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

Teacher helps pupils cheat

GCSE: the General Certificate of Secondary Education is "an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland" (Wikipedia)

Public school: although it may sound like a contradictory term, a public school is that which is run by private hands, as opposed to a state school, which is run by education authorities and on public funding.

Teacher at princes’ school helped his pupils to cheat in French exam (Timesonline)

Gordonstoun teacher banned after pupils get exam 'tip-off' (News.scotsman.com)

Games: The Times Spelling Bee

The Times Spelling Bee is part of the TIMESONLINE and a good way to practise your spelling and listening skills. It is addressed to native children, so you will need to know quite a good range of vocabulary. It's worth trying and you can also learn new words.

Remember the menu on the right where you can choose different types of games.



Spelling is not consistent in English and that creates serious problems to both native and foreign learners of the language. That is why you may have seen some reference to spelling championships in some movie or series from an English speaking country. Something totally strange to Spanish speakers, for example.

Summer Term

Classes shut and exams threatened as ash cloud clogs working Britain - Times Online

The problem comes from the fact that most schools start today after the Easter Holidays and many teachers and students were abroad when the "ash crisis" started.

The academic year in primary and secondary schools in the UK is divided into three terms: Autumn, Spring and Summer (traditionally called Christmas, Easter and Summer terms, these names have changed due to political correction). In the middle of each term there is a week holiday called half term. There are also some bank holidays scattered along the year as well as the main vacation periods: Summer, Christmas and Easter.

For more detailed information about the British school calendar you need to check the information about a particular area. Here is the calendar for 2009/10 at the London Borough of Hackney:

The Learning Trust - The Future for Education in Hackney

It is interesting to contrast this calendar with that of New South Wales in Australia: New South Wales School Calendar

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Giving Directions: Some useful authentic material

Here is some material which can be useful for a lesson on giving directions. It is based on real information provided by Transport for London .

The picture on the right has been taken at Russell Square underground station and in it you can see a poster with a list of places of interest in the area and "how to get there". You can click on it for a closer look.

The indications include all the basic expressions and landmarks frequently used for giving directions, although some verbs, like "take" or "turn" have been omitted (to save some room, I guess).


The idea is to create an exercise by reproducing the information in the poster except for the names of the places, which the students will have to identify in a map after following the directions.

Here we have some more help from Transport for London , as they have also created some maps with places of interest in the area surrounding some underground stations. They are distributed for free at the stations but they can also be downloaded from their web (and easily printed and laminated for use in class). The one for Russell Square is this (the most useful part for this exercise is page two):

http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/Download/EnvMaps/tfl/TK_russellsquare.pdf

As the last stage, if we want to work on this topic as a task, we can ask the students to create a similar poster for the area where they live which might be of help for visitors. They can take as reference their own school or any other relevant landmark. Depending on the level of autonomy of the students, maps could be provided by the teacher or by the students themselves as part of the task.

Note for tourists:

If you are visiting London, you might find these maps a good way of exploring different areas starting from an underground station. Unfortunately, it does not replace guides for further information and also pubs, restaurants and some other places of interest will not be listed, but it can always be fun to find these places by pure chance.

April Fool's Day (Santos Inocentes)

Related vocabulary

Hoax: Act intended to deceive or trick.

Practical joke: a prank or trick usually intended to make the victim appear foolish.

Prank: a mischievous trick or practical joke.

Let's play: Word Machine

Wait for the advert to finish (if your speaker is on, you will hear some kind of mysterious music). Click on the flag of the language in which you want to play, English or French, and get ready.

Write words beginning with the big letter given on the left. Then write words beginning with that letter and containing the ones given. How far can you go?

The Urban Dictionary: defo.

This is an interesting dictionary where you can find terms used by people everyday which are not easily found in more formal dictionaries. It works like Wikipedia and I find the definitions very helpful.

Try with these words: defo, oi or uber. I have heard them and seen them written very often, in the last case in articles and reviews in magazines.

I will add a link for easy access under the Vocabulary and Grammar entry in the column on the right.

AKINATOR: Who is it game? (elementary)

Time for a game.

This is the classic yes/no question game to guess the identity of a famous person? But this time you play against the computer.

The surprising thing is that you think about the person and "Akinator" asks the questions and guesses. Why don't you have a go? You might be able to beat Akinator.

