Revision - Time Expressions and Verb Tenses

Dear All,
I'm correcting your last compositions and feel very frustrated that certain patterns are still not clear to you, or at least you're not putting them into practice as I expected you would by now. In a text, the way you conjugate verbs says a lot about your level, so you'd better be careful with that aspect of grammar if you want to improve ;-)

Here's a little list of common patterns combining time expressions and verb tenses:

Time expression	Verb tense
Currently	PRESENT
At present
Nowadays / Now
These days
Recently	PRESENT PERFECT
Lately
Over the last … years / months / centuries
In 1973 … (a date from the past)	PAST
On 2nd May, 1808 (a date from the past)
Last year / month / century, etc.
Yesterday
… days / weeks / months ago

Hope that helps!

Health and Medicine

Dear All,

In the next weeks, we'll do a unit on health and medicine. So here's a vocabulary sheet that will complement the vocabulary in your book. Let me ask you to do it as homework ;-)

Femi Kuti

Had a great time seeing this Nigerian musician and his band last night:

Video Show Today

Remember that today we'll show the videos that participated in the contest and will give prizes to the winners!

Click on image to enlarge

Happy Book Day!

Today is Book Day and I'd like to invite you to read a story by Alistair MacLeod, of one of my favourite Canadian authors. He died three days ago, which made me really sad...

I can't post a PDF with the story in the blog, so for now, enjoy his reading (starting around minute 6)

Key to review 2

Dear All,
here's the key to Review 2, the homework you had to do during the holidays. If you have any questions, please ask me in class.

EOIs get out on the street!

Join us tomorrow at noon (12 pm) in Ópera. Here's the programme 

More listening practice

The topic is a bit old for us, because we've already heard about it in the Spanish news. But listen to this program from the NPR, which contains much of the vocabulary we're studying.

1 - Listen to the program
2 - Fill in the gaps

a) The Princess has been accused of fraud and ___________________.
b) Infanta Cristina and Urdangarín got married ___________________ after they met.
c) According to Chislett, the Infanta didn't ask about the origin of the money or _________________ .
d) Urdangarín is accused of _________________ $8 million from a foundation he ran.
e) In the royal palace, the Infanta's husband is now ________________.
f) In the satirical show "Polonia", Urdangarín is turned into ________________.
g) Only the king has ________________ from prosecution.
h) The Princess and her husband could spend six years in prison if ________________.

3 - Check your answers in the comments below.
4 - Read the transcript here.

And here's the British version of the story.

Listening Comprehension Practice

Since we're going to start a new unit, I suggest you do this exercise (9.3) as homework, instead of listening to it in class. Read the sentences from 1-8 on p. 68 of your book and listen to the recording twice. Decide whether the sentences are true or false and check your answers with the transcript.
Click here to listen

April Fools

Yesterday, the Tu.& Thurs. group was fooled from beginning to end ... and we had a good laugh about it... If you want to know more about the tradition, read this article about April Fools