English Studio

Football jargon / info / fun Test your knowledge of football vocabulary and learn about football-based idioms , but BEFORE you try the idioms phase, please do this activity

London for Teens on Prezi Read about London by clicking on the "play" button on this presentation: London for Teens Download these sheets and print them to complete the written comprehension practice about London :  The Thames / The Tower of London / London Transport If you want to know more about London, may be you like  this vid on Trafalgar Square

Gnocchi : It is an Italian food, in fact, the word gnocchi in Italian means " lump ". Gnocchi is most often made with potatoes, though it can also be made from flour, squash, cheese or even polenta. Gnocchi is served much in the same manner as pasta, with sauce or some butter and sage or parmesan cheese. Let's make some ;) -------- The story of Gnocchi Day in Argentina --------

London Zoo has opened up England's largest penguin pool allowing visitors to see endangered species up close. The area is called Penguin Beach. Listen to the penguinologist and tell where the Humbolt penguin comes from and why some species prefer some parts from the beach to others: Here's some more info, click on "Penguin Adaptations" and then work on this activity

Vocabulary activities Understanding from context Work on collocations

Visit Britain : BATH

Now click on this kitchen tour before you download and solve this crossword

A brief guide to democracy and elections in the UK Related activity ----------------- Bonus Play : Be an MP for a week

Related activity : Future Perfect Practice

and teaches new words ! Practise these new vocabulary items

How To Celebrate the Summer Solstice on Howcast Vocab practice : Match definitions to words on the list QUIZ Related articles Thousands celebrate at Stonehenge Solstice party at Stonehenge

Argentina's flag is a light blue and white triband with a yellow "Sun of May" in the center. The flag is twice as wide as it is tall. This flag was adopted on February 12, 1812, four years before Argentina declared independence from Spain (1816). The "Sun of May" design was added to the flag in 1818. The blue and white colors were chosen by Manuel Belgrano, the leader of the Argentinian revolution against Spain, and represent the blue sky parting to reveal white clouds, as is said to have happened when the Liberation demonstration began in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 25, 1810. Argentina's Flag Day is celebrated on 20th June, the anniversary of Belgrano's death.

History of FATHER'S DAY Argentine curiosity on Father's Day

Read ALL the information on this website and work on this activity ............... Bonus : Games, Cams , extras

Topic on the hot seat these days This video tells a lot about what's going on about such a big issue. I think cell phones are fantastic tools that can be exploited to assist language learning, but there's still a really long way to go before this happens . We are not ready to use them. Not yet. However, teachers should take up researching on new methodologies to deal with them right now. Just to count on possible courses of action up their sleeves . Utopias of this sort may be somewhat hard to believe, but we MUST BE READY : "The future may call while we are out"

If you've been to the UK you must have stayed at a B & B once, that's a fact. B & B stands for Bed and Breakfast , a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast, but usually does not offer other meals. Typically, bed and breakfasts are private homes with fewer than 10 bedrooms available for commercial use. Generally, guests are accommodated in private bedrooms with private bathrooms, or in a suite of rooms including an en suite bathroom. Some homes have private bedrooms with a bathroom which is shared with other guests. Breakfast is served in the bedroom, a dining room, or the host's kitchen. Further info

Learn about him Now work on this activity  ------------------------ Bonus : GAME

Henry's wives View more presentations from englishstudio Related exercise Do you want to know more about Henry's wives?  Watch him on this vid. He'll tell you ! After the vid click here ............................. Bonus Henry VIII's wives through ABBA music (along Money Money music)

Watch this vid about knights Now try this activity : Find the pair Have you got what it takes to wear armour and handle a weapon like the knights from old England?

Activity related

Literally speaking, this is what I feel when dealing with social media on the web. Some days ago I had the chance to read a great post on how using twitter overweighs not doing so within a teaching context. More than that. I would say that should be applied to all sorts of social communication web tools and applications existing today: Diigo, Delicious, FeedReaders, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Wikis, Blogs and many others that I haven’t been able to try since I started into the ICT and web 2.0 world Let me quote the best part of the post I mentioned in the paragraph above: Because you’re not on Twitter, what you don’t realize is that Twitter is the back fence you share with your neighbors. Except your neighbors are people all over the world who share your interests and passions and can help you accomplish your personal and professional goals. Every day you have a chance to learn from these online neighbors. Every day you have a chance to receive resources that you otherwise never

