Bringing the World of English to You!
Hi Students !
Today and tomorrow in Second Life is the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. There are lots of interesting talks and exhibits which show what is happening in virtual world education.
Shiv Rajendran is speaking at 2:00am (PST) 10:00am (GMT) at VWBPE East.
Or if you would like to come and visit the Languagelab.com stand click here.
Hope to see you there !
Jessie Teacher
Hi Students,
How are you ?
This week Languagelab’s Shiv has been busy talking to teachers over the world. He has been talking at the International Academy, Essex Universities virtual space and showing teachers from all over the world how paintball can be used for teaching.
Why don’t you ask a friend or your teacher: Why is teaching in a classroom good and what are the advantages and disadvantages of it?
What can you do in real life that you cannot do in a classroom?
What can you do in a virtual world that you cannot do in a classroom?
The paintball event was a great success. Here is a short video clip so you can see teachers learning the vocabulary of inside a computer before they play the paintball game and start the shooting! Do you know what the parts of a computer are called?
Teachers learning computer vocabulary from Languagelabdotcom on Vimeo.
If you want to find out more about learning English in a fun and different way come and visit us in English City!
Hi Languagelab students,
This week we are talking about different cultures and crocodiles.
Watch this video below and answer the following questions:
Questions:
1. What countries does the speaker mention?
2. What is the system for streets in your country?
3. What do you think is the most unique thing about your culture?
4. Which cultures are most similar and most different to your own?
Shaun the crocodile man.
Shaun, 30, keeps 24 crocodiles and alligators in the semi-detached home in Oxford he shares with fiancée Lisa Green, 29, and children Billy, six, Louie, four, and eight-month-old Shania.
Joiner Shaun has even erected a purpose-built enclosure for his unique pets which include endangered Black Caymans, Cuban crocodiles and a Chinese alligator to keep the reptiles at a constant 25 degrees.
Shaun has now raised £100,000 in just two years to create Britains first crocodile zoo so his house can be restored to normality.
Shaun is still hunting for a 5,000 sq ft location big enough to house all his prehistoric beasts but in the meantime, his family home retains a tropical feel.
“They are amazing animals but not cheap to keep as pets. Just feeding them with rodents and fish costs £8,000 a year,” Shaun said.
“I have been interested in crocodiles since I was a little kid and once I started reptiles at 17 it just snowballed.
By the time I was 25 I had my dangerous animals licence and I was looking after crocodiles and alligators.”
All of Shauns children have grown up surrounded by snappy brothers and sisters and have inherited Shaun’s fascination and fiancée Lisa has also adapted to life in the wild.
Shaun added: “The crocodiles have always been around since before the children were born, so it is very normal to them.”The children like to go in and look at them and they have no fear at all.
“Lisa helps out with the crocodiles which is great.”
“They are part of the family and she has known about my love of reptiles since day one, so she wasn’t shocked.” But despite the animals being very well behaved, Shaun’s neighbours have still yet to pop round for a peek but are pleased to have their very own predatory neighbourhood watch. Shaun added: “The neighbours all know the crocodiles are there, but they have never wanted to come around and see them.
“People think these animals lie in rivers waiting to attack the next human walking past, but there is a lot more to them.”
Questions:
1. How long has Shaun kept crocodiles?
2. What types of crocodiles does Shaun keep?
3. How much does it cost per year to feed them?
4. What do they eat ?
5. What is Shaun looking for?
6. What do you think of keeping crocodiles as pets?
See you next week and don’t forget to come to our event tomorrow evening at 6:30pm UK time (10:30am PST), Jeremy Harmer will be talking to our students.
Bye bye,
Jessie Teacher
Hi Languagelab students,
We are very lucky to have a world famous author, teacher trainer and teacher is coming to Languagelab. He will be talking about strategies to learn English and you will have the opportunity to ask him questions. He will also be sharing some poetry with us.
When? Tuesday 2nd of February
What time? 6:30pm UK time (10:30am PST)
Where ? The Theatre in English City at Languagelab.com
We hope you can join us!
See you there - – Jessie Teacher
Hi Students,
I have been looking on the web this week for stories about music and world news. I am sure you have all heard about the earthquake in Haiti and how many people are still missing. Here is a positive story showing how social media can help people.
Read the article and answer the questions:
Former Fugees rapper Wyclef Jean’s charity text appeal for victims of the Haiti quake has reached a staggering $1m in just a matter of days.
