27 October 2011 / Samanta Kurtovič

Autumn break is already here. That means no school, no studying and no homework. I'm going to be home. But unfortunately I will have to study for school and I will have to do my homework. If I will have enough time I'm going to go shopping. But the best thing is that I will go to my dance lessons. And my best friend is going to go to the spa (toplice) with her mother. I hope that they will have good time. Some friends will be at home. Other will go somewhere. I hope we are going to have fun during the autumn break.

27 October 2011 / Autumn Break Home Assignement

I, MYSELF AND ME

You need to write 20-25 sentences minimum about a person. It can be you, your friend, your idol, a fictional character... Organize your essay into three paragraphs:
1. this person as he/she/it is at PRESENT
2. this person in the PAST
3. your predictions and beliefs about this person's FUTURE.

On the sides mark the number of tenses' usage as it is numbered in the following translations from your textbook.

The Past Simple

1. We use this tense to express actions that happened and ended in the past. The time is definite or known or understood from the context.

The Past Continuous

2. We use this tense to describe actions that were happening in a certain time or period in the past.

3. In relation to the Past Simple Tense we use the Past Continuous Tense to express a longer action that lasted for some time while with the Past Simple we express a shorter action that happened suddenly and interrupted the previous act.

The Present Perfect

4. Expresses actions in the past the consequences or results of which are seen in the present.

5. An action that happened in the past but the time is not definite, known or important. We use it to express our experiences.

6. An action that started in the past and is still going on (also use Present Perfect Continuous, especially with activity verbs: play, do, watch, live, sing, rain, work, wait)

The Present Simple

7. General facts, not time-limited

8. Actions, events or conditions that are true for a longer time

9. Habits and repetitive actions

The Present Continuous

10. Speaking about actions taking place at the moment of speaking

11. Talking about future acts that are decided at the moment of speaking

12. Talking about things that change or develop in present  time or the time of speaking

13. Talking about something that only happens for a certain period, occasional actions

The Future Simple Tense - Will Future

14. Objective opinion

15. Forecasts, expectations, hopes

16. Immediate decisions

Future with 'going to'

17. Expressing intentions, plans and decisions for the future planned before the time of speaking

18. When we can conclude on the basis of signs and circumstances that something will happen

Think about the tenses you use.
Enjoy your Autumn Break and don't procrastinate.

24 October 1011 / Jakob Šilar

Hello, today in English class, we had fun. First, we worked in the book and then we had to write, we compared the human and the robot looking for unfamiliar words, we answered questions on the blackboard and the teacher prepared us in rehearsals for unfamiliar words. At the end of the lesson, the teacher graded a couple of students. For homework assignment we have to finish answering the questions on page 34 CB.

By Jakob :-)

18 October 2011 / Andraž Babnik

Last English hour we were talking about present continuous. Then we were doing some exercises about present continuous in textbook in pairs.

Here are some rules about the use of present continuous:

·         When we are talking about acts, which are placing right now, at this moment.

- Are you coming with us or not?

- We are flying by plane right now.

·         When we are talking about agreed future actions, which are at the time of talking already firmly established.

- We are visiting grandparents every week.

- I am flying to France on Friday.

·         When we are talking about things, which are changing or developing in the present.

- Computers are becoming more and more important in our lives.

·         When we are talking about something, which is happening only in fixed-term . It is going about a temporary or transitional actions.

- Miha is on holiday this week. He is staying with his parents in London.

When we read that, we were doing an exercise about present continuous in eleven sentences. At this time teacher was grading some pupil and then the English hour ends.

18 October 2011 / Jurij Košenina

Today we were speaking about the Present Continuous Tense. 

Let me show my examples ...

                                                                            

I am in Medvode. It's 11 pm here. I am chatting on Facebook.

Tim is in Los Angeles. It's 2pm there. He's eating lunch. 

Rok is in New York. It's 5pm there. He's playing basketball. 

Tina is in Rio de Janeiro. It's 7pm there. She is watching a TV show.

Igor is in New York. It's 5pm there. He's playing computer games.

Gašper is in Moscow. It's 1am there. He's dancing with friends on a party. 

Jure is in Tokyo. It's 7am there. He's taking a shower. 

Miha is in Sydney. It's 8am there. He's traveling by train.  

17 October 2011 / Špela Baš

Today in our English class we listened to Sally's story about her horse. Then we answered the questions.

Than we talked about present simple tense-revision and translated instances:

Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade.
The earth turns round the sun.

He lives in Oxford.
I like fish.

He plays football twice a week.
She gets up at seven o' clock every morning.

Than we had to write instances and I wrote:
I love dancing and I dance every day.

Then the bell rang and it was the end of English class.

