Tag Archives: fun

Guess What! Some cool things about the English language

The English language,

Would you like to know some cool things about the English language?

♥Guess what! The English language as we now know it began to emerge in the 14th century from a variety of dialects including Old Norse and Late West Saxon.

♥Guess what! Mandarin Chinese is the only language spoken by more people around the world than English. There seems to be , at  least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the Oxford English Dictionary.

♥Guess what! The English language grows at a rate of about one new word every two hours

♥Guess what! The oldest word in the English language is ‘town” followed by ” I” and “two”

♥Guess what! The longest one syllable word in the English language is ‘screeched‘ .

♥ Guess what! The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

♥Guess what! The word “queue” is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

 

♥Guess what! “Rhythm” is the longest English word without a vowel

♥Guess what! The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

♥Guess what! “Go” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language

♥Guess what!  The sentence “He believed Caesar could see people seizing the seas” has seven spellings of the sound [ i ].

♥Guess what! The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.Give a try!!!

I hope you have enjoyed reading these facts about the English language?

England? Great Britain? United Kingdom or maybe The British Isles?

General, ,

Have you ever wondered what’s the difference between England and Great Britain? Has it ever crossed your mind the possibility that The United Kingdom and Great Britain might  not be synonyms? I’ve come across this beautiful picture from Taste of Awesome.com, that beautifully helps clarify these  terms. I’ve just added the words Great Britain. I hope the author doesn’t mind. And, whatever you do, “never” call a Scottish person English or ask them why they wear skirts. Please, it is a kilt,  not a skirt!! There is a big difference!!

What a mess! I hope none of my students read this post. And why … you might be wondering? the reason is simple…. I always tell my students that English is a very easy language to learn. Hey! What do you want me to say? Do they really need to know that it is so irregular in pronunciation and spelling that even most native speakers need to think twice before daring to write some words?

If you don’t believe me, read this poem. You might change your mind!

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese,
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But a bow if repeated is never called bine,
And the plural of vow is vows, never vine.

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss ever be nicknamed keese?
Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren,
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim,

So the English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the queerest language you ever did see

Lesson Plan: Stereotypes

Lesson Plan: Intermediate, , , , , ,

This is a lesson for intermediate students, which I thought would be interesting to share, mainly because of the video support, which I selected only after some wasted time listening to some very poor quality videos or  perhaps  good quality videos but which, unfortunately, were not appropriate for this level.

Step 1. What is a stereotype?

A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation…etc

Step 2. Brainstorming Ideas.

Ask the class. What do you think of when you hear the word British? Give them one or two minutes to write down their answers, and then call on a few students to give you their answers. Play the video National Stereotypes, but don’t show the images, just the audio. How many have they guessed?

Step 3. Brainstorming
In pairs, students try to answer the same question but, this time, about Spain and the Spaniards. Embedded below are some of my students’ answers. Do you agree?

Mapa Mental creado con ExamTime por cristina.cabal

Step 4. Speaking: National Stereotypes
Ask students whether they agree or disagree with the following National Stereotypes
1. The British are violent mad football freaks
2. The Italians are good lovers but bad workers
3. The Chinese eat everything that moves
4. The Germans are very punctual
5. The Swiss love clocks

Have you ever wondered how we sound to speakers of other languages when we speak our native language? Some languages are easy to imitate, as for example the Italian language or the German one but I would never have guessed how a Spanish speaking native sounds to the rest of the world.
In this video the British Sketch comedian, Katherine Tate, volunteers to translate into seven different languages. Hilarious! And I hope nobody takes offence!

Step 6.Speaking. Students in pairs answer the following questions about stereotypes

♥What do people think of when they think of Spain and the Spaniards? Do you think these stereotypes are true or false?

♥Do you know of any stereotypes about British people?
♥What are some stereotypes you know of about women?
♥What are some stereotypes about men?

♥ What stereotypes exist about people who are blonde?
♥Do you think some stereotypes are true?
♥What stereotypes exist about religion?

Learning the Alphabet

A word on Grammar, American Cultural aspects, Audio, Funny Stuff, Games, General, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, , ,

Sometimes I can write three posts in a row; I feel everything I want to convey flows naturally and… some other times I’m at a loss for words. I know what I want to say but I don’t seem to find the right words. I write and cross off, write and cross off and the whole process is repeated all over again until I find myself wondering what the point of writing a lengthy introduction is when I can never be sure if there is anybody out there reading it. And then, this week three teachers from different parts of the world kindly wrote a line to let me know they are on the other side, and paying attention. Thank you, you cannot begin to imagine how motivating your words have been.

Learning the Alphabet is fun but even in Advanced Levels vowels still pose a problem, especially for Spanish students – our “i” /i/ is the English “e”, the English “i” is pronounced /ai/ and our “a” is pronounced /ei/. The letters “g” and “j” are also difficult and students find it difficult to hear the difference between “b” and “v”. That’s why it is important to dedicate some meaningful time to learning something so useful in everyday’s life.

These are the two activities I’m going to use this year to teach/revise the alphabet.

♥The first one is a video. I have found that adults still enjoy- or shall I dare say more than enjoy- clips aimed at little children. If you are an adult, watch the following clip to revise the alphabet and tell me what you think. You might need to remind students of a traditional nursery rhyme that goes like this

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,

before playing the video.

♥The second activity is nothing to write home about. It is the world famous Hangman, but this year, played in groups and instead of displaying words, I’m going to try a short sentence:

Divide the class into two teams. You’ll need a red pen for Group A and a black pen for Group B ( or any different colour 😉 ). On the board write the gaps for two different words of any length ( or a short sentence). Group A and B take it in turns to choose one letter of the alphabet. If the letter is correct, fill in the gap (in red if it’s A’s turn and in black if it is B’s). If the letter is not contained in the selected words, start drawing portions of the hangman (remember red or black). The game continues until all the letters have been guessed or all the parts of the hangman are drawn. If groups manage to guess the words, count the number of red or black letters to announce who the winner is.

You might also want to have a look at what I did to teach the alphabet three years ago. Click here

First Day : getting to know my students

Games, Speaking, , , ,

I’ve been teaching for a long, loooong time and one might expect I don’t have to suffer from first-class stress . But I’ve come to terms with myself and admitted  that no matter how long I’ve been in the business, it is always going  to feel like  having a bull ( past the butterfly feeling) in my stomach. So again, I’m hunting books ,posts, and the Internet for ideas to use on the first day  to get to know my students and to give them the first chance to use the language. These are the ones I’m considering  – in case you want to use them.

By the way, these are the ones I used last year if you want to have a look https://www.cristinacabal.com/?p=2694

♥Interviewing your partner: Tell students they are going to interview four or five people they don’t know in the class. Ask them to write three or four questions to ask these people. Once it is done, students get up and walk around the classroom.

♥Get to Know you Bingo: this one requires a bit of preparation but it’s not like you are already loaded with exams, is it? Let’s play bingo, then! Now, the first thing you need to do is prepare a bingo sheet with some questions ( a grid of  4×4 , for example). Make sure students know how to play bingo- this is quite  important, as you can guess. Students get up and walk around asking questions to everybody in the class but they have to have a different name for each grid. So if a student asks a question to a student and this student says “yes”, he should write the name of that student in the grid and move on; if the student says “no”, he can then ask this same student a new question. The first person to get a line down or across shouts “LINE” and the first person to fill in all the boxes with a name shouts  BINGO.

I would , of course, encourage follow-up questions  when checking,  with  the students providing the questions- of course.

♥Who Am I..? I love this game to introduce myself to my students. It is played in teams and there is a winner. If you have been reading me for some time you know I am very competitive; that must be the reason why I am definitely going to use this one this year. The game was written by Paul Adams  and here is the link

♥Five Questions. Divide the class in five groups and ask each group to write a question they would like to ask you. In turns, one member of each group comes up to the board and writes the question. The students decide if the question is correct in terms of tenses, spelling …etc. Finally, the student asks the question. Before you tell them, give the students the chance to guess your answer.

♥Writing Sample – I’m thinking it might be a good idea to use this warm-up after doing some oral practice. The idea is to ask students  to write a bit about themselves  to  get an idea of how advanced they are. Some ideas might be : Why are you learning English and why are you taking this course? or What’s your favourite hobby ?

Hope you can use some of these ideas!!!