Compare and Contrast

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.

Wiki

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.

Essential Reading

Anyone interested in developing their reading skills should look very carefully at these two links:

Tony Mowbray looks to entertain Football League - Times Online

The Championship League Table

Slang

Especially for Hye-Jin, here's a link to a dictionary of British slang. Please feel free to try out anything you learn on me...

Build your academic vocabulary

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.

Is your brain male or female?

Find out the sex of your brain with a series of tests on the BBC website. Click here

Depth

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...

Complex Answers

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.

Analys.icio.us - Mapping Word Frequency of a Text

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.

Mind if I...?

Here are the conversation openers and replies that we used in class today. I'll give you everything on a handout on Monday.

Mind if I join you?
Sure. Go ahead.


Sorry to butt in…
No problem. Go ahead.

How are you?
Fine thanks. Any you? You’re looking well.

Nice to see you again.
Nice to see you too. How are you?

It’s been a long time, hasn’t it.
Yes, I think we last spoke a month ago.

Terrible weather, isn’t it.
Yes, awful. I think it’s rained every day since I arrived.

That’s a nice shirt / blouse.
Thanks. I bought it from Harrods.

This coffee’s a bit weak.
Yes it is, isn’t it. Not like the coffee you get in Italy.

Kevin Keeglish

Something nice and topical...if you can see what's funny about these quotes from new Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan (from The Guardian website), you'll probably never need another English lesson...

Girl

You can now listen to this song as many time as you like in order to fill the gaps...Good luck!



Is there __________ going to __________ to my __________
All about the __________ who __________ to __________?
She's the __________ of __________ you __________ so much
It __________ you __________;
__________, you don't __________ a __________ __________.

When I ________ of all the ________ I've __________ to __________ her
She will __________ to me and __________ to __________;
And she __________ the __________ to me
And I __________ her.
After all this __________ I don't __________ __________.

She's the __________ of __________ who'll __________ you __________
When __________ are there, you __________ a __________.
When you __________ she's __________ing __________
She __________ as if it's __________
She's __________, __________, __________, __________,

Was she __________ when she was __________
that __________ would __________ to __________?
Did she __________ it when they __________
That a __________ must __________ his __________
To __________ his __________ of __________?
Will she __________ __________ it when he's __________?

If you get really stuck, you can find the full lyrics here.

Ode To Billy Joe

The weird video doesn't do justice to the beautiful beautiful song, but at least you get the chance to listen again...



The first thing we did in class was listen to the song, note down key phrases and categorise them under the following headings:

- Family Meal
- Life & Geography of the Area
- Farm Life
- Other details

Now listen again and fill the gaps:

It was the ______________, another sleepy, dusty Delta day. I was out ______________ and my brother was baling hay. And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to ______________. And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to ______________," And then she said "I got ______________ this morning from Choctaw Ridge," "Today, Billy Joe MacAllister ______________ the Tallahatchie Bridge." And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the ______________: "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass ______________." "There's ______________ in the lower forty I've got to plow." And Mama said it was a ____________________________, anyhow. Seems like nothing ever comes to no good up ______________. And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe, Had put _________________________ at the Carroll County picture show. And wasn't I talking to him after ____________________________? "I'll have another _______________________; you know it don't seem right. "I saw him at the sawmill ______________ on Choctaw Ridge, "And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." And Mama said to me: "Child, what's happened to ______________? "I've been cooking all morning and you haven't _______________________. "That nice young preacher, ______________, dropped by today. "Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, ______________. "He said he saw a girl that looked ________________ up on Choctaw Ridge. "And she and Billy Joe was ______________ off the Tallahatchie Bridge." A year has come and gone since we ____________________________, And brother married Becky Thompson, they _________________________. There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and ____________________. And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna ____________________________. And me, I spend a lot of time picking ____________________________. And drop them into the muddy water ____________________________.

If you just want to check the original lyrics you can find them here and there are some interesting "facts" about the song here.

Writing A Report

There's a complete lesson on writing a report here. I'm in the process of trying to make it more interactive and I'll post downloadable handouts soon...

Questions Questions Questions

In total, you wrote 22 perfect questions for me to answer. Click here for my 22 answers!



Vlad, Lurance, Beida

What is your favourite football team and why?

Are you married?

Do you have a car and, if so, which model?

Do you like movies and, if so, what is your favourite?

Do you have a dog or a cat?

What do you do for a living?

Are you happy with your job?




Kenny, Aneliya, Seonwoong

Do you like your job?

Do you have a reason for liking the number 7?

How many people do you know?

Where do you like to go at weekends?

