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?

The memorable life of….

Students' Corner, Writing, , , , ,

There is little that gives more satisfaction than publishing students’ work; they are  the reason behind all the hard work that means keeping  this blog going.

Today, I want to show you some essays written by students in the Elementary level under the heading “The memorable life of… . I would have wanted to include all of them but the truth is that they were too many so I have just published half the ones I was sent. I hope nobody is disappointed!

As I have often done in the past, to publish the content I have used the free digital publishing platform Issuu.

Click to enlarge .

Carmen Menéndez’s presentation of The Memorable life of Amelia Earhart is also worth  publishing . I hope you enjoy it!!

Picture Description: Beaches

Lesson Plan: Elementary, Picture Description, Pictures, Speaking, Students' Corner, , , ,

Kindly sent by Carmen Muñiz from the Elementary Level.

Both photos show a beach, but they are very different.
I suppose it’s summer, because the weather is nice and sunny and everyone is wearing summer clothes.
In the photo on the right, the beach is next to the city. There are a lot of people sunbathing. It’s really crowded. In the background I can see many high buildings. The sea is on the left and it’s full of bathers. The sand is on the right and there are a lots of colourful beach umbrellas. I think it’s a modern big city, it seems a lively place.
On the other hand, in the photo on the left, the beach is far from the city, and there are few people. At the back you can see green mountains and some little houses. The sea is on the right, there is no one bathing. On the right corner, there are two women next to rocks, they seem very relaxed, they are sunbathing in sun beds and they are reading a book. They look like friends, it looks as if they are having a great time.
The scene in the photo on the right looks very noisy and it’s packed with people, while in the photo on the left, it looks very peaceful and quiet.
Personally, I prefer the photo on the left, because it looks like a perfect place to spend a summer’s day. I love going to the beach and swimming in the sea, but I don’t like beaches which are close the city, and the crowds.

Picture Description: Jobs

Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Picture Description, Speaking, Students' Corner, , ,

Kindly sent by Ana Suárez Meana from the Intermediate Level.


Well, I have decided to talk about one of the most important topics in our lives, as I consider it is work because it is what drives the way we live every day.
To do this, I have decided to select these two contrasting pictures.
In the first picture, we can see an old man. He looks like a coal miner, although it is difficult to tell because I can´t see much of the background and I can´t really make it out. On the other hand, in the second picture, to our surprise, we can see the image of a woman priest. I think she might be
wearing a costume because it isn´t very common to see a woman priest.
In my opinion, the picture of the man is the image of one of the least common jobs today. In fact, more and more mines are closing down .I think that it is one of the most difficult jobs because they are people who daily risk their lives and whose earnings are low.
In contrast is the image of the woman, whose job I consider more relaxing and less complicated than that of the coal miner, but it is not less important for many religious people in our society and until now, done only by men because many jobs do not welcome women .
Today, there are different types of jobs that a few years ago would be difficult to imagine, because nowadays, more people study than in the past, men and women go out to work, and this often causes that families in their jobs are affected by the serious crisis we are living in our country.