MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Santa???

The Local tries to explain the confusion that appears to reign in Germany as to who really is Father Christmas.....

Celebrating Nikolaus in Germany

Gizela's memo: corrections exercise

Here are the corrections you should have found in the memo:

1. they

2. is

3. OK

4. the

5. OK

6. made

7. because

8. OK

9. them

10. it

11. who

12. OK

13. to

14. ought

15. What

16. making

17. that

And here's the sample answer again in case you didn't see it on the flip chart:

Dear Gizela,
Thanks for your memo with the attached charts amd report. I'll be happy to attend the meeting next Wednesday at 9.30 and will offer my comments and suggestions then.
Best wishes,


I look forward to receiving your meeting summaries by e-mail.

All the best,
Michelle

Academic English vocabulary unit 2

Here are the answers to the tasks in unit 2 of the academic vocabulary book.
And remember, you're supposed to attempt the exercises and then check the answers -not the other way round ;-)
Click the image to enlarge it.

Online concordancer

Remember we looked at the online concordancer as a way to increase vocabulary? We used the word 'contract'.
Here's the link so that you can try it out for yourselves.
Online concordancer

This is what you do:
click on English,
type in a word - try 'business',
choose a corpus from the drop down menu (Brown and BNC written is good)
click 'get concordance', to see the results.
You should get something like this (click on the image to increase its size)



What we're interested in, are the words that come before (and also after) 'business'. These are the ones that will help you increase your word-power and fluency.

Blend Words Text from Business Spotlight (1/2007)

Here are the words you blended on Thursday with an explanation for each.

answers to academic vocabulary exercises #1

Here are the answers to the academic vocabulary exercises on the two A3 photocopies.
Don't forget, you can click on any image in the blog to enlarge it.

If you had difficulties with the exercises please try to find examples of the words in context, i.e. using Linguee (see previous posting) or by putting the word into an online corpus such as the British National Corpus.

Read German News in English

You can keep up with German news AND practise your English skills. The Local is an English language online "newspaper".

The Local

Pimp your vocab

Here's a less serious look at the modern English language, but one that may be useful for those of you who intend to spend a semester at a British university.

Pimp your vocab link

Link to online quiz

Listen to Charles Handy

Just a quick reminder where to find the Charles Handy guide in the BBC website. It's on the Learning English page.

The Handy Guide

If you've played the youtube video Karen recommend, it's probably less interesting to check out the information on wikipedia. But here's the link if you want to! You can see his birthdate there.

Richard Branson

Interview with Richard Branson

Here, as promised, is the link to the interview we watched in class.

Richard Branson Eye to Eye

Karen's group

...and please do read the text about Richard Branson and Virgin on page 15 and answer the questions 1-6.

Words in context

Linguee is a useful online dictionary that allows you to see the word you are searching for in context (within a sentence).

Below is a screengrab which gives you an example of the first hits the website will give you when you type in the word 'autocratic' (from unit 1).

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Time management

Here are two scans from the Benchmark teacher's book which give you reading texts / advice about time management. This is a continuation of the photocopied sheet you filled in and discussed in class. Please read the scans as part of your homestudy.

Double-clicking on any images in the blog will open them in another window making them easier to read.

Feeds

Please take a moment to click on the feeds on the right.
We have included two for now:
A Business word (or phrase) of the day - this includes pronunciation help as well as German translations,
and a link to the latest world business news on the BBC.

First post

Dear students,

Welcome to your English blog.

We have set up this blog to accompany us through your English lessons over the next 3 years. Every now and then (hopefully regularly) we will be adding new information so please make sure you visit the blog before and/or after our lessons. So please bookmark it!

We will also try to add links and information from our lessons so you can use it to help you revise.This blog is intended to be a place where we can give you hints and tips on learning English and post information about our sessions and your end of term tests. Let's see how we get on with it.