To have got

Today we will review the verb to have got. When we studied it this year we said that we use this verb to:

- talk about possessions;

- talk about our family;

- to describe physical appearance.

Affirmative form
I have got
You have got
He has got
She has got
It has got
We  have got
You  have got
They have got


I've got
You've got
He's got
She's got
It's got
We've got
You've got
They've got


If you want to make a negative sentence you put not between have and got


Negative form 
I have not got
You have not got
He has not got
She has not got
It has not got
We have not got
You have not got
They have not got

I haven't got
You haven't got
He hasn't got
She hasn't got
It hasn't got
We haven't got
You haven't got
They haven't got

If you want to ask a question you have to remember to put the verb first.

Example: Have you got short hair?

Verb to have + subject + got + ....

Interrogative form
Have I got short hair?
Have you got short hair?
Has he got short hair?
Has she got short hair?
Has it got short hair?
Have we got short hair?
Have you got short hair?
Have they got short hair?

And now let's exercise!

To have got online exercises 1

To have got online exercises 2

To be: negative and interrogative form

Let's go on reviewing the verb to be: the negative form.


Example: I am Italian. 


To transform this sentence into a negative one you have to put NOT between the subject and the verb.

Subject + NOT + verb to be + ......

Example: I am NOT Italian.


If you remember we also studied the short form, that is:

I'm not
You aren't
He isn't
She isn't
It isn't
We aren't
You aren't 
They aren't 

Here is a nice and useful online exercise, try to it.

To be negative form

Together with the negative form let's review the interrogative form as well.

Example: You are a student.

To transform this sentence into an interrogative one you have to put the verb first, the subject and then the rest of the sentence.

Verb to be + Subject  + ......

Example: Are you a student? 

And now do this exercise. 

To be mixed

To be

1st and 2nd year students.

Here are exercises, I created for you, to review the verb to be (affirmative form) and the subject pronouns.

To be and subject pronouns
Do the exercises and tell if they are easy, difficult or ok.

Classroom objects

Dear students, school is closed and you are on summer holiday!

 In summer you can relax, play games, go to visit some interesting place, go out with your friends and ... review what you studied during this school year! 

So here I am with some good exercise for you. I created this nice one to review the objects you use at school and in the classroom. Follow the link and enjoy it. 

Classroom Objects exercise

I will keep on giving you revision exercises so that when you go back to school you still remember English!

Writing tips!

Tomorrow 3rd year students will have their English written test.
Here a some tips to keep in mind during the test.


Reading Comprehension

1. Read the text and try to get a general idea on what it is about.
2. Read the text again and if you do not understand a word or an expression, look it up in the dictionary.
3. Read the question carefully and make sure you understand them. If you do not understand a word or an expression, look it up in the dictionary.
4. Look for the paragraph where you can find the information you need. Sometimes the information is explicit sometimes it is not and you have to give an answer according to what it is said in the paragraph.
5.Use the words in the questions to write your answer.
6. Do not copy sentences from the passage.
7. When you answer personal questions do not give short answers, try to make a long sentence and link it to, at least, an other sentence.
8. Read the questions you wrote again and check grammar (plurals, verb tense, articles, etc.) spelling and vocabulary.
9. Check you answered all the questions.
10. Write clearly!

Letter Writing

Remember to write clearly and to write about all the topics you are requested to.
In this old post you can find some useful tips, follow the link below:
Writing a letter

REMEMBER:

your dictionary!

Oral exam

In a few days 3rd year students will take the oral exam too. Here you have some sample questions to help you reviewing and  practicing: exercise asking and answering them.

Info about you

What’s your name?

What's your surname?

How do you spell it?

Where are you from?

How old are you?

Where do you live?

What’s your house like?

Have you got brothers and sisters?

How old are they?

What do they do?

What do your parents do?

Daily routine

What time do you get up?

How do you get to school?

What time do you usually have breakfast/lunch/dinner?

