Category Archives: English

Discover Your *Top 10* True Core Values – We want to hear from you

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An excellent video in which the person speaks very clearly about a particular topic. As your English develops, you need to be able to speak about more complex subjects using more complex and advanced vocabulary. Importantly, it’s not the accent that matters, it’s the clarity which you need to aim for. And for those who are watching out of curiosity, what you say, counts too.

Task?: Write down your core values below. Come on, show us you understand the video, and write about it. We want to hear from you ‘the people’!

How To Write Reviews Of Gadgets – Teaching Ideas

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Learning steps:
Step 1: Play the video and just listen to it. Make notes if you want.
Step 2: Try to answer the questions below.
Step 3: If you can’t remember everything, play the video again
Step 4: Try to answer the questions again.
Step 5: Now think about the video. Did you like it? Was it boring or exciting? Was it clear?
Activities:
What three things do you need to write a gadget?
How many steps are there?
Can you remember two steps?
How much does the average family spend on gadgets a year?
After the video has finished:
Write a few questions about the video to ask your classmates/friends/colleagues
What does tech-savvy mean? Are you tech-savvy? Discuss with your classmates/friends/colleagues

How to never lose your luggage – Teaching ideas

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Students, watch/see, listen, write, read and speak (see below)

[howcast url=’http://www.howcast.com/videos/2997-How-To-Never-Lose-Your-Luggage’ height=’240′ width=’360′]

There are no published materials out there that easily combine video and use this as a starting point for teaching language.

Here’s an idea: (1) Students watch/listen to the video, (2) They make notes of what they hear (listen to), (3) They then write down some questions relating to their notes, (4) They ask their classmates or instructor questions about the video. So, the process is as follows: Watch/see, listen, make notes, write questions based on information collected, read out questions and then speak.

European English :))

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European English:
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as ”Euro-English” .

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Back to work – A new academic year begins

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“First, thank you to whoever took this photograph. The black and white backdrop, the papers on the desk, the telephone. They all nicely depict how I would describe my desk, and my day! A lot of things to think about as the new academic year begins, new challenges, re-visiting ideas and looking through my increasingly longer ‘articles-to-write’ list. Of course in the new world of professional networking, it’s imperative to ‘link-up’ with people who share the same passions, wherever they are in our increasingly intertwined close-knit world. It’s going to be fun and I’m looking forward to the ride. Have a good year fellow educators. And for the rest, if you’re not an active student, why not think about learning something new?”

Eid greetings at the end of Ramadan 2011

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End of Ramadan comment:

If every individual in the world was to fast for a period of 29/30 days in a year, and take out five, five-minute slots a day to genuinely reflect on what the purpose of life was, would the world become a better place? Could wars and social injustice be defeated? Would the waste that humanity produces be reduced? Would anything really negative transpire? Whilst we continue to create our new ‘imagined needs’ to forever become our focus of operandi  and convince ourselves that we are the kings of our destiny and that destiny, time and world resources are in fact slaves to our desires,  are we leading ourselves to a self-belief that we can conquer and overcome ‘mother-nature’? If we can defeat death, then indeed we may well profess that we are Gods, but until we can do so, then we are mortals. There is an end….but is this end potentially the beginning to an even better ‘life’?  Now ask yourself this question. Are you genuinely open-minded and going to challenge your assumptions about life (meaning you need to put to one side all preconceived ideas) with the possibility of opening up a new positive paradigm, or are you going to be closed-minded and let things just take their course?