Flu season in full swing

Hi everyone,

Inspiration for this video came, as you probably know, from these miserable days at home in the company of the flu. I also love the expression "in full swing": we say that something is in full swing when it's at its highest level of activity. I prefer to use it for more positive events, like a party: We were a bit late, and when we arrived the party was in full swing.

This video is from last year, I think, when the flu season was in full swing: December/January. I propse two activities to be carried out with it: 1) a gap-fill; 2) finding out about the tone and intention of the text by listing adjectives: you know a newsreader is being dramatic when he uses the word "alarming" too often!

The main activity is this gap-fill in which I have highlighted the collocations in bold.

Flu season is (1) ____________ all across the country, with states in the North (2)____________ very hard.

Swine flu is making (3) ________________.

What’s (4) ________ about the H1N1 that’s a little more concerning is that it has additional symptoms: not only the fever, (5) __________, cough and congestion, but it can also have stomach-upset-like: (6) _________, vomiting and diarrhea. This makes one more (7) _____________ to dehydration.

In terms of prevention, the best thing to do is to get (8)_________________, but bear in mind it takes two weeks to (9) _____________.

It has been found that some bacteria can live longer on certain surfaces than (10) ________________. These bacteria can cause a strep throat, as well as (11)_____________ infections, sinus infections and even (12) ________________.

It was thought that once they touched a surface, they would die in (13) _______________ hours. It has now been found that they can survive longer.

A good prevention is not to touch your face, including (14) _____________ your eyes and (15) __________ your ___________.

You must also cover your mouth when you (16) ___________ or you (17) ____________.

Go for it! The key is available here.

Remembering all those who fought

Hello everyone! Remembrance Day is here, marking the end of hostilities in WWI "at the eleventh hour of the elenveth day  of the eleventh month".

To celebrate peace, I bring you a video about the dogs that were recruited at Battersea and the roles they took up during the war.

This video illustrates some of the accents we've been studying, and this, together with the recent practice on spelling and pronunciation we've been doing, has inspired me to introduce a different modality of activity that focuses on the "bête noire" of pronunciation: weak syllables.

When you read automatic captions, the usual thing is for them to be a little inaccurate. Guess where those mistakes tend to occur... Yes, as it happens with spelling bees, most of the inaccuracies will appear in weak sounds.

So, here's this challenging activity:

1. Watch the video once without captions.
2. Watch the video with closed captions on (CC button) and spot the inaccuracies.
3. Correct the captions.

This is going to test your listening, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation skills at the same time, and I hope it shows you how interrelated these skills actually are when we try to understand connected speech.

A difficult one done for you:

00:22 - CC: left tenant Colonel Richardson
should read:  Lieutenant Colonel Richardson (you can check the pronunciation of "lieutenant" on the widget on the right side bar to see why it was misspelt in the captions)

The rest are not so difficult, so... all yours! I expect a lot of activity in the comments until we get it all done! I'll keep an eye to help whenever it's needed.

Enjoy!


 

A brief history of the electric guitar in one song

Hi everyone!

Here's a little history of the electric guitar brought to you by the Smithsonian Channel. I hope you can recognize the song they play throughout the video!

The activity is a gap-fill of varying length: any number of words can fill the gap. What I like most about this video in particular is the fact that we have different voices, with slightly different accents, and a music background.

You can check your answers by activating the closed captions in the video (CC button). It's very approximate, so it'll do. (UPDATE:  this is the link to the video that has a CC button available)

Hope you enjoy it! And if it inspires you to play some music afterwards, then my purpose is accomplished!

All right now, what me and the _____________  are trying to do right here is a short history of the electric guitar, starting with ________________ that you can hear.

The creativity that comes out of, here was a tool where you can  ________ things in a way, and that, the only _____________ your imagination.

There's something beautiful about it, and it _______________, it doesn't sound like where the instrument ____________, it's gone in a _____________ round.

__________________ a way to express yourself in a way that,  maybe a __________________, maybe a little crazy, maybe ___________you to do things that you _________________ on your own, but you have that guitar in hand, it gives you ______________.

The fascinating thing about electric guitar history is that the product ___________________ much since it _______________, and all the innovations have been small, ____________ in their effect on a country as it changed music _______________.

In the story of the electric guitar you have so many things about America, and about __________culture _______________. You have invention, faith ____________, you have faith in technology, and you have ________________, you have creativity. All of these things come together in a guitar.