Wyclef jean was one of a number of celebrities who took to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook urging fans to pledge their support to the crisis. And it certainly seems to have worked.
The rapper, singer and producer had encouraged followers on Twitter to donate £5 (£3) text messages to the Yele for Haiti charity, with over 200,000 followers donating to the cause.
According to ABC news, fundraising experts claim the response has been truly staggering and breaks all previous records so soon following a disaster. A total of $1 million was raised by all charities through text donations in 2008.
“This is a watershed moment. It’s historic,” said Albe Angel, founder and CEO of Give On the Go, whose company is helping Jean raise funds for his Yele Haiti Foundation, said. “This has been remarkable in every way.”
On Tuesday the poverty-stricken Caribbean island was hit hard by a massive tremor measuring 7 on the Richter Scale that struck just south of capital city Port-au-Prince.
Wyclef Jean isn’t the only celebrity who moved quickly to help ease the crisis. Hollywood super couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated £1m from their foundation to Doctors Without Borders to help the organization’s emergency medical operation in Haiti.
Other stars lending their name to the relief effort including Oprah Winfrey, Paris Hilton, Ben Stiller, Lindsay Lohan, Coldplay singer Chris Martin and hip hop star P Diddy.
Questions:
1. How much were the text messages?
2. How much money did they raise?
3. What band was Wycleff Jean from?
4. What is the charity called?
5. What social networking sites did Wycleff use to promote the charity?
If you would like to join a discussion about this topic come and talk to Lane the English City journalist.
New music in China – News story from the BBC.
We don’t just use our voices to talk, you can sing, shout or even make music using your voice! Watch the video and answer the questions afterwards.
Questions:
1. What instrument does Lian Bo use?
2. How old is he?
3. How did he learn to beat box?
4. What city is he from?
5. Is beat boxing popular in China?
6. What songs does he name?
7. What is the reaction from the audience?
8. How many beat boxers are there in China?
If you want to try singing in English visit Griffin’s class at English City every Thursday and Friday.
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
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.
Grammar Girl is back with more confusing words.
What is the difference between ‘among’ and ‘between?’
‘Between’ has a few meanings but, in brief, ‘between’ is in or through the position or interval separating, such as ‘between the trees; between 11 o’clock and 12 o’clock.’
‘Among’ is in the midst of; surrounded by, such as ‘a pine tree among cedars.’
Listen to the Banana Game in this link to find out more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1723_gramchallenge46/
I was reading through the some of the replies to my blog the other day. Some people directly responded to the blog. Most people wrote ‘I wanna learn’ and left it at that, which is a little frustrating. The point of the blog is for readers to learn and what they were saying what ‘I’m not learning. I wanna learn.’
I was on http://www.google.co.uk at the time when I angrily typed in ‘lazy student.’ That’s when I discovered http://www.lazystudent.co.uk/.
It’s divided into 48 categories, each of which has done of listings and links to websites that open in new windows. In ‘Hot Listings,’ you’ll find the most popular links. In ‘Editor’s Pick’ you’ll find lots of interesting things to read about.
Their mission statement is “to make it easy for students and educators to integrate the Internet into the classroom. The need for a complete online educational guide is evident. Lazy student is designed to be that resource for students and educators.” Despite its name the site does just that. I highly recommend it.
See you next week,
Grammar Girl
There are two indefinite articles in English: ‘a’ and ‘an’. They are used before a singular noun that has a plural form. ‘A’ is used before a consonant sound and ‘an’ is used before a vowel sound. The sound is more important than the spelling; we say ‘an hour’ and ‘a bag’ because the sounds of the first letter are different.
Here are the answers to the exercise I gave you in my last post.
1) Lucy has — dog.
Answer: a
2) Let’s sing — song.
Answer: a
3) Emily needs — new desk in her room.
Answer: a
4) I need — blue pen.
Answer: a
5) Ben has — old bike.
Answer: an
6) Peter has — aunt in Berlin.
Answer: an
7) We listen to — English CD.
Answer: an
8) She has — exercise book in her school bag.
Answer: an
9) The speed of this car was 160 miles — hour.
Answer: an
10) They finished — unit.
Answer: a
‘A’ and ‘the’ are included in the 200 key words in the English language. The question is why are they so important? Please post a comment to this blog with the answer.