REPORTED SPEECH

1. Uses

We use it to report what another person said, but we don't use exactly the same words.

Direct speech                        Reported speech

'It's a good car.'                      He said it was a good car.

 'I've had it for two years.'      He told me he'd had it for two years.

 We can use both say and tell as reporting verbs.

* If we mention who we're talking to, we use tell + indirect object (me, him, the man, etc.).

               He told me it was a good car.

* If we don't mention who we're talking to, we use say.

  He said it was a good car.

 2. How verbs change in Reported Speech

Direct  Speech (He said,“…’’ )	Indirect Speech (He said (that)...)
Present Simple “She likes dancing”	Past Simple He said (that) she liked dancing.
Present continuous: “I’m reading”	Past continuous He said (that) he was reading.
Past Simple  “They went there”	Past Perfect He said (that) they had gone there.
Past Continuous  “I was listening to him”	Past Perfect Continuous  He said (that) he had been listening to him.
Present Perfect  “I’ve read this book”	Past Perfect She said (that) she had read that book.
Present Perfect Continuous "We have been working all day."	Past Perfect Continuous She said they had been working all day.
Past perfect: “I had done it.”	NO CHANGE He said (that) he had done it.
Future WILL “I’ll send you a copy.”	WOULD He promised he would send me a copy.
Future:  am/is/are going to .. “He is going to sell his house.”	Was/Were going to... He said (that) he was going to sell his house
Modal: CAN “You can come if you want.”	Modal: COULD He said that I could go if I wanted.
Modal: MUST (obligation) “You must be home before 6pm”	HAD TO He said that I had to be home before 6pm.
MODAL: MAY “I may not be at home.”	MODAL: MIGHT She said (that) she might not be at home.
Modals: would, could, should, might, ought to “It shouldn’t give you any trouble”	NO CHANGE He said it shouldn’t give me any trouble.

3. Other changes

- Pronouns and possessive adjectives:
“My name’s Lyn” She said her name was Lyn
- this –that (the)
“We’re meeting this evening” They said they were meeting that evening
- these –those
-  here -there
- now –at that time/then
-  today -that day
- tonight -that night
- yesterday -the previous day / the day before
- tomorrow -the following day/the day after/the next day
- next week -the following week
- last night -the previous night / the night before
- two days ago, a week ago, etc. -two days before, the week before, etc.

Past Simple

You can practise how and when to use past simple with these exercises:
Exercise 1             Exercise 2            Exercise 3                 Exercise 4                   Exercise 5    Exercise 6            Exercise 7             Exercise 8                 Exercise 9                  Exercise 10

There are also some games here: Have fun!
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5


 And if you need to remember how to form it, take a look at this:


El tiempo Pasado Simple se usa para hablar de acciones terminadas en el pasado. Como hacen referencia a acciones que ya ocurrieron, siempre deben ir en un contexto pasado, ya sea porque se está contando una historia que ya pasó, o bien usando complementos de tiempo pasado, como:

yesterday	ayer
last night	anoche
last week	la semana pasada
last month	el mes pasado
last year	el año pasado
in 1970	en 1970

Lorde - Everybody Wants To Rule The World Lyrics

How to Make Good Slides for your Presentation

This is a summary of the article 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea, from TED’s in-house expert (Posted by: TED Staff July 15, 2014)

The big picture...
1. Think about your slides last. 
Building your slides should be the tail end of developing your presentation.The slides are just something you layer over it to enhance the listener experience.It’s far more effective when the slides are for the audience to give them a visual experience that adds to the words.
2. Create a consistent look and feel. 
Use the same or related typography, colors and imagery across all your slides. 
3. Think about topic transitions. 
You don’t want each slide to look exactly the same. Create one style for the slides that are the meat of what I’m saying, and then another style for the transitions between topics. 
4.With text, less is almost always more. 
One thing to avoid—slides with a lot of text, especially if it’s a repeat of what you’re saying out loud. If you can’t avoid having text-y slides, try to progressively reveal text (like unveiling bullet points one by one) as you need it.
5. Use photos that enhance meaning. 
Use simple, punchy photos in presentations, because they help what you’re saying resonate in your audience’s mind without pulling their attention from your spoken words. Your photo could be a metaphor or something more literal, but it should be clear why the audience is looking at it, and why it’s paired with what you’re saying.
Tactical tips…
1. Go easy on the effects and transitions.  
If you must use them, use the most subtle ones, and keep it consistent. 
2. Use masking to direct attention in images. 
Follow the technique here
3. Try panning large images.
Rather than scaling the image to an illegible size, or cropping it, you can pan it vertically as you talk about it. In Keynote, this is done with a Move effect, which you can apply from an object’s action panel.
4. For video, don’t use autoplay.
Instead, set the video to click to play. That way you have more predictable control over the video start time, and even select a poster frame to show before starting. 
5. Reproduce simple charts and graphs.
Make it easy on the eyes. You could redraw it to have control over colors, typography, and more. .

Click here for further reading and examples

Gerunds and inifinitives

Do you know when you have to use gerunds or infinitives? You have some clues here:

And you can play some games to see if you know when to use them. Click on the image to play.

    

Conditionals

You can find some grammar explanations on conditionals here (zero, first and second) and here (third and mixed conditionals). There are also some short activities to practise.



 You've got further practice here:
Exercise 1          Exercise 2                Exercise 3          Exercise 4                  Exercise 5                Exercise 6              Exercise 7              Exercise 8            Exercise 9           Exercise 10
Exercise 11           Exercise 12