Word of the Week -62

WOMANISER

This week's word came to me while thinking of all things romance related. However, the word in itself is really the opposite of romantic! It is a noun that is used to describe a man who often has temporary sexual relationships with a lot of women and who is always trying to get women to sleep with him. Essentially, a womaniser (spelt womanizer in American English) is a man who uses and takes advantage of women.

One of the most famous womanisers in history is of course is the 18th century Italian writer, Casanova. In fact, his name has become synonymous with 'womaniser' and you can say 'John is a real casanova' and mean that he has had a lot of sexual partners and is therefore a womaniser!

Perhaps you have heard the word in one of Britney Spears' latest offerings since she has a song entitled 'Womanizer'. Maybe you are not a fan of hers but the video is pretty cool and gives you a good idea of what a womaniser is! Check it out here and practise your English listening skills!

Christmas Theatre

Stuck for something interesting and cultural to do at the weekend? Why not get together with a group of friends and go to the theatre. The Face to Face Theatre Company are putting on a show of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in English!!! The show is on Saturdays and Sundays throughout December at the Alcazar Theatre on Calle Alcala and tickets cost about 15 euros. Why not check it out, practise your English listening skills, have fun and get into the Christmas spirit!

Halloween is here!

Halloween is almost upon us. For many Spanish people this is just another commercial holiday imported from America and the UK. However, it is not just about dressing up in strange costumes and going around the neighbourhood asking for sweets with a cheeky call of 'Trick or treat." Halloween originated many, many years ago. You should find out more about this pagan festival by visiting the trusty History.com website and watching the videos, reading the articles, playing the games and of course, practising your English. You might be surprised by what you find out!

GO TO THE HALLOWEEN FEATURE ON HISTORY.COM > > >

Pumpkins

We are one week away from Halloween and this got me thinking about pumpkins. In fact I was in Carrefour the other day and I saw lots of pumpkins, both natural and plastic! Pumpkins are often synonymous with the 31st of October when traditionally people in English speaking countries carve faces into their tough flesh and put a tealight inside them to make creepy looking Jack-o-lanterns. However, pumpkins and squashes can be used for other things too. In the States, pumpkin pie is a special dessert for Thanksgiving. Some people think this sounds strange because they see the pumpkin as a vegetable, although technically speaking it is in fact a fruit.

For more ideas about what to do with a pumpkin and how to do it, you should check out these videos on VideoJug. (If you want to see the transcript you will need to click on the 'text version' button under the video.) You can practise your listening and reading skills while learning how to do something new!

More Links for Autonomous Learning

A colleague of mine has set up a new website for students of English as a foreign language. It is called Aulablc and it contains links to other sites where you can practise your English online. Interesting links and activities are organized according to level making the site very easy to use. There are FCE and CAE sections on the site which are particularly interesting for students who wish to sit a Cambridge examination in the near future. So, when you have a spare moment, check out Alistair's new site, www.aulablc.com !

Email English - abbreviations

In emails it is very common to find abbreviations. Of course, it is only appropriate to use them if you are sure that the person you are writing to will understand them!

Do you know what these email and instant message abbreviations / acronyms stand for?

1. FYI
2. ASAP (which is pronounced EI ES EI PI and not Asap!)
3. LOL
4. IMO
5. IMHO
6. BTW
7. BRB
8. AFAIK
9. THX
10. TIA

If you think you know the answers, please post them in the comments box. If you are not sure you can watch these videos from videojug which will give you some useful information and some valuable listening practice!

English Exams

In three weeks some of you will be sitting an exam in English, either the Cambridge First Certificate, the Advanced or the Proficiency. Hopefully, you will pass this exam with flying colours! (If you fail it though, you can always resit it at a later date). However, I hope that everyone is successful and to help you study and revise for these upcoming exams I have found a few links to websites that can help with exam preparation.

Cambridge ESOL > > > (This is the official site for the Cambridge exams where you can find out general information about the exams and what is expected of you and you can download practice papers.)

Flo-Joe > > > (This website contains advice and practice for all parts and levels of the Cambridge Exams. A lot of the site is free of charge but if you want to have full access you will have to pay a subscription fee.)

Splendid Speaking > > > (This website aims to help you with Paper 5, the oral test. It contains useful phrases and vocabulary, tips and podcasts of people doing speaking tasks with tapescripts and comments.)

Fullspate > > > (This site has some tips and set phrases to help you improve your writing in Paper 2 of the FCE and the CPE, although it is also worth a look if you are doing the CAE.)

Hope this helps! Happy studying and lots of luck in June!

Online Supplementary Material

If you study in the actual academy of the BLC, you no doubt have a coursebook. Did you know that each suite of coursebooks has it's own website where you can access games, revision quizzes and tests based on the level and the individual units of your book? You should know this because the web address comes on the front or back cover of each student book. If you didn't know, don't fear for I am hear to inform you!

Click here....

If your book is a HEADWAY book > > >
If your book is a CUTTING EDGE book> > >
If your book is a NATURAL ENGLISH book > > >
If your book is a GOLD book > > >
If your book is a NEW ENGLISH FILE book > > >

If you are following a business book you can also benefit from online resources.

Click here to see the MARKET LEADER website > > >

Have fun learning and testing your own progress from the comfort of your own home, or from your work desk when you have a few spare minutes.

More Movie Mania

If you are interested in watching trailers of films but would like some activities and exercises to do at the same time you should check out this website. You can choose from many different trailers and there are different tasks like gap-fills and grammar exercises for you to do while you watch.

Movie Mania

Actors, directors and writers are waiting with bated breath as Hollywood prepares to host the 80th Annual Academy Awards on the 24th of February. The awards, more commonly known as The Oscars, recognise the hard work and expertise of different members of the Film Industry.

