Tag Archives: vocabulary

Pixie Lott … fit as a fiddle and other music related idioms

Music, Word of the Day, , ,

Although I can’t say I’m a music junkie I spend a lot of my time listening to music. The kind of music I listen to largely depends on my mood.N ormally, on my way to work I’m full of energy and anticipation so the songs I like listening to are of that kind … but when I am coming back home I need something a bit more relaxing, so I go for classical music, ballads, chill out … and all that jazz. And sometimes if my day’s been crap and I have to think about the best way to face the music, then I appreciate the silence.

Anyway, what I want to say is that I like this chick. I think she’s got a very nice voice, powerful but sweet at the same time .. When I first listened to her, her voice kind of struck a chord; she is somewhere between Amy Winehouse and Kate Perry with a touch of Dufy. Her first album has just been released and I anticipate it’s going to sell like hot cakes.
Her debut single ‘Mama Do (Uh Oh Uh Oh)‘ was a success but, in my humble opinion, there are other very good tracks. By the way, her album is called Turn it Up.


Want to see what these idioms mean ?
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/cat/23.html

ELLA: English Language Lab Asturias

Audio, In the Computer Room, Listening, Resources, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing, , , , ,

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to recommend you this wonderful site , but …better late than never!
This site has been created and is maintained by three colleagues from three different EEOOIII . On their own they have been awarded different prizes and together they have created this wonderful site. My admiration and thanks to you three: María (from EOI Oviedo), Carmen (from EOI Mieres) and Javier (from EOI Luarca).

Now , for you my dearest students and because I can guess that right now you must be frantic (exam is on Monday) looking for new listening comprehensions to do, I am going to link you straightaway to the listening section of ELLA. The link will lead you to a page with all the listenings , find the ones for you level…. ADVANCED.
http://web.educastur.princast.es/proyectos/ella/?cat=17
If you like the site , don’t forget to send them a post. It is always nice to hear that all you effort has been worthwhile !

Related Links:

 

 

 

Wordle: creating “word clouds”

Create your own stuff, Resources, The English language, Vocabulary, , , ,

It is not the first time I ‘ve used this tool, but it is the first time I’ve used it to revise vocabulary. I like it because it is easy to use and also attractive and we all know that students appreciate it when you give them something different.
How does this tool help me? Wordle is a “toy” for generating “word clouds” from the text you provide.
In the past I mainly used it to decorate some posts and in class to retell a text. It is a great tool for retelling as the clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

But today I’ve discovered a new use to Wordle. I needed tor revise some vocabulary. I normally do it as a competition game with strips of paper and the word to be revised written on them. But today I tried writing the words to be revised and this is the result. I’ve created two word clouds as I am going to split the class into two and let them compete against each other by giving them a maximum of two minutes to try to define the words to their team. So, I’ve printed the word clouds and used it in the OHP. Hope they like it! I had a great time too tweaking the fonts, colours and layout.

Related entries:
Karaoke on line
Fancy doing a dictation?
Warhol

 

Córcholis or it is raining cats and dogs

Funny Stuff, The English language,

Are you learning Old-Fashioned English?
Only this week I asked my advanced students to write a diary entry, telling them that this was the right time to use non-grammatical structures and any informal expressions they could think of. It was only when one of my most advanced students handed in her paper that I realized my mistake. I caught a glimpse of the expression “ it was raining cats and dogs” and I thought well, well… how are they supposed to know that this expression would sound to a native speaker as “córcholis or “cáspitas” to us?

But there are some others:
Bobbies- The British have not called their policemen “bobbies” for decades.
Whom -Only pedants under 50 will ever use this possessive pronoun.
Gay with the meaning of “happy”- I don’t think a straight happy man would like to be described as “gay”.

If you have little or no contact with British speaking culture, be careful when using colloquial expressions. Probably you’ll be understood only by an English -speaking grandmother.

The good thing is that sometimes words “bounce back”. So maybe in 10 or 20 years’ time we will be using expressions such as “truenos y relámpagos” , “pánfilo” or “botarate” . So ,language can always catch up with us and not the other way round.
Where does that leave us? Well, one of the reasons that native speakers don’t comment when they hear learner say “it is raining cats and dogs” is that learners always look so happy to have been able to use an idiomatic phrase that it seems uncharitable to correct them. Make it clear to the native speakers you interact with that you want them to tell you when your English sounds quaint.

Word of the Day: Dead

The English language, Word of the Day,

Everyone knows that the most common meaning of the adjective dead is “not alive”, “deprived of life ; of an emotion (now that Valentine’s day is coming) ” no longer felt” : a dead passion, dead affections.


The word is used in a couple of other interesting ways, though… For instance, you can say “dead tired” to mean “extremely tired” – (EX: “Jim was dead tired after driving for 20 hours straight”). “Dead wrong” means “completely wrong”. In this usage, you can see that the word has the meaning of “very”, “completely”, “extremely”, etc. To be dead on means to be “completely right/correct”. Another expression that uses “dead” is “the dead center of (something)”, which means “the very center of (something)”.