12 ways that TV series can help you learn English!

Watching TV series is a great way to improve your English. Here are 12 reasons why. 

1. There’s a lot of conversation, so you’ll be learning lots of useful spoken language. Also, the dialogues are often short and easy to follow.

2. Watching a TV series is great for your listening ability, which is THE key skill in language learning. Once you can listen and understand, you’ll learn English easily and effortlessly.

3. By watching a TV series, you’ll hear English in context, so you’ll see how and when the language is used. And although the dialogues have been scripted, they’re designed to sound as natural and authentic as possible.

How to show interest

Are you having an informal conversation with someone? Do you want to show you are interested in what they are saying? We teach you some expressions.
Why don't you copy them and make an effort to use them next time you speak to your partner?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish

Question Tags

Hi,

You can practice the grammar we learnt in class in these links.

Grammar Aquarium: http://perso.wanadoo.es/autoenglish/gr.qutags.i.htm

Eglish Hilfen:

Question tags – Exercise 1

Question tags – Exercise 2

Question tags – Exercise 3

Articles:

Pronunciation of the article the in English – Exercise

The articles a/an, the – Exercise

Talking about fear

Hi,

Let's learn expressions to talk about "fear". After you can take a quiz to see how much you've learned:

This is a wonderful link that Ángel suggested, www.engvid.com. There are plenty of videos divided by levels and topics.

How to complain in English

Hi,
In this sheet you can learn how to complain in English. You may listen to it as well.
Source: Hot English

6 ways to prepare for an English exam!

Are you thinking of taking an English exam? Perhaps you should. They’re a good way of motivating you to study. Here are our top tips on how to pass an English exam in five months. This is the first part of a series on doing exams.

Let’s imagine you’ve got five months to prepare for your English exam. You can prepare yourself with just an hour a day over the five-month period before the exam. Here’s what you should be doing.

 

1 General preparation
Most exams test your general ability to communicate in English. So, in order to prepare you for this, you’ll need to work on the four key communication skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The best way to do this is to immerse yourself in the language, and to do a bit every day to increase your general level. Language learning takes time, and in order for it to take place, you need to read and listen a lot in order to get enough exposure to the language. In fact, language learning takes place through input (reading  + listening) and practice (speaking + writing).

Space Oddity, Christ Hadfield

This is a revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.

The fascination of Egypt

Hi,

As commented in class, we are going to visit The fascination of Egypt exhibition in Canal. In relation to the field trip we will do, you can read the following leaflet. These are the topics that we are to present in class from now till March.

Topics	PRESENTATION DATES
Egypt and the River Nile	Jan 27, 28
Pharaohs	Feb 1, 2
Ptolemaic Dynasty	Feb 3, 4
Alexander Magnum	Feb 10, 9
The city of Alexandria	Feb 15, 11
Serapis, Osiris’ Judgement and Isis	Feb 17, 16
Debod Temple	Feb 29, 18
Cleopatra VII	March 2, 1
Egypt a province of Rome	March 7, 3
Cleopatra and the arts (films, plays…)	March 9, 8
Mummification	March 14, 10
Art in Egypt	March 16
Valley of Kings	April 4
Sculpture of Nefertiti	April 6
The Book of the dead	April 11
Citizen journalism in Arab spring	April 13

Cleopatra VII

Do you like history? Are you fascinated by the life of Cleopatra? Listen to this video and take note of the information that you didn't know before.

The Pig, poem by Roald Dahl

Is English an easy language to learn?

Is English an easy language to learn? Here are a few arguments in favour of the idea that English is fairly simple. What do you think? Express your opinión in the comment section.
Listen to this HotEnglish document.

PluralsPlurals are relatively easy in English. In most cases, you simply add an “s” to the end of the word. For example: one chair, two chairs. There are very few exceptions to this. Some other languages have several different types of plural endings, which can get quite complex.

NounsIn general, nouns in English don’t have any gender as they do in other languages. For example, it’s a horse or a cow. But in languages such as Spanish, words can be either masculine or feminine. So, “a horse” in Spanish is “un caballo” (which is masculine), and “a cow” is “una vaca” (which is feminine).

Anger after flood-damaged homes in York

York residents express anger as they return to flood-damaged homes. Listen to this video from theguardian.com and try to answer what these people are complaining about:

• Did they ever think this could happen?
• How does the blonde lady feel about it?
• Why wasn't the man at home?
• Is he happy about the job of the firemen and army?
• What's his complaint about politicians?

Today's headlines

US-UK forces in Afghanistan

Cancer not just 'bad luck'

Athletics boss steps down

LingoHack Transcript

Christmas kindness

For many children, Christmas is the most exciting time of the year when they look forward to all the presents Santa Claus will bring. But for families who struggle to buy food they can’t afford presents for Christmas day. Neil and Alice discuss how some charities are helping these families in need.

Source: 6 minute English

This week's question

In the famous classic story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, what does Ebenezer Scrooge buy the Cratchit family for Christmas dinner? Is it…

a) a goose?
b) a turkey?
c) a chicken?

You can hear the right answer at the end of the programme.
Takeaways:

Download PDF

Download Audio

I'm game

Are you game? What does this expression mean? Can you tell with your own words what "being game" means?
Neil is dying for a game of squash but Li is not game. Find out why...

The English we Speak 

Download MP3  

The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep

After all the Christmas exciting moments, you may want to read your child to sleep using this story. Mind you don't fall asleep ahead of them!

Bogliasco

by Robert Polito 
Listen to this poem at Soundcloud

Blogiasco I’m always running ahead of my life, The way when we walk you are always   Three, fifteen, forty steps behind Taking a picture, or inspecting   A bottlebrush tree, a cornice, the sea As it breaks white on the striated rock,   As though I can’t dare look, and I’m always running away from myself   The way when we walk you are always Asking me to slow down, and what will happen   When one of us dies, and, if it’s me first, There’s no one’s back in our photos anymore.

Spain needs broad consensus to go forward after messy election result

Fractured parliament is as much an opportunity as a challenge. It all depends on the calibre of those elected

Spaniards wanted change, and at Sunday’s elections they got it. The two discredited parties that have run the country for three decades sank to historic lows while bright newcomers stormed their way into parliament. The upturned two-party system was tired and prone to cronyism, but it had one major advantage: much like Britain, it almost always produced stable governments. Sunday’s vote created an unprecedented mess, with the next government needing the support of up to five different parties.

The Guardian, Owen Jones on the campaign trail with Podemos

Happy festive season

Where Are We?

For today, a joke. Could you retell this joke below to someone? Take your time for it, practice, try to change voices.


Location of Louisiana in the US

A husband and wife were driving through Louisiana. When they were close to a town called Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town.
After a while of arguing, they decided to go to a local restaurant and have lunch. The husband could not wait to know the correct pronunciation, so he asked the blond waitress at the cash desk.
“Before we order, could you please pronounce where we are very slowly?”
“Burrrr-gerrrr Kiiing.”

Source: Jokes in levels Level 3