IELTS Speaking practice with a video
Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, business owner in the UK You are going to listen to the interview and study the questions and answers. I’ve written the questions here for you so you can follow the interviewer. You can simply listen to the answers provided by the student. Afterwards, you will prepare the answers that will apply to you. … Read More
Sarcasm in Fawlty Towers
Before you watch the masterpiece of the British comedy, I would like to teach you a couple of words and expressions used in it to make it easier for you to understand it and enjoy it. 6. Where can you find the Sydney Opera House? Clearly, not in England. 7. Wildebeests are African antelopes and the spelling is rather strange. … Read More
IELTS Speaking exam: holiday
Lesson 1 I am sure you remember that the most basic words you learnt when you learnt to talk about travel were words like: ‘a flight’, ‘a nice view’, ‘a trip’, ‘a beach’, etc. These are basic words and will not score you ‘brownie points’, i.e. they will not give you the highest marks in the exam. You need to … Read More
Sustaining a longer conversation in English
Spain and its culture: sustaining a longer conversation in English when talking with a Spanish person Hello, everyone. Once my student from China said to me she didn’t know how to talk to a Spanish person for longer than 3 minutes at a party (in London) and she felt quite embarrassed about it, so she asked me to teach her a … Read More
‘Pastafarian’ and the right to have a driving licence photo with a colander
So she won’t be doing time in the Penne! I am seriously thinking of joining the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Read the full article here David King
Never Ignore a Tilde
N.B. Ã/ã (a–tilde) is a letter used in some languages, generally considered a variant of the letter. I thought it would be a nice gesture to wish a Spanish colleague ‘Happy New Year’ in Spanish via WhatsApp. A simple enough task you would have thought, but I hadn’t bargained on the tilde, that squiggly line which sometimes appears above the … Read More