Isabel Martínez Puche (Week 4)

1. Browse the net and find out a text in which advices are involved. This can come from another blog, a newspaper, a journal website, etc. Underline/highlight the expressions related to advice  

10 top tips for improving your spoken English

Speak, speak, speak!

Be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as you possibly can! Do not be shy to make mistakes! The more you practice the better and more confident you will become in your pronunciation and vocabulary. Remember, speaking is a skill like learning a musical instrument or new sport – the only way you can get good is to actually do it!

Use technology

A smartphone can be a powerful tool for learning languages. Use it to record yourself speaking then listen back to see how your English sounds to other people. Make the most of all your favourite productivity apps to organise your practice time and make a note of all the new words you learn.

Listen

Listen to news bulletins and songs in English to listen to the pronunciation of words. You can also learn new words and expressions this way. The more you listen, the more you learn! Try copying what you hear to practise your pronunciation and learn which words in a sentence are stressed.

Read out loud

Read the newspaper or a magazine out to yourself. You could even find a script for your favourite TV show and act it out! This is a great way to practise pronunciation because you only need to concentrate on making sure you English sounds great and don’t need to worry about sentence structure or grammar.

Learn a new word every day

Choose a word you would like to work on and use practice it in different sentences. Use the word until you have learnt it and keep using it regularly.

Watch films

Watch movies in English and pay attention to new vocabulary and pronunciation. Imitate the actors and have fun with it.

Full article: https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/10-top-tips-improving-spoken-english/

2. Look for another text where modal verbs appear and analyse the modal verbs explaining the specific meaning they have in the context of the sentence they are used.

***
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch. I read all I came to read and then I began to study diseases, generally, turning the leaves idly.

I came to typhoid fever, read the symptoms and discovered I must have had it for months without knowing it. Cholera I had with severe complications and diphtheria I must have been born with. I was relieved to find that Bright’s disease I had only in a modified form and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. The only disease I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view. I was hospital in myself. All students need do would be to walk round me and after that take their diploma.

I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. I think now that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but cannot account for it.

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man, I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

              (After "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome)

must have had: obligation/probability
must have been born: obligation/probability
might live: probability
could conclude: ability
must be: obligation/probability
need do: necessity
could not feel: inability
must have been beating: obligation/probability
cannot account for: inability

3. Note down in your blog entry all the activities you have done in the last 4 weeks to improve your English.

I have been reading quite a lot recently, for example, the reading book for this subject. I have also underlined and written down all the vocabulary and expressions that I did not know. In addition, I have watched some films and series in English to pay attention to the pronunciation and to make my vocabulary wider as well. All of this apart from listening to music in English that is also useful to get in contact with the language and keep improving.