sábado, 26 de abril de 2014

Day 4 - 5th April - JOB HUNTING AND THE CV


First thing in the morning, we talked about what we had done that week. Not all of the people had had a good week until then, but some of them had gone to the cinema, as the “Cinema party” had taken place at the beginning of the week, so everybody could go to the cinema for only 2.90 euros.  
After this initial conversation to warm up a bit, we reviewed when yetstilljust and already can be used. 

As a summary: 

YET 
QUESTIONS AND 
NEGATIVE SENTENCES 
It usually goes at the end of the sentence. (Commonly used with the present perfect). 
We expect something to happen or have happened. 
Questions → translated as “ya 
Negative → translated as “todavía” or “aún 
Example: 
Has she finished yet? 
You haven’t met her yet. 
STILL 
It usually goes in the middle of the sentence, before the verb. 
To talk about a situation or an action, that’s continuing, often for a longer time than expected. 
Translated as “todavía” or “aún”. 
Example: 
Are you still married? 
I’m still living with my parents. 
JUST 
It’s usually used with the present perfect. It comes between the auxiliary verb (have) and the past participle. 
It means “a short time ago” 
It’s the word that let us translate the sentence as “acabar de”. 
Example: 
I’ve just called (Acabo de llamar). 
ALREADY 
Mostly in AFFIRMATIVE. 
It usually goes in the middle or the end of the sentence, just before or after the verb. 
(Commonly used with present perfect). 
To talk about things that have happened, often earlier than expected. 
Translated as “ya”. 
Example: 
He’s already done it. / He’s done it already. 
Have you two already met? 

After we practiced the use of these words with some written exercises, we put them into practice with a speaking activity. For that purpose, we asked our partners about the things that they wanted to achieve when they were children, and if they had already achieved them or not. 

Then, we saw some job hunting webpages in English. We also learnt some vocabulary that could be useful when looking for a job, for instance: Recruitment, application form, Résumé, CV, cover letter; and the categories and job titles that we could find in those kinds of webs. We also looked for a job offer of a position that could fit with us and looked up all the words we didn’t know already. Then we put them in common. 

As nowadays it’s very difficult to find a job, we highlighted that it’s important to stand out from others. We watched a video of a 24-years-old guy that made a rap with his CV in a video. This guy mentioned his skills on it, so we thought about 10 of our skills that could be an asset for a company. 

The next step for job hunting was to learn some tips about how to write a CV in English, for example: clear structure, it shouldn’t be longer than 2 pages, we have to adapt the CV to the position we want to apply,… 

We had to write our CV in English as homework. Some of the webpages we can check are:

       Tips:    Irishjobs  ;  Monster
       Samples:    CV library  ;  Irishjobs

Finally, we watched the first episode of the US sitcom “The office”, trying to understand as much as we could and answering a couple of questions about it. 

viernes, 25 de abril de 2014

Day 3: Prepositions, indefinite pronouns, present perfect and past simple

Today was de third day of class and it was a rainy day. 

The first task we did in the class was to explain Prepositions of place in, at and on because in the last class this was a problem for some students and the teacher wanted to make it clear . About this topic we learned the theory and then we did some exercises. We must use in with spaces that you can physically walk into (in a room / in a garden) or place something into and with bodies of water (in a row); at with places in town, city or other community (at the bus-stop / at the cinema), with places on a page (at the top of the page) and in groups of people (at the back of the class), on with vertical or horizontal surfaces that you can lay something onto something to and also with directions (on the ceiling / on the right).


  The second task was to learn how and when to use indefinite pronouns as somethingsomewheresomebodyanythinganybodyanywhereeverybody (or everyone also), everywhere and everything as much in affirmatives, negatives and interrogatives sentences to check the differences. Then, we also did an exercise to choose the correct indefinite pronouns in some sentences. For example,  affirmatives sentences as Anybody can speak English, negative sentences as I don't know anything and a interrogatives sentences as Is there anybody in the house?



 Next the teacher explained the present perfect and past simple and we did also some exercises, but there was a problem because in one exercise it appeared a sentence with the verb “have got” and the students didn’t remember the difference between "to have” and “to have got when the teacher explained it few days ago. The exercises were to explain when we should use the Present Perfect and Past Simple, to translate sentences, to say if some sentences were correct or incorrect and to say the mistake, to complete empty areas in some sentences with the correct verb form, to choose the correct verb in a history about Cinderella and to find someone in the class who has done different things as to travel to a faraway country or to meet a celebrity, for example, among others questions.



