«Tail Questions»


This month’s blog is about tail questions. I always pick a topic to write about based on student reactions in the classroom. If I find that some students find certain things difficult to understand, then I write about them in the blog. Tail questions are sometimes difficult for some students. A tail question is basically …

«The Different Types of Nouns»


Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 In the beginning, it is said, was the word (to paraphrase a biblical line). If so, that word — whatever it may have been — soon multiplied exponentially. Presently, words begat phrases; phrases begat clauses; clauses, eventually, begat sentences. Before long, homo sapiens was able to engage in phatic …

The Past Continuous


The past continuous — also known as the past progressive — is formed by using the verb ‘to be’ in the past tense, plus the ‘–ing’ form of a verb (known as the present participle). For example: running, writing, eating, watching, etc. The past tense of the verb ‘to be’ changes, depending on the person …

«The different uses of the word ‘even’»


Stage 5 Stage 6 Tanto la polisemia como la homonimia engloban aquellos signos lingüísticos en los que existe un significante con más de un significado. La diferencia fundamental entre ambos fenómenos la establece la etimología de dichos signos, es decir, su origen.

«The Active and Passive Voice»


Stage 5 Stage 6 La voz activa se sustenta sobre los tiempos naturales del verbo, siendo esta la forma común en la que nos expresamos. En la voz activa la acción parte del sujeto: El profesor explicó la gramática con muchos ejemplos. Por el contrario, en la voz pasiva, el sujeto es quien recibe la …

«The Past Perfect»


Stage 5 Stage 6 We are going to take a look at a verb tense, a perfect tense: the Past Perfect. We’ve introduced this tense in class this week, so we thought it would be helpful to go over it again and in greater detail. We use the Past Perfect when there are two actions …

«The Third Conditional»


Stage 5 Stage 6 A destacar de este modo verbal su carácter hipotético, incluso, irreal. Derivado de ello, el condicional expresa cierto sentido de fatalismo, lo que pudo ser y no fue, condicionando la realidad presente a una actuación hipotética situada en el pasado. Este tipo de construcciones son, por tanto, totalmente ilusorias, ya que, …

“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 …

«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, …

«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. …