Free English Lesson – Passive forms and when to use them
What are the passive forms? Have you ever thought about why the passive forms are used in English? Why so many speakers are confused by them? Let’s chat about that.
This video is aimed at students studying English at level B1+ or higher.
Consider the following passive sentence:
“The 100m record in athletics was broken in 2009 by Usain Bolt.”
Why is the passive used in this sentence? Passive forms may be used for a number of reasons:
- The subject is not (as) important: Consider what is most important – the person or the fact that the record was broken? The record is definitely very important since it’s a significant event that only happens rarely. Therefore, the record takes importance and is used as the subject of the sentence.
- The subject is obvious: Imagine that you’re an athlete or a runner – you know who Usain Bolt is, and therefore you don’t need to mention who actually broke the record.
- The subject is unknown: We know that the record was broken, but we don’t know the name of the record-breaker.
In all three cases, you can show who / what did the action (the agent) by adding them to the end of the sentence (“…by Usain Bolt.”).
Now that we’ve looked at why we use the passive, how is the passive formed? A lot of students get confused here because knowing and applying the passive means having a good idea of grammar tenses. In short, to form the passive we always need 2 things: a form of the verb ‘to be’ and a past participle (‘-ed’ for regular verbs, the third form for regular verbs).
Take a look at the active sentence below:
“Usain Bolt broke the 100m record in 2009.”
In this sentence, the main verb ‘to break’ is in the past simple form “…broke…”. To form the passive we use the past form of ‘to be’ (‘was/were’) and the past participle of ‘to break’ (‘broken’), giving us the sentence:
“The 100m record was broken in 2009.”
For other forms of the verb, use this as a general guideline. Notice how ‘broken’ (the past participle) remains the same regardless of the tense:
Present Simple: am/is/are + past participle – “Records are broken every year.”
Present Continuous: am/is/are being + past participle – “New shoes are being created to break the record.”
Present Perfect: has/have been + past participle – “The record hasn’t been broken since 2009.”
‘will’ future: will be + past participle – “The record will be broken sometime soon.”
‘going to’ future: am/is/are going to be + past participle – “The record is going to be broken soon.”
How is learning English at Maltalingua and Diving the perfect combination?
Situated just five minutes walk from some of the most highly recognised diving schools in Malta, lies the classrooms of Maltalingua. This, as well as the exceptional climate, allows students to turn studying the English language into an exciting holiday. By day, students have the opportunity to delve into the world of English language learning in a friendly and relaxed classroom setting. Whereas by night, exploring the many feasts which adorn the Maltese streets.
Early morning classes at Maltalingua allow students the time to study whilst providing them with the opportunity to explore the natural underwater wonders of Malta and its sister islands. You will have the chance to practise your English in a real-world setting. All three of the islands offer an abundance of reefs, wrecks, and caves suitable for all levels of diving.
Since the collapse of the iconic Azure window in 2017, adventurers have been travelling from all over the world to dive through the famed film set often associated with TV series such as Game of Thrones. Spread in a range of 16 to 100 feet in depth, the arch has fallen into an array of canyons and passageways which would appeal to those who want to explore the underwater world.
Across the island, you will find other stunning diving locations such as Għar lapsi. The vibrant blue waters of these shallow caves offer beginner divers a chance to explore at a pace convenient to them. Um al Faroud, a ship which was sunk in 1998, is situated on the shores of Għar Lapsi. The ship covers a large area which is home to a variety of fish and marine life.
If your preference is to upskill whilst on a language holiday, there are numerous schools offering internationally recognised diving qualifications at a competitive rate. The flexible classroom times at Maltalingua allow students to dictate their own schedule, with the possibility for intensive or private 1-1 lessons available from early morning until late afternoon. Private lessons can be tailored to suit the individuals’ needs and could incorporate the language of diving.
Whether your beginning to dive or you are a pro, combining language learning and diving in Malta really is the dream combination!
Free English Lesson – Learn the colours!
Welcome to another free English lesson from Maltalingua. Today you will be focusing on the colours.
This lesson is aimed at students learning English at Pre-Intermediate level or above.
