DERMOT McGrath
¿Who is Dermot McGrath?
Dermot McGrath is Irish from Cork. He is a language instructor and methodologist. He began his professional career at Berlitz/Inlingua in Madrid in the nineteen-seventies, where he became Director of Studies. He moved to Catalonia at the end of that decade and founded a language school in Tarragona, La Casa Irlandesa, which prompted him to begin writing his own methodology. Later, he founded the academy Celtic House.
More than 100,000 students have used his pedagogical system to do the official University of Cambridge EFL exams.
His interactive method, Linguapuncture, is used in many public and private educational centres in Spain. In 2013 he signed a collaborative agreement with the University of Cambridge with the objective of preparing students online for official English exams, particularly the First Certificate.
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My team
We are a small, but very efficient team…The best team of teachers
Dermot McGrath
That’s me! I’m from Cork, Ireland. I am happy to present my team of great teachers whom I am proud of. I’m a language methodogist but I teach too so I’ll be seeing you soon.
Carlos
was born in Catalonia but lived in Vermont, USA, from an early age. He returned to his native Tarragona in 2009. He has been a teacher for 15 years. He joined the team in 2011.
Olga
is from Holland. She studied both in USA and England and has taught in South America. She’s a dynamic teacher. She is a First-certificate expert and is also our online presenter.
Paul
comes from Scotland. He’s one of our First-certificate experts with wide experience. There are few better exponents of the rich Scottish accent than Paul on the teaching scene.
Chris
hails from Richmond, Virginia. Despite his young age, he is a highly-skilled teacher who has achieved excellent results in the classroom. Like Elizabeth he specialises in TOEFL.
Elizabeth
was born and bred in Minnisota, USA. She is our longest-serving teacher and she is also assistant methodologist to Dermot. She specializes in Cambridge exam preparation.
Zach
is always joking. He is a great favourite, especially among the younger pupils. He is a tremendously resourceful teacher. He specializes in TOEFL, and originates from Maryland, USA.
Jessica
is a native of Ohio, USA. She specialises both in P.E.T and F.C.E and is passionate about her job. She is also an expert in TOEFL. Currently she assists Olga in video class presentation.
Rachel
of English nationality, is an outstanding teacher. She is extremely dedicated and highly popular with all the students. Like Molly, she is an expert P.E.T teacher.
Molly
is a native of Hampshire, U.K. Although still very young, she has a great flair for teaching and is highly popular with her students. Along with Rachel she specialises in Pet-certificate.
My team
Somos un equipo pequeño pero muy eficaz…The best team of Teachers
Dermot McGrath
That’s me! I’m from Cork, Ireland. I am happy to present my team of great teachers whom I am proud of. I’m a language methodogist but I teach too so I’ll be seeing you soon.
Olga
is from Holland. She studied both in USA and England and has taught in South America. She’s a dynamic teacher. She is a First-certificate expert and is also our online presenter.
Molly
is a native of Hampshire, U.K. Although still very young, she has a great flair for teaching and is highly popular with her students. Along with Rachel she specialises in Pet-certificate.
Carlos
is Catalan but lived in Vermont, USA, from an early age. He returned to his native Tarragona in 2009. He has been a teacher for 15 years. He joined the team in 2011.
Paul
comes from Scotland. He’s one of our First-certificate experts with wide experience. There are few better exponents of the rich Scottish accent than Paul on the teaching scene.
Elizabeth
was born and bred in Minnisota, USA. She is our longest-serving teacher and she is also assistant methodologist to Dermot. She specializes in Cambridge exam preparation.
Chris
hails from Richmond, Virginia. Despite his young age, he is a highly-skilled teacher who has achieved excellent results in the classroom. Like Elizabeth he specialises in TOEFL.
Jessica
is a native of Ohio, USA. She specialises both in P.E.T and F.C.E and is passionate about her job. She is also an expert in TOEFL. Currently she assists Olga in video class presentation.
Rachel
of English nationality, is an outstanding teacher. She is extremely dedicated and highly popular with all the students. Like Molly, she is an expert P.E.T teacher.
Zach
is always joking. He is a great favourite, especially among the younger pupils. He is a tremendously resourceful teacher. He specializes in TOEFL, and originates from Maryland, USA.
EVERY MOMENT COUNTS
Many of the following titles are available in larger bookshops in the main cities of mainland Spain. They can also be found on Amazon.
If you are interested in a particular title and are having problems finding it, please contact us.
Most of the following titles have been modified (or are in the process of being modified) to PDF and ePub format. These books will soon be available in an interactive format and therefore suitable for reading on Kindle, laptops and mobile phones.
