A life story

On page 25 of your English Alive 4 book, we will work on practising different tenses to talk about our lives. In particular, you will work on:

1) The present simple (to talk about a sitution or action in the present)

2) The past simple (to talk about a finished action or event)

3) The present perfect (to talk about an action that happened in the past and has an effect on the present)

4) The present continous (to talk about things in progess now)

5) The past continuous (to talk about things in progress in the past)

6) will (to predict your future)

Here is my example. You will start to work on your life story in class and will finsih it at home with photos.


MY LIFE

I was born in a small town outside of Chicago called DeKalb. There is nothing special about it. There are a lot of corn fields. Fortunately, we didn't stay there long and we moved to another town about 25 miles outside of Chicago called Glen Ellyn. We lived there for 15 years. I went to grade school (Abraham Lincoln Elementary School), middle school (Hadley Junior High School) and high school (Glenbard West High school).


One of my clearest memories from grade school was when I was in the play Aladdin. I didn't have a very important role: I was Aladdin's mother. I had to sing a song and I had about 2 lines of dialogue. I loved my costume.


When I was in 6th grade I went to camp for the first time. I was really unhappy because my mom made me cut my hair. I took a stuffed lion with me to keep me company.

Later on, in high school, I was not only busy with school work but also helped out at my church. When I was 15, I went to Haiti to help build a well. (I don't have a photo of that). When I was 16, I went to Mexico to help paint an orphanage and play games with the children.

Then when I was 17, I went down to Mississippi, in the south of the USA. We travelled with another group of students who were from the center of Chicago. We went together as a mixed race group to a part of the USA where there still exists informal segregation. We helped families repair their homes and took care of their children while they were working. It was a good experience for me and it taught me a lot about the poverty and inequality that exists in the USA.

When I was 18 I went to study at university. I went to a small town called Northfield in Minnesota. It was even farther north than Chicago. The winters were very cold! When I finished university, I lived in Minneapolis with 5 friends in a crazy old house. We set up a music room in the basement and used to try to write songs. They weren't very good but it was a lot of fun.

Then in 1992, I came to Barcelona. I studied to become and English teacher. I loved the city and went for long walks everyday exploring the parks and narrow streets. I decided I wanted to live in Spain for a few years.

A few years have turned into 16 years! I went to Madrid in 1993 and started working as a teacher in a language academy. Now I am a mother, a teacher, an editor and writer. I am happy with my life but I'm very busy. I think that when my children are older, I'll travel again. I love to see new places, try new food, go for walks in busy streets where I don't understand the language, take pictures and get lost in the world around me.

Runaway Train

Long ago in the 1990s when you were just little kids (or not even born yet!), the Minneapolis based alternative rock band SOUL ASYLUM came out with the song RUNAWAY TRAIN. As we have read about runaways in Chapter Two of English Alive, I thought you might like to listen to the song.


Here is the video from 1993.

Answers to GRAMMAR BANK: starter unit and Unit 1

GRAMMAR BANK: STARTER UNIT
ONE
1 ‘s making 2 listens 3 take 4 aren’t writing 5 ‘m buying 6 eat
TWO
1 Does Ana walk to school? Yes, she does.
2 Is Joe having a good holiday? No, he isn’t.
3 Are Rob and Sara spending a lot of money? Yes, they are.
4 Do you listen to the radio every day? No, I don’t.
THREE
1 I played football yesterday.
2 Did William speak French on holiday?
3 Jess didn’t write any emails last night.
4 I took my iPod to the beach.
5 Did you parents visit the Sagrada Familia?
6 We didn’t win the lottery last weekend.
FOUR
1 much 2 any 3 some 4 much 5 any 6 some 7 many 8 a lot of
FIVE
1 The Amazon River is wider than the River Thames.
2 A new computer is more expensive than a mobile phone.
3 My brother is lazier than me.
4 Bill gates is riches than Bob Geldorf.
5 The library is quieter than the classroom for studying.
SIX
1 Dan is the noisiest person I know.
2 My grandma is the oldest person in our family.
3 This is the best hotel on the island.
4 Angelina Jolie is the most beautiful actress in the world.
5 Wendy is the youngest person in the class.

GRAMMAR BANK: UNIT ONE
ONE
1 The children came in while we were chatting.
2 Tom wasn’t wearing the school uniform when I saw him.
3 I was reading a magazine when the train arrived.
4 We were doing our homework when mum phoned.
5 Was the sun shining when you got up?
6 He sent a text message while he was having lunch.
7 Was Emily laughing or crying when you took this photo?

TWO
1 While I was sleeping, my mobile phone rang.
2 My sister was walking to school when it started to rain.
3 While we were waiting at the airport, we saw a movie star.
4 When I saw Becky, she was wearing a new coat.
5 Mary was driving to work when she saw the accident.
6 The computer crashed while we were doing our homework.
7 We were watching a horror film when the lights went out.