Click on the picture and then on Play. Introduce a name (or nickname), your age and gender. Think of a real famous character and click on Play again. Tip: Try with easy characters first and then make it a bit more difficult for Akinator. You'll be surprised!

Please, write a comment if you found this link useful.

MOVING HOUSES AND SCAM

The first thing I obviously had to do before moving to London was to find a place to live. I started looking for a place on the web, as I was still living in Spain, and a word began to appear more a more frequently, and this word is "scam":

SCAM: a fraudulent business scheme

And it was not just a word. I had already discovered the reputation London has for being one of the most expensive cities in the planet but still wanted to find that "bargain" and contacted "flat owners" through different sites. Of course I also contacted people who were genuine landlords but had the opportunity to come across some examples of real SCAMMING.

The funniest SCAMMER was someone who claimed to be a reverend moving away on a mission and for whom money was not important. The important thing for him, he said, was to find someone who took good care of his house while he was away, a house which looked pretty much like a five star hotel room. Others were not that obvious, but I began to identify some of the tricks and to my disappointment, I discovered that it was very difficult to find a bargain in London, especially if you are not there to check by yourself.

Of course, this is not something to laugh about, and some SCAMMERS have managed to deceive people by making them believe they are the real owners and taking a minimum of a 3-month-rent deposit (which can be a considerable sum), and then the real owner had turned up to everybody's surprise (but the SCAMMER, who would have disappeared).

Here are some comments from "Gumtree", a site which works like "Cambalache" or "Segundamano" here in Britain and which provides a lot of warning and even a forum to denounce SCAMMERS, as it is something that escapes their control:



Beware of SCAMMERS. It is already happening in Spain too.

So, what did I do in the end? I followed my tutor's advice and decided to go to a State Agent, but this is another story...

DREAM HOUSES

Here is an interesting link to a site where you can build your dream house with the help of a famous architect: Frank Lloyd Wright. Click on the picture to get there and then click on "begin your design". You just have to follow the instructions and read the tips.

There are limitations, as you have to choose among the options given, but it is a funny way to learn some vocabulary about different aspects of building a house, using simple language, while you see how your dream house takes shape. This might be a good link for Technology Teachers.

Appearances

WHAT DOES HE/SHE LOOK LIKE?

This is a link where you can find some vocabulary (a lot, actually) about physical appearance. It is from a site to learn Spanish but the list is as valid for learners of English:

WORDS TO DESCRIBE PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, FROM

FALSE APPEARANCES

Who are these people?

They look like celebrities but they are not, they are Sophia Loren's, Robin William's and Prince's look-alikes.

Definition of "look-alike" (Wikipedia): A look-alike is a living person who closely resembles another living person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty.

Definition of "impersonator" (Wikipedia): An impersonator is someone who imitates or copies the behavior or actions of another.

While look-alikes base their skills on mere resemblance, impersonators use make-up and other elements (clothes, wigs, etc.) to look like the person they try to copy but remind us of the person mostly because of their behaviour, voice and/or way of acting.

Who does she remind you of?

Watch the video and you will have not doubt about it:

Students sometimes impersonate their teachers or fellow students. Do you know of any cases? Did they get into trouble? Do you like that idea or you find it offensive?

First lesson after Christmas: presents, resolutions and manners.

Yes, the Three Wise Men won this year in class and most students received their presents on January 6th, or so they told us last Wednesday. This is a cartoon we worked on in this class, from "Cartoons for the Classroom":


When we analysed the items, iPods, Macs and their creators came up, and I promised to upload a link to an interesting speech by Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple. It comes in two parts, both subtitled in Spanish:

Part 1 (time 8:44):



Part 2 (time 5:48):




Then we talked about new year's resolutions and I asked you to send comments to the post on "Christmas diet and new year's resolutions" (24/12/08), writing about your own resolutions. We have received some interesting ones. Someone sent this (I corrected a little mistake):

"I´ll go to the gym everyday to get fit and to lose weight until I look like a model, after that I´ll look for a young and handsome English boyfriend, for speaking and improving my English"

And that reminded me of an advert I saw during Christmas, which I photographed and attach now:



Is English sexy? What do you think?


At the end of the lesson, we talked about "manners" but we could not watch a video about how good table manners may help you lose weight, so here it is: