Tag Archives: video

Film mistakes,goofs and bloopers

Lesson Plan: Advanced, Listening, , , ,

Have no fear of perfection- you’ll never reach it! Salvador Dalí

We all make mistakes from time to time, don’t we? But of course! We are all humans after all. Sometimes the mistakes we make are not too significant, some other times they are pretty serious but the good thing is that we always learn from our mistakes, don’t we? Well, there are, of course, those who think they can do nothing wrong and those who never do anything and therefore, never make mistakes! But for me, I am willing to make mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them.


Today we are going to put all our attention on film mistakes. The film industry is a huge industry and everybody working there has a role to fulfil, from filmmakers to production crews and many more. What is more, there is usually a lot of money involved in making a film. However, film mistakes are there for everybody to see.

Have you ever thought how much work goes behind the scenes in order to make a film as realistic and authentic as possible? Unfortunately, no matter how hard people working in the film industry try, mistakes which they should have noticed always manage to turn up. Even worse, when the film is released, there are people who actually make a point of looking for these mistakes. Are you one of these?

Spot these mistakes by watching this video.

 

Want to learn English through music? Lyrics Training helps you

Audio, In the Computer Room, Listening, Music, Resources, , , , ,

Do you want to learn English and/or French, Italian, German… through music? Well, if this is so, this is your place. This cool site is called Lyrics Training and it’s just amazing and hear this ,free to use!

This is how it works: at the bottom on the right-hand side you can see some lyrics, choose according to your level. There are three: easy, medium and hard. Then, when the window with the song you’ve chosen opens up, choose your mode; again, there are three, beginner,(fill in the blanks10%), intermediate (25%) and expert (full lyrics).

Now, this is what you’ll see if you choose  the song Tell him  in the beginner mode.  One of the best things is that if you get to a word and you can’t understand it or if it goes too fast, it will stop until the blank has been filled. The song literally WAITS for YOU!!!

But there’s even more. If you click on HELP at the bottom you can see what else the programme can do for you. Let’s imagine that you want to listen to the same line again, press Backspace, and if you are still unable to understand the word, don’t worry, just press TAB and the word will be written for you. Aren’t you dying to give it a go!!

Lesson Plan : Fawlty Towers

Lesson Plan: Elementary, Listening, ,

I’m sure, dear reader, that you already know that I’ve got a temporary new job and when I say temporary I really mean it and it’s not that I’m not happy teaching teenagers (some of them are great to teach), it’s that SOME teenagers spoil all the fun. On second thoughts, I think I probably shouldn’t have written about my feelings so early in the course because I might end up feeling completely fulfilled teaching people who don’t want to learn  and you already know how the saying goes” People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” ( in Spanish… no se puede escupir para arriba… in case you haven’t guessed. Anyway, I’ve never been politically correct.

So, this change of career has brought about some other changes in my life and though I can hardly call myself a couch potato, the truth is that I watch more TV now than I used to. Even though, I cannot bring myself to swallow just anything on TV (and I’m sure you all know the kind of programmes I’m talking about) there are some sitcoms I enjoy.

Some time ago I told you about one of my favourites, The IT Crowd(post here and listening exercise here) and today I want to tell you about Fawlty Towers, probably the best-known ,most-loved, funniest British sitcoms ever produced in Great Britain (BBC 70’s) . The setting is a fictional hotel named Fawlty Towers and the main characters are the irascible Basil Fawlty, owner of the hotel, his domineering wife Sybil and Manuel and the funny Spanish waiter form Barcelona.
With only 12 episodes produced, Fawlty Towers has become a classic and though every episode is worth watching,  Communication Problems is probably one of my favourites.

I have chosen this 1 minute video for my elementary students to practise

I’m …… (English). I speak …… (English)
How are you? I’m fine , thank you

Now, if you want to do a listening comprehension about this video , click here

Lesson Plan: Verb “to be” and Interrogative Pronouns

Lesson Plan: Elementary, , , ,

It’s never  easy to find stimulating real-life   activities for elementary students but on one of the few ocassions I was watching TV  this week  I saw a TV commercial that  I thought I could use to revise the verb “to be” with my elementary students.
The ad campaign for 212VIP CH is led by the top Australian model Catherine McNeil and accompanying her on the TV commercial is Spanish model Jon Kortajarena. Enjoy!!

And now, let’s concentrate on Interrogative Pronouns with the help of the  invaluable Photopeach. This is for my youngest students .I hope it helps you !!