Tag Archives: slides

Infinitive and Gerund Transformations

A word on Grammar, Grammar and Exercises, , , ,

I don’t really think I have ever studied lists of verbs followed by infinitive and/or gerund but I really don’t think I should be telling this to my students.

I always claim that English grammar is easy, especially when  compared to the Spanish grammar, but  it gets a bit messy when it comes to verbs  followed by infinitive or gerund.
You see, the easy thing to say is that some verbs are followed by infinitive (promise to go) and some verbs are followed by gerund (can’t stand ironing). But then we find that, some other verbs are followed by infinitive or gerund with no change of meaning (start to study/start studying)and some others are followed by infinitive and gerund with a change of meaning (stop to smoke/stop smoking) and if this were not enough, some verbs are followed by infinitive with to (offer to help) and some others by infinitive without to ( make me study). Some verbs are followed by gerund but if there is an object pronoun in between the verb and the gerund, then the gerund becomes infinitive (recommended reading / recommended her to read) … amazing, isn’t it?

Now, you can begin to  understand why I have never studied lists of verbs but relied on my intuition  when trying to decide on the right structure.

I hope these exercises will help my students.You are welcome to do them.

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Writing Elementary (A1): Write about a popular group

Writing, , , , , , ,

It’s not easy to find writing activities  that motivate students but Writing about Music is one of the most popular among teenagers. From my point of view, at this stage of their learning, writing should be partially guided and this is what this activity suggests.
This is the writing task my A1 students had to undertake. I thought I might share it here as I always find it hard to find activities such as this one. Hope you find it useful, too!

Step 1. Students think of a group they know and like and then they provide the following information about their group.
Name:
When popular:
Members of the group:
From:
Instruments:
Songs

Step 2. Students write  about this group , using their notes above.As I suggested , at this stage students need a lot of help and encouragement , so it’s really a good idea to give them a model they can refer to.

This is the model I gave them

The Fray are a popular group in the United States and all over the world today. In the group there are four musicians: Joe King, Isaac Slade, Dave Welsh, Ben Wysocki . They are all from the USA. They sing, write songs and play the guitar, the drums and the piano. Two of the group’s most popular songs are How to save a Life and All at Once.

Step 3:I decided to give my students an extra point if they gave a presentation about their group in class. Most of them did and they even brought along  some flash drives with the group’s most popular songs.

Presentations given by Karen and Alice . Thank you girls!

Who said English is boring?

Kizoa: creating slideshows

Resources, Slides,

With Kizoa you can store photos, edit them, and create amazing slideshows and it’s free! You can also touch up your photos in the editing workshop by adding frames, effects. You can resize or rotate your photos.You can easily create flash shows and assign transitions, animations, text and music to your slideshow. You can send your show by email, post it in facebook or your website ,add it to your blog and  create a DVD but first you need to create an account and upload your photos.

My elementary students are now working with feelings  and this is the slideshow I’ve made for them. I suggest you use it to revise or to teach by pausing the slideshow before the word expressing the feeling is shown.