Now that we are up to your eyes in exams and I have just what you need. A good laugh!!
Look at this picture
If you cannot decipher anything, then try pulling the corner of your eyes as if you were Japanese. Keep
pulling until your eyes are almost closed. Can you see it now?
If you can see it without doing anything to your eyes, then … Congratulations!!
I’ve been using this pronunciation dictionary for quite a long time and I love it for several reasons:
♥ You can find almost any word here and this includes proper names as it is the world’s largest English pronouncing dictionary.
♥ You enter the word and you submit it. When it appears in pink , mouse over it to hear it spoken as often as you want. You don’t have to wait a second as it is individually pre-recorded!!
♥ You can translate the word into Spanish or any other language using the Google Translate and then get the definition for the word .
I hope you like it as much as I do.
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Isn’t it true that one of the first things that comes into your mind when you hear the word “England “is bad weather?
Contrary to the popular belief IT does NOT RAIN everyday but the thing is that talking about the weather is a national obsession and pastime . In England this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling topic, and you must be good at discussing the weather . It’s also important to learn this rule :”Never ever contradict anybody when discussing the weather” . Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot the trees from the sides of the road, and should someone remark to you: “Nice day, isn’t it?” - answer without hesitation: “Isn’t it lovely?” (adapted from How to be an Alien)
It’s therefore important that you know how to respond to comments about weather as it often seems to be the device to start a conversation. Now that you have been warned , don’t miss the opportunity to do this lesson plan I have prepared for my Advanced students on The Weather. Click here to see the whole Lesson Plan
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Thanks to Tatiana Baena , a student at Pre-intermediate level, for her hilarious speech. We really had a nice laugh listening to you.
One day, in December, I don’t know if it was one or two years ago ,a lady came into the shop. This lady wanted a black coat; she needed the coat because she had a very important party. It was a business dinner.
She wanted a cheap coat because she had a very good, expensive and pretty coat; of course she was talking about her mink coat
Well, while we were talking about the business dinner she went to the changing room and tried the black coat on. She liked it and before paying she warned me if there were any problems she would take it back and I said:” .Of course .No problem” , so she bought the coat and paid cash.
After three or four days, the lady came back with the black coat. She changed it for a black t-shirt and black trousers, we said:” see you, bye, bye”, and I put the coat on the coat stand.
When I was alone, without customers, I put the coat on the clothes rail, and I don´t know why I looked into the pocket of the coat but I found a bus ticket and a 50€ note.
I don’t know how I felt, but the best is coming.
The lady came back again after one hour. I couldn´t believe it! She wanted to try the same coat again because when she arrived home, she thought the coat fitted her very well. I saw her put her hands into the pocket and then she looked at me with a white or red face and I said with a beautiful smile :”What´s wrong?”. She didn´t tell me anything and she thanked me because I was so kind and she left.
After two months the lady came back and she asked me to forgive her for her behaviour and I returned her the 50€ note, since then she has been back to the shop every month.
If only I had known first I’d have paid more attention to my mother when she persistently tried to teach me and my siblings good table manners ,but when you are a child you can’t see the point of not getting a bit of fun out of flinging crusts of bread, making a mashed potato snowman or getting my brother and sisters’ hair red with tomato sauce (my mother would have never allowed ketchup to enter her kitchen) . 
My mother was educated in a nun’s school. It was a time when subjects such as Maths or Languages were not as important as knowing how to knit or embroider . In a way it wasn’t as different as the education received by the female characters depicted in “Jane Eyre” by Charlote Brontë or in “Pride and Prejudice” by my very much admired Jane Austen.
One of the things my mother was taught was good table manners and since me and my siblings were very young we were insistently reminded of things such as keeping elbows off the table, eating small bites ,sitting straight, placing the napkin on our laps and …. a long etc I’m not going to bore you to death with .
What I didn’t know and have just found out is that good table manners can help you lose weight so as I’m a bit on the plumpish side my mother might not have taught me so well .
That’s why I have paid careful attention to this video where Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, an Australian and an etiquette expert, explains how good table manners can help you lose weight.
Watch the video and if you have time to answer some questions or do the whole lesson plan I have prepared for my pre-intermediate students on Restaurants and Food , click here.
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The video you are about to watch is part of an activity I will be doing with my students one of these days. The videos of Mali and Dubai and all the exercises from the videos have been provided by my colleague MªJosé (visit her blog here). My only contribution has been to arrange what she so generously provided into a Lesson Plan which you will find here: Lesson Plan
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
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Bridget Jones’s New Year’s Resolutions: Lesson Plan
Music has played quite an important role in my life and I ‘m glad it also plays an important role in the rebuilding of Haiti and in giving some relief to its people. It gives me hope for the future to see so many people doing their best to help alleviate the pain and suffering of those who desperately need help .
♥ A remake of REM’s “Everybody Hurts” with Leona Lewis, Mariah Carey, Bon Jovi, Robbie Williams, Kylie, Rod Stewart, , Miley Cyrus, Take That,Mika, Michael Bublé, James Blunt, James Morrison, Susan Boyle and Westlife among others. Lyrics
♥ A remake of the 1985 “We Are The World”. The new version is titled “We Are the World - 25 for Haiti”;Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie have recruited 81 singers among which we can see the Enrique Iglesias, Celine Dion, Carlos Santana, Barbra Streisand, Jeff Bridges; Akon, Usher, Pink , The Jonas Brothers…etc.. The video will be broadcast during the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Kindly sent by Jose Manuel Hidalgo Menéndez, a student at pre-intermediate level.
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The problem with English names is that you can never be sure how to pronounce them unless you have heard them before.
The thing is that I always find myself under great pressure when I have to figure out how to pronounce an English name. People assume that just because you have some knowledge of English you are supposed to know how to pronounce every single name they come across. What they don’t seem to know is that ,in English,there are no pronunciation rules you can rely on and that there are lots of English personal and place names whose pronunciation is counter-intuitive to their spelling.
How are you supposed to guess that a name such as Happisburgh, is pronounced /heizbr∂/, for God’s sake! I would have never guessed it!
I remember some years ago I took a course in a place called Hastings (like the battle) in South West England . Before leaving for England I carefully checked how to pronounce the name /heistinz/ but when I took a taxi to take me to this vilage, to my dismay , the taxi driver pronounced the name as /hi:stinz/ and then after some time in the village I realised that the name could be pronounced in several different ways.
Anyway, here is a list of film stars whose names are frequently mispronounced: no more James Dean /james dean/, if avoidable.
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Fred Astaire
Richard Attenborough
Dan Aykroyd
Lauren Bacall
Sean Bean
Warren Beatty
Kenneth Branagh
Richard Burton
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Sean Connery
Russell Crowe
Tom Cruise
Jamie Lee Curtis
Tonny Curtis
Matt Damon
Bette Davis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Johnny Depp
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Kirk Douglas
Faye Dunnaway
Kirsten Dunst
Mia Farrow
Ralph Fiennes
Lawrence Fishburn
Clark Gable
Ava Gardner
Richard Gere
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James Mason
Walter Matthau
Victor Mature
Ian Mckellen
Marilyn Monroe
Eddie Murphy
Bill Murray
Clive Owen
Gwyneth Paltrow
Adapted from Think magazine