What do you usually have for breakfast/lunch/dinner?

Do you have lunch at school?

What do you do after school?

How do you spend the evening?

Hobbies, sports and interests

What do you do in your free time?

What sports do you practise?

How often do you practise it?

Where do you practise it?

Why do you like this sport?

When did you first start?

What’s your favourite sport?

What sport would you like to try? Why?

What do you do at the weekend?

What type of films do you like? Why?

What’s your favourite film? Why?

Who are the main characters?

What is the film about?

Who is your favourite singer/group?

What is your favourite music/song?

Do you play a musical instrument?

What is your favourite book?

What is it about?

Who is the author?

Who is your favourite actor/actress/TV programme?

Who is your best friend? Describe him/her

Past experiences

Where did you go on holiday last summer?

How long did you stay there?

How did you travel?

Who did you go with?

Where did you stay?

What did you do?

Did you enjoy? Why?

What did you do during your Christmas/Easter holiday?

What did you do last week/weekend?

What was your best/worst experience in these three years of school?

Future plans

What are you going to do next week/next summer?

What will you do in your future life?

What your are future plans about school/job?

What will life be like in the future in your opinion?

You can also go to these old posts and exercise answering and asking the questions:

Exam Conversation
1st Year Questions

Good luck!

Here we are! Tomorrow 3rd year students will start their exams and I know they are a bit stressed!

But if you have always studied

you do not have to worry about it. Review all you did, go to bed early, try to sleep as much as you can and, above all, try to be calm so that you can take a great exam!

And ....

Your Teacher!

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was the first person we studied when we started our "Civil and Human rights Project".

Here you can find more info about him:

http://www.biography.com/articles/Frederick-Douglass-9278324

This video tells the story of his first day as a free man. 

"I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. …There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren--children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition... The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this--"Trust no man!" I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every colored man cause for distrust. It was a most painful situation; and, to understand it, one must need experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances. (By Frederick Douglass “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1845)

Comenius week: the results!

During the Comenius week (2nd - 9th May), some students prepared posters and albums to show their parents their experience within the Comenius Project describing both the activities we did at school and the ones we did in Spain.  Last Thursday, 9th June we presented these works at school to the parents, to our headmistress, to the representatives of the City Councils and to all the students.
Some days a go Flavio, a 3rd year students, who took part in the project, wrote a short speech to introduce the presentation.
Here is the speech that Gaia, David, Lucrezia, Federica and Flavio read.

The albums with the pictures of our visit to Spain.

Matteo and Guglielmo showing the albums.

 

The Posters describing the activities

in Italy and at school.

This morning with 1st year student in the school of Fornole we listened to the song Firework. We enjoyed a lot and it was our "goodbye" because next year I won't be teaching in Fornole anymore.

Here I put the video of the song and an exercise you can do while you listen to it.

For the exercises follow this link:
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=6393

I hope you enjoyed this year as much as I did with you and I want to remind you, to each of you, that:

"You're original, cannot be replaced"

And I wish you a 

Let's keep in touch, come and visit the blog.

Goodbye, your Teacher!

Lettera ai prof!

Sempre ieri alla manifestazione di fine anno nella scuola di Giove i ragazzi delle classi terze ci hanno fatto un regalo davvero straordinario: una lettera ai prof!

Anni fa è stata scritta "Lettera a una professoressa" da don Milani, un sacerdote che nell'educazione e nella cultura ci credeva veramente (per saperne di più: http://www.lastoriasiamonoi.rai.it/puntata.aspx?id=359)

Ora loro, i nostri alunni, ci scrivono queste parole e mi fanno pensare che, forse, qualcosa di quello che ci aveva scritto don Milani lo abbiamo capito e messo anche in pratica!

La vostra Teacher! 

And the winners are ...

