Steve's story - narrative tenses in the past

Steve had a very stressful time trying to get to his exam on time. When he woke up, he was shocked to find he had overslept. He had been studying the night before and had not gone to bed until 3 a.m. He got up really quickly and went to the bus stop. He waited for a while, but the bus didn’t come so he got a taxi. Unfortunately, the traffic was terrible and they got stuck in a traffic jam. Steve decided to walk but when he looked for his wallet to pay the driver, he realised he had left it at home. The taxi driver was shouting at him, but he got out of the taxi and ran to the college. When he arrived at the college, the exam had already started and the other students were all writing. Steve had only written half a page when the invigilator told them to stop.

How many different pasts can you find in this short anecdote?

Try and write a similar short anecdote like this that happened to you.

Gerunds & Infinitives

It's about time we started looking at some new grammar aspects. We're going to start with a selection of verbs that are followed either by a gerund or an infinitive. Click on the icon to see the list.

Then we have some verbs that have one meaning when they are followed by a gerund and a different one if an infinitive follows. This is a presentation explaining each case.

And finally, here is a video of Jennifer explaining the use of Gerunds and Infinitives. It's a very clear explanation with examples, though rather slow. Just in case you didn't come to class the day we saw this.

Country and city life

Living in the city versus country from Orven Bregu