Take over is a phrasal verb which,in this context means, to assume control. Look at the cartoon. Can you see how computers are taking over our family life?
Only this morning I was listening to a song called “When love takes over” by David Guetta ft Kelly Rowland. Wanna listen to it?
Only last week I had to deal with this issue in class when one of my students asked me.
“Does the word “team” take a singular or a plural verb?” and my answer was: “Both”.
There are some singular words in British English that can take both singular or plural verbs and pronouns depending on what you want to say about them.
Singular forms are used when we see the “team” as one thing, as an impersonal unit.
The team is going to lose
Plural forms are used when the group is considered as a collection of people doing personal things like taking decisions, hoping or wanting .
The team are full of enthusiasm (referring to every member of the team)
Group nouns which can be used with both singular and plural are:
party school staff team government jury family
public club class firm the BBC comittee
“police”, on the other hand, is normally used with a plural verb
The police were not able to find anything
Mixing traditional and modern teaching? What’s the right balance? That’s a hot issue and one I haven’t yet found the answer to but I feel that there’s nothing like the interaction between teachers and students or students among themselves.
In this lesson plan Focus on Films I’ve combined both traditional teaching and new technologies. I’ve even published one exercise Film Genres that I’d rather do with my students in class with them taking an active role in their learning process. You choose but what comes below is how I definitely plan to do it with my students.
I ‘ve prepared one set of blue strips of paper with the names of famous films and another set of green coloured strips with film genres. All in all I’ve written 10 strips of paper and then placed them on my table. Students will then come up to my table and do the matching exercise using blue-tack to stick the strips on the blackboard. I’m planning to revise by showing them only the films and then only the genres.
On the other hand, there is another exercise in this lesson plan where, if I were a student, I’d definitely choose to do using a computer and I’m referring to the brainstorming exercise we normally do on the blackboard. Well, I’ve had a lot of fun ( and also wasted a lot of time ) doing this brainstorming about films with this little application called Simple Diagrams, which I highly recommend (mainly because it’s free)
It must have been sheer luck that I bumped into this cool site only last week, just when I was gathering material to use in the FILMS lesson.
This site has been nominated as one of the 50 best sites in 2010 and it contains about 12.000 film snippets that can be searched by genre, director, props, setting…etc. Isn’t it just unbelievable that you can even choose Action and under this category choose whether you want a clip with a cough or a bump or a cry? Isn’t it just as amazing that you can choose the clip by Mood; do you want something inspiring,creepy or maybe funny?
The whole lesson, designed for intermediate students, comes with Vocabulary, Reading, Listening and Writing exercises. Click HERE to do it
When I was a child I used to love animals although it never entered my mind to be a vet (I’m one of those people whose knees go jelly at the sight of blood). As I grew older I started to feel less inclined to sharing my life and house with God’s creatures.
Nowadays, the only pet I have is a dog, a German sheperd, who I absolutely adore but that’s it, at least for the time being. I have had lots of pets in my life although some of them can hardly be considered pets, as according to the dictionary, a pet is any domesticated animal that is kept as a companion and cared for affectionately and I remember some of them not complying with this defintion.
Among these so-called pets I sadly remember a canary who I insisted needed fresh air and finally died of a heart attack while being out in the terrace breathing fresh air. I guess some bigger bird must´ve thought it was a delicious bite and attacked him while in the cage.
Anyway, animals have always been part of our lives. Humans and animals are so closely related that, very often, we use them to refer to people.
Have a look at some of these sentences. Come to think of it, most have a negative meaning
He’s a snake – so. you cannot trust
He’s a dog- he doesn’t treat ladies very truthfully
She’s a dog– she’s very ugly
He’s a rat– a despicable person, especially one who betrays or informs upon associates
He’s a chicken– a coward
He’s a cold fish– A hard-hearted, unfeeling individual, one who shows no emotion
she’s a busy bee= an energetic person
She’s being catty=she’s being mean
He’s an eager beaver= a person who is extremely zelaous about performing duties and volunteering for more.
She’s a mouse=timid He´s a weasel = a person regarded as sneaky or treacherous
He’s a vulture =A person of a rapacious, predatory, or profiteering nature.
This is an activity I’m going to do tomorrow with my intermediate students and I thought someone might find it useful. It can be done to revise vocabulary and make students write, a skill we often neglect in class. By including visual aid I have made the role of the teacher seem less important and therefore encouraged autonomous learning.
In this activity we will be revising vocabulary, mainly phrasal verbs with “turn” and verbs followed by infinitive or/and -ing.
How to do it:
Ask students to work in pairs and give each pair a blank sheet of paper. Tell students they are going to use their imagination to write a dialogue .Give students a situation they can start with (for ex two flatmates talking about their plans for the weekend; their names Christina and George). The aim of the exercise is to build up a dialogue using the prompt you display in the photopeach slideshow. Once they have written their sentence containing the prompt they have to pass their paper to the students on the left who must continue the story using the next prompt. Sometimes an additional sentence will be necessary to transition form one idea to the next.
Collect their dialogues and stick them on the walls of the class for everybody to read
Revising – Using Prompts to Revise Vocabulary on PhotoPeach
Click here to see a sample of the dialogue. I wasn’t very inspired!