English B1

Welcome to level B1

Level B1 is the first of the 2 intermediate levels of the English language, people with this level are able to:

· Is able to understand the main points of clear texts and in standard language if they deal with issues that are familiar to him, whether in work, study or leisure situations.

· Knows how to deal with most of the situations that may arise during a trip through areas where the language is used.

· Is able to produce simple and coherent texts on topics that are familiar to him or in which he has a personal interest.

· You can describe experiences, events, wishes and aspirations, as well as justify your opinions or explain your plans.

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El nivel B1 es el primer de los 2 niveles intermedios del idioma inglés, las personas con este nivel son capaces de:

·         Es capaz de comprender los puntos principales de textos claros y en lengua estándar si tratan sobre cuestiones que le son conocidas, ya sea en situaciones de trabajo, de estudio o de ocio.

·         Sabe desenvolverse en la mayor parte de las situaciones que pueden surgir durante un viaje por zonas donde se utiliza la lengua.

·         Es capaz de producir textos sencillos y coherentes sobre temas que le son familiares o en los que tiene un interés personal.

·         Puede describir experiencias, acontecimientos, deseos y aspiraciones, así como justificar brevemente sus opiniones o explicar sus planes.

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Grammar (gramática)

Educational websites (Sitios web esducativos)

In this section you will find 2 educational websites focused on the B1 level, the material on these sites is very good at the grammar level and we know it will work for you.

these 2 sites are:

• La web del ingles
• Idiomium

(en esta sección encontraras 2 sitios web educativos enfocados en el nivel B1, el material de estos sitios es muy bueno a nivel de gramática y sabemos que te va a funcionar)

estos 2 sitios son:

• La web del ingles
• Idiomium

La web del ingles

It is a website that has a large amount of material at different levels and different skills, especially in B1 grammar.

(es una página web que cuenta con gran cantidad de material en distintos niveles y distintas competencias, especialmente en gramática B1)

Idiomiun

It is a website created by a language teacher who has a lot of material in vocabulary and grammar at different levels.

(es una página web creada por un docente lenguas qué cuenta con mucho material en vocabulario y gramática en distintos niveles)

Grammar exercise (ejercicios de gramatica)

In this section you will find different practical exercises to test your English grammar level B1, you just have to go to the links that you will find, they will take you directly to the activities. Don't forget to come back and leave a comment with your result.

(en esta sección vas a encontrar diferentes ejercicios prácticos para poner a prueba tu nivel de gramática en inglés B1, solo debes redirigirte a los links que vas a encontrar, te llevaran directo a las actividades. no olvides regresar y dejar un comentario con tu resultado)

https://test-english.com/grammar-points/b1/present-simple-present-continuous/

https://test-english.com/grammar-points/b1/present-perfect-simple-present-perfect-continuous/

https://test-english.com/grammar-points/b1/comparative-superlative-adjectives-adverbs/

https://test-english.com/grammar-points/b1/future-forms/

 

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Reading (lectura)

In this section you will find media content and some texts, that could help you to improve your level of English in the area of Reading.

(en esta sección vas a encontrar contenidos multimedia y algunos textos que podrán ayudarte a mejorar tu nivel de inglés en el área de lectura)

Chocolate town for chocolate workers

If you love chocolate, maybe you have eaten a bar of Cadbury’s Bournville chocolate. But Bournville isn’t just the name of an English chocolate bar. It’s the name of a village which was built especially for workers at the Cadbury’s chocolate factory.
George and Richard Cadbury took over the cocoa and chocolate business from their father in 1861. A few years later, they decided to move the factory out of the centre of Birmingham, a city in the middle of England, to a new location where they could expand. They chose an area close to the railways and canals so that they could receive milk deliveries easily and send the finished products to stores across the country.

Here, the air was much cleaner than in the city centre, and the Cadbury brothers thought it would be a much healthier place for their employees to work. They named the site Bournville after a local river called ‘The Bourn’. ‘Ville’, the French word for town, was used because at the time, people thought French chocolate was the highest quality. The new factory opened in 1879. Close to it, they built a village where the factory workers could live. By 1900, there were 313 houses on the site, and many more were built later.

The Cadbury family were religious and believed that it was right to help other people. They thought their workers deserved to live and work in good conditions. In the factory, workers were given a fair wage, a pension and access to medical treatment. The village was also designed to provide the best possible conditions for workers too. The houses, although traditional in style, had modern interiors, indoor bathrooms and large gardens. The village provided everything that workers needed including a shop, a school and a community centre where evening classes were held to train young members of the workforce.

Since the Cadbury family believed that their workers and their families should be fit and healthy, they added a park with hockey and football pitches, a running track, bowling green, fishing lake, and an outdoor swimming pool. A large clubhouse was built in the park so that players could change their clothes and relax after a game. Dances and dinners were also held here for the factory workers, who were never charged to use any of the sports facilities. However, because the Cadbury’s believed that alcohol was bad for health and society, no pubs were ever built in Bourneville!

The Cadbury brothers were among the first business owners to ensure that their workers had good standards of living. Soon, other British factory owners were copying their ideas by providing homes and communities for their workers designed with convenience and health in mind. Today, over 25,000 people live in Bournville village. There are several facilities there to help people with special needs, such as care homes for the elderly, a hostel for people with learning difficulties and affordable homes for first-time homeowners and single people. Over a hundred years since the first house in Bournville Village was built, the aims of its founders are still carried out.

The arm of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is probably the most famous icon of the USA. It was built to celebrate the end of slavery, and later became a symbol for freedom among immigrants. The statue depicts Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. And the torch she carries high above her outstretched arm represents a light that guides people along the path to freedom. Interestingly, however, Liberty looks different from the way the designer first intended.