Are you interested in films? What kind of films do you prefer? Sci-fi films, biopics, comedies, documentaries, slasher movies, or chick flicks? Would you consider yourself a film buff? If so, perhaps you'd like to test your knowledge on the Filmfour Oscars Quiz.

Go to the Filmfour Quiz > > >

But if that isn't challenging enough for you, you could pit your wits against Jon Mullich who reckons his Oscars quiz is ultra-hard.

Go to Jon's quiz > > >

If you are not at all interested in quizzes but you would like to find out more about this year's Academy Awards, you should check out the official Oscars website. You can find out who is nominated this year and read more about the nominees > > > in their star biographies. You can also watch trailers > > > of all the films that are nominated in each category, but in original version of course and without subtitles!

So what are you waiting for, you only have two days to get clued up on all that is happening in Hollywood before the actual event on Sunday!

Go to the official Oscars Website > > >

This Day in History

Are you interested in History? Or in interesting titbits and trivia? On the History Channel Website you can find out about what happened in history on any given date. Perhaps you could check out the website once a day to find out what happened that day. Each video lasts only 1 minute so it is a nice, quick way of getting a little English listening practice and you may even learn something interesting about world history. So. what are you waiting for?

National Coaching Week

This week, February 3rd-9th celebrates the tenth 'International Coaching Week'. Its purpose is to provide a week each year to educate the public about the value of working with a personal, business or executive coach.

Have you ever heard of coaching? If not, you may be interested in finding out more through the links below. The links provide opportunities for listening, reading, speaking and vocabulary practice all around the topic of coaching. You can listen to an executive coach, Cheryl Smith, discuss the differences between coaching and other similar disciplines such as mentoring, consulting, counselling etc. Cheryl also talks about the ever-increasing role that coaching has in businesses and organisations. There are also further listening tasks for you to do.

Click here for the reading / listening tasks related to the recordings.

Click here to listen to part one of the interview with Cheryl.

Click here to listen to part two of the interview with Cheryl.
Click here for the tapescript.
Click here to listen to the interview with Michelle.
Click here for the tapescript.

Happy listening and learning!

English Lessons in your living-room

I made a great discovery last night while I was flicking through the channels trying to find something good on the box.
It appears that there is a new channel called Aprende Inglés TV which runs twenty-four hours a day. (This channel is only available to people who have digital television) There are a few different programmes which are repeated throughout the day. One of these is called Rumbo al Inglés which allows you to watch a one-to-one class of varying levels and learn along with the student. It's English class from the comfort of your own living-room! And there is no excuse, it is on all day, morning, noon and night!

To find out more about this new channel, the founders, the programmes and programming schedule, go to their website.

GO TO APRENDE INGLÉS TV >>>

You can also take a peek at what the televised classes are like, but be careful, it is a little addictive! Alberto el Seductor is especially good to watch ;-)

TAKE A PEEK >>>

In keeping with the last blog entry on illnesses, I have found this listening activity where you can practise the vocabulary and learn some more expressions related to the same topic.

GO TO LISTENING PRACTICE >>>

If you would like more listening practice, go to the BBC World Service pages and listen to an episode of The Flatmates, when one flatmate goes to the Doctor's. Listen without the text and then click the link on the right-hand side named 'language point' to look at some useful expressions from the tape script. Have fun!

GO TO THE FLATMATES EPISODE >>>

Christmas in America

In the last post I linked to a great online advent calendar where you could find out about Christmas in a different country every day. As the countdown to Christmas continues, don't forget to click on that calendar and learn something new!

If Christmas is something that you enjoy finding out about, you should link to this Christmas Listening Quiz. In this particular recording you can hear an American talking about their traditions in the festive period. The website has lots of other listening quizzes for you to try out too, so why not practice a little in your own home or when you have a spare minute at work and choose something that interests you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the fourth Thursday in November which means that the Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving. Tables all over the US will be laden with roast turkeys, vegetables, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies and pecan pies as families celebrate all that they have to be thankful for.

If you want to learn more about the tradition behind Thanksgiving celebrations check out this website which includes an interesting video about the history of the festival, interviews with pilgrims and thanksgiving recipes for you to try out at home!

When you have read and learnt a bit more about Thanksgiving you may want to try out some of these games and activities for a little bit of vocabulary fun!

• Thanksgiving Hangman
• Pumpkin Crossword
• Thanksgiving Wordsearch

More Australian English

It hasn't been such a great Tour for the Aussies, but Australia's Special Broadcasting Service site has some excellent coverage of the different stages and the Tour in general, including video and audio. There are also some hilarious short promotional videos by one of my favourite [AmEng favorite] riders, sprinter Robbie McEwen, who unfortunately is out of the race at this stage.

Listen up!

Fancy a bit of listening pratice?

The Australia network has some short videos called The Business of English. As the name suggests, they're role plays on business-related subjects. They can be watched in your browser and are accompanied by a tapescript. A good chance to practice your listening skills, here an accent you probably don't get much opportunity to listen to and get a bit of business vocabulary.

Listening practice

Fancy a bit of listening practice?

Check out Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab.

Who's on First?

The comedy duo Abbott and Costello were very famous in the States in the 1940s-1960s. One of their most popular routines was one called "Who's on First?". It is based on a series of misunderstandings between Abbott and Costello due to the players on a baseball team having some very strange names: Who,

Why not have a listen to the original "Who's on First?" and then compare with an updated version with a conversation between George W. Bush and Condaleeza Rice about world leaders. (You can read along, following the transcript to the original or the Bush-Rice version.)