THREE1 go 2 laughing 3 sitting 4 meet 5 get up 6 feeling 7 arrange 8 saying

FOUR
1 What did you buy?
2 Who gave you this book?
3 When did you meet?
4 Why did he make a sandwich?
5 Who are the pizza?
6 Who did you see last night? / Who saw Becky last night?
7 How many people were at the party?
8 What happened at the weekend?

Answers to WORKBOOK p 10-14 and PROGRESS CHECK

Workbook Answers
Page 10
GRAMMAR
ONE
1 Who were you making a face at?
2 When did you take this picture?
3 How was he feeling yesterday?
4 Why were you laughing at me?
5 Who did you kiss at the party?
6 What did you think of the exhibition?
7 What was he staring at?
8 Where did you find that photo?
TWO
1Why were they crying?
2 When did you send me a text message?
3 What did you do after the party?
4 Who was she talking to on the phone?
THREE
1 Who was she talking to?
2 Where did you go?
3 Why did you cry?
4 Who did you hug?
5 Why were they celebrating?
6 How did he travel?
7 What was he reading?
FOUR
1 passed 2 took this photo 3 did they spend 4 did you scream 5 did she say
FIVE
a 5 b 3 c 2 d 1 e 4
SIX
1 Who made a face at you?
2 What did Martin give you?
3 How much did they spend on that painting?
4 Who invented the submarine?
SEVEN
1 Who took two exams yesterday?
When did Simon take two exams?
2 Which film won eleven Oscars?
What did The Lord of the Rings win?
3 Who kissed James at the party?
Who did Martine kiss at the party?
4 Which bus left five minutes ago?
When did the number 18 bus leave?

GRAMMAR CONSOLIDATION
1 C 2 C 3 A 4 A 5 B 6 B 7 C 8 B 9 A 10 C

READING
ONE
1 c 2 a 3 b
TWO
1 Debra 2 Debra 3 Ian and Lewis 4 Debre 5 Cassie 6 Ian 7 Debra
THREE
1 She doesn’t know. It was spontaneous.
2 Because she used her mobile phone.
3 Because his car didn’t move or make a sound while she was waiting.
4 He describes her as easy-going.
5 Because he noticed it was getting darker.
6 Dramatic.
7 The noise of the rain hitting his window.

WRITING
FOUR
1 e 2 c 3 g 4 f 5 b 6 a 7 d

PRACTICAL ENGLISH
1 Can I have 2 If you like 3 That’s a nice one 4 Who’s that

PROGRESS CHECK
ONE
1 powerful 2 moving 3 peaceful 4 unusual 5 natural 6 disturbing 7 amusing 8 spontaneous 9 colourful 10 striking 11 dramatic 12 romantic
TWO
1 scream 2 kiss 3 stare 4 hug 5 frown 6 pose
THREE
1 finished 2 ran 3 was hugging 4 were 5 thought 6 was frowning 7 was, doing 8 said
FOUR
1 Why did you kiss him?
2 Who were you staring at?
3 Why were Harry and Isabel laughing?
4 Where did you take these photos?
5 What did you do yesterday?
6 Why was she crying?
7 How were you feeling at the time?
8 When did the war finish?
FIVE
1 took 2 went 3 were, posing 4 happened 5 did, give 6 did, find

Photos for News Story:Monday / Friday class

These pictures are for something we will be doing with the half classes on Monday and Wednesday.

You will have to choose one of these photos. Then you will copy and save it in a new entry in your blog. Finally, we will read through Exercise 7 on page 15 of the Student's Book and you will write your news article in your blog. You don't need to do anything before your turn in the computer lab. I am just posting this now so that it is available for our class.

Answers to Student's Book Page 14

Exercise 1
She was 12 when the photograph was taken.

Exercise 2
Order the events:
b A war started in Afghanistan
c Steve took the first photo of Sharbat.
f Sharbat's photo became famous.
a Steve discovered Sharbat's identity.
d Steve took a second photo of Sharbat.
e National Geographic started a fund.

Exercise 3
1 to Afghanistan
2 her name
3 Eighteen years
4 girls and women in Afghanistan

News about my son

Hello everyone
I just spent an hour reading all your blogs and comments. I think I'm going to have my work cut out for me! But I have to tell you that I am so very pleased that you are all working on your blogs and reading each other's pages. And I hope to see even longer and more ambitious pieces of writing in the future.
Anyway, the reason I am writing this entry is to tell you all that we just learned today that our youngest son is going to have an operation tomorrow. My husband took him to the hospital today to see the surgeon because we have been waiting for over a year for his operation. As someone else who is scheduled for tomorrow is ill, they told us they would operate on Max tomorrow. As a result, I will be at the hospital today and tomorrow with him. I have Friday off too but I hope I can come in for our class at least so that half of you can do your presentations for Jane and the other half can work on their blogs a bit more.
Just so you know, here is what you need to work on.
WEDNESDAY: in class work on pages 14 and 15 in the Student's book. I will post the answers on the blog on Thursday night. If you finish early, please work on pages 112-113 in the workbook.
THURSDAY: bring the Sherlock Holmes book to class and read the first three chapters. We will be discussing the first three chapters in class next week.

Keep up the good work class! I'm very happy to be working with you this year.
Melissa