We are studying modal verbs.

Have to: in order to make questions and negative sentences we need the auxiliary verb do.

 can, must, should: when  followed by another verb, NEVER use to. They are auxiliary verbs, so when we put them in a question, we just change the order of the words: Can I? Should we? Must he? and if we have to make a negative sentence we add not: I cannot, I must not, I should not. 

Can is sometimes similar in meaning  to Being allowed. You can either say: We are not allowed to smoke here or We can´t smoke here.

In our lesson today we practiced those verbs. We also listened to a recording of 2 teenagers talking about things they have to do or don´t have to do and about things adults have to do as opposed to teenagers.

For homework:
Write about yourself as a teenager: What was your life like? What did you have to do at home and in school?

This week we finished working on the texts about Picasso and Hemingway. Students had to underlined all the verbs in passive voice that they found in the texts and write their own sentences with them. All of them were in the past tense because that´s what we are learning. We are learning the tenses we need to tell a story:  past simple, past continuous and past perfect. We can find the same tenses, but in passive, like:

It was given to me.

The dogs were not being fed.

She had not been told about the earthquake.

In our last lesson we were talking about books and films that we had enjoyed. Each student had to think about a film or book and the other ones had to ask the following questions:

What´s it called?
Who wrote it?
Who directed it?
Who starred in it?
Who are the main characters?
What´s it about?
Where does it take place?
Why do you like it?

Firts we were practicing the pronunciation of those questions and then we were using them in context. Students were also allowed to make different questions if they wanted. It was quite interesting and I, myself, had the chance to learn a few things.

By the way, the film director I was talking about, the one whose name I couln´t remember, is Gracia Querejeta. Her father, the film producer who died last year, I believe, was Elias Querejeta.

Homework

Write a conversation between two friends or more about books or films. You should mention at least 2 works (books or films) and you can use the questions we were practicing during the lesson.

The lesson today was a bit confusing because some students had already read Picasso´s biography and some hadn´t.

We started the class with some Are you good at questions: Are you good at writing?

Students answered some questions about Picasso´s text. We know that he was a spoiled child because we was allowed to do anything he wanted.
We know somebody´s features are: their eyes, mouth, nose, eyebraws, etc. 
The Guernica represents the bombing of a town called Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Students read aloud Hemingway´s biography.  New words they learned are: wounded, shotgun, eyesight.
They pronounced a list of difficult words extracted from the text.

Remember that when the ending consonant of a regular verb is dental, that is, t or d, we need to add a syllable when we use the past. Want - wanted, award - awarded and so on.

Homework:
Choose an artist, any kind of artist - musician, painter, dancer, actor, film director, etc. and do some research about him/her. Note down a few details of his/her biography. Please, don´t tell us his or her name, we want to guess who you are talking about by asking questions. 

Read Hemingway´s text and underline all the verbs in passive voice. 

Write 5 questions about the text.

Our lesson today was about artists and authors. At the beginning of the lesson students read homework. A part of it were sentences about lthings they were allowed or not allowed to do when they were in school.

Remeber this is a passive construction and is followed by an infinitive:

I was not allowed  to exchange clothes with my classmates.

We were allowed to sit anywhere we wanted.

Students reviewed article about Picasso and wrote 3 questions about it. Remember the Past tenses we are studying:
Past Simple:
Affirmative: I wrote        Questions: did you write? ( You must always use the auxiliary did, whatever the beginning of the question. The only exception is when the question starts with Who and Who is the subject of the question: Who wrote that book?
Negative: I didn´t write.

Past Continuous: (The auxiliary verb is the past of the verb to be: was/were)
Affirmative: I was reading (The auxiliary verb is the past of the verb to be: was/were
 Questions: Were you reading?
Negative: I wasn´t reading.

Past Perfect (The auxiliary verb is the past of the verb to have)
Affirmative: I had already read the book when I watched  the film.
Questions: Had you already seen the film?
Negative: I hadn´t read the book.

Homework
Choose an artist, any kind of artist - musician, painter, dancer, actor, film director, etc. and do some research about him/her. Note down a few details of his/her biography.

I know there was something else but I just can´t remember, so, if either one of you, Beatriz or Veronica read this entry, please, add the other exercise I asked you to do. You can do it in the comments section.

As warming up students were asking each other questions like: Are you good at singing?

It was Veronica´s turn to read her fairy tale: The Little Match Seller. We really enjoyed but it was quite sad.

Students read homework: matching sentences to make a short conversation.

New vocabulary was introduced, words related to art: painter, author, poet, poem, sculpture, novel, picture, brush, palette, chapter, biography, exhibition, fairy tale, portrait, play, art gallery, masterpiece, novelist, sketch, act.  Students read words aloud. 

Students answered the question What kind of art do you  enjoy? Later we were reading a short  biography of Pablo Picasso, which we didn´t have time to finish. 

Homework

Finish reading Picasso´s biography.

Write 3 questions starting with Do you believe that...(a detail about Picasso´s life as told in the short biography we are reading that you find hard to believe)?

Write 3 sentences saying things that you were not allowed to do in school and 3 sentences saying things you were allowed to do in school. 

Enjoy your weekend!

We are trying really hard to learn how to speak using the correct past tenses.

So students started the lesson saying 3 things they did on the weekend. They were not allowed to use the verb to go. Next they ask their classmates about the first thing they had done in the morning.

Beatriz read her version of Snow White, the rest of the students will read their stories in future classes.

Looking at Judy´s schedule for yesterday students were asking each other questions in the past continuous: What was Judy doing at 8:30 in the evening? and answering: She was putting the baby to bed.
Later students made a list of things they had done yesterday, swapped their papers and asked one another questions like: Were you taking a nap at 4:00 in the afternoon? Yes, I was or No, I wasn´t. At 4 I was studying in the library.

Finally we listened to the very famous song by Otis Redding: Sitting on the dock of a bay. Here is the link, in case you feel like listening to it again.