Enjoy English!

Image taken by Nasa’s Terra satellite on 7 January showing the UK covered in snow from top to toe, deep in the clutches of the current cold snap.

Britain is unusually warm for its latitude because of the Gulf Stream. This week, however, the Gulf Stream is on vacation in Greenland. So this is what Britain is like without the Gulf Stream.

[Read more ...]

The electronic European Language Portfolio (the e-ELP), based on the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, can help you plan your learning, visualize your progress and discern which methodology suits you best, thus potentiating your autonomy as a language learner and motivating you to continue learning languages throughout your life.

[Read more ...]

Merry Christmas

[Read more ...]

Ready-to-use chart on comparative and superlative forms of adjectives.

[Read more ...]

Facts and prospects

Some weeks ago I asked my 4th year students of Secondary Education (aged 15-16 years) to think and discuss about the reasons why they find English is (or will be) useful in their own lives. Although they are still not very concerned with job issues, they know that a good knowledge of the English language will be a prerequisite to add to their CV.

[Read more ...]

Fed up of looking for educational content in YouTube with poor results? Then, TeacherTube can be the alternative site.

Their goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos, with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

[Read more ...]

CEFR

CEFR, (The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment) is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe. Its main aim is to provide a method of assessing and teaching which applies to all languages in Europe. The six reference levels (see below) are becoming widely accepted as the European standard for grading an individual’s language proficiency. However, existing examination boards have retained their own naming conventions, so the following chart can give you an idea of the level equivalences among them.

[Read more ...]

     The Japanese city of Hiroshima became the first city in history subjected to nuclear warfare when the United States of America dropped a nuclear bomb on it on August 6, 1945 during World War II. 

[Read more ...]

English Phonemic Chart

     Although phonemics is to be used only as a part of pronunciation development, Adrian Underhill’s interactive phonemic chart is an excellent teaching tool that can be played full-screen and gives clear audio examples of the English phoneme set. You can even download it for your own use off line, at Macmillan English.

[Read more ...]

On July 25, 1909, the Frenchman Louis Blériot became the first person to fly an aeroplane across the English Channel, from France to Kent.