17 October 2011 / Anita Kalan

Good day. Today the hour of English was the fifth or the last in the row that we were talking about the Present Simple Tense. Actually we revised our knowledge. First we had to translate the rules of the use of this tense from Slovenian into English language. Then, off course, we verified our translations. After the verification we listened to the story on the CD. The story was about a girl Sally and her horse, she was talking about her horse. When the teacher turned off the radio, we had to answer the questions in the course book on page 29. At the end of the hour the teacher warned us, that the next hour of the English lesson, she will be assessing. She also gave us homework in workbooks - pages 28 and 29. Then the lesson ended. Have a great day.

11 October 2011 / Maja Lapajnar

Today at English class we were together with first level. We were translating the Cinderella story. First level was solving workbooks. First we need to translate the story in Slovenian literal language. Then we need to translate the story in the language like we speak - our colloquial language. The firs level was just making exercises but we had a lot of fun, because we could talk together and worked in groups. This was very good because we were translating the Cinderella story very funnily.

11 October 2011 / Jan Tehovnik

Hello! Today at class our teacher wasn't grading so we were pretty happy. This is because our school  celebrates 30 years of existence next Thursday and our teacher prepared work for us for appearance on stage. We were working in 4 teams. Each team got one paper with the text, that some of my classmates are going to read at the celebration. There were 4 papers of text and each team had to translate the text, so that she could made Slovene subtitles. First, we had to write this in literary Slovene language. When we finished with this, we had to translate again, but into Slovenian dialect. When we read those we really had big laugh, especially our
teacher.

10 October 2011 / Matic Herceg

Yesterday  we had a different English lesson.We were working in groups. In my group there were : Vid, Grega and Rok P .We had to draw and write. But it all had to be related to America, because it was Columbus Day, and the teacher wasn't grading. We had to make a poster .

This hour was very cool, because we learnt some americans lessons. I want more those hours

Today I selected for blog MAJA LAPAJNAR!!!! :D

10 October 2011 / Lara Ivanuša

Today, 10.9.2011 we had English lesson a little different. We didn't learn as usually. We were working in groups. Teacher divided us into four groups of four. In the first station we was drawing things which remind us on America. We drew many typical American's thing. We drew Coca-Cola, sign of McDonald's, fast food....The second station was watching current affairs in America and wrote a questions down. In America a lot of people protestation. People are in the streets and shouting. The third station had to write on a paper what do you like in America. I like in America black guys because they are very pretty and cute and I like American's universities. The last fourth station
was wrote on paper what don't you like in America. I don't like Coca.Cola and McDonald's because its make people fat and unhealthy. I like English hour like this one and I want have more English lesson where we doing in groups.

6 October 2011 / Matjaž Mužar

Hey! It was 6.10 and I will tell you what did we do in English lesson. On 5.10. was the day of teachers but because we didn't have English lesson we congratulated today and then we started with the English lesson. As first we stood up and welcomed teacher. We learned how to be a perfect European. For each country in Europe we took an example. Here are some examples which I remembered :

- A perfect European should be like Germans; have fun 

-A perfect European should be like Romanians; birdwatching

This was all by me!

5 October 2011 / Rok Štirn

Today we were talking about Slovene stereotypes. We found quite a lot of them, for example: Slovenes drink too much alcohol, Slovenes are hard-working, fast drivers… After that we were on page 25, exercise 6, in textbook.
Here are my answers:

If you are invited to an American’s home for dinner at 7. Pm, what time you should arrive?
You should arrive at 7:15.

What day does Columbus Day fall on?It fall on the second Monday in October.

How many time zones are there in USA?There are 4 time zones.

What do Americans say will happen if your hand itches?They say that you will get money soon.

Which two California cities does the Golden Gate Bridge connect?It connects San Francisco and Sausalito.

What was triggered by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7. 12. 1941?It trigered that USA was joined in the 2.world war.

The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, was dedicated in 1886. On whitch island is it located?
It is located on Liberty island, in NY.

American football is similar to the British game of rugby.-True or false?
Mount Rushmore memorial: The heads of four American presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln) are carved in the granite of Mount Rushmore. It is the world’s greatest mountain carving.
Where is it?It is in South Dacota.

When did America become independent?It become independent on 4th July 1776.

The American Civil War began on 12 April 1861, and lasted until 26 May 1865. More than 500.000 men died in the war. What was its main cause?Main cause was slavery.

Who wrote the Adventures of Tom Sawyer?
Mark Twain wrote it.

What is the national bird and emblem of the US?It is the bald eagle.

What is The Star-Spangled Banner?It is the national anthem of the United States of America.

From which country did the USA buy Alaska in 1867?They bought it from Russia.

