First week of December!

Good evening, everybody!
This week marks the beginning of December, so those of you who have children are surely getting ready for Mikulás' visit.

How do you celebrate the December 6 holiday? Do you have some funny memories of it from your own childhood?

This week, we will practice listening, study relative clauses, and look at reported speech. Also, your homework is about business reports. What types of business reports do you read in your everyday work at the Hungarian National Bank?

If you want to prepare for the lesson, read this good information about reported speech. Also, there is a nice quiz about reported speech here.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Mary

Your next English lesson

Dear English Team,

PRESENTATIONS: Most of you have a topic now. The next step is to make an outline. Please give me your outline as soon as possible. Also, you must have one graphic chart of statistics in your presentation. Time is minimum 5 minutes, but you may go up to 10 minutes if you need to. Soon we will practice body language, too. You will give your presentations before the Christmas holiday.

HOMEWORK: Read the information about "Marcia Lee Jeans" in your book, check the words in your dictionary and be ready for the role play during our next lesson.

Finally, an (old) joke for you!
And here is a video of a funny cat, too.
Try to find something funny for the English Team, please!

Have a good week!

This week in English

Dear English Team,

Amanita muscaria, a mushroom

Here is a pretty picture I found on the Internet. Nowadays I go hiking in the Buda Hills every weekend, and I see plenty of people picking mushrooms in the forest. Do you pick mushrooms?

Attila and András, sorry you missed the lesson, but don't worry! The main points are here for you.

We played a past continuous verb game which István brought in. He found it on http://esl-galaxy.com/ a very big website for English learners. Lot of games there! Go and practice your grammar!

Next we told each other anecdotes, with lots of repeating for extra practice. The team said this was very useful. Attila, thanks for your anecdote! Tibor told it. András, we hope you will tell yours next week. Remember, in English the past continuous starts the anecdote to set the situation, and the real events are in past simple verbs. You can practice past continuous and past simple grammar at the GRAMMAR exercises on this blog.

Then another game, about prepositions. It was not easy! But everyone has copies of the game, so you can learn from them.

Skeleton

We talked about the presentation. Everyone will do a presentation in December -- before the Christmas holidays. Choose your topic - something about business! Next week, we will start the outline (=HU vázlat). An outline is like a skeleton
 - it is just the basic parts of your presentation.

HOMEWORK:  In your course book, fill in the page titled "PRESENTATION" and make three visuals about your life, for example, a circle shows your typical 24 day, divided into sections for sleep, eating, travel, etc. Make notes (HU: jegyzetel) about the visual, because next week you will talk about these.

Have a great weekend!
Mary

Sunday evening

Hello, English Team!

It's Sunday evening, and we are all getting ready for another week. Everybody gets ready differently. Some people are bathing their children, others are reading a book, maybe some people are having a party. (PLEASE note how I am using the present continuous verbs!)

What are YOU doing?

Last week, our lesson had four parts:

• dates and ordinal numbers - first, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. 
• checking the grammar homework about past simple and past continuous
• prepositions in pictures - for example, across the street (man walking on a zebra), a photograph of somebody, looking at each other, etc.
• making appointments on the phone

And the homework is:

Be ready with a story that has

• 3 past continuous sentences - to give the picture of the story
• 3 past simple sentences - to tell the events of the story

For example: I was riding in the bus. It was raining. A man was eating ice cream. He got off the bus, and slipped in the rain. Oh no! The ice cream went all over his shirt...very sad.

Well, that is a really simple story! I think the English Team members can be more creative, right?

Your OTHER homework is: tell me the topic of your presentation, please. Everyone will do a presentation in December. The presentation will be:

• Five minutes long

• Not PowerPoint - but please use photos, or draw something on the whiteboard if you want to

• About something in the world of business, for example:

• sports business management (this is Attila's topic)
• a profile of a company
• compare the websites of two companies
• how to get a job
• logos and brands
• ethics and business
•  advertising and marketing
• and more and more -- these are just examples 

Your presentation will be in December. We will go slowly and practice a lot.


Here are two videos for you to watch. They will help you learn about presenting in English.

How to Give a Presentation

An Example of a Good Five-Minute Presentation 

PS: Don't tell me the dog ate your homework!