Richard of York gave battle in vain.
What does this mean?
Richard – Red
Of – Orange
York – Yellow
Gave – Green
Battle – Blue
In – Indigo
Vain – Violet
In this video, we are joined by a guest star: Richard of York. We introduced the colours and coloured him in with a very stylish look. Learn the rhyme and remember your colours!
|
Primary |
Secondary |
|
Red |
Orange |
|
Yellow |
Purple ( indigo/violet ) |
|
Blue |
Green |
If we mix the primary colours together, we get the secondary colours. For example:
- If we mix red (primary) and yellow (primary) we get orange (secondary).
- If we mix blue (primary) and yellow (primary) we get green (secondary).
- If we mix blue (primary) and red (primary) we get purple (secondary).
As we all know pronunciation is very important in English. We can group colours that have similar pronunciation patterns so that they are easier to study, as you can see in our video.
IMPORTANT!
Remember that colours are adjectives.
Question: Where do we put an adjective?
Answer: Before the noun.
Examples:
A red pen
A blue T-shirt
A yellow banana
Now that you have a better understanding of the colours of the rainbow, use these words to make your English language a little more colourful. Make sure to check out our video for a fuller explanation, given by our CELTA-qualified teachers Abbie and Brian.
Free English Lesson – Describing the human body
Welcome to another free English lesson from Maltalingua. Today you will be focusing on the human body.
Knowing the parts of the body is very important in any language. If you go to a gym, the instructor might ask you about your body and how to check parts of it. If you go to a doctor or a physician, he might ask you what problems you have with your body and which part of your body is in pain. Today we’re going to look at the English names for different parts of the body and how to remember them.
This lesson is aimed at students learning English at Pre-Intermediate level or above.
Many students have a problem with remembering most of the vocabulary that they’ve learned in the same lesson. How can you remember all of these words? Here are a few suggestions:
- Remember body parts using the different parts of the body
Head: cheeks, chin, ear, eye, face, head, neck, nose
Shoulders to stomach: arm, chest, finger, hand, shoulder, stomach, wrist
Waist to feet: ankle, foot, hip, knee, leg, toe, waist
Just as we did in the video, use different colours to write and memorise these. Using flashcards can also be helpful!
- Use pronunciation to help you remember words with the sound
/ e / chest, head, leg, neck
/ ɪ / chin, fingers, hips, wrist
/ əʊ / nose, shoulders, toes
/ iː / cheeks, knee
Don’t forget that words like wrist and knee have silent letters. Words like stomach are more difficult to pronounce so focus on them. Pay attention to vowel sounds, these can be helpful too!
- Revise, revise, revise
Keep in mind that it’s not enough to just make these lists. Many times, we see students take their lists and put them into their bags, never to be seen again! Remember to take out these lists and revise them regularly. It only takes two minutes to go through a list again and say the words out loud, but repetition is vital when you are memorising vocabulary.
Now that you have a better understanding of the human body, make a list and show it to us in the comment section below! Make sure to check out our video for a fuller explanation, given by our CELTA-qualified teachers.
Discover more of Maltalingua’s free English lessons. Explore more about imperatives here.
Check out our other brilliant free English lessons here.
Free English Lesson – Imperatives and how to use them!
Welcome to a free English lesson from Maltalingua. Today you will be focusing on the Imperatives.
A simple idea with so many different uses – You have probably used or heard imperatives before, in your language or in English. If you’ve been to an English school, like Maltalingua, your teacher probably used them many times: “Open your book”, “Go to page 6” and so on. We can use imperatives to give orders, but not only – find out more in this free English lesson on imperatives and how to use them!
This lesson is aimed at students learning English at Pre-Intermediate level or above.
Imperatives have a very simple form. All you need to do is to take any verb in English that you want to use as an imperative and remove ‘to’. For example, if you want someone to open their book or to listen to you:
- To open —> “Open your book.”
- To listen —> “Listen to me.”
If you want to form a negative imperative (something you don’t want someone to do) simply add ‘don’t’ before the verb. For example, if you want someone not to speak or not to shout:
- To (not) speak —> “Don’t speak, I’m talking to you.”
