2nd Edition
1 Teaching Notes
Vocabulary – Page 8, Learning to learn
This activity may look simple and some teachers
may be tempted to skip it, focusing just on
the correction of students’ work in Exercise 2
and perhaps personal questions and answers.
However, although the main aim of this section is
to raise awareness of cultural differences such as
proper names, there is a secondary aim related
to learning differences. You may get to know how
creative students are or even discover that some
of them are not keen at all on this type or work.
Yet, you ought to bear in mind that the fact that
a certain student may be very creative or another
one may lack this skill does not give you any
information about their intelligence. This just
shows preferences or abilities.
All the same, it is interesting to note that
creative activities such as drawing and
colouring are ways of letting out steam, ways
of channelling energy, and SEN students do not
only need these but are often good at them.
Give them a chance! And if you notice some
particularly attractive identity cards, invite
their owners to share them with the class. They
will feel proud of their work and this will give
them a sense of confidence, which students
with special conditions don’t usually get.
Reading – Page 9, Exercise 3
Special learning conditions are often
associated with difficulties in concentration,
processing speed or memory. In all these
cases, oral work plays an important role
and SEN students usually find it much
more engaging than writing. This activity in
particular focuses on basic comprehension and
has been pitched at the right level considering
the challenge that writing poses to some
learners. However, you should bear in mind
that learning a language implies going beyond
the word or phrase level; therefore, you ought
to help students reconstruct the information
from the words they have written in the table.
You should elicit complete sentences and aim
at fluency as well as adequate pronunciation.
All students are able to achieve this!
Grammar – Page 10, Use
In A, the focus is on the first and third person
singular pronouns + verb be. In general,
although most students may have heard of
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ways of introducing themselves or saying
how old they are, some do not associate
these forms with be in its infinitive form, and
whether this is important or not is simply a
matter of opinion. What really matters is that
every student should understand the syntax of
each sentence and its meaning, the fact that in
English each sentence starts with the subject
as different from Spanish, for example, where
the subject may take front, middle or even
end position. Once again, you should bear in
mind that oral work and personalization are
very important for students to remember what
you teach, especially when we consider SEN
students.
Before moving on to other sections of the
page, it would then be advisable to elicit
examples, to allow different SEN students to
introduce themselves and their friends. You
may even challenge their critical thinking skills
by inviting them to make false statements.
The verb be is the basis of the language so if
you manage to make everybody feel confident
and have a sense of achievement, you will be
paving the way for more participation. If you do
the opposite and just take things for granted,
you will be fostering silence and doubt.
Vocabulary – Page 11, Exercises 1–4
According to what most teachers say about
their classes, lack of attention seems to be a
teenage characteristic rather than a disorder
or syndrome. But how can we spot a student
with attention deficit? We can basically say that
they are easily distracted, they need to move
from one task to another even if they have not
completed the first one, avoid tasks that require
sustained mental effort and often get tired easily.
This may be accompanied by hyperactivity and
impulsiveness, which means that it is essential to
draw their attention, use visual material as much
as possible, keep eye contact with them and be
as concrete as possible.
This vocabulary section introduces geographical
names. Although all the cities are well-known,
you will be surprised to discover that most
students, not only SEN ones, have a really
vague idea of where these places are, what the
language spoken in them is or if they are near
or far away from their hometown. To make the
activity more concrete, you may have students
UNIT 1 4

