Looking at a picture: Tobias and the Angel
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Tobias and the Angel by Andrea del Verrocchio (XV Century) |
Writing a Microstory
Tobias is sitting in his garden …
Encarna and Monika.
Tobías is sitting in his garden with his dog; suddenly an Angel comes and says: “ Let's go for a walk to the river to fish”. They are fishing for a few hours but they take only one fish. Later they play with his dog throwing stones to the lake. When suddenly the dog is missing they look for it everywhere but they listen to the dog barking. The dog's bark is coming from a castle they run to the castle and they can't belive! The dog has two fishes. It's fishing more than us.
Then, They cook the fish and drink wine while they watch the landscape. At night the Angel returned to heaven.
“See you, Tobias!, the angel says.
“ See you, Angel,!” Tobias says.
Tobias is very happy, he has a new friend.
The angel tells him: “Wealth doesn’t bring happiness”.
When Tobias wakes up, he is alone. His dog is playing with him and there isn’t any angel.
“A nice dream!”, -he thinks - “But... and this fish here?”
-Hello, I´m hungry, can you give me a piece of fish please?
And Tobias answers:
-No , I have only one. But if you want to eat, you can take my dog and prepare Hot Dogs.
Then, the Angel answers :
-Ok , but I don´t have Moustard.
Tobias says: No problem, I can give you.
Finally, the Angel accepts the dog and the moustard, and the Angel is going back to Heaven.
Tobias is sitting in his garden, he is playing with his dog and suddenly it´s starting to rain and he is going back to his castle.
Finally, they´re looking for his dog in the river, then the dog appeared behind the trees.
He´s wearing a long tunic and sandals. They go for a walk near the river and both eat fish in the hills.
Simple Past
The regular past tense in English is formed by adding "ed" to the verb. This past tense regular verb ending has three distinct sounds:
- /t/ as in stopped, walked, relaxed
- /d/ as in arrived, lived, used
- /id/ as in wanted, needed, hated
See the following table and practice the verbs.
What's your favourite colour?
COLOURS
Read the following list of words. Say the color of the word instead of the word itself.
Have you ever been to London?
What questions were they asked? Have you noticed the difference?
You can revise and check the use of the Present Perfect tense in the following slideshow.
Now you can do these exercises:
Exercise One. Present Perfect exercises.
Exercise Two. Present Perfect exercises.
Exercise Three. Present Perfect: Simple or Progressive?
Exercise Four. Present Perfect or Past Tense?
Exercise Five. Using FOR or SINCE
Exercise Six. Using FOR or SINCE
Some other exercises using ALREADY, STILL and YET
Click here.
Christmas
Something about Christmas traditions in Britain.
In the morning of Christmas Day (25 December), children usually get up very early to unwrap their presents. Then they have plenty of time to play with their new toys.
Christmas dinner is served in the early afternoon. Most people eat turkey and sprouts and a Christmas pudding.
26 December is called Boxing Day. It hasn’t always been a holiday. People used to go back to work on that day where their bosses gave them little Christmas presents in small boxes. That’s why the day is called Boxing Day.
And about New Year...
Here is everything that you need to know about the New Year's celebrations in English-speaking countries:
- December 31 is New Year's Eve.
- January 1 is New Year's Day.
- Americans call the whole festival New Year's: What are you doing between Christmas and New Year's?
-British speakers call it New Year or the New Year: What are you doing between Christmas and New Year?
- If you say Sylvester, English speakers will think that you are talking about a cartoon cat.
Traditionally, it's not a time for fireworks. The Americans have fireworks on July 4, the British on 5 November ("Guy Fawkes' Night"). But after seeing the famous pictures of the celebrations at the Brandenburger Tor on 31 December 1989, English-speaking countries realised that the Germans might have a custom worth stealing. Firework displays as the year turns are getting more and more common.
-The new year festival is important in Scotland. It's called Hogmanay. They do strange traditional things with bagpipes, the stomachs of sheep (haggis), and pieces of coal. The Scots say that foreign visitors are welcome (but maybe they mean as victims).
- In other English-speaking countries, people just go to parties. It's the same procedure every year. At midnight they sing an old song in a Scottish dialect, called "Auld Lang Syne", which might mean: "Let's kill all the English this year." (No one really knows.)
- You could explain to your British friends that many Germans watch an old Freddie Frinton comedy sketch on New Year's Eve. But they will probably not believe you.
Would you like to know more things about Christmas? Visit these links:
This site has some amazing facts about Christmas. Click here.
This is a great site for kids to access. They can fill in a letter to e-mail to Father Christmas and find out about the hows and whys of Christmas.Click here.
This site has information about how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Click here.
The BBC Newsround site has some lovely Christmas pages. Click here.
Christmas around the world
Here you can find a collection of historical Christmas celebrations for many different countries. The celebration or activity is the earliest history for each country NUT note that they may not represent the current Christmas celebrations of today. Click here.
Have alook at these sites as well:
Christmas celebrations around the world
Christmas traditions around the world.
Christmas Songs and Carols
Connectors 1: Being a trapeze artist.
Have you ever been to a circus? Have you seen the trapeze artists? Have you seen them flying on the air? Isn't it amazing?
They can do that because they train for long hours every day and because when they are "flying", they are all connected with their arms and hands. Otherwise they may fall onto the floor and be injured.
Connectors are things that connect with others.
In English a connector is a special word that connects a sentence with another sentence or a word with another word. For example: so, because, and, although, ... They are special words that connect one sentence or word with another.
Example:
She stayed at home because she was very tired.
Although we wanted to see the film, we didn't go.
It was very late to go out so I watched TV.
Remember: "Practice makes excellence" So, here you have some exercises to help you
Click here to practice SO and BECAUSE
Click here for AND, BUT, SO
WH-QUESTIONS Exercises
Rudyard Kipling, the writer of "The book of the jungle", wrote a short poem about asking questions. This is the poem:
I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
From it , we learn that if you want to know something, the best is to ask questions. The more questions you ask, the more information you get.
What questions do you ask yourself every day?
Am I a happy person?
What can I do to be a happier man/woman?
What other questions can you ask yourself?
Take a moment to think about them, Write them on a piece of paper and think about the possible answers.
Also, some people like questioning things about their past actions. For expample, if you want to find a reason you ask: "Why did I react like that? Why did I give that anwer?
What other questions can you ask about a personal past action or event?
To help you practice with the use of WH-Questions, here you have some exercises.
WH Questions - WH WORDS
Questions exercises in English Exercises .org
More more exercises with WH-Questions using the past, click here.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Welcome back to School
Welcome!!
My house. Mind map

Past Times

- Although most past tense verbs end in -ed, certain verbs have irregular past tense forms that do not follow this rule.
Be, have, and do are the most commonly used irregular verbs. Unfortunately, memorizing these irregular verbs is the only way to completely master the past tense.
If you want to have fun and learn the pronunciation of irregular verbs, click here.
Some interesting exercises about the Simple Past. Click here or here
And if you want some more practice about the -ed of regular verbs. Click here. It's a wonderful exercise from the British Council.
Now, have a look at this video and do the exercise.
A bit of Pre-hispanic History about Gran Canaria
What do you know about Christopher Columbus' voyages? Read the texts.