The idea for the statue came from a poet, Édouard de Laboulaye. When the American Civil war ended, he wanted to commemorate the end of the slave trade with a gift. He and other people who opposed slavery raised money and hired a sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, to design the statue. Bartholdi later employed the French engineer, Gustave Eiffel, to devise its structure. Eiffel, who would subsequently build the famous tower in Paris, was already a well-known designer of railway bridges. So he knew how to build robust structures that are flexible and safe in strong winds. This feature was necessary because the winds in New York harbor are extremely strong. Today, the top of her torch swings over 15cm when the wind is blowing at 50 miles per hour.

Eiffel designed the statue to be built around a massive metal skeleton, similar to the Eiffel tower. Huge pieces of copper were fixed onto this to form its shape. Until recently, two copies of the plans were believed to exist. But recently, a third copy was discovered, which revealed some interesting information. In 2018, a map dealer bought some historic papers at an auction in Paris, which included original plans, calculations, and drawings of the statue. At first, the documents were too fragile to read. But after special treatment, the papers clearly showed that Eiffel’s plans had been changed by Bartholdi with red ink. Liberty’s arm, which was thick and vertical in Eiffel’s drawing, was adjusted to be slimmer, less upright, and generally more attractive than Eiffels’ design.

The changes in the plans are dated July 28, 1882, after the construction of the tower had begun. We don’t know what Eiffel thought of Bartholdi’s changes. By then, Eiffel was working on other projects, and only his assistants were working with Bartholdi in New York. Maybe Bartholdi thought he could make the changes because Eiffel was not there and would not complain.

However, the changes made the arm not only more attractive but also weaker, which has created problems over the years. At first, visitors could climb a ladder to the torch in Liberty’s arm, but in 1916, there was an explosion on a nearby island. It damaged the statue and made it unsafe, and the stairway to the torch has been closed ever since. During restoration work in the 1980s, engineers noticed that the structure inside Liberty’s head, shoulders, and arm were different from how they were shown on Eiffel’s plans. They thought that the builders had made mistakes, but some historians believed that Bartholdi had changed Eiffel’s design. The newly discovered papers confirm those theories.

Welcome to the home of the future

The 2009 British Homes Awards challenged the industry to design a house that can adapt to different life stages.
The participants were asked to rethink the construction and design of individual homes, so that they were easily adaptable to less mobile inhabitants, and also to create communities in which ageing occupants could continue to enjoy shared amenities.
The top design also had to be attractive to its potential buyers, because the competition was put to the public vote.
The winner, gaining 12,000 votes from Mail on Sunday readers, was the strikingly modern SunnySideUp, designed by Kosi Architects. Here are its three main features:
 
1. Upside Down House
The architects took as a starting point the accepted norm for a house – rows of houses facing onto streets crammed with cars, with living rooms on the ground floor and bedrooms above. Then they scrapped it.
They ended up with the living room, dining room and kitchen on the top floor where they can benefit from the light and views, and maximise energy efficiency. And they put the bedrooms on the ground floor where the garden aspect gives inhabitants increased privacy, and a cool temperature is maintained throughout the day. The two floors are linked by wide, gentle gradient stairs, which are designed to allow for a stair lift to be fitted if necessary as owners age.
 
2. Concealed Parking Spaces
But the feature that, according to Warren Rosing, one of the Kosi architects responsible for the design, was particularly popular with the public, is actually the parking.
In a SunnySideUp development no one has to look out onto a street full of cars, or worry about their kids being run over, because the terrace zone at the first floor level link all the homes and is a car-free zone.
Vehicles are tucked away on the lower floor, leaving safe and pleasant spaces outside the houses for people to meet, and kids to play.
A lift takes people directly from garage to living area, so that all residents, including the elderly and those with heavy shopping, can move comfortably between the floors. The natural feel of the front area is enhanced by the planters that are placed outside the kitchens at the front to encourage residents to grow vegetables and flowers where they can be seen.
The idea is that not only would they look pretty, but they would be a talking point, encouraging interaction between residents on the terrace area outside.
 
3. Flexible Spaces
But it’s the fact that the space is designed to adapt to the changing needs, including the fluctuating income of its owners, that makes it a thought-provoking, as well as a winning, design.
The lower-floor bedrooms have separate outdoor access so they can be easily let. The idea is that owners can get some extra money to pay for their mortgages during the first years. And later in the future, those bedrooms can be used as a granny flat, or an office, and can easily be converted into a separate one-bed flat if your kids won’t leave home.
And if more space is required, as well as the usual loft that can be converted, there is potential for a gallery floor to be inserted in the living room.
 
4. Where can you get one?
At the moment the SunnySideUp house is still just a set of drawings. But Warren Rosing says, “We are hoping to have it built.”
The organisers are in talks with builders, but due to  the economic climate it may take longer than we would like.”Weʼre sure it will be worth the wait” they say

In these links you will find 2 texts with their respective evaluations,so you can test your reading comprehension.

(en estos enlaces encontraras 2 textos con su respectiva evaluación, para que pruebes tu comprensión lectora)

https://lingua.com/es/ingles/lectura/thanksgiving/

https://lingua.com/es/ingles/lectura/valentines-day/

Videos with subtitles (videos con subtitulos)            

The purpose of the videos is to improve your Reading skills,ideally, you should focus on the subtitles and waht you understand from them

(El propósito de estos videos es mejorar tus habilidades de lectura, lo ideal es que te enfoques en los subtítulos y lo que comprendes de ellos)

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Speaking (habla)

Conversations (conversaciones)

With the purpose of improving your speaking skills and perfecting your listening, we have selected some videos with conversations for you to practice.

(con el proposito de mejorar tus habilidades de speaking y perfeccionar tu listening hemos seleccionado unos videos con conversaciones para que practiques.)