What kind of girl do you like?

Where do you live in London?

How long have you been working at Internexus?




Elif and Feng

I can’t memorise words. What do you suggest?

What was your favourite lesson when you were a student?

Can you swim very well?

Have you been to Turkey or China?

What is your dream job?

If we gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

How old were you when you came to Internexus?

I want to be alone when I feel bad. What do you prefer – being alone or with other people?

Travel Tips

Lots of students ask me to recommend places to go in London so I thought I'd start a list. In case you want more than my biased views, The Guardian website has a really good travel section in which readers submit their own recommendations and the section on London is huge and here. You could also try looking at my former student Ana's blog and at the cool website, Gridskipper.





My top tips for the capital are as follows:




1. Hampstead Heath - walk around the Heath for hours (or days) and make sure you enjoy the views from Parliament Hill. If you're lucky you might see crazy people swimming in the lakes. At the opposite end of the Heath to Parliament Hill, it's worth stopping briefly in Kenwood House (even just the cafe). You might recognise the building from the end of Notting Hill (Julia Roberts films a period drama there).

2. Hampstead High Street - nothing amazing but some beautiful houses and pubs around the back streets. You should try...

3. crepes from the street vendor

4. watching a film in The Hampstead Everyman Cinema. There are “love seats” for couples to sit in…or you can pay extra to sit in a VIP area with comfy sofas and a bar.

5. Primrose Hill - a lovely quiet pocket of green hills and famous people...if you walk down Primrose Hill high street you'll see some lovely little shops and you might even bump into Jude Law.

6. Highgate Cemetery - sounds a bit morbid, but there are quite a few important dead people there. Famous as the home of Karl Marx's grave.

7.Take a boat trip down the Thames. You can get a commentary to point out the most important buildings. The London Eye is worth going on too, but it’s a good idea to book in advance to avoid the queues. Personally, I like just walking near the river – from Big Ben to The Tate Modern takes a long time but on a nice day it’s a glorious walk and you get some lovely views. At the Tate Modern there a re some nice cafes with great views. If you don’t mind spending a little extra you can eat good food on the 7th Floor Restaurant, which in my opinion, is one of the coolest locations in London.

English Politeness : A Pronunciation Exercise

This is story is supposed to be an amusing example of how polite the English are. You can have read it and go through some simple sound-chunking pronunciation tasks here, or you can download the handout here.

If you think you know about British manners, try finishing the following sentences:

1. The British think that they are…
2. It is well-known that British people like…
3. In Britain, queues are…
4. It’s very important for the average English person not to…
5. The English are terrified by…
6. If you try to kiss a typical English person, they will…

As a language exercise, you can try to re-write your sentences using the following opening phrases:

1. The British love to think of themselves as…
2. Everyone knows how fond they are of...
3. Another sign of our good breeding is…
4. The average English person would rather die than…
5. The English find touching and other shows of friendship...
6. Try kissing the average English person and they will…

I'd be very happy to read any suggestions, and you can also adapt these sentences to talk about manners in your own culture. Some lovely examples can be found here.

Writing Complex Sentences

There's a short exercise in using relative clauses to creat complex sentences if you click here. Alternatively you can download the class handout here. A simplified option is this:

Hopefully, none of these statements should be true for you:

- I hate people
- I never eat food
- I can’t stand films
- I never go to places

So, can you extend the sentences to make them true for you.


Did you use any of these devices?

I hate people who…
I never eat food which…
I can’t stand films in which…
I never go to places where…


For more practice, try to extend each expression using all the alternative devices listed below:


I hate people who…with whom…because…

I never eat food with…when…from…containing…made…

I can’t stand films starring…made…featuring…

I never go to places which…in which…from which…

Suck It And See : Lexical Sets

The point of this exercise it to recognise that any vocabulary you find in any article belongs to a lexical set (a vocabulary topic). If you know which lexical sets you can find in an article, you should be able to guess the general meaning of unknown vocabulary more easily. Paying attention to lexical sets should also help you to use vocabulary more accurately.

Here, I've divided a newspaper article into different lexical sets. All you have to do is decide what each lexical set is. The class handout can be downloaded here.

CV Writing : Step One

Today we looked at some language for making yourself sound dynamic on a CV.

First we considered a list skills and qualities featured in a textbook called Business Builder. The first task was for students to identify which skills and qualities they have and then to prove it by referring to examples of achievements in their work experience, education, and personal life.

We then looked at the language they used to express them and worked on ways of making it more dynamic. We also used this vocabulary exercise to identify accurate and effective collocations to talk about work experience. A Word file can be downloaded here.