Then we continued with the listening exercises, the first about a conversation which explained and used the present perfect and past simple with difference scenes and in the second exercise we heard a song called Somebody that I used to know, a song by Gotye feat. Kimbra. We had to do some exercises with the lyrics such as to put verbs in infinitive in the correct form. Both exercises, the same as the last classes, were the most difficult in that day because it is very complicated to understand the native English for us.


Finally, we checked the homework and we started the next homework for the next class in which we must look for some job offer to do a presentation talking about its: requirements, vocabulary and other features.

sábado, 12 de abril de 2014

Day 2- Present perfect/ Modal verbs

22nd March

At the beginning of the class, we wrote some questions using the Present Perfect to ask our partners about their week. Some of the questions and answer that we did, they are:
  • What have you done that week? I have gone to the beach
  • Have you seen your family? Yes, I was with my family on Sunday
  • Where have you been on Tuesday? On Tuesday, I have been at the University

To do this in pairs, we changed sits to interact with the others partners.

Then, we did a reading exercise, where we had to understand an airport's timetable.



Later, we answered some questions about this timetable and wrote others to practice our pronunciation.

  • I`m on flight BA 302. Will I have something to eat?
  • I would like to fly to Nantes on Sunday, is it possible?
  • Is flight AF 1863, on Sunday, non-stop?

We practiced Modal Verbs too and their meaning.

Possibility, ability, permission and request
CAN COULD MAY MIGHT
Obligation
MUST HAVE TO
Request
WILL WON´T
Suggestions and advice
SHOULD WOULD COULD WILL
Offers and invitations
WOULD SHALL CAN WILL

And we checked some sentences what we underlined the modal verbs and wrote the modal verbs refer to (obligation, request, suggestion…).

We did some exercises about this.
1) Match sentences:
- I´m tired; may I sit here?
- She doesn´t have to translate the letter into English, only into German.
- …
2) Fill de gaps with an appropriate modal verb.
- My teacher told me that I have to review my notes every day. I guess it´s a good idea to look at them after class.
- I didn´t feel very well yesterday. I couldn´t eat anything
- …
3) Fill the gaps with the correct modal verb (Can, could, might, may)
- They might be away for the weekend but I´m not sure
-You may leave now if you wish
- …
Then, we did two listening exercises. The first one was more difficult than the second. We thought, it could be because the speakers were from U.S and a lot of words they pronounced in a different way and they shorten some words. The first listening was about a dialogue at an airport; and the second one about a conversation in a car rental.

At the end of the class, we read 3 different conversations at the post office, in pairs, and then we had to do a dialogue and then read it to our classmates.




To finish the class, Maria José explained us some homework that we had to for the following week. It was about an job offer. We had to read it and answer some question about it.


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The first day. Our presentation.

At the beginning it seemed too long and Saturday looked to be endless, but at the end our teacher left us eager to continue practicing. 
On this first day, we had the presentation of the course and the introdution of the students.
 We are a group of 15 unemployed people eager to practice a language that will be useful to us throughout our lives. 
We all agreed on the same thing, we needed to practice listening and speaking.
That day upon arrival, we did an evaluation questionnaire to test our level of English. We started the course remembering the pronunciation of the alphabet because the spelling is very important in English, we also checked regular and irregular verbs, the cardinal and ordinal numbers...




People were shy to talk at the begining, we did a circle and introduced ourselves speaking out loud to others, then we had to remind the personal information. 
We were also doing questionnaires in pairs,  practising the speaking in English. We heard and read some texts related to conversations between clients and workers from different companies and different working areas. Hence we got the tasks to be done at home for the next day, since I had to write a similar text.
 We were enunciating websites that we could use as dictionaries, as aids to translate words or texts or pages that contain exercises to practice at home and to.
Among them are: http://www.wordreference.com 
                                 http://www.lingue.com 
                                 http://www.doulingo.com 
                                 http://www.busuu.com
                                 http://www.macmillandictionary.com  
I remember that last time we did a kind of short web http://www.dvolver.com
Whitouth have realized, we had created a circle of friends for 15 weeks were going to undertake the difficult task of learning the British tongue.
All with one purpose: Developing ourselves in our future work with a language that accompanies use every day.