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Please check the other books
The good news about the Future in English is that it doesn’t inflect like the present (go – goes) and past (go-went) and just puts WILL before the verb in all its cases (I-you-he-she-it-we-you-they WILL go). The not very good news is that English has many ways to express the future, for ex. I’m going, I’m going to go, I shall/will be going and more. You can practise all the variants in this entertaining book.
Can – could – may – might – must – shall – should - will and would. You probably know the theory for Modal Verb usage but can you use them orally without thinking? This book with its introductory mini-tutorial is ideal to prepare you for the 100 exercises that follow. Oh, and we haven’t forgotten the odd modals like ought, dare and need as well as had better and semi-modal have to.
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Adverbs tell us in what way someone carries out an action. We say they modify the verb (drive carefully). But adverbs can also modify other adverbs (very badly) or adjectives (exceptionally good).Not all words ending in -ly are adverbs; there are many exceptions. These include the irregular adverbs like good/BAD, fast/FAST. There is a mini-tutorial in this book before passing on to the exercises.
Question tags are formed with the ordinary auxiliary (he plays tennis, doesn’t he?) or modal auxiliary verb (he can’t play tennis, can he?) in a statement except when the main verb is BE (she’s French, isn’t she?). A positive statement is followed by a negative question tag (she’s French, isn’t she?).and a negative statement by a positive tag (she’s not French, is she?). Here you have 100 exercises to cover all possible variants.
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THERE TO BE is a strange verb. It means that something exists somewhere. You rarely say in its infinitive form but otherwise you never stop saying it, THERE is/isn’t, are/aren’t, were/weren’t, will be. There are … 100 great exercises in this book which teach you all the more complicated forms of THERE TO BE like There seem to be more people here tonight. (seem/have must agree with the subject):
The present perfect is a grammatical tense formed by the auxiliary verb have and the past participle of a main verb. Its main purpose is to express a past action which has present consequences (Chelsea have won the league twice this century). In this book we contrast it with the present simple tense (Chelsea won the league in 2003 and 2114). 100 exercises follow the mini-tutorial in this book.
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Relative pronouns are not fun but they can be a lot more fun than just relatives! But come on and meet my relatives anyhow. We have the twins who and whom as well as which and whose. That is the black sheep of the family, so common! And whomsoever is sooo formal, just a big snob! Oh, and you’ll also meet the first cousins what, when and where. Loads of exercises here!
If you like maths then the 3 conditionals are easy-peasy. They are virtually mathematical in construction, e.g. 1) If I like it I will do it (present + future tense), 2) If i liked it, I would do it (past tense + would) and 3) If i had liked it, I would have done it (had and past participle + would, have and past participle). Find lots of exercises here.
Please check the other books
There are different types of mixed conditional sentence. The most common one has a type 3 conditional in the If clause but the result is present and put into a type 2 clause: “If I had done the lotto I would be rich now”. You have a mini tutorial in this book and lots of examples before you start on the exercises.
My passion…
Do you know what?… I’ve written more than 100 books.
Apart from those above, here are some others:
More about Dermot
BREAKING THROUGH THE THOUGHT BARRIER
Your goal will be to reach Error Zero consistently.
Passive mode 
1. Check pupil’s knowledge
2. Identify her/his mistakes
3. Revise/Correct errors on paper
4. Student assimilates/consolidates corrections
5. Online teacher establishes pupil’s level is good…
– in order to continue in Active mode
Active mode 
1. Do exercise of 25 questions
2. Select time for response
3. If you don’t get 25/25, repeat the exercise
4. You must answer all questions correctly
5. If not, repeat the exercise until you do
6. Only then, select a shorter time response
7. When all answers are correct, continue reducing time
8. Reach time response of 5 seconds. Repeat exercise.
9. If you get 25 questions out of 25…
10. You have BROKEN THROUGH THE THOUGHT BARRIER! CONGRATULATIONS!!!
11. Continue practising to achieve complete fluency
Career highlights
In the early 1970s , Dermot McGrath published several crosswords in the London Evening News which boasted 2.5 million readers.
Between 2011 and 2014, more than 100,000 students worldwide signed up for his Cambridge EFL exam preparation courses. The majority of these users are Spanish, Italian or Portuguese-speaking.
He is the creator of the learning techinque Linguapuncture – Breaking Through the Thought Barrier, a highly original approach to language teaching which has been adopted into many classrooms in Spain, both in the private and public sector.
His methodology covers books, essays, videos, courses, tutorials, board games and crosswords. He has written several treatises on comparative language analysis.
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
In 2014 Linguagpuncture signed a collaborative agreement with the University of Cambridge, the purpose of which was to provide bona fide online preparation for the many thousands of students studying for the official EFL exams of this renowned institution.
Passing one of the Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) exams certifies proficiency in English of a non-native speaker.
In the photo, Dermot McGrath (Linguapuncture) and Tom Wogan (University of Cambridge) at the signing of the agreement.