Word of the Day: to Lose Weight

11 May 2011Funny Stuff, Pictures, Word of the Dayeating, food, fun, losing weight, onlinetools, photograph, vocabularyCristina Cabal

Never have I seen so many people around me trying to lose some weight . Spring must be the season when we realize there is no way we will be able to hide our love handles (excess fat around the hips and buttocks, sometimes also called saddle bags– I imagine they are called this way when they are big and ugly) .

Anyway, when it is not summertime and you’re not looking your best, you can always use this funny tool to make you look thinner, even though you haven’t bothered to go on a diet to lose a bit of weight or go to the gym to sweat off your excess of baggage in the treadmill.

The tool I was telling you about is called slimpic.com and with only a few clicks, you can make yourself or someone in your pictures gain or lose weight (the point here is losing weight, we don’t need to go to the Internet searching for tools to make us look uglier, do we?).

Me, before and with 10kgs less! if only it were so easy!

Swayable: a picture survey

5 May 2011Create your own stuff, Writing skillhomework, onlinetools, speaking, writingCristina Cabal

In my neverending quest to integrate technology in my classes I have stumbled upon this little tool , Swayable, which is mainly intended to create surveys with the added feature of allowing you to upload an image from your computer or use one from the web which is, in my humble opinion, its best feature as it heightens its potential in the classroom.

I have been thinking it could be very useful when explaining comparatives or when asking students to write about the advantages or disadvantages of a certain issue.

Once published you can embed it in your blog and the students can write in the form of comments (you have to click just below the picture where it says “Click to Sway) to your Swayable.

The first example is for students to practise the comparative and the second for them to practise writing about the advantages and disadvantages of, in this case, working and studying.
And then it follows a little tutorial to help you ceate your own Swayable

Embedr: a nice way to create playlists

2 May 2011Audio, Create your own stuff, freeware, ResourcesCristina Cabal

Time flies , doesn’t it? It’s already May and the end of the course is getting closer. Students and teachers are beginning to feel the pressure of time running out when we still have so many things to teach or learn.

So, to give my students a break I intend to take them to the computer room to do some listening on the Royal Wedding but…. I don’t want them to just go to youtube and search for clips at random. And this is where this little tool comes handy.

It is called Embedr and it allows you to create your own playlist of videos and then embed them in your website or blog. This way, you won’t have to worry about students getting the wrong videos.

Memidex: more than a dictionary

27 April 2011DictionariesdictionariesCristina Cabal

Memidex is a free online dictionary and thesaurus with a simple interface, complete inflections, auto-suggest, adult-filtering, frequent updates, a browsable index, support for mobile devices, and millions of external reference links for definitions, audio, and etymology. It’s fast too. Use the Find box for exact matching or browse using the complete index

Voice Recognition Elevator- Eleven

25 April 2011Funny Stuff, Phoneticsfun, lift, pronunciation, Scottish, videoCristina Cabal

Some time ago I went to Edinburgh to do a course for teachers. I spent about a fortnight enjoying the city and struggling to understand Scottish people.

I remember that on my last day there was a girl on Princess Street, which is Edinburgh’s main street, trying to sell flowers. She was shouting, like mad, two or three words. I stopped and decided not to move ‘till I could grasp what she was saying. It was important for me at that time. I can’t tell you, without running the risk of lying, the time I spent staring at her mouth trying to see what my ears couldn’t hear but in the end, I convinced myself that she was saying something on the line of “three for a bunch” , but to be completely honest, I think I tricked myself into believing I could finally understand the Scottish accent!
Why is it so difficult to understand Scottish Pronunciation? To start with, English has 5 more vowels sounds. Scottish people don’t pronounce the schwa as English people do, for example, the pronunciation of the vowel in “the” is the same as the one in “sit”; they don’t make long /o/, for them, “cot” and “caught” are both pronounced with short /o/. What is more, the diphthong in “coat” is also pronounced as /kot/ and the vowel in “heard” is the same as the vowel in “bet”. There is no /æ/-/ɑː/ distinction so bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel
And finally /ɪ/ may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like [ɛ] Other speakers may pronounce it as [ɪ], just like in many other accents, or with a schwa ([ə]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as [ʌ] in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/. ( from Wikipedia)

And now, after this boring explanation, watch this hilarious clip in which two Scottish guys get stuck in a lift which uses voice recognition for selecting the floor.