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HOW TO CHEAT AT PRONUNCIATION

Another useful YouTube channel: Emma Saying Learn how to say words in English correctly with Emma Saying free pronunciation tutorials.

Christmas ads 2017 round-up

The battle for the most popular Christmas advert is underway... Best Christmas Adverts 2017 – Festive Round up So Far. Christmas ads 2017 round-up: Watch the festive best from around the world . #everybitofChristmas | Sainsbury's Ad | Christmas 2017 THE 'GOGGLEBOX' CAST INTERACTS WITH GOOGLE HOME IN CHANNEL 4 AD BREAK TAKEOVER

XMAS SHOPPING

A Special Christmas Story: The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.   / ˈmeɪdʒaɪ /  1.   Read the short story online here (only 6 pages). 2.  Listen to it : T he VOA Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES (with transcript). The mp3 file is on the right-hand side. 3. Summary, Theme & Analysis ( video and quiz ). The Magi : I n the Bible, the three men, thought to be kings or astrologers, who followed a star to visit Jesus Christ when he was a baby and give him presents. They are also called the Three Kings or the Three Wise Men. SPEAKING EXAM, Task 2 (interaction): Read the following articles in order to gather ideas and vocabulary about this topic: - The pros and cons of online shopping: Article 1 - The pros and cons of online shopping: Article 2 - Demonetisation:   Fundamental shift in payment habits

ONLY NOW DO I UNDERSTAND INVERSION

  A fair few of inversion exercises Rephrasing exercises

THRILL-SEEKERS (unit 2)

Chris Hemsworth's Dangerous Climb in the Himalayas:  Being Elsa Pataky's plus one,  the actor took part in the Spanish adventure programme "Planeta Calleja" . However, something went wrong. This is how he explained it: SOME HELP FOR YOU: We did a trip recently to the Himalayas. Oh, really? How high up did you go? We got higher and higher and we ended up in about 4000 metres above sea level. You acclimate every couple of days ... so your body adjusts to that, lack of oxygen. Have you ever heard of altitude depression? Just to give you an idea, if you had a bottle of water outside your sleeping bag, it's frozen by the time you wake up. It has to be tucked in with you. Oh, really? It was freezing. I'm in my bed, I'm just tossing and turning ...  and my breathing is getting worse ... like in a Darth Vader meets Daffy Duck . "Get him off the mountain" Apparently, the oxygen in my lungs, the next day was oxyge

TWO LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Black Friday :  Todd explains Black Friday and Cyber Monday to Aimee. Living on the cheap:    Dan talks about how he saves a lot of money by living in Southeast Asia. Both with quiz, vocab., and script.

THE UNITED STATES OF THANKSGIVING

Scouring the nation for recipes that evoke each of the 50 states  (reading) The story of Thanksgiving by Ellen Degeneres: Autocorrect mishaps : Friday Night Mishaps (multiple choice listening activity) What's Your Worst Travel Mishap? Last year I planned to travel to Florence for the weekend with a friend in August. We each booked tickets for the same flight coming home Sunday evening and couldn’t figure out why mine was so much cheaper. On Sunday morning, while trying to check in online in order to print my boarding pass, I realized that the flight I had booked left Florence that very same day but in September! After a panicked phone call with Iberia, who mockingly informed me there was a 300-euro fee for my ignorance of the months of the year, I got booked on the correct flight. Signed: Your Teacher

"THEY WOULD HAVE TAKEN OVER THE PROJECT AND BOSSED US AROUND"

They would and they did! To take over To boss sb around Funky phrasals (BBC Learning English) Phrasal Verbs Games (Macmillan Dictionary) Phrasal verbs in context (older post) APP

EXAM TRAINING: WRITING

Improve your writing . How to write an essay . Written Production . Writing class: Makeovers . Writing C1 . Writing topics and reference sites online (C1) . The Essay - Mr. Bean Extra History: South Sea Bubble (market crash, 1711). VIDEOS PREPOSITION PLACEMENT IN RELATIVE CLAUSES Everyday English Formal English (writing) Is that the man  (who) she arrived with ? Is that the man  with whom she arrived ? Does he know the girl  (that) John is talking to ? Does he know the girl  to whom John is talking ? It is a club  (which) many important people belong to . It is a club  to which many important people belong .

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Page 20, exercise f: 1.  a. eerie b. deafening c. hammered d. whining e. gurgling f. roar g. thump h. whisper i. decibels 2. roar: dull whisper: soft thump: dull 3.  absorb sound (vb.) ambient soung (adj.) a scraping sound (adj.) background noise (noun, making a compound noun) EXPRESSING PREFERENCES: Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3 Exercise 4 The More Education Republicans Have, the Less They Tend to Believe in Climate Change , an  exhaustive scientific report unveiled this month (The New York Times)

THIS YEAR'S PANTOMIME (MADRID)

http://www.madridplayers.org/

I LIKE IT-I LIKED IT

/d/ enjoyed fried spelled opened married carried closed loved waved tried aged killed covered turned followed seemed pulled damaged offered claimed /t/ picked walked stopped helped worked coughed rushed hoped kissed joked fetched skipped happened missed wished realised reached sniffed /id/ started added needed counted ended invited lasted shouted I kista girl and I laiktit   (song)

