A HEATWAVE is a continuous period of unusually hot weather.
A SHOWER is a brief period of rain.
A BLIZZARD is a storm with a lot of snow and strong winds.
SLEET is partly melted falling snow.
FOG is a thick cloud that forms close to the ground or to water and is difficult to see through.
CHILLY is an informal adjective meaning cold.
MILD is used to describe weather which is warm and pleasant, especially warmer than usual for the time of year.
THUNDER is the loud nouns that you sometimes hear in the sky during a storm.
LIGHTNING is the bright flashes of light that you see in the sky during a storm.
DRIZZLE is rain that falls in small, light drops.
A FLOOD is a large amount of water covering an area that is usually dry.
A BREEZE is a light wind.
MIST is a thin fog.
A DROUGHT is a long period of time when there is little or no rain and crops die.
HAIL is rain that freezes in the sky and falls to the ground as small balls of ice.
A HURRICAINE is a violent storm with extremly strong winds and heavy rain.
The picture above is an illustration of the following story - a simple fable, but one of my favourite stories:
The Sun and the Wind once had a quarrel as to which was the stronger. Each believed himself to be the more powerful. While they were arguing they saw a traveler walking along the country highway, wearing a great cloak.
"Here is a chance to test our strength," said the Wind; "let us see which of us is strong enough to make that traveler take off his cloak; the one who can do that shall be acknowledged the more powerful."
"Agreed," said the Sun.
Instantly the Wind began to blow; he puffed and tugged at the man's cloak, and raised a storm of hail and rain, to beat at it. But the colder it grew and the more it stormed, the tighter the traveler held his cloak around him. The Wind could not get it off.
Now it was the Sun's turn. He shone with all his beams on the man's shoulders. As it grew hotter and hotter, the man unfastened his cloak; then he threw it back; at last he took it off! The Sun had won.
from Stories to Tell to Children by Sara Cone Bryant
If you like lateral thinking puzzles like the one about the man in the bar in Texas, you can spend some time reading more here. I have to warn you, though, some of them are terrible. Don't forget these phrases:
It can't be... It could be... It might be... It may be... It must be... It has to be...
And if you want to practise with sporks again:
· Sporks are used by children and adults. · Sporks can be found in many different colours. · Sporks don't grow on trees. · Sporks can be made from plastic. · Sporks are usually found in pairs. · Some sporks are expensive. · Sporks aren't dangerous. · Sporks can be found in almost every home in Japan · Special sporks can be used in cars. · Sporks are necessary for some professional footballers. · Some sporks are made of leather. · Many sporks are woollen. · Sporks have fingers and thumbs. · Everyone must know what sporks are by now!
Do you know the very handsome man in this picture? He's 60 years old today...
Just in case you missed it, here's the vocabulary from today's class:
JOBS: prince, refuse collector, doctor, professional sportsperson, soldier, police officer, company director, waiter, construction worker, yakuza hitman, cleaner, high school teacher, prime minister, actor, nurse, beggar, shop assistant, taxi driver
- What do you think of MinoMonta? - Actually I think he's kind of rude and bossy. - Why do you say that? - Well, he's always criticising people on TV...
- What do you think of Ken Watanabe? - He's really talented and intelligent. - Oh! Don't you think he can be a little bit arrogant sometimes? - Not really...what makes you say that? - Well...
Expressions from today's class: - The perfect man should have a six pack. - He should be at least 180cm tall. - broad shoulders - playful smile - beautiful facial features - cute facial expressions - I've got a black eye because someone punched me in the face.
I still don't know how to express the strange idea of SOFT LEGS, but "Western eyes" is a better expression than "two line eyes".
In class we played a game called Scruples (e.g. If you found a wallet containing 100,000 Yen inside, would you keep the money? Yes, no, or depends...). To take part in an online scruples noticboard, click here.
For the same kind of grammar set to music, you might like this Gwen Stefani track...the quality of this video is a bit poor but it starts with some Japanese! Incidentally, if anyone can explain the Harajuku girls to me I'd be very grateful.
...and better still if you want to practice English (or singing), here's a karaoke version...