- To (not shout —> “Don’t shout, the baby’s asleep.”
We can use imperatives for many different things, not only for orders. We can use them to do the following:
- To give directions: Turn left, Take the second right. / Cross the road.
- To give advice/suggestions: Don’t watch that movie. / Take an umbrella with you, it’s raining!
- To ask someone to do something: Come in, sit down. / Listen to this.
- To wish someone something: Have a lovely day. / Enjoy your holiday.
- To make offers: Make yourself at home. / Have some juice (or some cake).
Discover more of Maltalingua’s free English lessons. Explore more about -ed endings here.
Check out our other brilliant free English lessons here.
ILE Yourself – English at Your Fingertips
NEW IN 2018: Online lessons for Maltalingua students
The classroom as we know it is changing. People are busier than ever and the digital world is bringing students and teachers together around the globe! Although learning English in an English speaking country is a great option to improve fast, not everyone has the time and the money to travel to another country!
Online lessons are a great option for professionals and students with busy lives or people who simply want the convenience of learning from home from Monday to Sunday. Let’s face it. Learning on Skype is very comfortable. There is no travel time, no rush hour stress and after the lesson, you can simply get on with your life! If this weren’t enough, the lesson times are flexible so the timetable can change every week. Students can even stop their lessons during busy periods, or simply to go on holiday.
So, what are the main differences between online lessons and a mainstream course? Well, you can’t really touch the teacher online, but hopefully, you wouldn’t be doing that in a normal classroom anyway! You see the teacher, hear the teacher, and get all the free material via Skype. You can open the lesson document and make notes on the word document directly, and all the new words and tips that your teacher gives you will be saved automatically in your chat.
During the 45 minute-lesson, the teacher will be focused on YOU! Although we also do group lessons, most of our students book private online lessons. This means that the student can request to study a specific topic. If you have to prepare a presentation or prepare for a job interview, your teacher can help you do so! We are not a physical school, therefore we don’t have to pay for extra expenses like normal schools do. This means that your lessons are cheaper!
What about my teachers? All the teachers are carefully selected and internationally qualified! Teachers are people just like you, so it’s also convenient for them to teach online! Some teachers work in physical schools and also do online lessons to complement their timetable! At ILE our mission is to make sure that both teachers and students are happy and working together to achieve the most important goal of all – helping you improve your English in the best possible way!
For the reasons above and because we know how important it is to practise the English language constantly in order to maintain a certain level of fluency, Maltalingua school decided to team up with ILE, an online English platform, in order to offer all Maltalingua students the opportunity to continue on their English learning journey, even after leaving the school in Malta.
So, if you want to step into the future, try ILE’s online lessons. Maltalingua’s introductory offer is only 95EURO for 5 general English lessons!
Come and meet our ILE teachers and some of your Maltalingua teachers who also teach online! What are you waiting for? Discover more here!
Free English Lesson – Exploring the future continuous!
Welcome to a free English lesson from Maltalingua. Today you will be focusing on the Future Continuous.
How often do you hear native speakers talking about the future and you aren’t quite sure what form they’re using, and why? In English, the future is a problematic area because as opposed to the past and the present, there is no future ‘tense’. However, there are several forms that are used to refer to the future. These forms have different functions and talk about the future with different levels of certainty.
This lesson is aimed at students learning English at Upper-Intermediate level or above.
One form that is often used amongst native speakers is the Future Continuous form. Have a look at how the future continuous form is used:
- “I can’t make it tonight… I’ll probably be studying all evening.”
- “So you won’t be coming to the party tomorrow, will you?”
- “The party will be starting at 9, in case you change your mind.”
- “Will I be seeing you this Saturday for lunch?”
- “I’ll be taking my exam in the morning.”
The form has 2 main uses. Firstly, like other continuous forms, it shows the progression of an action at a certain time/period in the future. In sentences 1 and 5 for example, the actions of studying/taking the exams will happen during or throughout the time period mentioned.
Secondly, the future continuous can simply refer to a planned action at a time in the future. In sentences 2 and 4 the speaker says this with the knowledge that a plan was made from beforehand i.e there were plans to go to the party and to meet for lunch.
Forming the future continuous form can’t be easier. As you can see above, you need the subject, the auxiliary verb ‘will be’ and a verb in the –ing form (1, 3, 5). For the negative, change ‘will’ to ‘won’t’ (2) and for the question simply to invert the subject and ‘will’ (4).
Furthermore, you might also have heard native speakers change the auxiliary ‘will’ to ‘going to’ or ‘should’, both of which have similar functions. For example:
- I’m gonna be taking my exam in the morning on Saturday. (the spoken form of ‘going to’)
- I should be studying all evening. (here, perhaps implying a form of obligation)
Finally, you can often switch the future continuous with other forms used in English for the future, for example:
- I’m going to study all evening. (be going to for intentions)
- The party starts at 9. (present simple for schedules)
- I’m taking my exam on Saturday morning. (present continuous for fixed plans)
Now that you have a better understanding of the future continuous form, try using it to talk about your plans or things you’ll be doing tonight! Make sure to check out our video for a fuller explanation, given by our CELTA-qualified teacher.
Discover more of Maltalingua’s free English lessons. Explore more about -ed endings here.
Check out our other brilliant free English lessons here.
Tips to help you with “-ed” endings.
Did you know that the way you write “walked” is probably not the way you say it? Pronunciation is an essential part of learning a foreign language, and sometimes communication can break down because of simple and easy to avoid mistakes. Pronouncing “-ed” at the end of verbs in English can be challenging, because there are THREE ways of saying it. Discover more about them below.
This lesson is for students learning English at Pre-Intermediate level or for people who have a general interest in phonemic sounds.
ED endings appear at the end of regular verbs in the past tensee.g. wanted, helped, lived.
Sometimes in adjectives ending in ED, such as tired, embarrassed, relaxed, and also in some Past Participles. These ED ending words can cause some problems for non-native speakers because there are three possible ways of pronouncing them: / ɪd /, / t / or / d /
Don’t worry there are a few rules that can help you remember which pronunciation we need for each word, but first we need to recognise our voiced and voiceless consonants.
Put your finger on your throat and pronounce the letter L.
Now do the same thing but pronounce the P.
Notice the difference? The ‘L’ sound causes a vibration in your throat but the ‘P’ sound doesn’t. If it makes a vibration then it is a voiced sound (consonant) if it doesn’t, then it is a voiceless sound (consonant). Try this with the other letters and you will “feel” the difference between a voiced and a voiceless consonant (or sound).
Now we know the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds we can look at the following rules for the correct pronunciation of ED in English:
| The /ɪd/ sound | The /t/ sound | The /d/ sound |
| If the last letter of the word is a ‘d’ or ‘t’, the ED pronunciation is an /ɪd/ sound
It rhymes with kidand bid.
Wanted is pronounced as “want-id”, More examples.. waited (“wait-id”) needed (“need-id”) folded (“fold-id”) |
If the last consonant of the word is voiceless ‘k’ ‘s’ ‘p’ then the ED pronunciation is as a T.
Be careful not to create an extra syllable or “id” sound.
talked (sounds like “talkt”) parked (“parkt”) helped (“helpt”) |
If the last letter of the word ends in a voicedsound (consonant) ‘m’ ‘l’ ‘n’, then the ED is pronounced like a D
(without creating another syllable) played (sounds like “playd”) closed (the S sounds like a vibrating Z so the word would sound like “clozd”) opened (“opend”) lived (“livd”) |
Now you’ve learnt the THREE ways of pronouncing “-ed” in English, well done! Make sure to check out our video for a more detailed look, given by our CELTA-qualified EFL teacher.
Free Online English Lesson – Wishes, Dreams, Desires & Ambitions
Our dreams and ambitions follow us everywhere. It’s so important to be able to talk about them and to express ourselves in English. In conversations and other situations where you need to give reliable, fluent answers in English, these functional-language phrases will help you to keep the words flowing in a natural way.
