d. politician
e. cashier

8. Look at the following three jobs and decide who would do the things below most often.

a. a secondary school teacher
b. an army sergeant
c. the managing director of a small company

- obey orders
- fire people
- take risks
- mark essays
- attend meetings
- tell lies
- sign documents
- make decisions
- shout at people
- apologise
- cancel appointments
- negotiate contracts

Unit 8: What if...?

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:56:00 +0000

Dear students,

As a way of practising the 2nd Conditional, you can choose some of these questions and discuss what you would do in those situations.

If you prefer, you can post your answers in the Comments section, as usual.

- If you had only 24 hours to live, what would you do?
- If a classmate asked you for the answer to a question during an exam while the teacher was not looking, what would you do?
- If someone's underwear was showing, would you tell them?
- If one song were to describe your life, what song would it be?
- If you bumped your car into another car, but nobody saw you do it, would you leave your name and address?
- If you could ask God any one question, what would it be?
- If you could be a bird, what would you choose to be?
- If you could be an animal, any animal, what animal would you be and why?
- If you could be another man or woman for a day, who would you choose?
- If you could be invisible for a day what would you do and why?
- If you could commit any crime and get away with it, what would you do?
- If you could date a celebrity, who would you choose and what would you do?
- If you could hear what someone is thinking for a day, who would you choose?
- If you could travel back in time, where would you go?
- What would you do if you found the wallet of your next-door neighbor who you hated?

Unit 8: Grammar - Conditional Sentences

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:32:00 +0000

Hi all,

Here's a document that you can download, print out and do as extra homework, in case you need more practice on conditional sentences. If you need to have it corrected, you can bring them over and I'll have a look at it in the class.

Extra exercises on Conditional Sentences

Unit 7. Grammar: used to - be used to - would

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:34:00 +0000

Here's some extra exercises you can do at home:

Exercise 1. Past Simple - used to - would

Exercise 2. used to - be used to

Exercise 3. used to - be used to

Fun stuff: The importance of a good pronunciation

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:52:00 +0000

Berlitz is one the most popular language agencies in the world. Have a look at one of their commercials:

- What is going on here?
- Do you find this commercial funny?
- Do you still believe that a good pronunciation is not so important as other aspects of languages (good grammar, rich vocabulary, etc.)?

You can use the Comments section to post your impressions, as usual.

Extra stuff: Can you guess the film?

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:32:00 +0000

Exercise: Try to guess the titles of the following films. Use a dictionary to look up the words in bold, and write a synonym/definition in the Comments section:

1. Dark, dreamlike and dangerous, this film is a fairytale every bit as scary and moving as they were always meant to be. In both the real world - civil war-riven Spain - and the fantasy underworld she discovers, our heroine Ofelia must battle against the most twisted, nightmarish evils to survive. Transcendent, passionate, full of beauty and endlessly affecting, this is without question the movie of the year.

2. The director gets back in touch with his feminine side in this film, the Spanish helmer's most femme fable since 1999's All About My Mother. One of that film's stars here takes centre stage as a domestic drudge caught up in family strife - including the return of her supposedly dead mother. Despite dwelling on death, there's plenty of life in this mix of tears and laughter, although the style's subdued compared with the writer/director's earlier melodramas.

3. Set in the week following the death of Princess Diana, The Queen depicts the backstage parley between PM Blair and HM Elizabeth II. Of course, much of this is speculation (especially the scenes at Balmoral) and director Stephen Frears falls into the trap of gross caricaturing. Only Helen Mirren retains her dignity as the reigning monarch - just as it should be. Otherwise this plays like a bizarre dream that Rory Bremner might have after a late night cheese sandwich.

4. This sensitive adaptation of a very famous epic fantasy classic skilfully maintains the spirit of the book while adding the energy, pace and atmosphere of cinema.
Filming a book is always tricky - but filming this one is nearly impossible. It's not just that recreating the magical realm of Middle Earth requires huge budgets and would terrify even an elite special effects team; more than that, it's a fan's book - regarded with near-sacred awe by devotees - and however hard you try, you risk offending the very people the film's aimed at. It's no wonder that despite buying the rights in the late 50s, it took Disney nearly 30 years to make the film - the surprise is how good the final version is.
The final section of the film was never completed due to financial problems - but despite lacking a conclusion, the film easily stands alone as an atmospheric fairytale romp across the landscapes of the writer's imagination.

5. Several interwoven storylines unfold across four countries as difficulties in communication and understanding complicate life in the shrinking global village. A Moroccan shepherd, a pair of American tourists, a deaf Japanese teenager, and a Mexican nanny and her two young American charges are among the characters whose lives connect in unexpected ways.

Announcement: Language Swap (Skype names)

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 09:55:00 +0000

Those of you interested in language swaps with other native English speakers may want to have a look at the following Skype name list, which includes some Skype user names and their nicknames. You can add these to your contact list in order to have some conversation in English. In return you will sometimes have to speak with them in Spanish, but that is what language swap is about!

Feel free to add any more contacts you may find in the Comments section, so that we can enlarge this list and share it with other students.

Have fun and let me know about your experience!

Unit 6: Grammar - The definite article + the indefinite article

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:30:00 +0000

Hi

Here's some extra exercises you can do on your own in relation to the definite and indefinite articles:

Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Exercise 3

I've uploaded a document with extra theory on the Definite Article that you can download and print out by clicking on here.

Unit 5. Video: Titanic 2: Jack's back

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:49:00 +0000

Watch the following trailer and do the exercises below:

1. What do you think Titanic 2 is about? Write a short summary in the Comments section.
2. Do you think that making a sequel of Titanic is a good idea? Mention some sequels that turned out to be total fiascos, and some other sequels that were a complete success.
3. What is unusual about this movie trailer?

Unit 5. Extra stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Sergio) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:09:00 +0000

Extra exercise: Sports (do/go/play)

Extra exercise (Extreme adjectives)

Extra exercise (Verb patterns)

Extra exercise: Present Perfect Simple vs Continuous