Little Red Riding Hood

Christmas is time for kids ... and for their moms and dads learning English! We told the Little Red Riding Hood in full detail in L3, now it's L2's turn to read the story!Click on "full screen" to see the subtitles.
**By the way.... did you notice that the wolf says 'Where are you going'? and that all the tenses, regular and irregular verbs, are in the past?

Merry Christmas!

READ the article in CCRTV.
READ TIME Magazine

 We had a good laugh yesterday with those of you who came to the EOI's Christmas party. So now it's time to just relax, have fun  and...

Jon Bon Jovi - Please Come Home For Christmas .mp3

Found at bee mp3 search engine

Merry Christmas !

December

December seems o be packed with important dates.
Just the other day Nelson Mandela died. Called a 'terrorist' by Margaret Thatcher, and imprisoned for 27 years, he is now acclaimed as the leader who put an end to apartheid in South Africa.



L3: WATCH this BBC video
 
On Dec. 1st 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for civil disobedience: she refused to give up her seat to a white man:

• READ the story 
• Chronology or The Civil Rights movement
• a video biography on the mother of the Civil Rights movement in America

On December 8th 1980, John Lennon was shot dead in front of his home
WATCH the BBC documentary on the day John Lennon was killed.

BBC Learning English

"Listening, listening, listening.... I'm so bad at listening, I can't understand a word!!!"
BBC Learning English is an EXCELLENT page to practice English, listening in particular. It's got lots of things:

• The Flatmates is an audio series, each chapter is very short, with script, language points, vocabulary, quizz, etc. 
• You can also try WORDS IN THE NEWS, which is usually a short text + audio and explanation of words. 
• Or the 6-minute-English (audio or video) also with script and the possibility to download it. 

This, and many other things, at the BBC learning English page.
A bit more challenging (L3)?

• CNN Student News
• Newsy

Both are excellent sites for news of the world, transcript included.

 Don't you have 6 minutes for your English?

No Shopping Day

As we were saying the other day, time flies. We were sunbathing on the beach a couple of weeks ago and now Christmas is just round the corner. And what is Christmas about? Shopping, of course. In order to make people aware that we live in a consumer society and that you don't actually need half of what you buy, Buy nothing day is celebrated every Nov. 20th.

• WATCH the 2010 video , which was very interesting.

'Buy nothing day' tries to counterbalance the craze of Black Friday, the day that signals the start of the shopping season in the USA, and that can be as dangerous as this.

Or you may be lucky and find a cash machine that gives you free money...

ATM Machine Malfunctions and Gives Double the Money

KEY WORDS
Waiting in line/ Twice the amount of money/ someone twitted/ shut down the machine/ apologize for the inconvenience

So before you fall into the Christmas shopping frenzy (in spite of the crisis) think that you can concentrate on learning English -it's safer, it's free,  and you can even save money!

Minimal Pairs

Chess? Cheese? Beach? .....? Pronunciation IS important. This story, already a classic by now, is particularly funny and illustrative of how a sound can completely change the meaning of a word (By the way,  sorry about the dirty words -I hope nobody takes offence ...:-)



  These words (Sheep/ship) are called “minimal pairs” (pairs of words which differ in only one 'sound' (phoneme) and have different meanings. Here (and in your book CD) you have many other good examples:
  http://www.shiporsheep.com/page1.html  (just put the cursor on the words, don't click on them)

Halloween

Some Halloween jokes ....

 

• ... the History of Halloween : Read about the  origins of Halloween and see in which way it is similar to our traditions.
  

•  ...and a classic for Halloween, Michael Jackson's THRILLER, the complete story,  with Vincent Price, the master of horror stories and movies, in the rap (read lyrics here) , You'll recognize his laugh HERE
  

  Happy Halloween, or castanyada, or whatever you celebrate!

Lou Reed: A tribute

Lou Reed with Soul Asylum - Sweet Jane .mp3

Found at bee mp3 search engine

 Sweet Jane, the lyrics

The driving ban

Back to a real video: Have you ever been to Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia is the only country were women can't drive. They are allowd to ride a camel but they are banned from driving a car,  and this is one of the many things they don't like.


Do you need the transcript?
What's a "ban"? An official prohibition

• KEY WORDS: to ban, marching in the streets, threats, human rights. 
• READ:What Saudi Women can and cannot do

Boring Vegetables?

How healthy is your diet? Some of you said the other day that vegetables are boring. Are you eating enough vegetables? This video is part of the British National Health Service (NHS) campaign to encourage people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.  Courgette, lettuce, cucumber, peas, chick peas, carrots, celery ...so many colours and tastes and textures... how can they be boring? You'll find some tips on how to include them in your diet: 

• Questions and Answers:  How Healthy is your diet?
• What did you eat yesterday? The test
• And a more challenging video (with transcript!) for L3:
•  Mcdonad's adds calorie count to menus . Would you order that Big Mac if you knew the amount of calories you are about  to eat?

*By the way, an easy recipe for eggplant parmesan ...with a heavy Italian accent!

What are you like?

 

Words and explanations here
What are you like?
Take The World's shortest Personality Test: Short but accurate.

 In Level 3 we talked about how birth order can influence your personality. Are you a firstborn? a middlechild?,  lastborn , or an only child?

WATCH this video . No transcript but some key words here:   
Natural leader, siblings, an only child, twins, goody-goody, strengths and weaknesses,  adopted,  they don't take criticism very well, leadership roles, romantic capabilities, real evidence, narcissistic relationship, highly compatible relationship.

Hope you know yourself a bit bettter after this!

What are they like?

We are doing descripton, both in L2 and L3.
What are the Americans like?

- Ok, so now,  What are the British like?  Longer version, first  without subtitles, second listening with subtitles.
- You can also  READ about British stereotypes.
- And finally, don't forget:
 What do they look like? Tall and handsome.
What are they like? Friendly.
What do they like? They like going to the beach

Do you agree with what people say in the videos?

Nice?

Are there any other adjectives in English apart from "good", "beautiful" and "nice"? Here you have a few. The online dictionaries can help you with their exact meaning.


Incredible, isn't it?

Do you speak English?

This is a good video to start with. It's a sketch by Simon Peggs and the Big Train Comedy. The two men are playing a PRANK on the lady who speaks English



This video is taken from English Central , which is an EXCELLENT place to practice Listening. You have to register, but it's free. There are lots of things you can do, like record yourself, read the transcript, look up words you don't understand, get help with pronunciation ... it's certainly a site worth bookmarking. Just give it a try and tell me what you think.
So old students, new students, ex students also, you are all welcome to click and try all the links in this blog -don't worry, there's nothing you can break- and you'll see there's a lot to do.
Needless to say, if you have any question, please feel free to ask.

A whale of a time

Imagine you are happily kayaking and all of a sudden ....



READ what happened
WATCH THE VIDEO:   Wow! Impressive, isn't it? Would you like to be there?

Seeing how big whales are, maybe this is the origin of the expression 'a whale of a time'.
Did you have a whale of a time this summer? Did you enjoy yourselves? Did you have a good time with your friends and/or family?
So are you ready to start the new course then ?