For romantics and lovers of real music, here's a much better song - If I Were A Carpenter - first by Bobby Darin
and finally by the great Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter:
A good place to check the meaning of any of these words is the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, which is online and free. It had good definitions, examples, and a guide to pronunciation.
As a follow up to today's class, you might like to have a look at these tourist information websites for Tokyo and Yokohama. Below is a video of an Oscar Wilde walking tour around London. For other city tours, just go to youtube and type the name of a city you're interested in
Q & A stands for questions and answers, but before we get to those, here are the correct spellings of the people and places in the United Kingdom that you already knew about:
People: JK Rowling, Queen Elizabeth, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, The Bee Gees, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Prince Charles, Agatha Christie, Lady Diana, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, John Lennon, Harry Potter, Prince Harry, Prince William, Anne Boleyn, Winnie the Pooh, Elton John
Things, groups, and football teams: The Lord of the Rings, the Glastonbury Festival, going to church, scones, tea, coffee, oatmeal, fish & chips, mashed potato, rabbits, The Beatles, cricket, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United (there are two teams in Manchester - United and City - so it's not enough just to say "Manchester"), Tottenham, West Ham
And by the way...
Frankfurters are German. U2 are Irish. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, The Black-Eyed Peas, and The Backstreet Boys are American. Escargot (snails) and frogs legs are French dishes.
What food is famous in the UK? A TV Channel called uktvfood has created a list of its top ten British dishes here but the country's FAVOURITE dishes, according to a survey, are here.
Which do you like - Japan or the UK? I like them both. Britain's far from perfect, but it's home.
Kaiser Chiefs, Blur, or Bloc Party - which band is the best? Although I hated them 16 years ago, I think Blur are the best of those three. I was pleased to see that at least one student wrote "The Arctic Monkeys" because I think they're the best band in Britain at the moment.
What do British people do when they have free time? A recent Euro stat survey, the EU's statistical office, discovered that people in Britain spend about 45% of their free time watching television, 24% of their free time socializing, 22-23% on sport and hobbies, and 10% on other activities. Other popular leisure activities are listening to the radio, listening to pre-recorded music, reading, DIY, gardening, eating out and going to the cinema.
What are the most famous sights to see in London? There's a London website with a brief summary of the capital's sights and various links to other information here. The ten most popular London attractions are detailed here.
How often do you have parties? I never have wild and crazy parties but we often invite people around for dinner, drinks, and conversation. If enough alcohol is consumed, there may also be some dancing.
Finally, a couple of videos linked to some of today's conversations...enjoy!
As a follow-up to the complaints you made in class (especially those of you who had to discuss "dead kitty"), you might enjoy this sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus:
As a follow-up to today's classes, you might like to have a look at some other sales picthes. This one comes from a popular British TV show called Dragon's Den, in which "entrepreneurs" pitch to a group of millionaires in order to win investment in their companies or products.
This musical pitch was actually successful and you can find Reggae Reggae sauce on the shelves of supermarkets all over the United Kingdom.
As we discussed in class, an online recording of the Stephen Merchant Show hosted by The Kaiser Chiefs is available from the BBC until Sunday. Click here to go to the programme website, and select LATEST SHOW under LISTEN AGAIN. You can use the BBC media player to access any BBC radio broadcast from the last week. Enjoy!
If you go to this website and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can download some pdfs that might help you with your TOEFL preparation. The sample writing responses might be particularly useful.
In class we used expressions like "you need to", "you should", and "you might like to" but if you want more variety of expressions, or just to explore the topic further, you could have a look at what kind of advice British readers of the Guardian newspaper give about Japan, or try the lonely planet website. And just in case you're wondering, the picture on the left is of Kurashiki!
In case you missed the class, or even if you'd like to try the activity again, this website allows you to take the test online. There are also some more educational activities available here on the NASA website.
Want more? Go to Youtube and just type "how to" followed by anything you want to learn how to do. Let me know if you find one that tells me how to learn Japanese more quickly.
I've received a nice essay on whether it's better for children to grow up in a city or the countryside, so I've started a writing project on a separate blog and I'll start it off with a few lessons related to the essay.
