Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The "Fun Theory" attacks again

The Fun Theory: fun can change behaviour for the better. This trend has given birth to excellent advertising campaigns like the one with the musical stairs.

Here is another example which combines technology with fun. It comes from Sweden and it intends to make people pay for their broadcasting fee, a tax citizens must pay also in the United Kingdom
in order to be entitled to watch TV at home (click here for details).

Here are the two campaigns. Which one do you find more effective?


SWEDISH CAMPAIGN
(click on the picture to go to the site)



BRITISH CAMPAIGN

The Queen's Speech

By Peter Brookes, cartoonist for TimesOnline

Monday, May 24, 2010

Elephant Parade

The elephants are on the streets of London from May until July, and are attracting an estimated audience of 25 million...(click on the picture to continue reading)

Saturday, May 22, 2010

International Biodiversity Day

To read about the meaning of this celebration, click on the picture.

And here is a beautiful story to make us think:

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Interview with woman suing telephone company after cell bill exposed her infidelity

Yesterday, the Canadian newspaper National Post published an interview with Gabriela Nagy, the woman who is suing her phone company, Rogers Wireless Inc., claiming that a breach of her contract had led to her husband discovering she had had a love affair. Click on the picture to read the interview.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Plurilingualism: how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull


Although we have been getting news of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull practically every day since its eruption started, you rarely hear its name on the news.

Firstly, its real name is Eyjafyoll, as the rest makes reference to the glacier which covers it and not to the volcano itself. You can read more about this and about the fun Icelandic people are having with the mispronunciation of this landmark in Telegraph.co.uk : British attempts to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull causes hilarity in Iceland

As for the pronunciation, here is a fragment from abc.NEWS.com which is available in yahoo.news where an Icelander pronounces it. But she does not make clear the fact that the real name is shorter. Maybe she wants to keep the difficulty for the fun of it.

How to Pronounce Eyjafjallajökull
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Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Election Day Vocabulary


Tomorrow, 6th May 2.010 is election day in the United Kingdom.

Students sometimes ask about the vocabulary related to this, especially on the voting day.

Here is a piece of authentic material which can be used in order to extract information about the terms listed below.
Students should suggest a definition and/or their translation into their language after reading it. Click on the pictures to see them better.
Tip: you can role play a voting situation when they have to elect their class representatives.

Local Goverment Elections

Parliamentary Election

Poll Card

Polling Station

Ballot Paper

Polling Booths
Ballot Box

Presiding officer