New course! A video about films

Hi everyone! We're back with some more video goodness.

Have you ever thought "no one could be Corleone but Marlon Brando"? What about any other characters? Actors and their iconic characters remain together forever, but the process whereby a specific actor is chosen can be long and involve a huge number of other people and circumstances. If that other actor hadn't turned it down...

This video takes us through some of the best alternate castings. Here's some vocabulary that I'd recommend you check before jumping to the open questions:

turn down

aficionado

contender

to be halted

to buckle (figurative sense)

And here are the questions. Key coming shortly! Enjoy the comeback!

Why did Burt Reynolds turn down Bond's role?

What was the problem with Stallone's script for Beverly Hills Cop?

What actor was only rumoured to have turned down a role? In which film? In that case, who would be to blame for not accepting a successful role?

What difficulties did Harrison Ford find to obtain the role for Han Solo? How did he finally get it?

And what difficulties did Michael J. Fox have when shooting Back to the Future?

Why was Harrison Ford cast for Indiana Jones only three weeks before production?  

What unexpected even could have enabled Tom Selleck to accept the role?

Topic Video: Architecture and Conservation

Hello everyone!

Back after a short break with a topic video! This one was inspired by my finding out that the magazine Arts and Architecture has been reprinted by Taschen. Definitely not affordable, but great news for those interested in that magazine, and who could only try to get hold of vintage issues.

One of the features of the magazine was the Case Study House Program. If you want to find out about it, and about what has been done in recent years to promote conservation of these designs, go ahead and watch the video!

...with an activity, of course. Here's the key: now you only need ten minutes and, if you could find two minutes more, you could even leave a comment!


1. There were _______________ 11 individuals, organizations, projects or programs that received awards.
2. The Case Study House Program was one of the seminal efforts in designing and building _______________  in the US.
2. Only 25 houses were built of a total of 35 homes and _______________  designed and published on the magazine.
3. They designed single-family residences, incorporating the _______________  in construction, materials, landscaping, and even _______________ .
4. The result had a _______________  on architectural design all over the world.
5. Due to risk of demolition or alterations that would make them _______________ , there was an effort to get the homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
6. The project spanned 11 years, after which ten houses were listed and one was _______________ for listing.
7. The project succeeded in raising awareness of and appreciation for these _______________  and their architects.

Topic Video: Book Reviews

Hello everyone!

The topic of today is reading, so here we have a double activity with an author's description of her latest novel and an author telling us about what she's reading at the moment. Note this vocabulary:

First video:

to run afoul of the law (new for me!)
neat - a neat guy

Second video:

Notice the pronunciation of the title (French words in English): Les Miserables
I figured... = I thought, I considered
Western literature

Book review:  Moving Target

1. What was difficult from having so many characters in different locations in Moving Target?
2. There are two mysteries in the book. Who is the second one about?
3. How much can she tell us about the last book she describes?



What are you reading?

1. The book she's reading
a) is based on a musical
b) is hard to read from cover to cover (from beginning to end)
c) is not an adaptation.

2. As she reads the book
a) she likes to listen to the songs from the musical
b) she realizes why it's considered such a great book
c) she thinks she should've read it earlier in life





Enjoy! As usual, key here.

And remember you can share things with us in the comments section. What are you reading at the moment? Any books on your nightstand? Here's mine.

Topic Video: Social Networks

Hi everyone!

I hope that you will find some useful vocabulary in this video to talk about social networks and their risks, but also about entertainment and age-appropriate leisure activities for children. A very complete one!

So check out this top ten and answer the questions. Then watch it again and try to complete the sentences with up to three words:


a) What are the most desirable features of social networks for kids? Tick the ones you hear:

- parental control
- signing in is only possible with parental approval
- online games
- limits of time spent online
- certain features can be enabled or disabled by parents
- age-appropriate content
- appealing photo-sharing facilities
- adult moderators
- Disney characters
- parents can access chatrooms
- review of photos before upload

b) What other features not mentioned in a) do you think can also be beneficial to a children networking site?


1. Togetherville works ______________ Facebook.
2. At whatswhat, a kids-only network,  it is required to log in with biometric facial recognition ______________ account security.
3. Without ______________, friends are limited to one grade level.
4. In Scuttlepad, content in ______________, ______________ and comments is kept age-appropriate, and photos are reviewed by their staff before posting.
5. At gianthello, friends are made from ______________ email addresses, and not from random online invitations.
6. It's a safe place for your kids to play online if they ______________ games.
7. Skid-e-kids has special features that let parents ______________ and monitor friends.
8. On imbee, parents have ______________ to everything. Age-appropriate parameters can be set, and features can be ______________ or ______________ by parents.
9. At four is kidswirl, which comes ______________ games, photo albums, videos, quizzes, music,...
10. On everloop, children can create ______________ pages, play online games, buy virtual goods and chat through various media.
11. The children's private loop is ______________ anonymous intruders.
12. On Club Penguin, children use penguin avatars to ______________, and they can use emoticons, chats and games to interact.
13. Signing up for children ______________ is forbidden unless they have parental consent. That will also grant parents access to a parent portal where they can ______________ their children post.

Key here... Tell us what you think about these children-friendly networks and their safety features in the comments!

Topic Video: Law

Hi everyone!

Here's a video on the origins of copyright law, and on the difference between what it was created for and what it is used for nowadays. The views of the author of the video are not necessarily my own, but he does raise a question. Who benefits from extending copyright to 70 years after the demise of the author? Heirs, companies?

I like the topic precisely because there doesn't seem to be a right or wrong answer to it, so the best way to argue in favour or against is by giving examples.

In any case, I'm using this video for you to find conditionals. The guy speaks fairly quickly, so turn on the captions for the difficult ones. All the conditionals I could catch are here.

The opposite of copyrighted material is public domain. A folk story, for example, is public domain. I wonder how it works with reworkings of that public domain story? For instance, The Little Mermaid. Could I make a film based on that? Or is it copyrighted since Disney made a version of it? I suppose if I go back to the source material, I could do it, but what if it looked "suspiciously similar" to the Disney story? I love to imagine those cases where definitions are slippery. What do you think?

Enjoy it!

Topic video: Traditions

Hello to you all!

The topic of today is traditions, so here it goes: birthday traditions from around the globe!

I would like to give some life to the comments section, so the questions for you, to be shared in the comments, are:

a. Which of the traditions mentioned in the video would you like to see or experience?
b. Do you know of any other birthday traditions?

Hard to choose!

Some more questions, anyone? With their corresponding key.

1. The Romans were the first to celebrate their family and friend's birthdays, and not just those of _______________ .
2. In Denmark, presents are placed on and around the child's bed so _______________ .
3. According to the host, we all know how adorable it is to _______________.
4. "Las mañanitas", aka "the little mornings" is sung _______________ before a group eats cake.
5. __________________ before their actual birthday is considered bad luck in Germany.
6. In the sock wreath hung at a bachelor's twenty-fifth birthday, the old socks are _______________ of his _______________.
7. Jewish girls have a bat mitzvah _______________ and boys have a bar mitzvah _______________.
8. When you turn 1, 10 and 15 in Nigeria, _______________ people may turn up at your birthday, which usually involves a feast.
9. In the last tradition mentioned, the Chinese believe that _______________ are indications of future interests.
10. The dog doesn't choose anything, indicating that she is _______________ .

Enjoy! And share your opinions in the comments!

Topic video: Politics

Hi everyone!

The video for today is not the best of topics, but... Here it goes! The European election explained in 99 seconds.

Get ready for some quick delivery! I strongly advise that you look up some vocabulary before watching:

cast a ballot
turnout
in the fringes
hard-line (anti-Europeans)
far-right parties
euro-sceptics

Why could these elections be, in the opinion of The Guardian, "a real turning point for the EU"?

Enjoy!

Topic video: tourism and conservation

Hello everyone!

One of the widest topics that we can deal with, it also includes some vocabulary on cities and transport.

An old piece of news about an eternal debate: is Venice selling itself to tourist exploitation? Work on the vocabulary first (you can use the widget on the right to help you), then answer the questions as accurately as possible. You can find a lot of useful collocations in the answers provided in the key.

Enjoy!

VOCABULARY

dwarfing
to (bitterly) resent sth
liner
vessel
guidelines
tide

QUESTIONS

What do those people against large cruise ships argue?
What is the justification given by the cruise company?
How many people does the tourist traffic in Venice amount to?
Who argues that there are far too many tourists?
How is the debate summarized at the end?

Topic Video: life stages / history

Hi everyone!

We begin our round of topic videos for this end of the academic year. The first one is on the topic of life stages, with a little bit of history.

The video is an account of a teenager's life in Ancient Rome. Do you want to know about Lucius's day? He's seventeen and he lives in Rome. Come in for a glimpse of his life...



