UNIVERSIDAD MICHOACANA DE SAN NICOLÁS DE HIDALGO

FACULTAD DE INGENIERÍA ELÉCTRICA

INTRODUCTORY NOTES.

Professor Adán Alberto Hurtado Olivares.

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 I. Expressions for the classroom
Asking for permission

May I come in?

go out?
go to the bathroom?

answer my phone?

go to the office?

Investigating meaning

Spanish -> English

How do you say (word or phrase in Spanish)_ (in English)?

How can I say (word or phrase in Spanish)_?

English -> Spanish

What is (word or phrase in English)_ (in Spanish)?

What does (word or phrase in English)_ mean?

EXERCISE 3. Write four questions to investigate words or phrases you want to express in
English.

1. ___________________________________________________________________________?
2. ___________________________________________________________________________?
3. ___________________________________________________________________________?
4. ___________________________________________________________________________?

EXERCISE 4. Look for 4 words (or phrases) you don’t understand in English.
Write the questions to investigate the meaning of the words

5. ___________________________________________________________________________?
6. ___________________________________________________________________________?
7. ___________________________________________________________________________?
8. ___________________________________________________________________________?

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Responding to questions and special situations

I don’t know

I don’t understand

I forgot

I forgot my book, my notebook, my homework

Can you repeat please?

What is the pronunciation of ___________________?

A: aaaaaAAAAAchUUUU!!

B: Bless you / God bless you

A: Thank you

B: You’re welcome

EXERCISE 5. Other phrases used in the classroom. In the parentheses write (S) for the
expressions used by students. Write (T) for expressions used by the teacher.

Take out your notebook ( )

I don’t know ( )
Do you have your homework? ( )
I don’t understand ( )
I forgot my book ( )
Please repeat after me ( )
Work in pairs ( )
I don’t have my book ( )
Work in a group ( )
Do you understand? ( )
Can you repeat please? ( )
May I erase the board? ( )
Please open your book to page 5 ( )
Copy the exercise in your notebook ( )

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 II. Greeting people
Good morning
Good afternoon
Good evening
Hello!
Hi!

Good bye
Take care
Good night
So long
See you later
See you tomorrow
See you next class
See you next week

EXERCISE 1: Read the following conversations. Are they formal or informal?

1) formal ( ) informal ( ) 2) formal ( ) informal ( )

A: Hi John A: Good morning Mr. Smith

B: Hey Sara B: Hello Ms. Johnson, how are you doing today?
A: How are you? A: I am very well, thank you. How about you?
B: Just fine and you? B: I’m OK
A: I’m great A: Are you busy?
B: Good, I have a class B: Not too much, please come in.
A: OK. See you later A: Thank you
B: Bye, bye B: You’re welcome. Please take a seat

3) formal ( ) informal ( ) 4) formal ( ) informal ( )

A: Excuse me, are you Dr. Jones? A: Hi man, what’s up?

B: No, I am not. Dr. Jones is in the library B: Not much, hey… who are they?
A: Thank you so much A: They are my cousins
B: Are they American?
A: Good morning. Dr Jones? A: No, they aren’t. They’re from Canada
B: Yes? B: How interesting! Do they speak English?
A: I’m Carl Thomson, A: Only a little, their first language is French
B: It’s nice to meet you Mr. Thomson, B: Nice to meet you guys,
How can I help you? C and D: You too
A: I need a thesis mentor B: Well I have to go.
B: All right, let’s talk about your project... A: Ok, take care man
B: See you later guys
C and D: Bye
Use titles + last names
Ex. Mr. Smith, Prof. Cooper, Ms. Brown

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SUBJECT PRONOUNS AND VERB BE.