Yesterday, during the celebration for the end of the school year, the Mayor of Giove and a representative of the City Council of Penna in Teverina, gave the prize to the students who won the competition "Once upon a time there was a beautiful castle"

This competition, that is part of the Comenius Project, consisted in writing a tale set in a castle. The tale had to be written in Italian and English. The students could take part in the competition either individually or in small groups (2 or 3).

Here are the winners:

Gaia Bove, who wrote: "Le grida nel castello - The shouts in the castle"

Filippo Prosperi and Mattia Zara, who wrote: "Una notte al castello - A night at the castle"

And to these winners we say:

Penfriend Project

We are at the end of the school year and we are at the end of our Penfriend Project too.
 The students from 2nd and 3rd year started writing letters at the beginning of the school year and went on writing a letter every month and a half.



They wrote letters and I corrected them, then they copied what they wrote on writing papers, I collected all the letters and sent them to our penfriends of IES Vega del Guadalete in La Barca de la Florida, Spain.

In this poster we put pictures and descriptions of what we did at school about the project to let the parents see and enjoy it too.


The main aims of the project were:
- to create contacts with European students
- to improve the use of English as a Foreign Language
- to create real chances to use English
- to write letters (using pens and paper!) to discover the pleasure of talking about oneself, of knowing other people, of receiving letters.

Some weeks ago Simina, a 3rd year student, made a very nice video on the project, thank you Simina!

We could do this project thanks to the cooperation and hard work of the students and the teachers, me and my Spanish colleague Rocio.

So let's say a big 

everyone 

for this extraordinary experience!

Language Auction

This morning in class II A we played "Language Auction" and we had a lot of fun!

I wrote some sentences on the board; some were grammatically correct, some were not.

 The students were divided in two groups and both groups had to bet on whether the sentence was right or wrong, trying to spot the mistake and correct it. Each team had 100 euros and decided to bet depending on how sure they were about the language. The team that gained more money was the winner! 

We started with simple sentences and added some more difficult ones. In this way the pupils reviewed some grammar topics they studied during the school year and had fun too! 




Thinking on how much to bet and deciding if the sentence is right or wrong!

 The "linguistic"results!

The real result:

 if we work together we can achieve 

great goals!

Dialogues

Nel mese di febbraio gli alunni della II B hanno eseguito un esercizio dal libro di testo che proponeva la compilazione di un dialogo. Lo hanno imparato a memoria poi lo hanno recitato in classe e coppie. Purtroppo non sono disponibili i video di tutti i dialoghi perché alcuni si sono rovinati, ne metterò quindi uno solo.

L'idea di filmare la recitazione dei dialoghi è scaturita in una giornata un po' pesante e, dato che avevo appena comprato una nuova macchina fotografica, ho proposto agli alunni questo esperimento. I ragazzi hanno accettato con entusiasmo e quindi abbiamo realizzato, tra gli altri, anche questo video.

Dopo aver fatto i filmati abbiamo messo in evidenza tutte le difficoltà incontrate e gli alunni hanno proposto di inventare loro stessi una seconda parte del dialogo per migliorare nel lessico e nella pronuncia.

Così qualche settimana fa si sono messi tutti a lavoro ed hanno creato, a coppie, la seconda parte del dialogo e la scorsa settimana abbiamo di nuovo fatto "le riprese"! A differenza di quelli della prima parte, i dialoghi della seconda sono tutti diversi, e tutti propongono situazioni interessanti e divertenti.

Con questo lavoro i ragazzi hanno sperimentato e superato la difficoltà di parlare in un'altra lingua di fronte a tutti i compagni, hanno usato strutture e vocaboli appresi in classe, hanno tentato di rendere il dialogo verosimile curando intonazione e pronuncia. Non tutti sono riusciti in questo ultimo aspetto che, abbiamo visto essere, quello più difficile. Tuttavia, e nonostante i tanti miglioramenti possibili, questa è stata un'esperienza molto positiva e motivante per tutti e in cui ciascuno ha fatto del proprio meglio al fine di una buona riuscita.