A: What's this? B: It's a garlic press. A: A garlic press? What's it for? A: It's for crushing garlic.
A: What on Earth is this thing? I've never seen one before. B: It's a garlic press. A: A garlic press! Hmmm...what is it used for? B: We use it to crush garlic.
Vocabulary:
A cheese grater is for grating cheese.
A clothes peg is for hanging up / out your clothes.
A rice cooker is for cooking rice.
A pasta maker is for making fresh pasta.
A rolling pin is for rolling out pastry.
A potato peeler is something we use to peel potatoes.
Write an essay on one of the following topics and then either submit it to me on paper or, if possible, via this website:
1. It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay.
2. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should give the same amount of money to their students’ sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
3. How do movies or television influence people’s behavior? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
4. In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this phenomenon. Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.
5. Some people prefer to work for a large company. Others prefer to work for a small company. Which would you prefer? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
Onomatopoeia is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object, such as "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", "bang", or animal noises such as "oink", "moo", or "meow". The word is a synthesis of the Greek words όνομα (onoma, = "name") and ποιέω (poieō, = "I make" or "I create") thus it essentially means "name creation", although it makes more sense combining "name" and "I do", meaning it is named (and spelled) as it sounds (e.g. quack, bang, etc.)
If you want a real challenge, try re-writing the text below by adding grammar to it. You'll need articles (the, a, an), prepositions (in, on, at etc) and pay attention to verb forms - I've reduced them all to bare infinitives (be, go, play etc). When you've finished...and only when you've finished...compare your text with my original below. Pay attention to any differences you find and try to figure out why I used them in my original text. Of course you are more than welcome to ask any questions you have ...Good luck!
My Order:
1. The boy 2. The girl 3. The friend 4. The boatman 5. The rich man
My reasons: I sympathize most with boy, because I can imagine do same things he do if I be his situation. other words, if I have girlfriend who sleep with another man £500, I find it impossible forgive her. I feel sorry her, though. She do what she do for right reasons, but I think if she truly love her boyfriend, she know how much her action upset him. I no can make up my mind about friend. If my friends know something important my relationships then I want them tell me. However, if friend keep quiet, boy and girl no split up and they still be happy now. Also, if I be friend, I no think I be able to tell boy what really happen. I consider boatman and rich man be quite similar because they both take advantage girl’s situation. I no can sympathize rich man because I never ask woman sleep me in exchange money. boatman no seem so bad because “he only do his job” and if he take girl other island for free, then everyone else expect same treatment and his business collapse. However, he no show any compassion and only see her situation in financial terms, so I no can respect him.
KEY
I sympathize most with the boy, because I could imagine doing the same things he did if I was in his situation. In other words, if I had a girlfriend who slept with another man for £500, I would find it impossible to forgive her. I do feel sorry for her, though. She did what she did for the right reasons, but I think if she had truly loved her boyfriend, she would have known how much her action would upset him.
I can’t make up my mind about the friend. If my friends knew something important about my relationships then I would want them to tell me. However, if the friend had kept quiet, the boy and girl wouldn’t have split up and they would still be happy now. Also, if I was the friend, I don’t think I would have been able to tell the boy what had really happened.
I consider the boatman and the rich man to be quite similar because they both take advantage of the girl’s situation. I can’t sympathize with the rich man because I would never ask a woman to sleep with me in exchange for money. The boatman doesn’t seem so bad because “he was only doing his job” and if he had taken the girl to the other island for free, then everyone else would have expected the same treatment and his business would have collapsed. However, he didn’t show any compassion and only saw her situation in financial terms, so I can’t respect him.
Expand your vocabulary as you look through Eric's pictures....
I'm not sure exactly who Eric is but if you ask him to convey an emotion, he'll do it with a photo. I think some of the pictures work as well as any dictionary definition. Click here to explore further.
Not really part of today's lesson, but something for Shinya and Minami. This is one of my favourite songs, and definitely one of my favourite videos. If you ever understand all of the words, you'll know your English is perfect.
Here are some expressions from today's class as promised...
