Books to read

Lektüren, z.B. von Diesterweg, Klett, Cornelsen, Langenscheidt, Reclam.

(Vorteil: in der Regel mit Altersangabe und Hilfsvokabeln.

Nachteil: Meist gekürzte und vereinfachte Fassungen; für wenige Seiten viel Geld, geringe Auswahl)

Zu empfehlende Lektüren (aus dem Diesterweg-Verlag):

Lester Vaughan – A Trip to the Stars (Science Fiction)

A Trip to London

Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (Horror)

Bram Stoker – Dracula (Horror)

Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe (TV-Serien wie LOST wären undenkbar ohne dieses Buch)

Agatha Christie – The Mousetrap (Crime)

Sue Townsend – The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾

Jennifer Coverley – Calamity Jane (Western)

Romane/Sachbücher

(Vorteil: sehr grosse Auswahl, mehr Bücher als im deutschsprachigen Raum, ungekürzte Fassungen

Nachteil: keine Altersangaben für deutsche Schüler, keine Vokabelhilfen)

Zu empfehlende Autoren/Bücher:

Eoin Colfer – insbesondere die Artemis Fowl-Reihe (Fantasy/Crime)

Diana Wynne Jones:

- The Merlin Conspiracy

- The Ogre Downstairs

- The Worlds of Chrestomanci (Fantasy-Reihe auf der Harry Potter z.T. basiert)

Nick Hornby:

- Fever Pitch (Beziehungsstress und Fussball)

- High Fidelity (Ein Buch über Musik und das Leben und insbesondere die 5 Frauen, die ihm das Herz am schlimmsten gebrochen haben)

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Crime aus der Sicht eines jungen Authisten)

Lillian Jackson Braun - The Cat Who ... (Crime-Serie mit einem Reporter und Siamesischen Katzen, die Fälle lösen)

JK Rowling – Harry Potter

Roald Dahl – alles! (z.B. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Boy, The Witches)

Terry Pratchett – alles! (z.B. Colour of Magic [Fantasy & Comedy])

Douglas Adams – alles!! (insb. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [Science Fiction & Comedy])

Answers reported speech #45

I guess it's my bad luck that I forgot to take the answers with me today - they are still in the teachers' lounge.

Therefore I had to type my very own answers for you :D

#45

01. Brian said that he had known Jack and Jill since kindergarten.
02. Tina told us that they had met lots of interesting people a week before.
03. Maria informed her parents that Oliver had asked her to marry him.
04. Norman told Dora that he couldn't find her cell phone.
05. I told Maria that I had seen her sister in town the day before.
06. Mum said that the neighbours had invited us to a barbecue the following day.
07. Dad explained that we would not go on holiday that year.
08. Jimmy mentioned that his mother was going to have a baby.
09. Mrs. Peterson said that Melanie didn't want to speak with me.
10. The audience was informed that the first cyclists would arrive in a moment.
11. Susie expected that I would like her chocolate cake.
12. Max told Emma that he had not been talking about her.
13. Betty told me that somebody was waiting for me outside.
14. Emily suggested that she would meet me there after school the following day.
15. Aunt Susan told us that Grandma had baked seventeen cakes since a week before.
16. Dad informed me that Mrs. Green wanted me to phone her the following day.
17. Our neighbours said that they had just come back from their holidays.
18. James told me that the exam that morning had been rather easy.
19. Mum told us that dad would have to go away again the following week.
20. A man complained to the shop assistant that the toaster he had bought a week before didn`t work.
21. Martin promised his parents that he would tidy up his room that day.
22. The new secretary told her boss that she couldn`t type very well but that her coffee was excellent.
23. The tour guide said that he hoped he would see them there again the following year.
24. The old man thought that somebody had stolen his keys.
25. Gina informed me that her parents did not remember me.
26. Our friends told us that they had enjoyed their stay with us very much.
27. Jacky said that the boys were waiting for them in the park.
28. Danny explained that he couldn`t leave because he was helping his dad.
29. We promised uncle Joe that we would come again the following month.
30. Dad informed mum that he would be late again that night.
31. Daisy told Donald that she didn´t like him any more.
32. The girls remembered that they had wanted to call Joe the day before.
33. The gym teacher said that they had to do more for their fitness.
34. The bus driver informed us that we had to get off at the following stop.
35. Nick told his parents that he wanted to stay up until the following day.
36. The newspaper reported that the missing children had been found alive and well.
37. The doctor told me that I had to take two pills that day and two the following day.
38. Father Smith said that he hadn´t seen me in church since a Christmas before.
39. The bank robbers thought that the police would never find the money there.
40. Ken said that he had forgotten to call me a week before.
41. The students complained that no one could do those exercises.

I hope you train well and don't forget to practice with all the materials.
You can also have a look at the following websites again:

ego4u kico4u  Englisch-Hilfen

Reported Speech - How to do it -3- commands

commands

If you have to transform a command in direct speech into reported/indirect speech, you have to change the same things as in a statement:
1. pronoun change
2. time-shift
3. time-words change

Most of the time you can build it with to and the infinitive.

positive command	negative command
Mother: "Clean your room."	Teacher. "Don't talk to Harry."
My mother told me to clean my room.	The teacher told me not to talk to Harry.

Reported Speech - How to do it -2- questions

questions

If you have to transform a question in direct speech into reported/indirect speech, you have to change the same things as in a statement:
1. pronoun change
2. time-shift
3. time-words change

But don't forget that you change from a question (direct speech) into a statement (indirect/reported speech).
Therefore you have to be careful about the sentence structure: SVO!!


examples
A) question without a question word => whether or if (deutsch: ob)
Harry: "Do you play tennis?" - Peter asked me whether / (if) I played tennis.

