Britain's worst teacher

From The Independent comes this article about Britain's worst teacher, who has been banned from the teaching job.

Professional podcasts

The British Council site offers English learners at intermediate and advanced level this series of podcasts that can help you improve your English, while they cover a large range of business and work fields. You can download the audio files, the transcript and a pack of activities with each podcast.

Some questions on education

Effective Questioning (subtitled) from ddeubel on Vimeo.

I remain a zombie

I remain a zombie is an online game that is played while reading the story of the game as a narrative story. It is a great way of getting everybody reading. Playing the game becomes a comprehension check.

Smashing pumpkins

Fill in the blanks in the first several paragraphs of this article about pumpkin smashing. Use your own words and phrases, or click "read more" to choose from a scrambled list of the words or phrases that were removed.

Iphone artist

Great NYT video story about someone who uses an iPhone app to make sketches of people on the New York subway.

Revenge

This is an article of Los Angeles Times about revenge, you may find some interesting ideas...

Job interviews

Monster in the U.S. has a series of interactive interviews for different jobs. They’re all text-based and only accessible to advanced English Language Learners, but they can come in handy when preparing for the real thing.

BBC Five Minutes

BBC Five Minutes is the site for us. It is a regular feature of the BBC website that regularly shows us light-hearted five-minute interviews with celebrities and well-known people.

The only snag is that the videos cannot be easily downloaded and there are no transcripts.

Melinda Gates on Coke

Listen to this talk Melinda Gates gave in the TED foundation. It is a bit lengthy, upwards of fifteen minutes, but it's well worth it.

TED has made it possible for users to read the subtitles of many of the talks. You just have to activate them in the corresponding window, but I'm sure you'll give the talk a go without the subtitles first.

Education: Some questions

Watch this video brought to my attention by Life Feast, which raises some questions on the topic of education. It is a dense talk by Ken Robinson, made visually simple by the medium of animation.

Stephen Fry's podcast

This is an excerpt from Stephen Fry's podcast on language, animated by Matt Rogers of  Rogers Creations.

Click here to download the complete episode.

Thanks, Jeffrey Hill, for bringing my attention to this video.

Ellis Island

You can make a virtual tour of Ellis Island by clicking on the image below. The tour will allow you to know a little bit more about the topic of immagration to the States while your practise your reading and listening skills.



Later on you can do this interactive quiz on the topic.

Wrong headlines

From EFL Classroom 2.0 comes this slideshow with 40+ wrong headlines. They have been compiled by David from Jay Leno's Tonight Show.

I hope you enjoy yourself figuring out where the problem with each headline lies. Some of them are not easy, I warn you.

If you are interested in this feature of Jay Leno's show, just type in "Jay Leno headlines" in the search box of YouTube and you'll be able to watch the way the famous host deals with this part of his programme.

Fun with phrasal verbs

Interesting slideshow by Janet Bianchini. Although it is intended for showing English teachers the way they can integrate technology in their daily classes, advanced English learners can benefit dramatically from all the vocabulary and explanations Janet provides us with.

Remember, at some stage language development is just a matter of an increase in our grasp of vocabulary and of being exposed to English as often as we can.

You may need to download the presentation to be able to watch some of the animations on the slideshow.

3rd Virtual Round Table Conference 2010: Fun with Phrasal Verbs

View more presentations from Janet Bianchini.

If phrasal verbs is your top priority, don't miss Phrasal Veb Demon, an extraordinary site by Spanish teacher Juan Antonio Pérez Herrera.

Bow Street Runner

Channel 4 brings us this interesting adventure based on the real Bow Street Runners created to fight crime and control the streets of London during the 18th century. Pick objects, talk to people and investigate in order to solve the crimes in the story. Being a free online game as it is, the quality is extremely rich. You will have a good time as you roam through the muddy streets trying to solve the mystery.

Madoff to be sentenced

Read this newspaper article from The Telegraph about the forthcoming sentence for Bernand Madoff.

Traffic picks up in world education race

What's Britishness

Watch the excerpt of BBC programme Panorama [up to 4' 15"] and say whether the sentences below are TRUE or FALSE.

1.       British citizens have to sit an exam about their Britishness at 18.

2.       The British flag is only allowed to be flown for 80 days a year in public buildings.

3.       There’s no equivalent in Britain to the 4^th of July celebration.

4.       Historian A.H. Wilson thinks that Britain is falling apart as a country.

5.       Vivienne Westwood thinks that the Queen represents British hypocrisy.

6.       In the past the British have defined themselves for their empire and enemies.

7.       Roast beef is still a symbol of Britishness.

8.       Potteries, coal and steel are symbols of how great Great Britain was.


Key:

1. F 2. F 3. T 4. T 5. F 6. T 7. T 8. F