Moving from one topic to another:
- Speaking of ______
- That reminds me!
Changing the topic:
- By the way,
- Oh! Before I forget...
- Anyway
We also used the following language:
- When I think of _______, I think of _______.
- I associate _______ with _______.
- Why do you associate _______ with _______?
Please post any questions or requests to this blog. In the meantime, it's not a great example of English language use OR music maybe, but I really like this lego version of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' video to their song "By The Way":
A full list of the questions you worked on in class (and at home of course) can be accessed here. If you want to check the prepositions in the Economist article I gave you, you can find the original text here.
I've just learned about Mark Davies' website, an amazing online collocations resource. After playing with the site for 5 minutes you should be able to work out how to use it. There is an immense amount of information available to you via a very versatile search engine...and you can even limit your searches to academic English. My previous favourite online collocations site, the Collins website also provides free online samples of its corpus here. For those moments when you don't have internet access, The Oxford Collocations Dictionary is still a wonderful resource, and is worth buying if you are at all interested in improving your English.
In the last week I've had a few requests for extra grammar exercises. As this is such a huge subject, I think it would be better if you just submit questions and I can reply with posts on how to explore whatever grammar area you ask about. So...get your questions ready and either post them as comments or e-mail me directly.
The article from the New Scientist mentioned at the end of the lecture is here, while a more scientific piece on one of the themese mentioned is available to download here (it's something about little fish!)
Here are your fascinating paragraphs without any words missing:
Yu Ting Three months ago, my university classmate introduced me to a guy, a computer engineer, to go on a blind date with. At first I asked him to help me fix my laptop in a restaurant, so he just concentrated on upgrading programs instead of talking too much, but I really appreciated his help. After that, we kept talking and getting to know each other via the Internet. We share the same interests and hobbies, such as travelling, going to concerts, and martial arts, and we even have the same taste in food. I think he is my soul mate, for whom I have always looked in my life. We are going to consider our future together.
Ting Ting When I was a child, I swam in the sea. Actually, I just lay in the sea, floating with a rubber ring. Thus, I am not a good swimmer. However, my friends taught me with a very interesting method. They usually take me to a swimming pool divided into two areas, one of which is one metre and the other two metres deep. They push me into the deep water then leave me alone with my rubber ring. I then ask for help from other swimmers, who are always kind enough to pull me to the one-metre-deep area.
Catherine I went to the USA with my friends and teachers in the summer of 1998. The cities we visited were San Francisco and Los Angeles, where Disneyworld impressed me because of its colourful activities and unique architecture. Everyone can have fun and relax; it’s just like a paradise, a world apart from work stress and cities. American culture focuses more on respecting an individual’s choice about their lifestyle. For instance, gays and lesbians are allowed to get married as long as they insert a gay liberation flag in their window.
Adriana I have worked Banco de la Republico, the central bank of Colombia, since 2004. I work in the inflation department, but I decided to continue with my postgraduate studies. For this reason, I travelled to the UK to study English and start my Masters degree at Essex University. Currently, I am employed by Banco de la Republico de Columbia, and when I graduate I must continue working there.
Cecily In my high school, I met my boyfriend, my first love. When he travelled to Beijing, he gave me a small red white and blue Channel bag with metal straps. My boyfriend did not tell me the price of the bag, because true love is a priceless treasure.
Handouts from your wonderful presentations are now online and available for you to download. Mike and Wilson (?)'s powerpoint presentation is here, Mo and Lot's is here, and Radwan and Hasan's is here. Representing the classic school of presentation is the beautifully designed handout provided by Anis and Tarek here.
Please e-mail me with any questions, or ask Radwan if you want to know more about some of the technical jargon used in his and Hasan's comma lecture.
Hasan I stayed in Northern New Zealand to learn English last January. When I was there, I saw dolphins off the North Coast, which made me feel very happy because it was the first time I had seen dolphins in the wild.
Lu Last year my father bought me a motorbike as my birthday present. The motorbike was a black Honda with a 300cc engine. Although I don’t have a licence to ride a motorbike, I already know how to and I plan to get a licence this winter.
