All levels: How to add a word to your Vocabulary Notebook

Your vocabulary notebook will be you own personal dictionary, you need a binder (cuaderno de anillas) with separators just like the one below. You will also need to spend some time on it every week.

How to add a word to my vocabulary notebook

When you learn a new word you need at least 5 things

1) new word (+ collocations) 

When you learn a new word you need to know what words collocate with it (e.g you play football) and what prepositions to use with the word (e.g. you go to work on foot)

2) Part of speech-

Is the new word a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an expression, or an idiom?

3) Phonetics

How to pronounce the new word.

4) Definition (or Translation)

5) An example that is true for you.

So now we know all we need to add when we find a new word, lets have a look at a very simple example: look forward to

1) New word + collocations: 

     -to look forward to (something/ doing something)

2) Part of speech: This word is a phrasal verb.

3) Phonetics: (Don't worry about this to much for the moment, we will be learning the different sounds in class)

      -/tuː lʊk ˈfɔːwəd tuː/

4) Definition: to be thinking with pleasure about something that is going to happen because you expect to enjoy it.

    Translation: tener muchas ganas de (algo/ de hacer algo)

5) An example that is true for you:

     I look forward to learning some new words in my English class.

So the entry in your book should be something like this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-to look forward to (something/ doing something) (phV):tener muchas ganas de (algo/ de hacer algo)
/tuː lʊk ˈfɔːwəd tuː/
e.g. I look forward to learning some new words in my English class.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a look at Leticia's notebook, she kindly let me post the first page of her notebook. Isn't it amazing?

That's enough for today, I'll be showing you how to organise your notebook another day.

But don't be lazy and start your notebook straight away!

Exercises:

1) Add the phrasal verb "bump into" You might need to look up the word in a dictionary. You can try this one, it's online and free.

2) Try adding some of the words you learnt in your last class.

.

CAE: A tower of Giraffes: Some fun collective nouns

We saw in class some collective nouns A flock of sheep, other examples would be A pack of wolves and A pounce of cats. There are all sorts of strange names for groups of animals. Here is a short exercise with some of the most interesting ones:

Match the collective noun to the right animal:


1. A tower  of  (j)                a. fish
2. A plague of                     b. ants (also swarm)
3. A scourge of                   c. elephants
4. A herd of                        d. lions
5. A parade of                     e. bees
6. A pride of                        f. hyenas
7. An army of                      g. mosquitoes
8. A swarm of                      h. locusts
9. A school of                      i. birds
10. A flock/flight of             j. giraffes
11. A cackle of                    k. cows


Have a nice week!

CAE and FCE: What does the fox say?

One of my FCE students reminded me about this song "What does the fox say?" I thought it would be a good idea to use it for learning the sounds of the animals (By the way I think this was the original purpose of the song):

1-Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the different sounds.
______________________________________________________________________________
ow     meow   toot   tweet   croak  woof  moo  blub  squeek  quack wapapapapow!
_____________________________________________________________________________

1-Dog goes _____
2-Cat goes _____
3-Bird goes _______
4-and mouse goes ______

5-Cow goes ______
6-Frog goes _______
7 and the elephant goes ______

8-Ducks say _______
9 and fish go ________
10 and the seal goes __________

11 the fox goes__________

So mouse goes squeek, but we can also say a mouse squeaks. 

Squeek (noun) to squeak (verb)

2-Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the different sounds.

1- Mice    (d)              a)hiss
2-Snakes                    b) trumpet
3-Lions                       c) screech
4-Elephants                 d) squeak
5-Parrot                      e) bark
6-Dogs                        f) roar