Singing in the Rain
This is a very simple exercise for Elementary students. You’re supposed to fill in the blanks with the preposition you hear. The lyrics that I’ve got here are Jamie Cullum’s. Enjoy the song.
Finally!!!
Oh, thank God it really is! But not for a whole year, though. Just two miserable hot summer months to get the darned course syllabus prim and ready for next year’s competitive exams. A dream holiday, no doubt?
Another of Clare Barnes, Jr’s witty captions to silly pictures.
Heath Ledger Eulogy Cloze Test
Never one of my favourites, it still is a pity he died so young. Heath(cliff) Ledger (1979-2008) started his acting career playing Peter Pan on stage at age ten. Alternating between TV and the cinema, he moved into the world of big-budget films when he was cast as Mel (Ugh!) Gibson’s eighteen-year-old son in The Patriot (2000), soon followed by the teen-idol vehicle A Knight’s Tale (2001). However, it wasn’t until his role as Billy Bob Thornton’s son in Monster’s Ball (2001) that he succeeded in showing his genuine talent for the performing arts, which eventually led to being nominated twice for the Academy Awards and winning a posthumous Oscar.
Here’s a brief eulogy by journalist Belinda Luscombe, which appeared on TIME magazine on February 4, 2008. For Advanced students.
Temporary Housing
Buster is American English slang for man, and it is frequently used as a derogatory form of address. Accommodation is used to refer to buildings or rooms where people live or stay, often, but not necessarily so, for a short period of time. In America, use the term accommodations. Facilities—or amenities—are additional services that are provided for people’s convenience, enjoyment or comfort, which are useful from a recreational standpoint, but not essential. Amenities in hotels include, among other things, shopping centres, health clubs, conference halls, and banqueting rooms. With the Easter holidays round the corner, I only hope you booked the right sort of lodgings.
You can see the original picture on page thirty-six of Clare Barnes, Jr’s Sleeping Under Blankets, published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, in 1955.
Conditional Sentences
Let’s take a few minutes to revise our knowledge of conditional sentences before doing the next exercise.
0 conditional (real, scientific)
Present simple in both clauses:
If you drink poison you die.
Past simple in both clauses:
When you sold an encyclopaedia, you got a bonus.
If you didn’t pay attention in class, you were punished.
1st conditional (may happen in the future)
Present simple in the subordinate clause, future simple in the main clause:
When I go to Ibiza, I will send you a postcard.
Present simple in the subordinate clause, imperative in the main clause:
If you travel abroad, don’t forget your passport.
Can, may, must and should are acceptable in the subordinate clause:
Should you leave early, put the key under the doormat.
2nd conditional (not true, not real at present)
Past simple in the subordinate clause, would + infinitive in the main clause:
If I had enough money, I would move to Hong Kong.
Both were and was are possible for the first and third persons singular:
If I were / was you, I would keep quiet.
However, only were is possible in inversions:
Were it not for him, we wouldn’t be alive.
3rd conditional (not real in the past)
Past perfect in the subordinate clause, would + perfect infinitive in the main clause:
If I had known Dr Sloper was on leave, I would have cancelled my appointment.
Inversions are possible:
Had I been blessed with a child, I would have brought him up better.
Had I met Sharon before, I wouldn’t have married Karen.
Mixed conditional type A (to express willingness)
Future simple in both clauses:
If you will give me the draft, I will type your assignment.
Would + infinitive in the subordinate clause, future simple or would + infinitive in the main clause:
If you would care to follow me, I will / would show you your room.
Inversions with should are possible, especially in businesslike situations:
Should you send us an e-message, we would reply at once.
Mixed conditional type B (no willingness)
Can or could + infinitive in the main clause, future simple or would + infinitive in the subordinate clause:
I can / could phone the police right now, if that will / would make a difference. (The speaker doesn’t really wish to phone the police because he knows it wouldn’t be of much use to do so.)
Mixed conditional type C (assuming something was a fact in the past)
Past simple in the subordinate clause, present simple in the main clause:
If the keeper locked the cage, why is it empty? (The speaker assumes, but isn’t certain, that the keeper locked the cage.)
Past simple in both clauses:
If you didn’t follow her home, somebody else did. (Though similar to the 0 conditional, in this case we assume, not know for a fact, that something happened or didn’t happen in the past.)
Past simple in the subordinate clause, would + perfect infinitive in the main clause.
If you double-parked your car before the town hall, the tow truck would have removed it by now.
Mixed conditional type D (supposition about the future)
Were to + infinitive in the subordinate clause, would + infinitive in the main clause:
If you were to press that button, we would all blow up in pieces.
Inversions are also possible:
Were the headmaster to find out, you would be in deep trouble.
Now listen to Queen Latifah sing When You’re Good to Mama, from the Broadway musical Chicago, and then do the exercise attached below.
Mrs Banks’ Militancy
Here’s an exercise for Upper-intermediate students where they learn the difference between [ʌ], [ɒ], [ɔː], and [əʊ]. Students read the lyrics first, try to decipher the words represented by means of phonetic symbols, and then listen to the song and check their answers.
Irregular Verb List
Here’s a verb list for Elementary students arranged according to whether the infinitive, the past simple and the past participle are the same or different. Students should be given the same verbs here listed in alphabetical order, and then asked to group together those which have the same form for the past simple and the past participle, the same form for the infinitive and the past participle, and so forth.
I Got a Code in My Doze
First read the lyrics to this humorous song and try to fill in the gaps with words that rhyme. Then, listen to Tom Stacks singing and check your choices. For Pre-Intermediate to Intermediate students.
Purple, White and Green
Emmeline Pankhurst (née Emmeline Goulden, 1858-1928) was a campaigner for women’s rights, together with her husband Richard Marsden Pankhurst and their daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adela. She went on a number of hunger strikes in her fight to enfranchise women. However, once she had won the vote for women, she became terribly disappointed, detached herself from the women’s movement and leaned peculiarly towards the right. A life-sized statue of her, standing with her hands outstreched as though addressing a meeting, can be seen in a corner of Victoria Tower Gardens, just along from the Houses of Parliament. She is buried at Brompton Cemetery, a site I make a point of visiting every time I travel to London. I scrub her grave and set down flowers on it, either roses for love, lilies for purity, lunaria for honesty or sunflowers for hope—something that her followers in the modern women’s movement at the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester would never consider doing even in their wildest dreams: they’re too busy not allowing men inside the premises. I swear I could have broken their windows in a fit of rage, but then, thinking it over, I would have got the wrong message through. Being a man, the most likely accusation would have been one of chauvinism. It would never have occurred to them that I am the one fighting for equal rights and they, the hypocrites marching towards segregation.
In the following exercise, Upper-Intermediate students learn the difference between a suffragist and a suffragette. The title of this post alludes to Mrs Pankhurst’s adopted colour scheme for the suffrage movement. You can see suffragettes portrayed in many films, from Kind Hearts and Coronets to Mary Poppins, The Great Race, and Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah, among others. You may also want to have a look at Emmeline Pankhurst’s grave by clicking on the address below.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1927
Anything You Can Do
Annie Oakley was fifteen years old when she beat her opponent (and future husband) Frank Buttler in a marksmanship contest. At twenty she was performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Nowadays she is best remembered from the musical Annie Get Your Gun. Also, William S. Burroughs pays tribute to her in The Western Lands.
The modal can /kæn/ and its negative short form can’t /kɑːnt/ are meant to express ability in this song from Irving Berlin’s musical. For Elementary students.
