Day 12: Who/Which/Whose/That/Where and "The Devil Wears Prada"

In the first part of the class we studied Relative Clauses

-Who: for a person
  example: Do you know someone who speaks english?

-Which: for a thing
 example: This is the dog which sometimes I take for walks

-Whose: belonging
 example: Can you tell me whose this book is?

-That: things, persons
 example: Everest is the mountain that all serious climbers want to climb

-Where: places
 example: This is the place where I want to live






In the second part of the class we watched “The Devil Wears Prada”, a movie about the cruel fashion world. The decorate is the most important fashion magazine and the protagonists are Anne Hathaway and the big Meryl Streep

                                                                    

 

Anne Hathaway is Andrea, a young woman in a unknown job. She must be adapt it because she doesn´t know nothing about the fashion world. She changes her clothes and her priorities, so she lost her boyfriend. At the final of the movie she understand that it´s not the life that she wants. Her character in the movie is very funny but I think anybody can be her character.

                                                                         

Meryl Streep is Miranda, the queen of the fashion editor, and her life is around her job, so her private life is a disaster. She is a very strong and powerful woman. I love this character and the actress

                                                                      

If you can know everything about this film, you can take a look HERE

                                                             FILM VOCABULARY

Sack	Despedir, largar
It Sucks	Es una mierda
Skinny	Delgada
Stuff	Estas cosas, tonterias
To pee	Hacer pipí
quit	Abandonar el trabajo
Twins	Gemelas
Don´t bother	No te molestes
Choice	Elección
A million girls would kill	Millones de chicas matarían
To worship somebody or something	Adorar, alabar
To Deserve	merecer
Sense of fashion	Sentido de la moda
To be on call	Estar de guardia con el teléfono
I´m on my way	Estar de camino

11th Day : 31/05/2014 "HAVE / GET SOMETHING DONE" AND "HOW TO MAKE A COMPLAINT".

11th day

In the first part of the class, the teacher explained the structure “have/ get something done”.

Most of us did not know it.

- “Have/ get something done” is used to express something done by another person or even ourselves with some difficulty, in a passive voice.      

                  

Example:

I cut my hair. (I cut it myself)

I had /got my hair cut (someone else cut it)

The structure is easy, but we must know very well the past participle of the verbs.

Have/get	Object	Past participle	Traducción
I had	my nails	polished.	Me hice (pintaron) las uñas.
I need to have	my car	painted	Necesito pintar mi coche.
They are having	the school	repaired.	Están arreglando el colegio.
She had	her carpet	cleaned.	Ella mandó a limpiar la alfombra.
Where did you have	that photograph	taken?	¿Dónde te tomaron esa foto?
They had	an extra room	built.	Les hicieron una habitación adicional.

We use “get something done” construction in a more informal context.

This construction is more commonly used to express some difficulty when doing something.

Example:

She always gets the job done on time.

The differences between “have” and “get something done” are that “have” is slightly more formal than “get”.

We did many activities about this and practice this structure.

After, we started to make a complaint.

Then I include a list of related words with the complaint forms:

• Complain: reclamar

• Complaint: reclamación

• Complaint form: hoja de reclamación

• Faulty goods: producto defectuoso

• Consumer rights: derechos del consumidor

• Damaged product: producto dañado

• Satisfactory quality: calidad satisfactoria

• Product description: descripción del producto

• Product label: etiqueta del producto

• Safe: Seguridad

• Client: cliente

• Store: tienda

• Poor service: mal servicio

Writing a letter of complaint is something most people have to do at some point in their lives. Whether you're dissatisfied with a company's product or service, it is usually possible to resolve the issue with a polite letter of complaint.

Writing a complaint letter should not be complicated. All you need to do is clearly state the facts and politely request a resolution.

When we make a complaint, it should be:

• Concise letters can be understood quickly.
• Authoritative letters - letters that are well written and professionally presented - have more credibility and are taken more seriously.
• Factual letters enable the reader to see immediately the relevant details, dates, requirements, etc., and to justify action to resolve the complaint.
• Constructive letters - with positive statements, suggesting positive actions - encourage action and quicker decisions.
• Friendly letters - with a considerate, cooperative and complimentary tone - are prioritised because the reader responds positively to the writer and wants to help.

This is a link to check vocabulary on how to make a complaint. Take a look.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1331_howto_feedback/page2.shtml

The teacher told us about “Resilience”. The resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from a problem. It’s an important and necessary skill to improve customer service.

In this programme, we take a closer look at the language of complaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJVWKhkgnLs&list=PL04ADDD41294CD937

At the end of the class we saw another chapter of  sitcom of "The Office", and then we had to answer some questions related with it. We learnt many new words.

10th Class

10th Class

First we started the tenth English class with homework. The homework of this week were making a dialogue with a piece of paper that the teacher gave us . In the piece of paper had a little history and we had to make a phone dialogue between two people. We listened to our classmate to understand the situation. For example, a dialogue was about a mother calling her son to know if he had watered the plants.

After the teacher gave us a photocopy of grammar review. We had to translate English phrases and then write them in simple past simple.

Examples

-¿Dónde vive Peter? / Where does Peter live?/ Where did Peter live?

-¿Estás en casa?/ Are you at home?/ Were you at home?

-¿Puedes prestarme tu coche?/ Can you lend me your car?/ Could you lend me your car?

-No me gusta comer fuera /I don’t like eating out/ I din’t like eating out

-Mike trabaja en Londres/ Mike work in London/ Mike worked in London

-¿Qué están celebrando?/ What are they celebrating?/ What were ther celebrating?

-Estoy haciendo los deberes/ I am doing the homeworks/ I was doing the homeworks.

Then we continued with another photocopy that was about Past simple and Past continuos. In the photocopy had a dialogue, before looking, we hear the dialogue and tried to understand. The dialogue was about a telephone conversation between a mother and daughter. The daughter was sad because she heard her boyfriend talking on the phone with someone and her boyfriend said “I love you”. She immediately thought he was cheating on her and her mother said she that probably there was a reasonable explanation.

                                      

                                           

We continued to see some pictures and answering some questions.

At the  end of photocopy there was a picture of a traffic accident and had to do a text that had been using the past simple and past continuous.

In addition we had to include in the text the following keywords

-Tow truck

-Crashed

-Crosssroad

-Injure

Class continue classsifying sentences about the future

• Used Present Simple in Timetabled events, e.g. TV programme or train departure and used Present continuous with personal arrangements.

Examples

Present Simple: The train leaves on Monday at 17:45h.

Present Continuous: I am meeting Peter tomorrow night to play paddle tennis

• Used going to+inf with predictions(when you can see the evidende, general future intentions (not arranged) and Decisions already made.

Examples

-It is cloudy, I think it is going to rain.

-Next year Iam going to start a diet to lose weight.

-Today I am going to eat with my mum.

• Used Will+ infinitive when offers a refusals , when do promises and with predictions (when you can’t see the evidence)

Examples

-Will you do me a favour? Sure, I will.

-I will always be there for you

-I can see your future you will meet the man of your dreams

After we did an exam of evaluation. The exam consisted of creating a text minimum 150 words using the past simple and present continuous.

Finally in the last hour, we watch an episode of the serie “The office” and when it finished we discussed the episode and answer some questions.