IH SJ closing

The IHSJ Instituto Britanico is to close at the end end of June.
I would like to wish all my students in Costa Rica a fond farewell as I will be relocating to Spain.
I hope that this blog has been useful and from July I will be revamping the website.

Misused words

Thank you Katia for sharing this link
http://www.sourceaid.com/reference/pdf/misused-words.pdf

the Passive

Thank you for sharing this, follow the link to Random Idea English: An introduction to the Passive: This is not so much aimed at advanced learners as at native speakers whose grammar might have got a bit rusty, and who want to brush up. Plenty of exercises to reinforce the coursework.

Phrasal verbs with go

 Follow the link to the wonderful blog Random Idea English: Phrasal verbs with go: English Phrasal Verbs in Use (Cambridge University Press) lists some forty phrasal verbs based on the verb 'go'. The blog has plenty of exercises to challenge advanced students

Random quiz - Conditionals

Follow the link to Random Idea English: Random quiz - Conditionals: Multifunctional quiz based on a 'bank' of more than 100 conditional sentences.

Unravelling Unreal Past

Everything you need to know about Unreal Past,  follow the link to Random Idea English: Unreal Past: What is Unreal Past? Unreal Past is the use of past tenses to talk about hypothetical situations.

Blog update and statistics

For someone who failed Statistics three times at university, I am curiously proud of the fact that this site has had over 2500 page views  from over 50 countries since it started. I hope that this site is useful for students and teachers preparing for the ICFE Exam.
In February IH Costa Rica is holding Cambridge suite mock exams and hopefully there will be some students interested in doing the Financial English exam.
Check out Facebook IHSJ Instituto Britanico Costa Rica for information.
I'll continue posting articles of  interest to advanced students on Twitter and links to helpful grammar sites on this blog.

Future in the Past

Extra help from the brilliant blog for advanced level students
http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/06/future-in-past-future-in-past-is.html

Participles, participle clauses and Negative inversion

For advanced English students who would like extra practice on these complex structures.
Follow the links to this amazing blog.
http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/05/participles-and-participle-clauses.html

http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-sense-of-negative-inversion.html

Writing Skills focusing on Cohesive Devices

For Advanced English students who want to improve their writing skills  look at the link for  an excellent PDF file on cohesive devices http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/cohesive-devices-list-of-items-for-writing-a-composition.pdf

Past /Present/ Future in Costa Rica

Read the summary of The State of the Nation, focusing on trends and forecasting. Costa Rica at a crossroads / Top Story / Current Edition / Costa Rica Newspaper, The Tico Times

Useful Prepositions

An 11-page PDF file giving Spanish speakers help with Prepositions
http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/prepositions2.pdf

"Undercover Boss"

Read the review and advice for bosses. In Costa Rica you can watch the first season on cable tv Be an "Undercover Boss" - Robert M. Galford - Harvard Business Review
Advanced Business English students should have plenty to say about this reality tv show.

Cars and Business Alliances

Relevant article for Business English advanced students. Read the BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14877009
and identify words used to talk about alliances and projects.

Nouns and determiners

Following on from the positive response for help for Spanish speakers check out http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/nouns-and-pronouns.pdf.
http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/nouns1.pdf
http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/nouns-in-groups1.pdf

Verb Patterns

Everthing that you need to know about verb patterns with help for Spanish speakers. http://percybal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/verb-patterns1.pdf

Creating timelines online

An advanced English student gave a fabulous presentation of his life using http://www.tiki-toki.com/
The other students in the group couldn't wait to get home and start creating their own timelines.

Follow on Twitter

I'm tweeting  general English news articles for advanced English students rather than adding them to the Financial English blog
 http://twitter.com/#!/strehernethomas

IH Costa Rica on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/IHSJBritanico#!/IHSJBritanico?sk=wall
New era begins in the new building

Conditionals in songs

For Advanced English students.
Follow the link to the webpage on Conditionals, listen to the song clips from You Tube and try to identify the conditional forms. Make a note of the tricky contractions in the lyrics.
http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/conditional-sentences
This suberb website has excellent advanced English resources, check out the word, phrase, idiom of the week.