Every day my students have to deal with a very, very, very complicated issue: the mother tongue interference on the second language, in this case the language English. My advice to Them is not to worry about it at the beginning of the process because it’s quite normal. Only after some time in contact with the new language, they will be able to disassociate the languages.

The most common mistake the student makes is to place the adjectives after the nouns, as we do in Portuguese:

• Bola azul/Ball blue (The correct is “blue ball”)

Hello Guys!

A very nice and fun way we can use to learn English is by playing games. Hidden Objects games are great to learn objects vocabulary.

There is also a game company called Telltale with very interesting games based on stories. Check the website.

(By Hugh Dellar, published in New Routes Magazine, January 2011)

1. Listen Your Students;
2. Talk To Your Students;
3. Tell Your Students About Yourself;
4. Teach Them USEFUL Things;
5. Teach The Class First (and the coursebook second);
6. Be Careful How You Correct Your Students;
7. Test Your Students;
8. Worry Less About Topics;
9. Worry More About Language and Anecdotes;
10. Look Deep Into Your Coursebook.

Hello guys!

Yesterday I was cleaning my computer and I found many audio books which I downloaded last year.

Audio books are a great way of practicing your listening skills. You can start with simple texts, like short tales for children or popular novels with a simple vocabulary.

Here’s one example:

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

Give it a try!

See you!

Last week one of my students told me that his biggest difficulty was to create a sentence in English, because the structure is very different from Portuguese. So, let’s take a look at it.

AFFIRMATIVE SENTENCE

In an affirmative sentence the structure is very similar to Portuguese.

Pronoun  +  Verb  +  Complement

I              work       in the morning.

The base (pronoun+verb) in this example is what we call Simple Present. It indicates facts, habits and real situations, such as: I dance, I sing, I walk, I talk, I live, etc.

The complement part is the place where you add more meaning to your sentence. You can use an adverb, an adjective, a place, a noun, etc. Look at the sentences:

The boy is happy.(adjective)

I like chocolate.(noun)

He sings everyday.(adverb)

See, it is quite simple! You can add more information to the sentences as well:

I like dark chocolate.

The boy is a happy child.

He sings everyday in the Karaoke.

Now, let’s talk about the two other forms to use Simple Present: negative and interrogative.

NEGATIVE SENTENCE

To create a negative sentence in the Simple Present you first need to pay attention If the main verb in the phrase is the verb To Be or a different verb. If it’s verb To Be you just need to add the word not after the verb:

Pronoun + Verb + Not + Complement

I am not at home.

You are not happy.

He/She/It is not tired.

We/You/They are not honest.

You can use the contracted form to:

I ain’t

You/We/They aren’t

He isn’t

Now, if you are using a verb that is not the verb To Be, it is necessary to use an auxiliar before the verb, Do/Does, to transform the sentence in a negative one and the word not.

A very important thing is that you must remember to use Do with the persons I/You/We/They and Does with He/She/It.

So, the structure is:

Pronoun + Do + Not + Verb + Complement.

I do not like chocolate.

He does not work in the morning.

Or the contracted form:

I don’t like chocolate.

He doesn’t work in the morning.

So far, so good. Now, let’s go to the Interrogative form.

INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE

The same way you need to check if the verb is To Be to create a negative sentence, you have to do the same to create an interrogative sentence. To make questions using the verb to be is very simple. All you need to do is to change the order of the phrase. In questions, the verb is placed before the Pronoun.

Verb + Pronoun + Complement

Are you happy?

Is he a singer?

Are they famous?

Pretty easy, right? Now, let’s see how to create questions with differente verbs.

The first thing you need is to use the auxiliar Do/Does.

Do/Does + Pronoun + Verb(infinitive) + Complement?

Do you like pasta?

Does he sing in the Karaoke?

Do you work in the morning?

Remember that in questions using the auxiliar Do/Does the verb is always in the infinitive, it doesn’t change from it’s original form.

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Well, this was the structure to the Simple Present. Soon I will post other tenses structures.

If you have doubts, please write me!

See you!!!