More on Idioms and slang

Have you ever visited Larry Ferlazzo's blog? He proposes every week the best 10 site on....(something special). This time he deals in one of his entries about good site to learn idioms. Have a look at the site and comment here if you found it useful for this course or not: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/07/03/the-best-sites-to-help-ells-learn-idioms-slang/

Tower of Hercules (Spain) inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List alongside two Swiss watch-making towns

picture taken from: http://www.farodevigo.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009062700_8_342837__Sociedad-y-Cultura-Torre-Hercules-Patrimonio-Humanidad

Tower of Hercules (Spain) inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List alongside two Swiss watch-making towns
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, has inscribed a Spanish lighthouse dating back to antiquity, The Tower of Hercules in La Coruña, on the World Heritage List alongside the watch-manufacturing towns of La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle watch-making town-planning (Switzerland).
The Tower of Hercules has served as a lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of La Coruña harbour in north-western Spain since the late 1st century A.D. when the Romans built the Farum Brigantium. The Tower, built on a 57 metre high rock, rises a further 55 meters. It is divided into three progressively smaller levels, the first of which corresponds to the Roman structure of the lighthouse. Immediately adjacent to the base of the Tower, is a small rectangular Roman building. The site also features a sculpture park, the Monte dos Bicos rock carvings from the Iron Age and a Muslim cemetery. The Roman foundations of the building were revealed in excavations conducted in the 1990s. Many legends from the Middle Ages to the 19th century surround the Tower of Hercules which is unique as it is the only lighthouse of Greco-Roman antiquity to have retained a measure of structural integrity and functional continuity.
The site of La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle watch-making town-planning consists of two towns situated close to one another in a remote environment in the Swiss Jura mountains, on land ill-suited to farming. Their planning and buildings reflect watch-makers’ need of rational organization. Planned in the early 19th century, after extensive fires, the towns owed their existence to this single industry. Their layout along an open-ended scheme of parallel strips on which residential housing and workshops are intermingled reflects the needs of the local watch-making culture that dates to the 17th century and is still alive today. The site presents outstanding examples of mono-industrial manufacturing-towns which are well preserved and still active. The urban planning of both towns has accommodated the transition from the artisanal production of a cottage industry to the more concentrated factory production of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The town of La Chaux-de-Fonds was described by Karl Marx as a “huge factory-town” in Das Kapital where he analyzed the division of labour in the watch-making industry of the Jura.
The World Heritage Committee will continue inscribing sites and examining the state of properties already included on the List over coming days. It remains in session until 30 June.

Photos: http://www.unesco.org/en/whc/photos

source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/532

ENJOY YOU SUMMER HOLIDAYS...

...and don't forget to practice a little bit: reading. watching films, meeting foreing people to talk, writing letters, surfing the web, etc. etc.

Here you have some jokes as a start!

Happy Summer Season!

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America MARIA: Here it is. TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ? CLASS: Maria. ____________________________________ TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor? JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables. __________________________________________ TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?' GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L' TEACHER: No, that's wrong GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it. (I Love this kid) ____________________________________________ TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water? DONALD: H I J K L M N O. TEACHER: What are you talking about? DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O.. __________________________________ TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago. WINNIE: Me! __________________________________________ TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty? GLEN: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are. _______________________________________ TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ' I. ' MILLIE: I is.. TEACHER: No, Millie..... Always say, 'I am.' MILLIE: All right... 'I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.' ________________________________ TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him? LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand. ______________________________________ TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating? SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook. ______________________________ TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on 'My Dog' is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his? CLYDE : No, sir. It's the same dog. ___________________________________ TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested? HAROLD: A teacher .__________________________________

LAUGHTER IS THE SOUL'S MEDICINE!!

How do I find complex expressions in a dictionary?

You may have experienced how difficult is trying to find out the meaning of a whole expression in a common dictionary. Most of the times, what you have came across is an idiom. On of the most complete dictionaries of idioms on the internet is Cambridge International Dictionary:

The Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms explains over 7,000 idioms current in British, American and Australian English, helping learners to understand them and use them with confidence. The Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms, based on the 200 million words of American English text in the Cambridge International Corpus, unlocks the meaning of more than 5,000 idiomatic phrases used in contemporary American English. Full-sentence examples show how idioms are really used.

