Christmas Film Festival

Let's celebrate the Christmas spirit with some season-related video favorites.

1. Buster the Boxer

2. Buzz the Boxer wants to be Buster

3 . Christmas Truce

4. Man on the Moon

5. "What's this?", from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

 Bonus track: Emilia Clarke sings "Last Christmas". 

Enjoy the holidays!

Modal verbs

Modal verbs are a reduced number of verbs in English. They behave differently from the other verbs and share some characteristics: they...

o   are invariable, don’t take an –s in the third person: She must study for the test

o   go in front of the verb in interrogative sentences: Should I open the door?

o   add “not” or “n’t” in negative sentences: He mustn’t leave the town

o   are followed by infinitive without to (except ought to, need to, have to): She can’t sing.

o   are not used in the past or the future. Instead, we use “be able to” and “have to”.

Modal verbs have different uses. 

Check if you remember them completing this worksheet. 
Modal verbs can also be used followed by the perfect infinitive: modal + have + past participle. 

You will find a short explanation and a complete set of exercises in this page. 

Grammar Basics Review

Worried about passing English this year? Do not despair!

Learning English can be a long and, sometimes, frustrating process but, if you persevere, you'll be successful. It's a question of putting the time and the work... and believe in yourself!

Practice as much as you can: read magazines, use learning websites (like BBC Learning English), watch movies, listen to music, talk to people, work in class and do your homework. The results will come.

If you are having difficulties with some of the grammar points we're working on this year, or if you make many grammar mistakes in your writing exercises, it may be strongly advisable that you review the basic grammar points studied in previous years. Here's what you can do:

• Download this Review of Grammar Basics. It includes grammar explanations, in Catalan, and practice exercises. 
• Print the file. Work on it one unit at a time.
• Do the exercises in each unit and give them to your teacher as you complete them.

Don't hesitate to ask your teacher by email or in person whenever there's anything you don't understand.

How to Write a Horror Story

When you create a story, it's important to structure your writing in an effective way. Here's a suggestion on "How to Write (and Structure) a Horror Story".
Another important element is the vocabulary. This Word Bank worksheet presents a number of words and expressions that will be useful to create the scary atmosphere you need.

Finally, this video offers some tips for writing more effective writing.

Here's your task:

• In groups of 3 or 4 people you're going to write a horror story.
• Include at least one example of the simple past, past continuous, past perfect, present simple and at least one future tense. Use at least 5 words in the Word Bank worksheet. Underline these elements in your story.

Review of verb tenses

In Unit 1 we worked with simple, continuous and perfect simple verb tenses, in present and past. We practiced:

Image from learningenglish.co.uk

• The Present Simple: We sing
• The Present Continuous: We are singing
• The Past Simple: We sang
• The Past Continuous: We were singing
• The Present Perfect Simple: We have sung
• The Past Perfect: We had sung
• The Future Simple: We will sing

Remember that you can check how these verbs are used in this Grammar Appendix, with explanations in Catalan. 

Here's a unit (in Spanish) about the different verb tenses. It was created by a great teacher called Isabel Pérez. It includes a good number of exercises. 

You will find more detailed explanations and useful infographics in the website Perfect English Grammar. 

If you need more practice or you have any questions or doubts, write them in the comments below or send me an email. If you want to make an appointment, I'll be happy to meet with you one Wednesday afternoon and help you with any difficulties you may have.

Adjective Suffixes

In Unit 1 in our textbook we had a look at adjective suffixes. A suffix is a particle that is added to a word to form a new word with a different meaning or function. Here are some suffixes that are commonly added to nouns in order to form adjectives.

Adjective Suffixes
-able, -ible	capable of being	edible, presentable, abominable, credible
-al	pertaining to	regional, grammatical, emotional, coastal
-esque	reminiscent of	picturesque, statuesque, burlesque
-ful	notable for	fanciful, resentful, woeful, doubtful
-ic, -ical	pertaining to	musical, mythic, domestic
-ious, -ous	characterized by	nutritious, portentous, studious
-ish	having the quality of	fiendish, childish, snobbish
-ive	having the nature of	creative, punitive, divisive, decisive
-less	without	endless, ageless, lawless, effortless
-y	characterized by	sleazy, hasty, greasy, nerdy, smelly

Taken from https://www.thoughtco.com/

If you  add -ly to an adjective, you'll create an adverb:

• Calm - calmly
• Beautiful - beautifully
• Logical - logically

"The Logical Song", by Supertramp, features a good number of adjectives and adverbs created with these suffixes.

Correction of your writing exercises

Your assignments will be marked following this rubric used for selectivitat.

Learning to write is a process. It takes time and a lot of perseverance and hard work. You learn to write by reading and writing extensively. It's also important to receive feedback on your exercises.

For the feedback to be useful, you need to dedicate time to understand this feedback and see how you can improve your texts. I'll use this correction key when marking your assignments.

Always look at the feedback you receive and use the code to write a new, corrected version of your text.