May - August 2012 Course

This is some important information you have to keep in mind:
Teacher's name: Benicia Traconis      e-mail address: bt26yuca@yahoo.com.mx

Please feel free to contact me!
 
Grading:
Mid-Term exam:               40%
Final exam:                     40%
Homework/Participation: 20%

A minimum attendance of 80% is required to take mid-term and final exams.

Exam dates:

Mid-term exam:     June 23, 2012

Final exam:            August 25, 2012

Summer break: (no class) July 7 and 14, 2012

Participation includes your speaking in English during the class, with the teacher and with your classmates as well as your contributions and attitudes. Your ability to work in teams is also observed and graded.

Remember: Inside the classroom:
The use of cell phones is not allowed

No food, or drinks

Welcome and good luck!

Parts of Speech and Cultural Quest

Here is the chart I showed you in class. Keep it to check whenever you have a doubt:

For extra practice, try the link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/what-are-word-types

Homework:
For level 4, on your book page 149 find the lyrics of the song for Unit 1 "It's a Great Day for Love". Read the song and find examples for the word types described in the chart above. Organize them in a chart:

C. Noun	P. Noun	Article	Verb	Adjective	Adverb	Pron.	Prep.	Conj.

For level 3, go to your book page 149, find the lyrics of the Unit 1 song "Greetings and Small Talk", read it and find some words for each category in the chart. You can do it in your notebook.

Cultural Quest

Learn about different and interesting countries, their holidays, receipes, games, etc. Explore the world with just a click on the following link:

http://www.ipl.org/div/cquest/

Level 4 Cultural Quest
Get in the web page below to find some protocol tips when visiting the assigned country:
http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/TED/hpages/protocol/home.htm

Also find general information about that country: Location? Boundaries (borders, limits)?
Language spoken? Currency? Nationality? Interesting facts?
http://www.cyborlink.com/

You will also find some interesting information in the following web page:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/places/find/

The following interactive maps will help you locate the assigned country.

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/europe_map.htm

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/south_america_map.htm

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/geography.htm

You will share this information with the rest of the group.

Don't forget that special assignments add for 20% of your total grade.

Enjoy the course!

LEVEL 1 COMMON AND PROPER NOUNS GAME

To practice how well you can identify common and proper nouns, try the link below, it will take you to a simple game to check your knowledge, try it and good luck!

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/basketball/index_pre.html

Also, following is some useful information that I found at:
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/propernoun.htm

The Proper Noun

Recognize a proper noun when you see one.
Nouns name people, places, and things. Every noun can further be classified as common or proper. A proper noun has two distinctive features: 1) it will name a specific [usually a one-of-a-kind] item, and 2) it will begin with a capital letter no matter where it occurs in a sentence.
Check out the chart below:

Common Noun Proper Noun
writer Herman Melville
teacher Mrs. Hacket
beagle Snoopy
cookie Oreo
city Orlando
restaurant Tito's Taco Palace
document Declaration of Independence
school University of Virginia

Read the following sentences. Notice the difference between the common and proper nouns.

Tina offered Antonio one of her mother's homemade oatmeal cookies but only an Oreo would satisfy his sweet tooth.
cookies = common noun; Oreo = proper noun.

Charlie had wanted an easy teacher for his composition class, but he got Mrs. Hacket, whose short temper and unreasonable demands made the semester a torture.
teacher = common noun; Mrs. Hacket = proper noun.

Gloria wanted to try a new restaurant, so Richard took her to Tito's Taco Palace, where no one dips into the hot sauce until the drinks have arrived at the table.
restaurant = common noun; Tito's Taco Palace = proper noun.


When you are ready, take a test at the link below. Check your answer, click "sumit" and at the end you will get your results. Are you ready?

http://www.softschools.com/testresults.do?id=295

Now you can play this game, classify common and proper nouns at:

http://www.ezschool.com/Games/NounSort.html

Simple Past Tense

In English, there are regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs are those to which you add "ed" to form the past and past participle: walk-walked; try-tried; play-played; watch-watched.
Irregular verbs may have no changes: hit-hit; set-set; let-let; spread-spread; bet-bet, etc.
one change: buy-bought-bought; bring-brought-brought; catch-caught-caught; think-thought-thought; sleep-slept-slept, etc.
two changes: speak-spoke-spoken; write-wrote-written; drive-drove-driven; drink-drank-drunk, etc.

At: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh7dyQB5SRk

You can watch several videos that will help you practice learning them.

To get a complete list of irregular verbs and exercises to check your learning, you may try:

http://www.englishpage.com/irregularverbs/irregularverbs.html

A good practice exercise is at:

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/irpast1.htm

Also, take a look at the entries of October 2010, for other activities.

Here is a listening concentration game- listen and try to match the cards with same family member words! Enjoy.

http://www.manythings.org/ac/family.html

Extra Practice

Hello everyone,

For those who want more challenging activities, here is a very good link I found which a variety of possibilities: You can watch videos on different topics, practice grammar, read articles, etc.

I suggest you visit it. There is also a section for "slang" and other interesting cultural issues.

The link is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/

I hope you enjoy it!

For vocabulary practice, here is an excellent link which has lots of exercises to practice vocabulary use. I recommend it to make your vocabulary grow, you can do them little by little. I think you might them challenging and useful.

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/alle_words.htm

Practice, practice, practice!
Have fun!