The Cambridge University Press is respected worldwide for its commitment to advancing knowledge, education, learning, and research. It was founded on a royal charter granted to the University by Henry VIII in 1534 and has been operating continuously as a printer and publisher since the first Press book was printed in 1584.

The free dictionary by Fairlex (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/)

Your could access to part of the listed idioms either in the url mentioned or directly from the CUP website: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=idioms&dict=I&sourceid=Mozilla-search

Remember that if you are using Firefox as default browser, you can also have it always on the upper right corner (http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=dictionaries). Just click on it and you'll have it as one of your firefox search engine extensions.

Here you are some websites with more information about idioms: http://delicious.com/mjordano/idioms

and you are some books: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/aegean/6720/

I hope this could help you to go on studying this subject!

Word order

Would like like to practice some practice for your second term exam? Click on the following url and follow the instructions to put all the words on a sentence in the right order. It could seem a very simple game, but it could become extremely useful for you to write good compositions in your exam.

Museums day

Picture taken by Caribb (Flicker)










As you may know, today is museum's day all around the world. Try to compare the initiatives suggested by the International Council of Museum with the ones put into practice in your own town, city and explain here if the initiatives taken by the museums where you live could be considered enough or not.

Collocations

Image by Hamed Saber via Flickr

Have you ever used a concordancer? Do you know what a corpus is? Try to use this link typing a single word in English and try to explain later here something about you experience.

http://www.stevebolton.net/tools/cobuild_search.php

Sleepinginairports.net

"For travellers who are REALLY on a budget and are looking for a way to skim a few bucks off their travel expenses, why not consider sleeping in an airport? Why spend money on a night in the airport hotel when an inflatable raft on the airport floor is free? Sure it may sound a little hard-core at first, but read-on and you'll soon discover a travel community, that for 13 years has been sharing airport reviews, travel advice and "how-to" tips for the uninitiated airport sleeper. Your friends and family may look at you funny when you return with your airport stories, but as you'll read here and on our blog, that's only part of the fun.

So now, sit back....get out your travel itinerary and read the latest airport reviews. You'll soon discover which airports you can sleep in and those which you should avoid altogether during your next trip. Airport Hotels will soon be an expense of the past!

Whether you sleep in an airport by choice or get stranded due to some airline mess-up, let sleepinginairports.com help you make your stay more enjoyable."

http://www.sleepinginairports.net/

A podcast to practice English for tourism dialogues

Look at the new site that I have just found:

http://mthomsen1776.podomatic.com/

It is a kind of blog that uses audio files apart from texts to publish its information. You will find here a good recollection of dialogs to listen and read at the same time so that they are perfect for you to practice the last unit of you book. What do you think? Did you like the idea?

I will also add a rrs link in order to read and listen to new updatings from our blog.

Synonyms and other with Thesaurus.com

It is a good to to learn English at the same time you practice the very first part of your exam. It is very simple to use. Just visit the link and type the word you don't know the meaning or the synonym. There is also a pretty useful toolbar to look up your words even faster that could be down loaded from here . Just try it and report in the comments options below your opinions ;)

YOU TUBE GOES CLASSICAL

Music
YouTube Goes Classical
By MELENA RYZIK
Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
The conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has been drafted for the online YouTube Symphony Orchestra project.
Though it’s currently overshadowed by Twitter — which is already the third-largest social network, after Facebook and MySpace — YouTube still has the potential to make some cool connections. Case in point: the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, a collaboration between Google, the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, the London Symphony Orchestra, the composer Tan Dun, and others. Three thousand musicians from around the world sent in audition tapes; about 90 were selected. The orchestra’s premiere Carnegie Hall concert is tomorrow, but tonight members are doing a free open-mic jam at Le Poisson Rouge. Go tweet about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/urbaneye/index.html

You can listen to classical music while you write your compositions...

