Real English series: A tourist in London and what are the Italians/Germans like?

Today we are posting two new episodes in the Real English series of videos for Básico 1 and Básico 2 (elementary) students.

In the first one Lisa, an American tourist in London, answers some questions about herself and about her impressions of London.

Some parts of the video may be difficult for Básico 1 students, but not definitely for Básico 2 ones. Anyway, the clip is a good opportunity to revise the structure of basic questions in English at this level.

It is advisable to watch the same video with English subtitles on the Real English site here.
Students can also do an interactive excercise on the Real English site here.

Below you can find the questions that Lisa is asked in the interview, which may help you for revision purposes.

What’s your name?
Are you from New York?
When did you get to London?
How do you like it so far?
Why did you come to London?
How long are you going to stay?
How long all together?
Do you like it so far?
Could you introduce this person here?
Are you friends?
Do the French like us much?
Where do you live?
Do you like Americans?
Where are you staying?
Is it expensive?
What do you do in New York?
Where is your shop?
Do you live in Staten Island?

The second video follows up on the study of the question pattern What ... like? to describe people, and that we have studied in the last four weeks. This time it is the Italians that people in the street are asked to describe when answering the question, What are the Italians like?

The main difficulty of the video lies on the vocabulary  as some of the speakers use a few adjectives which students  at elementary and even intermediate level may find difficult to understand.

It is more than advisible to download the transcript from the Real English site here, so that you can look up the words that you don't understand and practise the pronunciation of the vocabulary.
You can also do an interactive exercise on the Real English site here.

The last video on today's post follows up on the practice of the question What are ... like?, this time the question is about the Germans, What are the Germans like?

You can watch a subtitled version of the same video on the Real English site here.

What are the Americans and the British like?

Today we are posting two new videos in the Real English video series. We continue describing people by answering the question What are the Americans like? and What are the British like?, which has already come up several times in our Real English video series.

Remember that we use the structure What is XXX like? to ask someone to describe people, places and objects, but when used for people we just refer to their personality.

In the answer, we generally use adjectives, and we never include the word like in our answer (which is used as a preposition in this question).

Another interesting point to bear in mind is the use of the article the + nationality adjective (the British) to refer to British people in general (always followed by plural verb). To talk about the nationals of a country we can say
The + nationality adjective (The British are...) or
Adjective + noun with no article (British people are...)

Spanish people or The Spanish
French people or The French

We can also use the structure the + adjective (with no noun) to refer to a group of people in general: the poor, the rich. The verb is always plural after the adjective.
The rich are always a minority
The poor are always the first to suffer in crisis times.

Watch the videos and find our what the British and Americans are like. You may need to watch the clips with subtitles on the Real English website (links are provided below) as the main difficulty of the videos is not the accent or how fast the people interviewed talk, but the meaning of some of the adjectives used to describe people.

You can do an exercise on this video on the Real English website.
You can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English website.

Students at an intermediate level can watch a longer version of this video on the Real English website.

You can do an exercise on this video on the Real English website.
You can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English website.

Students at an intermediate level can watch a longer version of this video on the Real English website.

Real English series: Marital status and describing the weather

We are posting two new videos in the Real English video series. In the first one, people in the street answer the question Are you married? to talk about their marital status.

As usual, the two-minute video is used to revise some other basic information questions that have come up  in the Real English video series so far:

Are you engaged?
How old are you?
What’s your name?
Where do you come from?
What’s your favourite colour?
Would you introduce me your friend?
Where’s your ex-husband?

You can do an online activity about the video on the Real English site here.
You can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English site here.

In the second video some people in the street answer the question What's the weather like? 

We have already come across the question What's XXXX like? in the Real English series a couple of times before, but to describe someone's personality:

What's John like? = Describe John's personality = What kind of person is John?

The same structure is used when we want someone to describe something for us, be it the weather, a city, an object, a building.

What's London like? (¿Cómo es Londres?)
What's your flat like? (¿Cómo es tu piso?)
What's an Apple PC like? (Cómo son los ordenadores Apple?)