Learn phrases used by native English speakers and memorize them to use in your next English conversation. These phrases might be challenging to translate from English to your language. We recommend leaving the translator alone and engaging in our English expressions lesson.
See how these English phrases can be used in such an easy and natural way to make you sound like you’ve been using these expressions all your life! Our native English teacher Brian Dimech will show you examples of real-life situations where you can use these English phrases in an everyday conversation.
Furthermore, our English phrases are ready-to-go functional-language, which means they need minimal changes to grammar or sentence-structure to use when you’re engaging in an English-speaking situation.
This video is perfect for English language students at the CEFR level B1+ (Intermediate) and level B2 (Upper Intermediate).
REMEMBER TO…
It’s OK to watch this video without writing down every word, but remember to come back and write down all the phrases that Brian teaches you. It always helps to write things down if you want to remember them!
IT’S EASY!
We’ve summarised all the phrases towards the beginning and the end of the video, go and see Brian’s goodbye to find all the phrases. Scroll back to after Brian’s introduction to check the correct form for these great English phrases to express your wishes and ambitions!
ALWAYS PLAY
English is a flexible and fun language. Now that you’ve learned the basic situations to use your new English phrases, make sure you change the verbs (see the correct forms in the video!) and find ways of applying them to a variety of different situations! Just make sure that your phrasal structure follows ours!
LISTEN FOR…
The English expressions being taught in these videos are used every day, all over the world. Now that you’ve learned them, you’ll be surprised to know that you’re going to be noticing other people using them a lot. Make sure to join in and use the phrases that you put so much time into learning and remembering.
Student Working and Employment Rights Malta
Want to study English under the sun? We’ve got some good news for you!
Good news for those coming from a non-EU county who want to travel to Malta to learn English. From now on students who study for longer than 3 months are allowed to work in Malta!
The rules? It’s quite simple. Firstly, your language study has to be for 3 months or longer. You can work part-time with this Visa (maximum 20 h/week).
This Visa is valid for the duration of your course, plus an extra seven days. The new system will allow students to work as of the 13th week after their arrival. The work licence is issued once the student visa is approved and the student can apply once they find employment.
Students must attend a minimum 75% of classes to obtain the special Visa, and follow the rules enforced by Jobsplus. (a Maltese organization responsible for employment in Malta)
Do you want to stay in Malta for even longer? No problem, you can get a visa for 6 months if you complete a full-time course at the higher-education level, which will allow you to work a maximum of 20 hours a week while you look for a job. You can apply when you find a job relevant to your studies and your gross salary equals 1.5 times the national minimum wage.
For more information, you can always contact your embassy in Malta or give us a call today (+356 2742 7570).
Malta is one of the most popular destinations to learn English. Since English is one of the official languages in Malta, it is the perfect destination to practice your English daily and become familiar with the language.
A language journey to Malta is something not to be missed. Culture, history, beautiful sceneries and several events make this island the perfect destination for tourists and students who are eager to learn. Malta was a British colony for several years, and you can still find several remnants of this period, such as the typical British telephone booth.
Many students dream of studying abroad and this new legislation will make it a lot easier for students outside of the EU to go on the language adventure of a lifetime.
In 2017 Malta reached an absolute record with 87,190 students who visited this beautiful island to study English.
Learning English and want to put your linguistic knowledge into practice at the same time? What a great idea, the best way to learn a language is to use it every day! That’s Maltalingua School’s mentality too. At Maltalingua we teach inside and outside the classroom.
We are convinced that students will learn the most by using English all day, every day, and interacting with other students and native speakers from all over the world. Within our school walls, we motivate our students to communicate in English, no matter their mother tongue and level of English.
Naturally, our dedicated and motivated staff is always on standby to help out in several languages.
Maltalingua is one of the only language schools on the island that is run by British management, with a rooftop terrace and pool, not to mention the fun, interactive activities that are organized daily on a weekly schedule.
Every Monday we host a welcome party, including Maltese appetizers, for new and old students to meet and mingle.
Discover more about Maltalingua on our website.