And questions, of course!

What's the liberalia?
What poses risks in the building?
At what age did Romans come of age? Why was it such an important milestone?
What things has Lucius learnt in the classroom? And out of it?
How can Lucius make business?
Who is he bound to marry?
Describe the appearance of the streets during the liberalia.
What does the expression "wars were a fact of life" mean?
What expressions of time can you find (particularly at the end of the video)?


Here's the key! And don't forget that these TED-Ed videos come with transcripts if you watch them on their website or on Youtube.

Enjoy!

Music and creativity

Hi everyone!

Just how prominent is music in your lives? Do you use it to dance, to accompany daily activities, to entertain yourselves while you shower? Or maybe you play music yourselves, or compose it? Do you ever think about how musical a language (such as English) can be ?

This video explains the pervasiveness of music in Ancient Greece. Would Plato be shocked at the kind of music you listen to?

The video is narrated at a very good rhythm to do structure hunts. Can you find:

1. any reduced relative clauses (omitting the pronoun and the verb "to be")?
2. any passive constructions?

Notice the very strong collocation with the verb accompany (and its word family). How many collocations with it can you find?


Remove the captions for the hunt, and then check. Let me know in the comments if you'd rather have a key, or if you want to compare your answers or correct them.

Enjoy!

Conservation stories

Hello everyone,

Protecting biodiversity is the topic of this video we present today. To address some of the linguistic points that we have seen lately at different levels, I propose:

- Writing down all the adjective + noun collocations. Which of these adjectives have been formed with a prefix? Which of the nouns have been formed with a suffix?

- Writing down all the passive voice constructions.

What words or expressions from the video would you like to learn and use? Tell us in the comments!

The key, coming soon. Enjoy!

Yosemite National Park - facts and figures

Here's a little video with facts and figures of Yosemite National Park, which contains some nice examples of collocations typically used in travel and tourism.

I propose the following:

Find these expressions in the video and complete the facts:

Located in…

It’s visited by…

It’s home to…

Some of the visitors look for…

It boasts …

Find the figures! For an extra challenge, try to use the same wording as in the video, with full compound adjectives. Careful with spelling! 

How high is Yosemite Falls?

How high is El Capitan?

What are the dimensions of the slab of granite beneath the surface to which El Capitan belongs?

How high are sequoias (include the comparison)? 

An extra question: why are researchers climbing the sequoias?


You can find the key here. Let's travel a bit!

Proof or evidence?

Hello there again! I've just come across this delightful animation from the Royal Institution, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

It tells us about how ancient Greek thought influenced the way we think about Mathematics, and ultimately about... everything else.

I take the chance, with this video, to make you reflect about similar words. In this case, proof and evidence. They are near synonyms in certain contexts, but as usual... the collocations make the difference. So always keep a good record of where the word appears, what the topic is, and what words it collocates with. For example, evidence tends to appear quite a lot in contexts related to court, justice, and the like. Proof is often used in science, as in this video, where it is used to talk about demonstrations of theorems.

Not to mention the fact that both can be either countable or uncountable, so we must always be careful with the verb and articles we use!

Always look up the examples in good monolingual dictionaries to help with these aspects. In the best scientific spirit, read the examples provided by the dictionary to draw conclusions of use, deduce and then test (through trial and error: use use use, make mistakes, correct your assumptions). The activity here includes:

1. Reading the definitions of "evidence" and "proof" in the Learner's Dictionary widget on the right of the page. Taking notes if necessary.
2. Answering these questions: 
-What is the definition of "proof" in the video?
-According to the video, what is a good proof?
3. Writing down some collocations of the word "proof" used in the video.
4. Enjoying the video!

Key here. Enjoy!



The Greek Legacy: How the Ancient Greeks Shaped Modern Mathematics from 12Foot6 on Vimeo.

Surveys!

Hello everyone,

Following the reading about "Truth and Statistics", here's the British comedy Yes, Minister showing us how to obtain opposite results in a survey. Wonder how? Through the use of so-called "leading questions", that is, the questions that lead or introduce one more important question in the poll.

The one piece of vocabulary you whould know in advance is National Service, which was the obligatory military service in the UK (although this could be easily guessed by the nature of the questions.

I propose two activities with different degrees of difficulty: either transcribing the poll questions (ready for some British accent!), or completing this gap-filling.

You can check your answers here.