Analyze the conversations in exercise 1. Complete the chart:

Subject BE Contractions Negative Contractions

pronouns Negative
I Am I’m I’m not
Singular You You’re not You aren’t
He Is He’s He is not He isn’t
rd
3 She She’s She is not
persons It Is It is not It isn’t
We Are We’re We are not We aren’t
Plurals You Are You are not
They They’re They are not

Exercise 2. Use the verb BE to fill in the blanks. Use the negative in the second part of the sentences.

a. I _____________ Mexican, I _____________ Brazilian

b. We _____________ students at FIE, we _____________ students at UVAQ

c. He’ _______ in the house, he ____________ at school

d. Susan’_________ a good teacher of English but she _____________ American

e. My brothers ____________ tall, they’ ____________ short

f. It’_____________ only 9:00 PM, it ____________ very late.

g. You _____________ engineers, you _____________ technicians

IMPORTANT: To make questions with the verb BE: Invert the subject and the verb
Are you Mexican? Yes, I am

Is he a student? No, he isn’t

Are they in class? Yes, they are

Are we in the team? No, we aren’t

 Short answers require a subject pronoun and the verb BE

 Affirmative short answers never use contractions
 Negative short answers can use contractions

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III. INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXAMS AND EXERCISES.

1. Answer the questions with complete statements

What is your name? ___________________________________________________________________

Where are you from? __________________________________________________________________
Where do you study? __________________________________________________________________
How are you? ________________________________________________________________________

2. Choose the best option to fill in the blanks

Every weekend we _______________ pizza and ____________________ soda

a) Take a) drive
b) Eat b) take
c) Go c) drink

In the afternoon we play _______________ with our ___________________

a) movies a) games
b) cars b) televisions
c) basketball c) friends

3. Underline the correct words

The most important parts of a computer are the C.P.U, the screen and the ( cable / USB / keyboard )
We need ( ham / milk / salt ) to prepare a sandwich
The most common domestic animal is the ( elephant / bird / dog )

4. Circle the best option

Tom ( are / is / am ) a very good student, but Sue ( not is / is not / aren’t ) very dedicated
Be careful, the floor ( is / are / am ) wet
( Is / Are / It / They ) your shoes new?

5. Mark true or False

Doctors work in a hospital ( )

Waiters cook food in restaurants ( )
Architects work in schools ( )
Politicians are very honest people ( )
Carpenters make tables and chairs ( )

6. Match the questions to the appropriate answers

a) How are you doing today? ( ) Yes, they are watching TV

b) Are you OK? ( ) Not very well, thanks for asking
c) Where is Michael? ( ) It’s OK, no problem
d) Are your parents in the house? ( ) Yes, we’re fine
( ) He’s in his house

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 7. Use the words in the box to complete the sentences

German Portuguese Spanish Mandarin

Ronaldo is from Brazil, he speaks _____________________

_____________________ is the most common language in Latin America

Su Kim Chin speaks ______________________, he’s Chinese.

Thomas Ver Mullen is _______________________, he’s from Berlin

8. Unscramble the sentences

Nice / too / It / meet / is / to / you ____________________________________________________________

They / house / in / are / the / ? ______________________________________________________________

You / today / how / doing /are / ? _____________________________________________________________

Is / nice / this / a / movie ___________________________________________________________________

IV. Counting. Write the numbers with letters

0 10 20
1 11 21
2 12 22
3 13 23
4 14 24
5 15 25
6 16 26
7 17 27
8 18 28
9 19 29

30 100
40 1,000
50 10,000
60 100,000
70 1’000,000
80
90

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Exercise 6. Write the following numbers:

45 ________________________________________________________________

72 ________________________________________________________________

48 ________________________________________________________________

136 ____________________________________________________________________________________

412 ____________________________________________________________________________________

729 ____________________________________________________________________________________

1472 ___________________________________________________________________________________

3689 ___________________________________________________________________________________

10305 __________________________________________________________________________________

27621 ___________________________________________________________________________________

634893 __________________________________________________________________________________

Six thousand three hundred twelve ____________________________

Eleven thousand seventeen ____________________________

One hundred thousand eight hundred forty-two ____________________________

ORDINAL NUMBERS.

