Languagelab.com Blog

Hi Everyone,

As 2009 ends and 2010 begins lets think about how you can improve your English.  Make it your New Years Resolution to practice for a few minutes every day at English City.

I have a few articles here and videos for you to watch to help you practice over the Christmas holiday.

Culture:
There have been some great pop videos in the last decade.  Here is one of my favourite videos !

Fat Boy Slim – Weapon of Choice

Questions:
1. Who is the actor dancing in the video?

2. How would you describe him at the beginning of the clip?

3. Where is the man dancing?

4. What does he look at quickly at the beginning of the clip?

5. How would you describe the man at the end of the video?

If you want to talk about music and also learn to sing in English, you can visit Griffin in English City. He is a composer and also teaches students how to pronounce words correctly.  If you want to see the top 20 videos that were voted in the Guardian website, click here.

Fashion:
In 2009 there have been a lot of different styles and trends.  Some of them have been cool, others crazy and some just very strange.  People Magazine have put together a list of different trends for 2009 on their website.  Here is one trend that I would like your opinion about.
Fingerless gloves !  These gloves don’t have any fingers so they are not designed to keep you warm.
1. Where would you wear gloves like these?

2. What material are they made from?

3. Would people wear these gloves in your country ?

4. What adjectives can you think of to describe them?

In English City we have several clothes shops, my favourite is Perwinkles.  Donatella one of my friends works there and she always has the latest fashions.

Sports:
It has been a great year for sports all over the world especially in China with the Olympics hosted there in 2009.
In the UK we have an award for best Sports Personality of the Year.  Watch this video and answer the questions.

1. Who won the award?

2. What sport is he famous for and which team does he play for?

3. Who does he mention as his heroes?

4. Who does he thank in his speech?

5. Who are the Sports Stars in your country ?

6. Tell me about your favourite sport and why you like it.

To read more about the Sports Personality of the Year 2009 visit the BBC website.

If you write back to me with your comments I will correct them all for you.  Good luck with the questions !

See you soon,

Jessie Teacher

BESIG, the Business English Special Interest Group of IATEFL are having a conference this week in Poland and our own Shiv Rajendran is there representing Languagelab.com.

He is going to talk about Business English in English City, have you ever been to a Business English class with Jazz Quinzet or Alastair Twine?

The conference is in Poznan and Shiv has told me it’s a nice city and he is looking forward to meeting all the people he has met already through Twitter!  He will also be meeting some of our students who live in Poznan for the first time.

There is some information on one of our Business English City People below, Jazz Quinzet.  If you would like to meet her come and visit her in English City.

See you soon !

Jessie Teacher

Last week Grammar Girl gave you a long list of conjunctions and promised to explain them in a little more detail this week.

This week I thought I’d focus on one particular conjunction: IF.

There are many rules around ‘if’ and they are all related to the concept of ‘conditional sentences:’

If I have enough money,
conditional clause

I will go buy some dollars.
main clause

First, Second, and Third Conditional
1. First conditional:    If I have enough money, I will buy some dollars.
2. Second conditional:   If I had enough money, I would buy some dollars.
3. Third conditional:    If I had had enough money, I would have bought some dollars

There is not enough room in this blog to explain the difference in meaning so I’ll just end with a reminder:

1. The conditional construction does not normally use will or would in if-clauses. EXCEPTION: If will or would express willingness, as in requests, they can be used in if-clauses.

e.g. If you will come this way, the manager will see you now.
I would be grateful if you would give me a little help.
(= ± please, come this way; please, give me…)

2. For the second conditional, were replaces was:

If I were a rich man…

3. After if, we can either use “some(-one, -where…)” or “any(-one, -where…).

If I have some spare time next weekend….or :
If I have any spare time…

4. Instead of if not, we can use unless.

e.g. I’ll be back tomorrow unless there is a plane strike.
He’ll accept the job unless the salary is too low.

5.There is a “mixed type” as well, for the present results of an unreal condition in the past:

If + Past Perfect – would + inf.
If you had warned me [then], I would not be in prison [now].

See you again next week for more Grammar tips !

Last week we looked at AND, BUT, BECAUSE, OR, SO, THEN and a few more.