A cream tea is usually eaten as a mid-afternoon snack or when on holiday, as a stop-gap during that long break between the midday and evening meals. The essential ingredients of a cream tea are: A scone - (pronounced either to rhyme with 'bone' or 'gone') a small cake made from flour, fat and milk, baked quickly in an oven. A less common alternative to a scone is a 'split' made from a rich sweet yeast dough Jam - a conserve of fruit and sugar, boiled to a thick consistency Cream - the fatty content of milk that gathers at the top Tea or coffee The jam and cream are piled atop the scone, which is then eaten slowly (with the hands rather than a knife and fork). Occasional sips of tea or coffee are taken to refresh the mouth between bites . More about Tea Reference: BBC More "breaks" (related posts)

Click on the picture : Now work on these selected activities: Meeting people in England Talking about nationalities I'm not good at Maths I 've got some paper This is our family tree ! What' s the weather like in Yorkshire? On the news! The Weather Forecast

One of the unique jobs in London ? No doubt: RAVENMASTER You can't imagine THE TOWER OF LONDON without its traditions and one that is tied to it has to do with the RAVENS Watch this vid to see what is it like to be a ravenmaster: Now work on this activity Now listen to this interview with another Ravenmaster and try this listening exercise.

Imagine you are talking to your grandchild about your childhood in London . Open your diary and remember

Shakira grew up in a poor town in Colombia. She used to think of one day becoming a famous singer and travelling the world. Listen to her in detail and complete this activity .

Learning and understanding a foreign language is also learning about the culture of those native speakers. Cambridge is well-known because of Students, Exams and Universities. Cambridge and the surrounding area hold an unrivalled reputation for being a centre of excellence both in learning and ambience. Now its famous Colleges are home to over 17,000 students – Kings College Chapel is a familiar image all over the world. Cambridge’s heritage also includes an outstanding record of scientific and artistic achievements – Newton, Darwin, Wordsworth, Milton, Ian McKellan, John Cleese, Emma Thompson and Zadie Smith were all educated here. But Cambridge is much more than that, as www.visitbritain.com points out: You'll discover a perfect slice of England in Cambridge. Breathtaking buildings, the river running along the backs of the colleges, the bustling market at the centre of it all and the many thriving shops, bookshops, pubs, cafes and restaurants as well as th

Nowadays it is almost impossible to neglect the use of twitter as a communication resource. Today Twitter cannot be "avoided" in the ICT and ELT worlds. USING TWITTER: Pros -Much simpler / quicker to set up and update than any other webpage or blog -Messages are always short (140 word-limited per post) , hence readable...(as long as text conveys meaning), which directs us to another advantage: -It forces the sender to be concise and accurate in the message he wants to deliver Cons -Writing to 140 characters could leads to bad grammar skills -Privacy is at risk -Public timelines read by this network user do not contribute to organised info, i.e. it hard to follow threads The disadvantages mentioned above are not such, though. Regarding the bad grammar, it must be considered that you -as a teacher/tutor will have to monitor every single tweet published in the network. In order to do this you can use private or direct messages or retweet tools "@"to get students to re

Order the words to make sentences that summarise the story

Watch this clip and focus on the fruits that appear on it Then play this word game (play in FULL SCREEN on open) Now listen to the song in detail and try to match the phrases on this activity (again , play in FULL SCREEN on open)

Watch this video . Does the song sound familiar? It's a classic by Oasis- But the "familiarity" has to do with a media hit today. Try this activity YES. The clip has been on for a couple of weeks already and caught the audience attention,which is a good opportunity to take advantage of the motivation it naturally arises. And we have the chance to practise some vocab here This is what a blogger posted on the ad

At Elementary levels students generally lack vocabulary to provide background and character descriptions for their stories. You may provide some hints but they will not be able to express exactly what they want. However the web offers some http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifinteresting tools that you can get students to exploit and enjoy. This is the case of Pixton . Pixton introduces the world to Click-n-Drag Comics™, a revolutionary new patent-pending technology that gives anyone the power to create amazing comics on the web.From fully posable characters to dynamic panels, props, and speech bubbles, every aspect of a comic can be controlled in an intuitive click-n-drag motion. Steps taken: 1. Students read a story from their coursebooks about a man killing a sheriff and putting the blame on his own brother (sounds like a tragedy, doesn't it?-but the case is presented along humorous lines...so it doesn't hurt that much) 2. An extension activity is presented

