1.2 WHY ENGLISH?
QUESTION FORMS AND TENSE REVIEW
SPEAKING AND GRAMMAR
A. Discuss the questions with your partner. A. Read the title of the text. What do you
1. Who taught you English for the first time? think it will be about?
2. What was the experience like? B. Read the forum posts and answer the
3. When did you start to learn English? questions:
4. How long have you spoken English? 1. Why are the students learning English?
5. Who do you usually talk to in English? 2. Do you feel identified with any of them?
6. What do you talk about? Why/not?
7. Who is the best language learner in your ENGLISH PATHS
family?
8. Have you ever been abroad? Hi there! I'm Juan, a first-year student
9. Do you speak other languages apart from at the National University of Tucumán.
English? I decided to dive into learning English
10. What are you learning now? because I've got this dream of becoming
a teacher someday. It's been fun so far—
learning through video games and chatting online
GRAMMAR FOCUS with friends I made through social media. I don't
1. Read the quetions in activity A again and think university life is going to be easy, though. I
identify the tense in each one. come from a small village in the north of the country
and moving to a new city has been a bit hard, but
2. Which tenses use the following auxiliary
hanging out with my new uni mates makes it less
verbs: do / does / did / is / was / have / has?
difficult. I miss my family a lot.
3. When are they used? I'm really hoping to get more fluent in English and
4. Which questions are yes/no questions? maybe even study abroad one day. I don't think my
5. Which questions end in a preposition? English is bad. I just sometimes worry about money
6. Which question does not use an auxiliary issues, but I'm not giving up anytime soon!
verb? Why?
7. Identify the tenses and auxiliaries in the
Hey, I'm Nadine, an 18-year-old
quiz in the previous page. student at UBA. My dad is an Argentinian
SEE GRAMMAR REFERENCE ON PAGE __ actor and my mom a British travel agent.
They met during my dad´s holiday and soon got
married. As you imagine, I grew up in a bilingual
B. Complete the questions with the right
household, so Spanish and English have always
auxiliary verb. Identify the tenses.
been part of my life.That's probably why I made the
1. Where ________ you from?
decision of becoming a professional interpreter.
2. Why ________ you decide to study English?
Speaking both languages like a native speaker
3. What learning tips _______ you give me?
has given me confidence in my language skills, but
4. What ____ you doing when the teacher came in?
I have to confess I'm lazy when it comes to
5. _______ you remember a good teacher?
studying. Still, I'm determined to follow my dream.
6. Who ______ sitting next to you?
Listening to both languages at home has helped me
7. How long _______ you been in this city?
a lot, but I know I need to put in the effort to excel in
8. ______ you learning other languages?
my studies. So far, I have met incredible people
9. What _______(not) you like about English?
who are giving me a huge hand to become familiar
10. ______ your English good?
with university life.
1.2 WHY ENGLISH? READING AND VOCABULARY
VOCABULARY
Hey, I'm Carlos, I'm new at university. I want
to study English because I've always loved A. Match the words in bold in the text to their
movies and music and hope to become a meanings. What part of speech (noun,
translator. When I was a child, I used to sing popular adjective, verb, etc.) are they?
songs in English but I never understood the lyrics. 1. the language a person has grown up
The English lessons at highschool didn't help much,
speaking since childhood
so I had to use Google Translate for everything. I´m
2. able to express oneself easily
using it to translate and write this post (LOL).
I´m not good at learning on my own, so I had to get a 3. someone who has spoken a particular
private tutor before choosing this programme. But let language since they were a baby
me tell you, it's been tough. I've struggled with the 4. speaking two languages equally well
language, especially grammar. I believe the problem 5. to change words into a different language
is I still use my mother tongue for everything. Now, I
sometimes feel super shy and nervous in class, B. Use the words in the following sentences:
worried that my English isn't good enough to 1. Try not to ________________ everything you
understand the teachers or participate in class. But
learn into Spanish.
hey, I'm a learner, and I know it's all part of the
2. If you want to be _______________, you need to
journey. I'm determined to break through these
barriers, no matter what. speak with your mates and the teacher.
3. People believe that _______________ people
C. Read the text again and write J (Juan), N are more intelligent than those who speak
(Nadine) or C (Carlos) to match the questions only one language.
below. Justify your answers by identifying the 4. I´ve never had the chance to practise my
information in the text. English with a ________________.
5. What is your _______________? Spanish or
Which person… English?
1…is afraid of interacting in English? ____
2…is getting help from other people? ____ C. Match the underlines phrasal verbs in the
3.…hopes to be in charge of a class one day? ____ text to their meaning.
4.…learnt English through entertainment? ____ 1. ________________: to stop doing someting
5…learns better when there is a teacher? ____ because it is too difficult.
6…is not very active when studying? ____ 2. ________________:to continue doing something
7.…needs more confidence in the language? ____ although it is difficult
8…needs emotional support? ____ 3. ________________: to start doing something
9...can communicate best in English? ____ with enthusiasm
10...is afraid of financial problems? ____ 4. ________________: to gradually become an adult
5. ________________: to spend a lot of time with
D. Dicuss these questions with a partner: someone
1. What other reasons are there to study 6.
English? D. Think of examples and questions you can
2. Make a list of five reasons why people learn / make using these phrasal verbs.
study English.