Complete the missing numbers

1st first 11th eleventh 21st twenty-first 31st ____________________

2nd second 12th twelfth 22nd ____________________

3rd third 13th thirteenth 23rd ____________________

4th fourth 14th _______________ 24th ____________________ 40th _____________________

5th fifth 15th _______________ 25th ____________________

6th sixth 16th sixteenth 26th ____________________ 60th _____________________

7th ________________ 17th seventeenth 27th twenty-seventh

8th ________________ 18th eighteenth 28th ____________________

9th ninth 19th _______________ 29th ____________________ 90th _____________________

10th tenth 20th twentieth 30th thirtieth 100th a hundredth

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V. Expressing dates

Today is _________________ __________________ _________ , ____________

(day) (month) # day year

Complete the chart

Days of the week Months of the year

Sunday January August

Tuesday
April
May
Friday
July

EXERCISE 7. Answer the questions with complete dates

What day was yesterday? ____________________________________________________

Tomorrow will be ___________________________________________________________
Next Sunday will be _________________________________________________________
When is Mother’s Day celebrated in Mexico? On .
When is children’s day celebrated in Mexico? On .
When do we celebrate Christmas? On .

VI. Giving personal information.

Listen to audio VI and read the conversation in a school.
Complete the chart in the next page.

A: Good morning I need to register to the Conversation Club.

B: Very well, please answer some questions to complete your registration paper.

A: Ok

B: What is your name?

A: My name is Mary Smithson

B: What is your last name again?

A: It’s Smithson

B: How do you spell it?

A: S-M-I-T-H-S-O-N

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 B: Ok. Where are you from Mary?

A: I’m from Atlanta

B: How old are you?

A: I’m 16 years old

Name: Last name:
B: And when is your birthday?
Birthday: Age:
A: It’s on May 21st

B: What’s your address? City:

A: It’s 243 Main Avenue
Address:
B: And what’s your phone number?
Phone number:
A: It’s 443 205 60 18
e-mail:
B: Can I have your e-mail please?

A: Sure, my e-mail is [email protected]

B: What career are you studying Electrical, Electronic or Computer Engineering?

A: I’m studying Electronic Engineering

B: Ok, that’s it.

A: Thank you very much

B: You’re welcome.

EXERCISE 8. Fill in the following registration form with your personal information:

FIE REGISTRATION FORM

Name: _____________________________ ____________________________

family name(s) name (s)

Address: ______________________________________________________________

Zip Code: __________________________ Telephone number : __________________

City of origin: ________________________ e-mail: ____________________________

Age: ___________ Date of birth: ________________________

Sex:  male  female Career:  Electrical  Electronic  Computer

EXERCISE 9. Match the questions to the answers

1. What’s your last name? ( ) It’s 54 Thirty-second street

2. Where are they from? ( ) He’s studying Architecture
3. When is your birthday? ( ) It’s 788 167230
4. How old is your brother? ( ) It’s Suarez
5. What’s your address? ( ) It’s on August 13th
6. What is Thomas studying? ( ) They’re from Italy
7. What’s their telephone number? ( ) He’s only 17 years old
( ) My name is Susana

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 VI. Possessive adjectives

We use possessive adjectives to show who owns or "possesses" something. The possessive adjectives are:

 my, your, his, her, its, our, their

Referred person Possessive Examples

adjective

I My This is my book.

You Your I like your hair.

He His His name is "John".

She Her Her name is "Mary".

It Its The dog is licking its paw.

We Our We are painting our house.

You Your Your children are lovely.

They Their The students are talking to their teacher.

Exercise 10. Use an appropriate possessive adjective

a. Look at Susan, she’s with ______________ boyfriend, they are in love!

b. Do you like _________________ English classes?
c. We need __________________ books
d. This is _______________ new dictionary, I got it yesterday
e. My cousins need __________________ uniforms
f. Tom is in _______________ house, he’s sick
g. I love this school, _________________ classrooms are big and light

Exercise 11. Circle the correct pronoun or possessive adjective in each sentence.

h. ( I / my ) am an engineer and ( I / my ) wife is a public accountant

i. ( he/ his ) computer is very old. ( He / His ) doesn’t like to use it very much
j. ( You / your ) brothers are very intelligent, ( they /their ) grades in school are very good
k. ( She / Her ) is my teacher Clara, ( she / her ) is very nice, I love ( she / her ) voice
l. ( They / their ) Calculus class is very late, ( It /Its / It’s ) in classroom 6.