B) question with a question word => use the question word
Harry: "When do you play tennis?" - Peter asked me when I played tennis.

Reported Speech - How to do it -1- statement

OK, after trying to teach you "Reported Speech" for 3 weeks, I'll try to do it again - this time in my English blog.

statement ('normal' sentence)
blogentry for you to download

If you have to put direct speech into indirect/reported speech, there are two differences:

1. If the beginning is in present tense ('Harry says'), then there is no time-shift and the tense of the direct speech stays the same in indirect/reported speech.
 
example:
direct speech: Harry: "I live at home."
indirect speech: Harry says that he lives at home.

2. If the beginning is in past tense ('Harry said'), then there is a time-shift and the tense of the direct speech is NOT the same as in indirect/reported speech.


example:
direct speech: Harry: "I live at home."
indirect speech: Harry said that he lived at home.


The time-shift is as follows:

shift in tense
from	to
Present Simple	Past Simple
Past Simple	Past Perfect
Present Perfect
Past Perfect
will	would
progressive forms
am/are/is	was/were
was/were	had been
has/have been
had been

example

shift in tense
from	to
Harry: "I live at home."	Harry said that he lived at home.
Harry: "I lived at home."	Harry said that he had lived at home.
Harry: "I have lived at home."
Harry: "I had lived at home."
Harry: "I will live at home."	Harry said that he would live at home.
progressive forms
Harry: "I am living at home."	Harry said that he was living at home.
Harry: "I was living at home."	Harry said that he had been living at home.
Harry: "I have been living at home."
Harry: "I had been living at home."

If there are time words, e.g. yesterday, you have to change them as well.

example:
Harry: "I was at home yesterday."
Harry said that he had been at home the day before.

List of changes

this (evening)	that (evening)
today/this day	that day
these (days)	those (days)
now	then
(a week) ago	(a week) before
last weekend	the weekend before / the previous weekend
here	there
next (week)	the following (week)
tomorrow	the next/following day

How to learn tenses ...

Hi,

it's much easier to learn tenses when you know the parts of each tense. If you want to build a tense you can simply build it from its parts.

e.g. present | perfect | simple-> 

part 1: present; 

part 2: perfect;

part 3: simple

What do you have to know?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
present: he, she, it the *s* must fit.
past: 2nd form (IR) / -ed
will-future: will + INF
going-to-future: form of "to be" + going to + INF
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
perfect: form of "to have" + past particliple (3rd form - IR) / -ed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
simple: -----
progressive/continous: form of "to be" + present participle (ing-form)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you know all these parts by heart you can easily build any tense you would like to build.

First example 

S(ubject) V(erb) O(bject)

Harry | learn | English

tense: present perfect simple

Harry _______________________________ English.

step 1: take the verb "learn" and put it in simple. => nothing happens & the verb "learn" has to move on.

 Harry _______________________________ English.

step 2: "learn" moves to the next part - perfect => past participle of learn = learnt; leftover "form of "to have"" has to move

Harry ___________________learnt English.

step 3: "form of "to have"" moves to the next part - present => Harry=he: have -> has

Harry has learnt English.

Second example 

S(ubject) V(erb) O(bject)

Harry | learn | English

tense: going-to-future perfect progressive (very unlikely tense)

Harry _______________________________ English.

step 1: take the verb "learn" and put it in progressive => present participle of learn = learning; leftover "form of "to be"" has to move

Harry ___________________ learning English.

step 2: "form of "to be"" moves to the next part - perfect => past participle of be = been; leftover "form of "to have"" has to move

 Harry ______________ been learning English.

step 4: "form of "to have"" moves to the next part - going-to-future => infinitive of have= have; add going to; Harry=he: be -> is

 Harry is going to have been learning English.

Ordinal numbers WS incl. explanation

Hi there,

while cleaning my harddrive I stumble upon some worksheets I've created ages ago - nothing fancy but maybe helpful. The first ones are two worksheet about ordinal number.

WSOD00 Ordinal Numbers (Erklärung)
http://hotfile.com/dl/65579186/f4383f6/WSOD00_Ordinal_Numbers_(Erklrung).pdf.html

WSOD01 Ordinal Numbers (Übungen)
http://hotfile.com/dl/65579441/3287241/WSOD01_Ordinal_Numbers_(bungen).pdf.html

Have fun ...

Why I became an English teacher

I know that I am repeating myself when I say: "English is a wonderful and simple language especially compared to my mothertounge German."
I've said that in the classroom several times but I guess it can never be too often.

I chose to become a teacher and for me it was absolutely clear from the very beginning that English will be my subject. I fell in love with England and the English language when I first went to England in 1982. I travelled with the scouts to Godalming and Sterling (Scotland) and I got to know a lot of very different people in those 10 days in 1982. All of them were very friendly and tried so hard to understand what I had to say ... guess what? It worked - not because of my horribe English - despite of it. And because of that experience I changed my whole outlook towards the school subject English - I actually enjoyed working for it.

On my journey to become the teacher I am today there were several bumps on my ride ... first I was shocked to learn that my school-English wouldn't hold up to my professor's expectations then I found out for myself that I should NOT be a primary teacher but everything worked out in the end.

I really enjoyed my teaching experience in Guildford/Surrey and I was amazed about my personal progress in getting the hang of the language.

If my love for the English language comes across to my pupils I will be delighted.

Take care

HN

Reported speech - answers to p.62

As promised I start off my new blog with the answers to
62 REPORTED/INDIRECT SPEECH 1. - 39.

All copyrights belong to  VERITAS-Verlag, Linz!
This is only for my students to check their answers on their worksheets for themselves.

I guess it's time ...

... I have this blog for ages without really using it.

Welcome to my ESL (English as a Second Language) blog.

I hope you will enjoy your stay.


... and NO this blog will not be in German!