Your two against the log
Read out your two sentences and their repairs. Your teacher will say whether each one is in the log, and how many times something like it happened.
One question before we open the log.
1. Which kind of error is harder to notice while you are speaking?
The log
From Lesson 5 — verbatim
1. There is three shops on the left.
2. The bank is in the corner.
3. There are a chemist next to it.
4. The café is in front of the bank. — she meant across the road
5. There is lots of parking.
6. Walk in the main road for two minutes.
7. There are two cafés on the north side.
8. The stop is opposite the chemist.
Read all eight before you answer.
1. How many are completely correct?
2. Sentences 1, 3 and 5 fail for the same reason. What is it?
3. Sentence 4 is grammatically perfect. Why is it in the log?
4. What does that tell you about "correct" English?
Two families, two fixes
Family 1 — agreement
| What follows | Verb | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a singular noun | is | There is a chemist. |
| a plural noun | are | There are three shops. |
| lots of + plural | are | There are lots of shops. |
| lots of + uncountable | is | There is lots of parking. |
| a list | matches the first item | There is a bank, two cafés and a chemist. |
Note the trap in row 4. Parking, traffic, space and noise are uncountable in English — no plural, and they take is. Log sentence 5 was right after all.
Portuguese counts some of these (os ruídos, os espaços), which is exactly why they need naming.
Family 2 — the four prepositions people confuse
| Preposition | Means | Not |
|---|---|---|
in front of | before it, same side, facing it | not across a road |
opposite | across the road, facing it | not beside it |
next to | immediately beside, touching | not two doors away |
near | somewhere close — deliberately vague | never precise enough for a map |
Match each log sentence to the family it belongs to. Two belong to the same one.
Repair, then produce
The log errors plus four more of the same families. Rewrite each one in full.
1. There is three shops on the left.
2. There are a chemist next to it.
3. The bank is in the corner.
4. Walk in the main road for two minutes.
5. There is lots of good cafés here.
6. There are a lot of traffic at eight.
7. My flat is in front of the park, across the road.
8. Is there any bank near here?
No visible errors this time. One word per gap — agreement and prepositions mixed.
There a bakery right on the of my street. Two doors down, on the same side, there two cafés. Directly them, across the road, there a launderette. There a lot of traffic here in the morning, so you walk the pavement rather than the road.
The same gap, again
Task card · Speaking
Two new maps, same rules, half the time.
Ten minutes, six places each, four shared. Your teacher logs again so the two logs compare directly.
- Every claim carries a number, a side or a relation. No bare near.
- Check agreement before you speak, not after: singular or plural decides the verb.
- When you disagree, find out which of you is wrong. Do not move on.
Stop at five minutes.
1. Which family is still slipping?
2. Compared with Lesson 5, how fast are you?
Two logs
Your teacher has both counts. Answer, then hear them.
1. Did the agreement errors go down?
2. And the prepositions?
3. Which will you watch for in the voice note next lesson?
One sentence to keep
Rebuild the sentence that holds both halves of the agreement rule.
Before Lesson 7. Next lesson you record a 90-second voice note touring your neighbourhood. Tonight, walk the route once — really or in street view — and choose the six places you will name.
Six, not sixteen. Ninety seconds is short and a list is not a tour.