“Primary and Modal Auxiliary Verbs”


Stage 6 Stage 7 This week´s blog is about primary auxiliary verbs and modal auxiliary verbs. In English there are three primary auxiliaries; they are ‘BE’, ‘HAVE’ and ‘DO’. There are ten common modals; they are ‘CAN’, ‘COULD’, ‘WILL’, ‘WOULD’, ‘SHALL’, ‘SHOULD’, ‘MAY’, ‘MIGHT’, ‘MUST’ and ‘OUGHT’. The first thing that we should know about …

«Weather Idioms» (Part Two)


Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 The British weather has inspired many paintings, poems and songs over the years. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that many expressions in English make reference to the weather — it’s a simple, easy way of communicating a feeling or concept so that most people will understand. Let’s look at a few …

«Transitive and Intransitive Verbs»


Stage 7 Stage 8 In English a verb is either transitive or intransitive. A transitive verb has an object, whereas an intransitive verb does not have an object. Most verbs fall into one category or the other, but there are certain verbs that can be either transitive or intransitive depending on the context of the …

«Transition/Linking Words and Phrases»


Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 Transition (or linking) words and phrases are useful tools that allow us to better express ourselves in formal conversation, and especially in our writing. There are many examples of transition words and phrases, but here we’ll only be looking at a few of them. To get our brains working, …

«Sport and Games Idioms»


Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Football is full of idioms that have entered common usage. For example, if the first part of an activity has not been particularly successful, we can reassure ourselves that it’s ‘a game of two halves’ — in the same way that a football team losing heavily at half-time can …

«Confusing Words: Uses of ‘Get'»


Stage 4 Stage 5 Today I am going to talk about the verb ‘get’ and explain some of its meanings and give you some examples of each, thus making it easier for you to understand. The general meanings of the verb ‘get’ are ‘become’ and ‘obtain’. However, it has several other meanings too. When we …

«The Passive Voice» (Part Two)


Stage 5 Stage 6 For example, if the active voice sentence is “I broke the window” then the passive voice would become “The window was broken by me” and as you can see I changes to me in the passive voice. Other times you might need to change She to Her or He to Him. …

«Thinking of example sentences in English»


Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Today, we as teachers notice that thinking of examples, whether it be in class or for the exam, can be a challenge for almost every student. This presents us with an opportunity to go over the concept of giving examples in general, both in class and in exams. This …

«Food and Cooking Idioms»


Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 If you want to say that you are finding your English studies difficult, you can say that learning English ‘drives you bananas’. To ‘go bananas’ means to go crazy; it’s similar to the expression ’round the bend’, which some of our students will already have learned. Of course, learning …

«Direct and Indirect Speech»


Stage 6 Stage 7 The most important thing to know about direct and indirect speech is that we use them to report what somebody has said. You can report what you said or what another person said. We usually do this when we haven´t heard what a person has said. For example if somebody is …