Happy World Book and Copyright Day

By creating links between people from different eras and distinct backgrounds, books contribute to the consolidation of a world community. As vectors of free speech, they further the cause of human rights.
Celebrated on 23 April, World Book and Copyright Day calls for strengthening the perennial inter-fertilization of ideas that books bring about in the interest of human dignity.

http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36406&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html


Resolution of the TWENTY-EIGHTH SESSION OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF UNESCO, (Paris, 25 October-16 November 1995): Proclamation of 23 April 'World Book and Copyright Day'
Resolution TWENTY-EIGHTH SESSION OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF UNESCO (Paris, 25 October-16 November 1995) 3.18 Proclamation of 23 April 'World Book and Copyright Day' Resolution adopted at the twenty-second plenary meeting, on 15 November 1995 The General Conference, Considering that historically books have been the most powerful factor in the dissemination of knowledge and the most effective means of preserving it, Considering consequently that all moves to promote their dissemination will serve not only greatly to enlighten all those who have access to them, but also to develop fuller collective awareness of cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire behaviour based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue, Considering that one of the potentially most effective ways to promote and to disseminate books - as shown by the experience of several UNESCO Member States - is the establishment of a 'Book Day' and the organization of events such as book fairs and exhibitions on the same day, Noting furthermore that this idea has not yet been adopted at international level, Adopts the above-mentioned idea and proclaims 23 April of every year 'World Book and Copyright Day', as it was on that date in 1616 that Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega died.

http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5425&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

IS THIS YOUR LUGGAGE?

IS THIS YOUR LUGGAGE?

http://www.isthisyourluggage.com/Site/LANDING.html

This is not exactly a link about luggage but I'm sure it will suggest you many interesting things to write about.

Is this art?

A performance?

Just photographs?

Have you ever wondered where lost luggage goes, what happens when you can't find it...

Good practice for your writing...

the American Diner Museum

http://www.americandinermuseum.org/site/

About the American Diner Museum

"Since 1996, the American Diner Museum has been focused on celebrating and preserving the cultural and historical significance of the American diner, a unique American institution. The museum also hopes to recognize and share the importance of diners nationally and internationally.

The ADM considers it a crucial part of its mission to save the vintage diners that are in danger of extinction from, among other things, redevelopment of property and unnecessary demolition.
The Museum is a tribute to the individuals who built, operated and worked in the diners and to those who continue the diner tradition into the 21st century.
Although the museum does not have an exhibit space, we consider every diner to be a living museum. Many items from our collection are loaned to other orgaizations for their respective diner exhibits"

"What is a diner? A true "diner" is a prefabricated structure built at an assembly site and transported to a permanent location for installation to serve prepared food. Webster's Dictionary defines a diner as "a restaurant in the shape of a railroad car." The word "diner" is a derivative of "dining car" and diner designs reflected the styling that manufacturers borrowed from railroad dining cars. A diner is usually outfitted with a counter, stools and a food preparation or service area along the back wall. Decommissioned railroad passenger cars and trolleys were often converted into diners by those who could not afford to purchase a new diner"

http://www.americandinermuseum.org/site/

Would you like to write something about this museum? Any similar one you may know?

Magazines for passengers

Would you like to read some English magazines? Free magazines?

These are the ones for passengers travelling with Easyjet, Ryanair, and several other airlines.

You can also find previous numbers.

Have a nice reading!

http://www.ink-live.com/

Do you want to know more about the IFEMA Arab version?

Yes, it could be something similar to our IFEMA. Have a look at its website and try to comment here all the differences and similarities with the Spanish one.

http://www.arabiantravelmarket.com/

What do you think?

Do you celebrate Easter?

Visite this link and try to leave a recorded message in order to practice your speaking skills.

Some tips to practice with synomyms...

As you might know well, the first part of our exam is based on looking for similar expression of synonyms. You have lots of self-evaluating exercises in our virtual course, but a good way to practice could be to have the help of an online thesaurus like this.

You could also download and install its toolbar into your browser so that you could do your searchers even faster. It is great, isn't it?

Are old constructions better than the new ones?

Read the following text about the terrible earthquake occurred near Rome and try to answer the question made in the tittle of this entry. Do you think architects were better in the past in Italy? What about other countries? What about Spain? Could you give examples?

Easter in Spain

Last year we gave you some info about Easter in English speaking countries.

This time we'd like you to write in English about Easter in Spain.

Try to describe what Semana Santa is, our traditions, our recipes, what you do in your place or even to translate (or explain) what torrijas, pasos, nazarenos, saetas, etc. are.