Some time ago the innovation topic was CALL (computer assisted language learning), then ICT (information and communication technologies) and jargon of that sort. Today MOBILE LEARNING is on the spot. The article " From Blackboards to Blackberries " makes a good description of the situation. By the way,after being nominated as Judge for the Net Ed Gen Project, I am now going through the idea of mobile learning from different perspectives. These are two of the vids I have to give feedback to: Find more videos like this on Net Gen Ed Project Find more videos like this on Net Gen Ed Project

Sometimes these practices are far better than attending seminars or workshops. This is why I like blogs and Sundays. Because I have more free time to investigate and interact with colleagues with whom teaching interests are shared. I'm subscribed to one of Gabriela Sellart's blogs on my rss reader and was very glad to read this post on "feeds" which I did not hesitate to reply as I honestly had an experience to share and recommend. Good for Sundays and ICT tools that let us, teachers at the chalk face (guess this expression will become obsolete sooner than expected) interact and share hands-on experience. This is for everybody (English Studio students included), who sometimes neglect blogs and comments. This is the way to exploit the tools the web has to offer. And the way to learn through them.

The audio tape has been one of the items set aside after the explosion of CDs and mp3 players in the world market . If you have been teaching for more than 20 years you know what I mean: Those expensive and useful materials -so difficult to get- that helped our teaching when we wanted to enhance students' listening skills. As time went by those tapes were left into old boxes as CD tracks played on more updated sound equipements took over. And the same was applied to mp3 files which are useful to be played on mobile devices-so common nowadays. However, no matter how modern the new material is, you still miss certain content wich was recorded on those tapes and cannot be used now simply because you tape recorder is no longer within your teaching equipment. Well, this is what I did and my old tapes came back to "life" again: I dug out my old walkman (but a tape deck would also be perfect for the task) and got hold of a cable to connect the walkman's headphone jack to

1) This link helps you remember verbs from the past . Concentrate and take your time to study and practice with the domino game. 2) Type "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT" in the blanks provided here 3) Try to get out if this maze 4) Save Granny from the aliens ! All the words are verbs in the past ;) 5) Wordsearch

As you may see, people put it all down to Friday 13!!! However, there are more real explanations for the "unlucky" events shown above: Sphinx Facts and Mythology Famine in Ireland -Potatoes plans destroyed The Bell crack and the iconic symbol of American Independence Online Games for ESL learners

A couple of weeks ago I bought a brand new ELT publication in Argentina which I would like to recommend to colleagues. I believe the mag offers a way to see how to blend traditional material (in print) and web resources. It can be an eye opening opportunity for lots of collegues willing to exploit online stuff in their lessons.In addition, it also triggers unlimited ideas to all of those who have started trying out web resources in our classes. Classroom posters, "how to" articles and photocopiable activities, as well as already designed exercises to use along with youtube vids (sth which will certainly help teachers save precious time). Hope this is really useful for our ELT world.

, OK..may be the complete use of mobile devices in my classroom is too much,but I can dream with sth more likely to happen. When I saw this material from Pearson I thought : "This is what I will go for". I admit there are lots of external factors that will have to be overcome to get the idea into practice. One of the issues that are bound to prevent my 100% digitalization is clearly the inexperience of young learners before a PC screen. However, I trust this won't be a great obstacle in the long run. The more user- teachers exploit the world wide web the more likely we will be at ease with all the tools and resources offered online. This blog will show how those expectations can be fulfilled. Simply keep on reading and don't hesitate to join in order to interchange / share ideas.

Great debates on the use of Technology have been on lately and they food for thought . The reading of those posts found me in front of my screen this morning, almost not remembering that I had to set up an activity for my pre intermediate teens who are dealing with the past simple forms these days. Here's how I exploited the computer / internet aids that I has at hand: I needed a song to deal with the PAST, so I asked "Google" for a famous song to practice the PAST TENSE (I didn't want to use the classic "Imagine" by J. Lennon) so there I was, asking for another classic...the feedback was immediate: "Summer nights" (from the musical Grease). Yes ! Lovely -I thought. So I looked for a clip on YouTube and the lyrics . The idea of a very long clip didn't sound appealing, so I used Chop Tube , a magic online tool to cut long YouTube vids short . And ...voilá ... this is the extract I decided to exploit with my students . I cut and pasted part of