Lot Last year, I got my first job as a trainee lawyer at a legal company in my country. I had to work from 8am until 6pm from Monday to Friday, during which time my duties were to support the senior lawyer. My job was difficult because I did not know how to use law in each situation. Therefore, I had to read my law textbook even more than when I studied at university.
Radwan Last year, I met N A, the mayor of Amman, who did well in this position because he was responsible for all technical things, urban planning, and building bridges in the city. When I met him he gave me a good position in his company and also increased my salary.
Tarek By chance, I met the president of Syria last year when I was shopping in Damascus, the capital. I was surprised and enthusiastic about talking to him. I took a photo with him and I appreciate that he gave me this opportunity. The president of Syria is an incredibly handsome man, and anyone who looks even slightly similar to him must be gorgeous.
Mike I went to London with my classmates by coach in order to visit The British Museum, after which we went shopping in Chinatown. On the way back, we got lost in London because we asked some people for directions, but everyone told us a different way to get back to the museum. As a result, we could not get our coach in time. Therefore, we had to go back by train from Liverpool Street.
Mo Last Christmas, I took a holiday in Switzerland for 7 days with my friends, with whom it was fantastic to travel. There were twelve people in our group so it was fantastic when we took photos together. I went to many places, such as Geneva, Luzern, and Interaken, where we went skiing. Although the weather was freezing, it was nice because we come from a hot country so it was really fantastic to see snow.
The powerpoint file from today's presentation workshop is available to download here.
For more examples of good and bad presentations, there are lots of videos on youtube. A search of good ones would lead you here, but it might be more entertaining to look at examples of bad presentations, like this one:
This powerpoint presentation contains a grammar exercise on word form based on this story from the Observer about a British hacker who faces 60 years in jail because he accessed Pentagon computers while trying to find out more about UFOs. If you're interested in finding out more about Gary's defence and the campaign to "free" him, you can visit this blog created by his supporters.
Grammar and Writing elective students - to read the article on Lonesome George, click here. You can also download the powerpoint presentation of classes 3 and 4 here. Feel free to post any questions as comments, or e-mail me directly.
An American, a Frenchman, and an Australian were sitting in a bar overlooking Sydney Harbour. “Do you know why America is the wealthiest country in the world?” asked the American. “It’s because we build big and we build fast. We put up the Empire State Building in six weeks”.
“Six weeks, mon dieu, so long!” snapped the Frenchman. “Ze Eiffel Tower we put up in one month exactement. And you,” he continued, turning to the Australian, “what has Australia done to match that?”
“Ah, nuthin’, mate. Not that I know of.”
The American pointed to the Harbour Bridge. “What about that?” he asked.
The Australian looked over his shoulder. “Dunno, mate. It wasn’t there yesterday”.
The Corpus Concordance Sampler can be used to see examples of any word or phrase in native spoken or written English. Type in a word or phrase (you need to put a + sign between each word, eg most+of) to see a sample of uses taken from the Collins Cobuild Corpus (more detailed instructions and explanations can be found here). Look carefully at the results and look for patterns. What words come before and after your target phrase? Do you notice anything that the examples have in common? By analysing the examples you can draw up a list of patterns and learn how to use your target language accurately - like a native in fact! By analysing the differences between two similar words, you might be able to discover important differences in meaning (for example, the difference between ASSURE and ENSURE). What you find through this process can show you more than any dictionary entry, and the fact that you have to spend time observing language and thinking about it means that you should remember it for longer. That's the theory anyway.
A terrible terrible song, but it's got an interesting story to it...well, kind of, and the pictures in this home-made video are cute. If you want to use it as a dictation, turn your back and write down the lyrics you hear. You'll then be able to check your work because all the words are provided in the video clip.
A couple of "Just A Minute" related links for you...
The Radio 4 website has a page dedicated to the show and has details of the next series and even how to get cheap tickets to attend a recording. Meanwhile, Radio 7 - a digital station partly dedicated to BBC comedy - has its one Just A Minute page which should have links to shows you can listen to online.
Oops...it was Aeschylus who died when an eagle dropped a turtle on his head. Read more about him and his comical death on Wikipedia (click here).