Remember that most of the times we just use adjectives in our answer, and that the preposition "like" is never used in the answer.

What's London like? It's a huge, exciting city.
What's your flat like? It's a bit small, very light and with great views.
What's an Apple PC like? It's faster and much more intuitive.

You can do an online activity about the video on the Real English site here.
You can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English site here.

How are you feeling? How does he look?

This idea for this activity comes from a blog post from ESLChestnut.

A few verbs in English can be followed by adjective. The verb everybody knows is to be:
I'm hungry
They are old

But there are a few more. They mainly have to do with the senses: taste, sound, look, feel, smell or with our impression of something/someone: seem, appear, look, consider.
The fish tastes funny
It feels a bit rough
It smells nice
She seems (to be) a bit arrogant
They look worried

Self-study activity:
You can practise this structure with the picture below. The activity is a bit mechanical, but it will help you to learn and/or consolidate the idea that a few verbs are followed by adjective.

If possible, get together with an English-speaking friend or relative and take it in turn to ask each other the same question:
How does no 1 in the first line look?
He looks exhausted

How is no 2 in the second line feeling?
He's feeling hysterial

You can also practise the present perfect continuous by giving reasons for each person's state.
Why?
Because he's been playing football for two hours.

These mood-related adjectives are also suitable to practise and revise the pronounciation of the -ed endings in English.

To revise the way -ed is pronounced in English, click on the Regular Verbs tag on the right hand side.

Adjective game

Lowe level students (Básico 1 and Básico 2) can greatly benefit from the Sheppardsoftware site.

They will find in the language/art section of the site a number of online games which will help them in the process of consolidating basic grammar principles.

The main grammar areas that are dealt with in the section are adjectives, nouns, verbs, punctuation and capitalization.

The way the games are played is self-explanatory and those students wishing to try their hand at them will get the hang of it straightaway.

By clicking on the picture below you will be directed to the adjective game.

Students of all levels and ages will also enjoy the Sheppardsoftware site, as they will find at their disposal a collection of online games  of varying difficulty comprising areas like history, health, science, maths, and so on.

Song: I am, by Hilary Duff

I learn about I am through the ELT Song Chart of It's magazine. The song is of interest to us for several reasons:

• It's suitable for students of all levels, so elementary (Básico 1 and Básico 2) students will enjoy it.
• It lends itself to the study or revision of personality adjectives and their pronunciation.
• If students get together to practise or a teacher uses the song in class, a nice activity to do after listening to the song is using the adjectives as a springboard for conversation, where students have to apply the adjectives in the song to describe people they know.

Read all about it

Read all about it is a very engaging BBC online game for Básico 1 and Básico 2 (elementary) students which focuses on developing students' writing skills and grammar.

In the first place, students have to match a number of newspaper adverts with their corresponding objects. This just has the aim of introducing some vocabulary and get students off an easy start.

In the second part of the game, students work for a local newspaper as reporters and have to edit some information in either personal ads, car ads or news items, by adding adjectives to a basic text so that the final end product looks more appealing.

H/T to MacMillan English Campus.

Adjective Word Order

Are there any rules for adjective word order in English?
Do we say 'black leather shoes' or 'leather black shoes'?
The answer is OPSHACOM > OP-SH-A-C-O-M
OP (opinion) SH (shape or size) A (age) C (colour) O (origin) M (material)

Watch Professor Grammar giving us all the details about it.


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Self-study activity:
Put the adjectives in the right position before the noun.

1. Belgian / beautiful / little - city
2. excellent / cold - dinner
3. modern / industrial - buildings
4. French / ski - boots
5. cotton / grey - trousers
6. evening / red / silk - dress

Key:
1. beautiful little Belgian city 2. excellent cold dinner 3. modern industrial buildings 4. French ski boots 5. grey cotton trousers 6. red silk evening dress

Describing people

Describing people is an easy interactive activity to help English language students revise adjectives. Just click on 'play this game.'