Here is a link to help you start:
http://www.euroclubschools.org/page37.htm

Remeber writing is a very good practice for you and this is one of the places to improve it!!

Happy Easter!

Have a Happy April 1st.....

Happy April Fool's Day!!!

Have you heard of this?

Have you got something like it in your country?

On the same date?

Have you heard about the poisson d'avril?

You can write something about this here or let us know about the best jokes you know on this day!!

Do we have codes like these in Spain?

Reading an article from the New York Times, I found out some airlines codes referring to the different kinds of tickets people could buy now in the US:

Among the items on that growing list are the usual things like prepaid checked bag (code 0AA), snack (0AT), aisle seat exit row (0A5), beverage (0AX), video games (0AF), passenger assistance (0BY) and wheelchair (0AH)

Do you have also this kind of things in the Spanish companies? Do you think we will also have them? Is it something only thought for low cost companies?

Today: Green

Today, green is the colour. Now, you know why:

March 17th, Saint Patrick Festival

Do you wanna go green?

Watch this from wbztv.com video archive, March 17th :

http://wbztv.com/video/

You can read this too:

http://www.st-patricks-day.com/

WHO SAID ENGLISH WAS EASY?

Last week I came a cross this. When I was at the University I read somewhere a similar "poem". Some humour and practice for you:

WHO SAID ENGLISH WAS EASY?

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
Get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a
Recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm
goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

Improving your listening by podcasting

A very good way to practice your English listening could be podcasting. The web is now full of this very good audio invention for ESL learners. Why? It is a cheap and efficient way to listen to fresh content based English. You can listen to all these audio recording either in the way or by copying them all to your mp3/ipodcasting player in order to hear them while in the underground or by car in your way to work. The quality of sound is great in most cases and you could find them in many different accents, which is very recommended for you are tourism professionals to be in a very close future.

Here you are some suggestions for you to listen:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Travel (very practical in order to study unit 5, you will see why)

Open University ITunesU (You need to have Itunes software installed)

University of Oxford ITunes (Arts and Humanities)

Tourism, Travel, Geography and Education Podcasts (A very complete compilation of podcasts dealing different fields of tourism, including airplane topics, new destinies, travelling guides, etc.)

Idiotvox-tourism (assorted podcasts dealing with tourism fields, very focussed on education)

Let's talk tourism podcast (Dublin Institute of Technology. Good to revise topics dealing with unit 1)

You will find some of these and others in the right section of this blog.

More suggestions? Opinions about this post? Do you agree with this? Please, use comments to reply.

Google Earth and El Prado Museum

Now there's no need to travel to Madrid in order to admire all the famous masterpieces from El Prado. Thanks to Google Maps, you can do it. To do this activity:

1. Read the following information and give your opinion here about the quality of the images, variety of works presented, etc. After doing that write here using the comments option your opnion about this. Would you recommended? Is is good enough? (Use page 42 from your book to do this in order to describe the advantages and disadvantages of visiting artistic places in a vistual way)

2. Choose a portrait, and try to describe it here (page 106 from your books).

Barajas chaos

Imagine that you have been working these days at Iberia, Barajas airport. You need to calm down many tourist waiting to fly.

Give here possible answers and relaxing messages to all the possible claims done by angry tourists.

Have a look at the following article to read some input on this topic.

Sustainable tourism in Molokay

Do you know where Molokay is? No? Have a look at the picture. Molokay is the little island you can see in front of the island of Maui, in the State of Hawaii.

You are working for a tourist agency. One of your clients is very interested in practising ecotourism. Read the following article taken from the NYTimes online and write an expository essay offering places to stay, visit, etc.

Use instructions from page 74 in your books.

The hottest hotels 2009 (the Times online)

What are the main features a good hotel need to have? Do you think most of the clients share the basic ones? What is a luxury hotel for you? Have a look at the following hotels rank proposed by The times On line and comment here you favourite ones by explaining why.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/where_to_stay/article5389541.ece

By the way... have you even stayed in any of the listed hotels? ;)

Happy Christmas for everyone!

Just to share with you a Christmas song that you could hear watching the following video...(sent by Lucía Borreguero, La Coruña Tutor).