This week I want to move the discussion a little further by talking about grammar called ’subordination.’  In conjunctions for ’subordination’ we also link parts of sentences together but they work a little differently.  I’ll give you some examples of conjunctions for subordination and then next week, after you’ve had a think about them, we’ll look at examples of this type of conjunction.

*  place

where, wherever

* time

when, whenever, while, after, before, since, till, until, once, now

as soon as, as long as

* reason

because, as, since, for, although, though, to, in order to, so as to

* similarity and contrast

as, than, whereas, while

* condition

if, unless, provided

Hope that was helpful !

See you next week !

Grammar Girl in English City :-)

Today at English City, Annamaria one of Languagelab’s  German students will open her first photography exhibition.

The artist will be talking about her pictures and answering questions about them.  This is your opportunity to see some wonderful pictures and discuss them with the help of a very enthusiastic photographer.

In Germany Annamaria is  a physician, working for a foundation which manages mutiple sclerosis projects, but in English City she is a budding photographer waiting to show other students and citizens of English City her great work !

Hope you have a chance to visit the exhibition !

Jessie Teacher

One of the things I noticed while marking students’ work is that students with a higher level of English can write longer sentences without getting the grammar all messed up.

With this in mind, Grammar Girl would like to remind you about conjuctions and give you some brief examples.

A conjunction is a word that joins two words, phrases or sentences. Some very basic conjuctions include FOR, YET, BUT, SO, NOR, OR, AND. Here are some examples of pairs of words, phrases or sentences that have been made longer by these conjunctions:

‘I like tea AND coffee.’
‘Lazy students may want to improve their English but don’t read enough.’
‘Jessie went out last night, so she was late for work this morning.’

Next week, we’ll look at other types of conjunctions.

See you next week!

Grammar Girl

IELTS stands for ‘International English Language Testing System’, is an international standardised test of English language proficiency. It is jointly managed by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations, the British Council and IDP Education Australia, and was established in 1989.

IELTS is accepted by most Australian, British, Canadian, Irish, New Zealand and South African academic institutions, over 2,000 academic institutions in the United States, and various professional organisations. It is also a requirement for immigration to Australia and Canada.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (or TOEFL, pronounced “toe-full”) evaluates the potential success of an individual to use and understand academic English at a college level. It is required for non-native applicants at many English-speaking colleges and universities. Additionally, institutions such as government agencies, businesses, or scholarship programmes may require this test. A TOEFL score is valid for two years and then is deleted from the official database. Colleges and universities usually consider only the most recent TOEFL score.

They may sound very similar but the tests themselves are very different.  I have, personally, found IELTS to be a more
valid test than TOEFL but if you are not sure which exam to sit, ask the University or institution which they prefer.

The last time I counted, the word ‘break’ had over one hundred meanings.  That’s 100!!  The meaning that I want to focus on today is to stop an action temporarily.  We would have a break at lunch time, or stop for a break.

The reason why I am mentioning this word is that having an exciting variety of break time activities can increase your activity and improve your self esteem, a new study has shown.

This means that you should not study continuously.  You should take lots of breaks.  And when you take a break, make sure that you don’t just sit around.  Have fun.  Take a walk.  Enjoy the weather.

EFL stands for ‘English as a Foreign Language’ and it refers to how you learn and are taught English when it is not your mother tongue.

If you want to learn English and don’t know where to start, you can order a book by going to http://www.eflbooks.co.uk/.  Most of these books have been designed for teachers.  They give guidance to teachers and give them material with which they can teach you.

This is not always helpful for a student. If you are a student, then you should look for a book with a CD-ROM for listening practice, an answer key and a work book for extra practice.  Visit this site, where the books have been categorised, depending on what you want them for, whether it is for exam practice or for improving your vocabulary.

My favourite, all round book is ‘Cutting Edge’ but if you are a student who wants to improve your grammar then go to ‘Inside Out.’

If you are not sure what level to choose then always go for ‘pre-intermediate’ because that usually covers important, easy-to-understand areas.

Happy reading and to practice what you have learned in these coursebooks come and visit Languagelab.