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 VII. ALPHABET for SPELLING
How do you spell your name? M-I-C-H-A-E-L

How do we spell screwdriver? S-C-R-E-W-D-R-I-V-E-R

1 Practice the pronunciation of the alphabet. AUDIO VII-1

A B C D E F G H I

J K L M N O P Q R

S T U V W X Y Z

2 Say these groups of letters. Check what they have in common

BCDEGPTV FLMNSX

AHJK QUW

3 Some company names use letters. For example: GE (General Electric) and HP (Hewlett Packard).

Say this company initials aloud:

( ) BBC ( ) SHV ( ) LTV ( ) SAP ( ) GEC

( ) NBC ( ) WSY ( ) KAO ( ) CSX ( ) NKK
( ) CBS ( ) IMB ( ) BTR ( ) TJX ( ) ICI

Now listen to audio VII-3 and order the companies in order of appearance in the audio.

4 Sandra is a receptionist at a factory, she is receiving visitors at the factory.

Listen to audio VII-4 and complete the information in the visitor #2

5 Listen to the receptionist again. Complete the sentences

1. Good ________________
2. ________________ your name ___________________?
3. ___________________do you spell that?
4. And your ___________________ name?
5. And ___________________ company are you with?
6. Thank you. Please ___________________ a seat.

6 Listen to audio VII-6 and complete the information of visitors #3, 4 and 5
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7 Vocabulary exercise: Write the box number and letter to the following vocabulary

Screw E4 . Bolt ______ Socket ______ Disk ______

Washer ______ Clamp ______ Tape measure ______ Bulb ______
Spring ______ Cog ______ Ruler ______ Cart ______
Clip ______ Gauge ______ Hard hat ______ Lead ______
Hook ______ Fuse ______ Glove ______ Pallet ______
Belt ______ Drill ______ Microphone ______ Bottle ______
Nut ______ Cable ______ Camera ______ Pipe ______

8 Taking an order at a Hardware store.

1 Look at this order for some equipment. Some information in the order is incorrect. Listen to the
telephone call VII-8-1 and make the corrections.

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 2 Match each comment to the correct reply. If necessary, listen again to audio VIII-8-1 and check
your answers

1. There are six items ( ) … slash six two, OK

2. Are you ready? ( ) OK, so that’s …
3. Sixteen? ( ) All right, what are they?
4. MTJ slash six two ( ) Yes, ready
5. How many again? ( ) That’s right, 16
6. And that’s it ( ) Fourteen

3 Listen to the order on the telephone conversation audio VII-8-3 and correct the mistakes in the
paper

VIII. Countries, nationalities and languages

What is the language in the United States?

_______________________

What language do Latins speak?

__________________

What are the official languages in Canada?

__________________
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EXERCISE 1. Write the country, nationality, or language in the blanks.

* Countries, nationalities and languages always start with a CAPITAL letter (ex: Peru, Latin, Spanish)

1. The Big Ben is in England, it’s an ____________________ clock.

2. New York is in _________________

3. Marie Renard lives in Paris, she speaks _________________

4. The tower of Pisa is in _______________

5. The Parthenon is a _______________ construction. It is in Athens, __________________

6. The Kremlin is in ________________

7. Ronaldinho is _______________, he’s from Porto Alegre in _______________. His first language
is _______________

8. (Write about yourself)

I am from ________________, I am ________________, my first language is

_______________

EXERCISE 2. Complete the chart with countries and nationalities. Search on the internet if necessary.

Country Nationality Country Nationality

Argentina Argentinean Indian
Australia Israeli
Belgian Italy
Brazilian Japan
Canadian Korea
Cuba Mexico
Czechoslovakian / Czech Norway Norwegian
Chinese Poland Polish / Pole
Danish Sweden
Egypt Switzerland
England South Africa
Finland Finn Thai
French Turkish
Germany United States of America
Great Britain Uruguayan
Greece Greek Venezuela
Dutch Vietnam

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 IX. SINGULAR AND PLURALS.
Look at the picture and read the description below. Identify the names of the objects

What’s in your backpack?