As legend has it, an eagle, mistaking the playwright's bald crown for a stone, dropped a tortoise on his head (though some accounts differ, claiming it was a stone dropped by an eagle or vulture that mistook his bald head for the egg of a flightless bird). This incident may not be as unlikely as it seems, as the Lammergeier is native to the Mediterranean region – a large eagle-like vulture known to drop bones and tortoises on rocks to break them open.
Hye Jin's question about "crush" brought back some memories for me - and not just about my economics teacher. Whenever I think of "crush", I immediately think of this terrible song from 1986, and it got me thinking that songs are a really good way of learning vocabulary. If you listen to this song twice (it might be hard, but try) I don't think you'll ever forget that the correct use of this word is HAVE + A CRUSH + ON + someone. I found this awful video on Youtube, and you can find just about any song there...if you're not sure how to use a word and you want to remember it forever, just go to youtube, search for that word, and start listening. Or dancing. Or singing...whatever it takes to make you learn.
What can you say to compare and contrast the following images:
As you may be able to guess, one of these Brads and one of the Angelinas are fake. They are professional lookalikes who work for the UK agency Fake Faces. Useful language for comparing and contrasting these pictures came up in class...
SIMILARITIES
Both Brads look stylish.
They're both tall.
They're wearing similar dresses.
DIFFERENCES
The fake Angelina has fatter arms.
The real Brad is more musclar.
The real Brad has a nice smile, whereas fake Brad can't open his mouth.
The real Angelina collects children, while the fake Angelina doesn't.
I've set up a wiki for class materials. I would be really happy to have some collaboration from students old and new, so please have a play with it and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
I'm still learning how to use pbwiki but at the moment I think that if you want to contribute to my wiki, you'll need to be registered. If you send me your e-mail address I can do it for you. Just mail me at markgh@gmail.com.
The academic word list is, unsurprisingly, a list of words which are common in academic texts and situations, and which are therefore useful to learn if you're planning to study at university or take the IELTS exam. You can find the list, as well as a detailed explanation of how it was produced at this website. Someone very intelligent at the University of Nottingham has created an incredibly useful tool which uses the list to identify academic words within any text. All you need to do is find some text online and copy and paste it into the box on this page (the AWL highlighter) and it will produce a new version of your test with all the academic words in bold. After reading, studying, and working out the meaning of these words, you can test yourself by making a gapped version of the same text with the AWL gap-maker. This works on exactly the same principle - all you need to do is past your text into the box and click on submit.
The highlighter and gap-maker will recognise academic words in ANY text that you paste, but it might be a good idea to search for articles in either The New Scientist or The Economist online editions. Articles you find in these magazines are typical of the types of text you have to read in an IELTS exam.
Two ways to experience great depth...either throw yourself into the Thames or download this interview and listen to it. I'm not sure which one will be more painful...
This is how I would have done the exercise. Please tell me if you think anything strange or wrong:
1. Ibrahim bought an eight-hundred-thousand-pound farmhouse with three acres of land. 2. A sixteen-year-old girl wearing a belly dancing costume came into Victor’s bedroom. 3. Hye Jin needs some six-inch steel nails. 4. Concorde was the fastest passenger plan in the world. 5. Have you seen those Swiss army knives with gadgets for everything? 6. Ayaka used to be a much-respected economics lecturer at Oxford University. 7. Akiko has just started a fifty-thousand-pound job with a New York firm of accountants. 8. Assem bought a three-hundred-year-old picture of two men working in a field. 9. Nelja had a fantastic four-course meal with two bottles of wine for less than twenty pounds. 10. Sangsoo was on a long, twelve-hour flight with stop-overs in Delhi and Moscow. 11. The forty-car pile-up on the M1, caused by yesterday’s freak weather conditions, has finally been cleared by police. 12. Pan Am Airways passengers flying to New York can expect three-hour delays.
Too lazy to read a whole article? Copy and paste any text here at Analys.icio.us and you'll get a map of the most commonly usef words in that text. This should tell you what it's about in about five seconds, giving you more time to do nothing.
