Riddles

A Riddle is acertijo or adivinanza in Spanish.

So, today's post is









 about some simple Riddles for Basic 1.

This is our first class Riddle:

        It has two wheels
        It has no motor
        It has a saddle
        What's that?
         Answer:

And what about yours? Do you know any Riddle? If you do, please leave a comment, telling us about your Riddles. Thank you for your contributions.


Youtube Riddles.

For more Riddles, please click on here. 

 

Adjectives wanted

Do you feel like you've got enough adjectives to describe anyone or anything in English?

If you don't, this can be the perfect post for you, partly because of the photo above: Adjectives wanted, and partly due to the fact that all we need is time. Yes, time to talk and assimilate so many adjectives and words.

More than anything else, we need dedication, patience and lot of hours using the language, that is, producing, writing and speaking English as longer as possible.

So, do you still think this is gonna be easy?

Practice on Adjectives for Basic 1:

Practice on Adjectives for Basic 2:

 Describing things, Clothes Shop, describing people, 

Practice on Adjectives for Intermediate 1: 

Order of Adjectives,

Flashcards and adjectives 

On the other hand, there's always an original way of describing oneself. Here's a good example taken from Rosa's Blog.

English TESTS & EXAMS

The Learners of English are very likely to do any kind of TEST or EXAMINATION at least once in their learning life, and thus, if you are one of those who are desperately looking for some more tests to do, this the right Blog to start with.

Basic considerations before starting any English course or test.

First of all, let's find out your exact level of English.

Test your English by the

KEY English TEST

KET: Examenglish.com, KET

Preliminary English TEST

PET: Examenglish.com,  PET Speaking, PET

First  Certificate in English

FCE: Examenglish.com, FCE

Certificate in Advanced English

CAE: Examenglish.com, CAE

Certificate of Proficiency in English 

CPE: Examenglish.com, CPE

  

TOEFL Practice Test 

Test of English as a Foreign Language

More TOEFL TESTS

TEST your English by Learn 4 good

Many different tests by EnglischHilfen.de

More tests

EOI TESTS:

Galicia, Diagnostic TEST for BASIC 2, 

Basic 1 : 

KET TESTS Test 1(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).
KET TESTS Test 2 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).
Exam Practice for Basic 1


Basic 2:

EOI Tests from País Vasco (Audio: Task 1, 
Task 2, Task 3) Speaking TEST (1, 2, 3) 
Answers.

EOI Tests from Asturias (2011-2012)

Listening (2011)  (Audio)
Listening (2012)  (Audio:Task 1, Task 2,  
Task 3)

Reading (2011)
Reading (2012)

Writing (2011)
Writing (2012)


Speaking (2012)


EOI TESTS from Canarias

EOI TESTS from Madrid (Basic 2)












Tips for the Oral Presentation by the
 British Council

Please remember to enjoy English as you go along and try to find your own way of learning English. Whether you like music, reading, movies or simply talking to people, you could always use your English naturally and fluently through everyday situations, instead of getting almost obsessed with thousands of TESTS, Exams and textbooks. Don't you think?

ENGLISH is outside there for you to enjoy!

Unless you feel like going to a foreign country with only your suitcase and a good dictionary, which is an excellent option, by the way. Actually, there won't be such a perfect TEST, rather than a long stay abroad. 

No more exams:

• Smart Blog on Education
• The Nerdy Teacher

Quantity in English: Some, any and so on

To express Quantity in English, we need to take many things into account. 

Not only grammar, but also a bit of common sense.

General rules in English are definitely not enough. So, we'd better consider exceptions, together with some suitable grammar reference books.

Still interested in Basic Grammar, you could have a look at these two short and simple grammar e-books by www.espressoenglish.net  (Basic 1,Basic 2 ), but please remember that they are not complete, simply because it's Basic Level, that is, not every single grammar exception.

 Some, any, a lot of, Numbers,

Thanksgiving Day

What’s Thanksgiving day?