In my school backpack I have a laptop, a bowtie, my student ID, a raincoat, cards to play in my free
time, some pills, subways tickets, I keep an umbrella for the rainy days, a lunch box, my wallet,
a toothbrush and some mouthwash, some Tictac sweets, some cables, and my headphones.

ATTENTION: To refer to singular objects we use the articles “a” or “an”.

Examples: a bowtie, an umbrella, a lunch box.

Use “a” + words starting with vowel sounds

a chair, a table, a student, a hotel, a uniform

Use “an” + words starting with consonant sounds

an apple, an eraser, an electronic calculator

NEVER USE a/an with plurals

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EXERICISE 1. Write “a” or “an” to refer to each object in the picture

a manual

an electronic organizer ____ orange

____ pen ____ umbrella
____ apple ____ ticket
____ cell phone ____ battery
____ passport ____ identity card
____ English dictionary ____ alarm clock
____ bag ____ newspaper
____ electronic pass

____ map

____ pencil * Flash light= American English

____ flash light / torch * Torch= British English
____ key

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PLURALS. SPELLING OF PLURALS

1. To make a word plural in English, we usually add “s” to the singular

student → students bag → bags

2. Words ending in “s, sh, ch, x, and z”, the plural is + “es”
bus → buses fox → foxes

3. Words ending in “o” preceded by 1 consonant, the plural form is + “es”

tomato → tomatoes potato → potatoes
* radio → radios

4. Words ending in “y” preceded by 1 consonant, the plural form is “ies”

secretary → secretaries fly → flies
* boy → boys

5. Words ending in “f” or “fe”, the plural form is “ves”

leaf → leaves knife → knives

* exceptions: roof → roofs , cliff → cliffs

6. There are some irregular plurals

1 man → 2 men 1 woman → 2 women
child → children ox →oxen
foot → feet tooth → teeth
mouse →mice louse →lice
person → people cactus-cacti
fish → fish deer → deer
sheep → sheep species → species

EXERCISE 2. Write the plural forms of the words in parentheses.

1. (box) We have some ______________ in the laboratory

2. (toothbrush) We need to buy new ______________
3. (teacher) We have 8 different ______________ this semester
4. (story) The FIE building has 3 ______________
5. (man/ woman) In my group we are a lot of ______________ , there are only a few ______________
6. (video) Do you have the ______________ for the laboratory class?
7. (quiz) We have to present two ______________ every unit
8. (key) Where are my ______________ ?
9. (book) Do they have their English ______________ ?
10. (life) Our ______________ during the pandemics are different.

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PRONUNCIATION OF PLURALS. Audio IX-1

Independently from the spelling of the plurals, there are 3 different pronunciations of the plural ending “s”

1. If the word in singular ends in “f, k, t p,” sounds (“laugh, work, rat, map”), the plural will
sound /s/
Laughs
Works
Rats
Maps

2. If the word in singular ends in a vibrating sound “a,i,u,e,o,b,d,g,l,m,n,r,” the plural will sound /z/
banana – bananas
orange – oranges
secretary - secretaries
avocado – avocadoes
frog – frogs
pen – pens
chair – chairs

3. If the word in singular has a final “s, sh,ch,x z” the pural will sound /Iz/

bus – buses

watch – watches

fox - foxes

buzz- buzzes

EXERCISE 3. Practice saying these words in plural. What’s the sound of the plural “s” ending? Write it in
the slashes

ramps / / boys / / teachers / / notebooks / /

wolves / / brushes / / tomatoes / / radios / /
boxes / / hospitals / / engineers / / roofs / /
clips / / rulers / / compact disks / / flies / /
phones / / glasses / / mops / / carpets / /
computers / / knives / / lights / / patches / /
shorts / / jeans / / dishes / / horses / /
paintbrushes / / apples / / roofs / / receptionists / /

Listen to audio IX-2 and check your pronunciation and your answers to the exercise.

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