Enjoy!

)

Green Offices: a gerund and infinitive challenge

Hello everyone!

Today's video is a little presentation of eco-friendly measures in a company.

I suggest summing up or transcribing at least four or five measures that they implement at their offices, identifying all the to - infinitive and -ing forms. What is their function? 

ex. In Beijing, they arrange over 70 different bus lines from different parts of the city, helping them to (or: "which helps them to", expresses consequence) reduce the number of cars, and with it their carbon footprint.

How many more can you identify? The main objective for you is to transcribe them, and if possible, say:

a) if they are the subject 
b) if they are the object of a verb (remember certain verbs take infinitives, others take -ing, others take both...?)
c) if they express manner (they way we do something)
d) if they express consequence
e) if they express purpose 
f)  Extra: any participle clauses?

Enjoy! Here's the key.

Skyscraper history

Hi everyone!

This National Geographic video seems to be the beginning of a longer documentary. I quite like the language used, and the voiceover is just challenging enough with its pronunciation of weak syllables.

The documentary reviews seven "historic giants". Why do we use the word "historic" here, and not "historical"?

Have you seen any of these buildings? Personally, I'd love to see the Flatiron. I actually saw it yesterday in a film, just in passing, and I thought it was impressive.

Time for some comprehension. Complete with one or two words:

The Burj Dubai  _________  its success to seven key inventions.
At the heart of each of those seven buildings lies a major technological innovation that _________ to reach taller into the sky.
Seven ingenious leaps forward that _________  skyscrapers to evolve from big to bigger into the world's biggest.
Stairs in old office buildings were long and very dark, so people weren't willing to _________  more than to the second or third floor.
In the explanation of the security device for elevators, the rope breaking _________  a chain of events that locks the elevator.
The elevator completely transforms the _________  .
The Burj Dubai takes the idea of the elevator to _________  . Its more than 160 storeys _________  elevator technology to its absolute limit.


Enjoy! The key is here, but comments are also welcome!

Repatriating cultural heritage

Hello there, and welcome to a topic we hadn't dealt with in quite some time: culture, heritage, history and arts.

Many of you will be familiar with this situation: going to a museum in the UK, in France, in Spain, and walking around a section of Egyptian art. Or Greek. Or Persian. And the pieces on display are not minor: you will see in the video that some of the most representative works of art of certain civilizations are to be found in museums thousands of kilometres away from their land of origin.

This video is just a brief report, but it sums up many of the arguments in favour of and against showcasing foreign cultural heritage in museums. It has captions but they're not accurate at all and they're likely to confuse you.

Time for some questions, with their key here:

On display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo: the tomb of Tutankhamon, and one of the _________________ artefacts in the ancient world: the Rosetta Stone.

How the Rosetta Stone ended up in Britain is a tale of imperialist _____________ : the French discovered it in 1799, and when they _______________ the British in 1801, they gave them the stone.

The reporter suggests there is an argument to be made that the stone is in __________________ in the British Museum, and that people from all over the world can see it there. The reply is simple: that's true, but it's not at home, and Egypt __________________ .

Turkey has demanded the return of antiquities, and threatened to withhold the loan of artwork to those museums until __________________ .

Museums return pieces of art when there are grounds for their __________________ , or when a court forces them to. The St Louis Museum of Art is being __________________  for the return of an Egyptian mask.

When works of art have been taken legally, they are great __________________  for their countries of origin. 

In Greece they wonder who is authorized to __________________  a monument.

They display classical sculptures. The __________________  have been replaced with copies of the originals, the __________________  are in the British Museum.

It's difficult to decide how legitimate these claims are, because it isn't always clear whether something was __________________ . 

The case of recently acquired pieces is different from that of pieces that have remained abroad for a long time, in that the latter have become __________________  of the countries they are currently in. 

Security at the museums is also an issue. The Egyptian Museum, for example, was __________________  three years ago, and a human shield was the only thing that prevented a further __________________ .

It is argued that unstable governments are more likely to __________________ art repatriation.

What seems to be just bitter custody battles could __________________ more cultural exchange. In Greece the claim is becoming an opportunity for collaboration and sending more pieces to the British Museum for __________________ . 

In Dallas, they're borrowing pieces from Italy and Turkey in __________________  of their return of pieces to them. 


The looting of the Egyptian Museum is something that we witnessed here some time ago in one of our most popular posts.

"If something's been somewhere long enough it should stay there". Do you agree?