What is USA flag called?It is called: Stars & Stripes.

And in the end as always a homework. For homework we have to do the questions about Slovenia and answer them.

Good bye!

4 October 2011 / Neža Knific

So, at today's class we talked about stereotypes (meaning true, but most of the time untrue or rather undefined opinions about some particular person or a group of people). There is a lot of well known ones like: blonds are stupid or Scots people very efficient (?). This is not a thing that just kids and teens use, everybody does. I am just hearing my sister saying that she feels so blonde. Funny how we use them in every day life. But I personally think that people (or groups) shouldn't be judged before we know them well. It's not fair. This week some friends from Japan are coming to my grandfather. Does this mean that we are going to talk just about Sumo and sushi? Of course not. Well maybe a bit :D. My friend Sarah is an American... is she fat and stupid? No. That are just really undefined stereotypes. For the end: just please don't judge people before you are sure that the things you are saying about them are true.

4 October 2011 / Aljaž Markovič

Today we started the class by discussing the homework in pairs. Shortly after we started talking about stereotypes. At first we only talked about the stereotypes that are present in our country, mostly concentrated at America. The most common ones are about their fast food, wars, their occupation with cars and their migrations. After that we started talking about what they think of us.

We found out that they mark us as Resident Evil, together with the former Yugoslavia. We were disappointed they didn't have an opinion about Slovenia itself. We were curious about other countries so we explored the website a bit more. We found out a lot of funny things and so we laughed some more. The class was coming to the end, and so we got our homework and we finished the class by drawing the blog writer. Which was obviously me.

The website we used during the class: http://alphadesigner.com/project-mapping-stereotypes.html

3 October 2011 / Irena Sonc Šlenc

We started the class by checking the homework in workbooks. Pairs had to talk about which five exercises in the workbook they chose to do over the weekend and why. Some students did much more than five but some, as always, didn't do anything at all. After a tour around the class to see what pupils did I picked the first three students to be graded for their knowledge of the Past Simple Tense. One was quite fluent but didn't revise the irregular verbs and could not produce a proper wh- question in the past, for which I gave a three. The second was completely unprepared and hardly produced a correct sentence in the Past, so I gave him a two. The third student pretty fluently retold the story of Discovery of America but cheated by reading from the text and he didn't know a couple of irregular verbs, for which I gave him a four (it would be fairer to give him a three, maybe, but on the spot it is hard to decide without having in mind what he produces during the lessons). I thought giving a one-week notice in advance about grading would make students at least open the books, but it turns out that some are still only motivated at the end of the year when they want good final grades. Well, we'll see...
After the grading (which took too much time) we embarked a new topic in our course books, namely on stereotypes. A group of students made too much noise so we had to skip the introduction, which should be a pair discussion about the best and worst things about America (in level 3 group it turned out quite interesting pair work). We continued by clearing out the meanings of a couple of expressions that appear in the text Are We All Americans Now. I let the students listen to the recording and circle all verbs in the text at the same time. Hopefully, they noticed that this part of Unit 1 is about the Present Simple Tense. We were running out of time again (mostly because some believe it is more fun to throw little pieces of anything around the class or still someone's pencil case just to annoy them) so I had to leave the students with homework on reading comprehension (exercise 4 in the CB), which is actually meant to be done in school.
At the end Anže, who didn't write last post, picked the next blogger and here I am, posting for the second level Monday class.
See you soon.

3 October 2011 / Mojca Erzin

Today, the teacher started with oral evaluation. I think two people were graded and both of the grades were good. Since I forgot my homework for the previous day, the teacher told me to do it during the class. Everyone else opened their course books. They had to choose three best and three worst things about America. Most commonly the best things were McDonald's, fast food, etc.. And the worst were death penalty, racism, the world war II, etc.. Then we listened to a text about the Americans. We found out, that the Americans have a lot of drive-ins - drive-in restaurants, drive-in libraries and even drive-in churches. For homework we had to answer some questions about stereotypes.

Here are my answers:

1.What ideas do people from Slovenia sometimes have about Americans?

Mostly that they only eat junk food, that they always want to sue each other, that they think they can buy happiness...

2.Where do we get this ideas from?

I think we get the majority of them from movies.

3.Do you think they are true?

I don't think they are completely true, but they may be partially true.

4. What stereotypes are there about the Slovenes?

That we are underdeveloped, that we aren't educated, that we are all farmers..

5. Do you think they are fair and accurate? 

No, I don't.

6. Do we deserve them? If not, why not?

No we don't deserve them. Because these stereotypes exist only because we are a small country and have a small population. I mean, some people even think we live in caves!

6. Would you like to be thought of as a humourless Slovene? Or as Austrians who speak a Slavic language?

No.