Do you know what a polar presentation is,or when the onomatopeic eek is used? The urban dictionary is the place to find the words you cannot find in a normal dictionary. Give it a go, it’s free and it’s also good fun!
Learning Present Continuous with a song
It is said that Music tames the wild beast and I’m sure that it will also work with my youngest students. This is a nice way to revise Present Continuous.
A Word on Grammar:Reported Speech Questions and Orders
Walking towards the end of the course we tend to feel rather stressed and pressed for time and I’m not the exception. But I don’t really believe that an awful amount of time will be saved by not introducing new grammatical points in a nice way.
This is how I introduced Reported Speech Questions and Orders. This time it was the traditional way of teaching, ie, chalk and blackboard and I’m not good at drawing so needless to say, my students had to use their imagination to guess that I was drawing a little girl and her mother.
The truth is I did little more than guiding them. My students named the characters and provided the questions. I only had to set the atmosphere -which was a four-year-old girl pestering her mother all day long with questions -and from there, we had the husband coming back home and her mother complaining about their talkative daughter.
Grammar here, Exercises here ,here and here
Realizing they were learning and “sort of” enjoying themselves I continued with the story and went on to teach Orders and Requests in reported Speech, the girl being 15 years old in this context and, as it’s usually the case, the mother now pestering the girl to do things (I’ve got a 15-year-old son, as you have probably guessed)
Grammar here . Exercises here.
And now that we are on the subject, why not continue with the story and use it to introduce suggestions in reported speech?
A word on Grammar: Is there a difference between Can and Be able to?
We use “able” especially in the structure be able +infinitive. This often has the same meaning as can. The negative form is unable.
- Some people are able/can walk on their hands

- I am unable/can’t understand what she wants
Can is preferred in the sense of “know how to” and in expressions, like can see, can hear..etc
- Can you knit? / I can see a ship
Be able is used in cases where can is not grammatically possible (future/present perfect, conditional…)
One day scientists will be able to find a cure for cancer (NOT… will can find)
Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Problem Explained (CNN)
I thought you might be interested in listening to this important piece of news