1 Teaching Notes
work in pairs and search online for a world
map. Then ask them to locate on the map
the countries in Exercise 3 before writing the
sentences about the cities.
Reading – Page 12, Exercise 2
As we advance in the book, things begin to get
a little bit more complex and even more so for
students with some kind of reading trouble
or attention disorder. In the Introduction, we
highlighted the role of the family and their
commitment. It is the family that should be
ready to share with you what they notice
at home: if the student complains about
homework, if they cannot cope with tasks or
any other relevant information. Also, they
should inform the school if the student is
undergoing psychological or pedagogical
treatment. Unfortunately, this does not always
happen but teachers should help the family
understand that hiding a certain difficulty or
acting as if nothing happened will only worsen
the student’s performance and feelings. When
we analyze SEN and difficulties, we speak
about a therapeutic triad: the family, the
school and the student. Once the family agrees
to certain commitment, the question they
often ask is how to help their child if they don’t
speak English. The answer is simple. We rely
on attitude more than on factual knowledge.
Parents can foster their child’s reading even if
they are illiterate, just by sitting by the child
at homework time, looking when the student
is using the digital material, thumbing through
their classwork or simply by asking how they
feel about their English lessons. Reading is a
skill and also a habit. It doesn’t grow on trees;
it grows in families and classrooms.
This particular exercise shows a very simple
kind of text we are all well acquainted with.
It is friendly enough to encourage weaker
learners to participate and even to read aloud
as if it were a voice message. Targeting is a
very useful questioning technique when you
consider SEN learners. You ought to involve
them but at the same time you ought to be
careful enough to avoid unnecessary mistakes
and frustration. This is a good opportunity.
You should make the most of the first part of
the book so as to motivate students and offer
them the chance to gain confidence.
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Grammar – Page 13
The font used in the exercises and organization
of the material on the page may help or
become an obstacle. There is a tendency to
believe that block capitals are clearer and
easier to read. This is incorrect. The brain is
more promptly activated to read small-case
letters and even more so if the letters are clear
and big enough. This is why some students
may require Times New Roman or even Open
Dyslexic.
As regards the amount of information and
its organization on the page, clarity and
transparency are key concepts. Students with
learning difficulties find it rather hard to go
up and down the page in order to read or do
exercises. In this particular case, the grammar
table may be too challenging for some learners.
You may find the SEN accommodation provided
useful (see pages 7–10).
Build your skills: Reading – Page 14,
Exercise 2
We know that students today learn in a
different way. They require other triggers; they
do not memorize things easily unless they
are really keen on the topic or the activity.
Teaching is nowadays very closely related to
metacognition. Teachers have to help students
discover how they learn better, independently
of the difficulties they may or not have.
When you deal with reading comprehension,
apart from giving weaker students the
chance to work on the text at home through
‘anticipation’, you may discuss what ‘key words’
are and ask them to underline the key words
in the text. This will be of great use when they
do a comprehension activity such as this one.
In fact, underlining and highlighting key words
is a strategy that will help them study any
subject, not just English.
Build your skills: Listening & Speaking –
Page 15, Exercise 4
In our heterogeneous classes, we are likely
to find a great variety of learning styles as
well as difficulties. When strong students are
asked to read, role play or give an answer, if
they make a mistake, they think it is just that,
something they can correct and improve on.
UNIT 1 5

1 Teaching Notes
When somebody with a specific condition
makes a mistake, they are likely to think they
have failed once again. Besides, very often, a
mistake by a SEN student leads to teasing and
unfortunate situations. This does not mean
that you should avoid correcting mistakes or
allow SEN students to just sit at the back and
remain passive. It means you should always
correct constructively, looking for something
positive, celebrating every time the student
achieves an aim and make suggestions or
offer alternatives when there are mistakes. In
this particular exercise, students within the
autism spectrum, for example, are unlikely
to participate in a role play, but they may be
invited to read the dialogue with a partner of
their choice. Alternatively, if different students
volunteer or act out the dialogue, SEN students
may be appointed judges and choose the best
performance, and justify their choice as if it
were a competition.
Build your skills: Writing – Page 16, Writing
task
A SEN student may study hard and fail a test,
listen to you and forget everything you have
said in just two minutes, say they understand
what they have to do and come up with
unexpected answers. Clearly, monitoring their
work closely is very important to help them
succeed. In this particular case, although the
‘Write it right!’ section raises awareness of the
differences between the singular and plural
pronouns, some students may still make
mistakes. To avoid this as well as unnecessary
frustration, you should make sure you work
with them, elicit the caption for one photo first
and have them write it, then the second one
and so on. If you do this together with them,
they will feel confident enough to share their
work with their classmates once they have
finished. This will in turn give them a sense of
achievement.
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Progress check – Page 17
We know that in every class there are learners
who may have particular needs. This might be
overlooked in our everyday teaching unless
we make a few changes, taking into account
that all students have the right to learn and
succeed, based on their specific realities,
abilities and weaknesses. It is our duty as
educators to cater for SEN, and doing so
implies making specific adjustments to our
normal teaching so that more students may
become more involved, get more opportunities
to learn and thus may eventually have a sense
of achievement. For this purpose, you may use
the SEN accommodation provided (see pages
11 & 12).
Project – Page 18
This is a project about countries, cities, bands
and singers but you may be willing to offer
other options as well. Some students may be
interested in other things. You may have read
about children within the autism spectrum and
how unusual their interests may sound to their
classmates. You ought to be flexible enough to
make the most of this project and Exercise 1
will be your thermometer. If you notice that
some students do not show any interest in the
second part of the quiz, you may allow them
to change it. They may do something similar
about sports people, important monuments,
flags, etc.
UNIT 1 6
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Name: Class:

1 Grammar – Page 13

Present simple ‒ be: questions

USE
A Match the answers to the questions.

1 Who’s Carla?
2 Is she in your class?
3 Is Chilca a city?
4 Is Chilca the capital of Peru?
5 What’s the capital of Peru?
a Yes, it is.
b No, she isn’t.
c It’s Lima.
d No, it isn’t.
e A friend.
B Look at Exercise A again. Find and write two examples of questions and
answers for each rule.

1 We answer Yes/No questions with Yes or No.



2 We answer Wh- questions with a sentence.



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Name: Class:

Present simple ‒ be: questions

FORM
C Complete the table.

Yes/No questions
Am I
Are you / we / they from Peru?
         he / she / it
Short answers
I am.
Yes, you / we / they are.
he / she / it is.
I ’m not.
No, you / we / they aren’t.
he / she / it         .

1 Write Yes/No questions.

1 Rome / Italy? 

2 Vicky and Fede / friends? 

3 you / from this country? 

4 Madrid / the capital of Spain? 

2 Write short answers for the questions in Exercise 1.

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Name: Class:

Present simple ‒ be: questions

FORM
C Complete the table.

Wh- questions
Who Carla?
What       / ’s the capital of Peru?
Where Chilca?

3 Complete the questions with Who, What or Where and the correct form of be.

1 the capital of France?

It’s Paris.

2 Paul?

He’s a friend.

3 your name?

My name is Joe.

4 you?

I’m Larry.

5 Tokyo?

It’s in Japan.

6 Valeria?

She’s my teacher.

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Name: Class:

Present simple ‒ be: questions

FORM
D Compare the word order of sentences and questions. Write new examples
in a new diagram.

It + is + a capital city

Is + it + a capital city?

What + is + it?

4 Write four questions. In turns, ask and answer.

Is Shanghai the capital of China?

No, it isn’t. Where is Barcelona?

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Name: Class:

1 Progress check – Page 17

1 Complete the identity card.

: Matías
: Colombo
: m_colombo@net.com
: 1463555453

/ 4 points
2 Complete the sentences with the correct words.

1 New York is a in the USA.

2 Beijing is the of China.

3 Dubai is a city the UAE.

4 Lima is the capital Peru.

/ 4 points

3 Choose the correct options.

1 This is me. I / He / She am Maria.

2 This is Mike. It / He / They is my friend.

3 This is Carla. She / I / We is 13.

4 These are my friends. He / You / They are in my class.

5 Look at Eric and me. We / You / They are friends.

6 This is Lyon. She / I / It is a city in France.

/ 6 points

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Name: Class:

4 Complete the sentences with the correct form of be. Use short or full forms.

1 This my classroom.

2 Talia my friend.

3 She not in my class.

4 You a student at Washington School.

5 This is Pedro. He not from my country.

6 Paul and Vicky not in my class.

/ 6 points
5 Complete the questions with the words from the box. Then match the questions
to the answers.

who where is what are

1 Alice in year 5? a He is my friend from Australia.

2 is Cairo? b It is Ottawa.

3 is the capital of Canada? c No, I am not.

4 you in my class? d No, she isn’t.

5 is Roy? e It is in Egypt.

1 2 3 4 5

/ 10 points
Reflect and share! 
✓ This unit is about...
Total Score: / 30 points
✓ Before working on it, I knew...

✓ After working on it, I know...

✓ I have a question: ... ?

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