Mrs Sallibartan's English ressources

Can you find a superlative, an infinitive clause like the sentence in the picture and a present perfect in this trailer?

Send your answers. A special price for the first winner.

(adapted from
Svetlana Urisman 's article on the British council blog)

 They are shorter, they let you come back to the characters again and again and predict what will happen to them next. They often reflect real life, which means people in them use real language and grammar.

As for the grammar, I’ve always liked films and series as a great source of that – ‘real’, spoken grammar.

Just to give you an idea, here’s an example of ‘neither do I’ in the BBC series Sherlock (episode 1, season 2):

Mycroft Holmes: My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher and yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?
Dr. John Watson: I don’t know.
Mycroft Holmes: Neither do I. But initially, he wanted to be a pirate.

Or tag questions, such as this example from Mad Men (season 2, episode 1)

Driver to Betty: ‘It would be, wouldn’t it?, or ‘… I could say no, couldn’t I?’

I find that watching a short extract (up to about two minutes) out of a film when characters use a structure or a grammar point you are working on brings a whole new perspective to your lesson – you see that the grammar you are learning is not just something you have to study because it’s in the book – you need to study this because people who speak English as their native language use this, as you have just seen on a film. And, as a positive side effect, you might get interested in series and start watching in your free time.

Watch the first episode and list what you can write about in your diary.