Well, roughly speaking, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, when people usually spend some time altogether at home. It's also called the Turkey Day, as you can guess by the picture below.

For some YouTube videos about the Thanksgiving Day, please feel free to click on here.





 For more information, please feel free to have a look at this blog about the same topic.

Prepositions

  

Prepositions together with collocations and phrasal verbs are perhaps the three most difficult issues of the English grammar, simply because they must be mostly learnt by heart. On the whole, there're no magic rules to apply and so, we'd better read, write listen and speak as much as possible, so that we can put the following exercises and clarifications into practice.

For further practice on Prepositions, please click on the links below:

Prepositional list (Intermediate and Advanced)
Preposition to (Intermediate)
Order of Prepositions (Advanced)
Prepositions for purpose: To & for (Intermediate)
Prepositional verbs (Intermediate)
Prepositions used with adverbs and participles (Intermediate)

Basic exercises for Basic:

52 sentences Prepositions of time, by Irina
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org
127 sentences to practice PREPOSITIONS OF TIME, by Irina
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org
PREPOSITIONS, by Nancy
Find this and other prepositions exercises in English Exercises .org

Here's a good advert to practise some prepositions

For more Youtube videos about prepositions, please feel free to click on here.

English through sketches

In this section you'll find all the sketches used in class, together with some other resources to get the most of all your theatre talents on stage. So, off we go and let's act those sketches out all day long. 

• The ticket inspector

• The Passport Office
• Fire Practice (audio 2)
• Fire Practice on YouTube

• The Bus Stop 

• Tea Break
• The King of Boonland
• The Restaurant
   

• Sketches
• English Sketches
• Theatre and drama at YouTube
• Theatre and drama for ESL.

And now it's time for the students:

• Congratulations, Berta from Basic 1. What a great job! Here are your three sketches below:
One more time, please!

Listening to English

English can be music to your ears. That's just a question of practice and dedication. This does take a lot time and the more you do it, the better for you.

So, there's no time to lose and let's get it started.

Basic 1: 
Listening practice 1, KET TESTS for Basic 1 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5), Exam Practice for Basic 1

Listening practice for EOI Basic 1

Basic 2: 
Listening practice 1, An Estate Agent (houses), Fearless Felix (Worksheet, Audio, Transcription _Success & Past tenses), India,

Galician EOI listening exam 2008 (Audio: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Answers)

Listening exam - Navarra_Tudela (Audio: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Answers) 

Listening EOI TEST from Madrid: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3 (Audio:Task 1, Task 2, Task 3. Answers)

Writing in English from the scratch

 Here we'll see many writing tips and activities to start writing in English from the scratch.

Tip 1:

Before you start writing, you could also get some inspiration from reading or listening to some English, which is related to the same topic you plan to write about. Even you could have a look at some typical mistakes at Basic level.

Tip 2:
To write a description, you could have a look at some adjectives first. Then, a model text would be the world of good for your writing success too.

Tip 3:
Try to find some Basic Guidelines to be followed all through the editing, writing and revision process. Here're some good Basic Guidelines.

Tip 4:

Functional language for EOI Monologues and Interactions

Tip 5:
Language for Thinking

Tip 6:
Checking that someone has understood you

Tip 7:
Use the Cambridge English section: Write & Improve (BETA). You'll get instant feedback on your writing! Very worthwhile trying!

The most common mistakes in English.

Basic 1: Penpal, Writing Practice for Basic 1, 

Basic 2: Improving Style: David Guetta, Writing Practice for Basic 2, 

Some essays, descriptions, dialogues, and so on, which were written by some students of mine. Well, here are our authors:

Isabel (Trip to Cies and an e-mail to Emma)
Mercedes (the description of a house)
Sandra (The Tower of Hercules)

Congratulations! and Very well-done! for all of them. Good job! Let's now write about...

Writing TEST from Navarra (Basic 2) KEY

Writing EOI TEST from Madrid (Task 1, Task 2)(Basic 2)

Resources: 
Liz and John Soars (2011): New Headway Elementary Student's Book.