TONGUE-TWISTING TOWN PRONOUNCED PERFECTLY

KAZUO ISHIGURO: ON WRITING AND LITERATURE

LISTENING: Kazuo Ishiguro Is Awarded Nobel Prize In Literature (nrp.org) READING:  Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature , in The New Yorker Film adaptations: Kazuo Ishiguro on The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go

ALCINE FILM FESTIVAL

The World Heritage City of Alcalá de Henares, in Madrid, is hosting a new edition of its short film festival, ALCINE.  The festival has been held since 1983 and has served to launch the careers of some of Spain’s most important directors, such as Alejandro Amenábar, Isabel Coixet and Fernando León de Aranoa. At the same time as the official short film section, there is also a feature film section aimed at new directors. In addition, in order to increase the international presence at the festival, since 2007 there has been an official section for European work. Friday, November 10th, 10:00 am TRAILERS: 1. JAIME , a short film by Christopher Manning:   'Film gave me the sense I wasn't alone' 2. REFUGE , a short film by Leticia Agudo: 3. SWEET MADDIE STONE , a short film by Brady Hood: 4. Tête à Tête , a short film by  Natasha Tonkin: Promising indeed!

A VILLAGE AFTER DARK - A short story by Kazuo Ishiguro

Here you can find your Halloween required reading "A village after dark" , a short story by the Nobel-Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. In this unsettling short story, a man returns to the village where he spent his youth. Rich with ambiguity, the text explores the uneasy relationship between the past and the present.  Ben Marcus reads Kazuo Ishiguro's "A Village After Dark," and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "A Village After Dark" was published in the May 21, 2001, issue of The New Yorker . Who is Kazuo Ishiguro ? What are his best books ? Ishiguro’s novels are mostly first-person, and mostly told by an unreliable narrator. They tend to revolve around a single traumatic idea that the narrator is not entirely capable of confronting head-on.  Scaredy-cats!!!!

COME TO THINK OF IT...

The History of English in 10 minutes (with English subtitles): History of the English Language HORRIBLE HISTORIES videos. Horrible Histories is a series of illustrated history books and a British children's sketch comedy television series that shows you the sides of histoy they don't teach at school. The names for the different historical periods are Ruthless Romans, Smashing Saxons, Stormin' Normans, Terrible Tudors, Vicious Vikings, and so on. You'll find yourself laughing into stitches!!! Horrible Histories: The Anglo-Saxon report Horrible Histories: Anglo-Saxon language Horrible Histories: Historical Masterchef Saxons Horrible Histories: Words we get from the Vikings

COMPARING DICTIONARIES

Cambridge Dictionary: READ What I like about it:    - Level is specified  - Idioms and phrasal verbs related to the word Oxford Dictionary: READ What I like about it:    - More examples available   - Synonyms Longman Dictionary: READ What I like about it:    - Top spoken and written words code   - Examples with pronunciation   - Grammar patterns   - Thesaurus Macmillan Dictionary: READ What I like about it:    - Activator-like   - Explore Thesaurus available   - Synomyms and related words   - Phrases and phrasal verbs   - Red words and stars for frequency of use:    http://www.macmillandictionary.com/ Lots and lots of games and resources

/wɪð ɔː wɪˈðaʊt juː/

I THOUGHT A THOUGHT: TH pronunciation The Sound Of English (phonetics review)

PATÉTICA FONÉTICA

/ ɪts   nɒt   ðə   seɪm/ For the whole EOI Laredo videocast series, click here . Pronunciation dictionaries: Howjsay Forvo HowToPronounce Inogolo Read with a British accent

RIVERS KNOW THIS

Grit: The power of passion and perseverance (TED Talk). Subtitles and transcripts available. What are the takeaways from this TED talk? 1. Grit and perseverance 2. Growth mindset 3. Attitude to mistakes " Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint." "...the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort...." Having a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset. Growing your mind (Khan Academy video) Neuroplasticity (video) "So growth mindset is a great idea for building grit .... We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions, and we need to test them. We need to measure whether we've been successful, and we have to be willing to f

EXAM LISTENING

http://www.elllo.org Choose a level, listen to the audio or watch the video and take a quiz. These lessons take just a minute to do and are designed for ESL students. For example, lesson  1027 Countries United . http://www.esl-lab.com/ Listening Quizzes (easy, medium, difficult). Why don't you have a go at this quiz? Job hunting (multiple choice). British Council Listening Skills Practice Choose C1 level and practice, practice, practice. Try tackle War's Silver Lining , a gap fill lesson.

WRITING REVIEWS

Steven Soderbergh bids farewell to cinema in style – with a gripping psychological thriller about big pharma and mental health that cruelly leaves you craving one last fix. ( Side Effects – The Guardian review ) Side Effects is an old school psychological thriller (you never quite know who to trust...) directed by Steven Soderbergh. It stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum. It was released in the US on February 8th, 2013. An edge-of-your-seat thriller!! BBC Talking Movies:   http://www.bbc.com/news/av/21351882/soderberghs-thrilling-curtain-call   (listening activity: video) How to write a review 1 : Hints and useful language How to write a review 2 : Skyfall How to write a review 3: positive and negative adjectives C1 2016-17 required reading:   Notes From a Big Country by Bill Bryson Review 1 Review 2