Understanding Facial Expressions

Communication is based on much more than just language. We also communicate a lot about the way we are feeling through our body language and facial expressions. Today's activity will help you to understand facial expressions and develop your vocabulary for describing emotions.

The activity is a short test. You will see 8 different pictures of people and you will have to decide how they are feeling. At the end of this test you will be able to compare your answers with thousands of other men and women to see if your response was the same.

Task:

  • Go to: Facial expressions test before you start the test you will be asked if you are male or female and to give your age.



  • Next you will see an image and a choice of emotions. Select the one you think it correct then click on 'Submit'
  • You will need to make a choice for all the pictures before you can see the results. When you have finished the test you can compare your results with those of all the other men a women who have taken the test.
I hope you enjoy this activity and do come back soon for more EFL ESL activities.

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Lazy Letter Writers

Writing a letter in English is a challenging task for most non-native speakers. There are many factors to consider like the appropriate use of vocabulary and getting the degree of formality right.

In today's activity we'll look at some different letters from the LetterWhiz site and see how you can adapt them for your own purpose.
LetterWhiz has a wide variety of ready written letter templates that you can use and adapt when you want to write to someone. These include:
  • Business (employee relations, announcements)
  • Career (cover letters, job promotions, resignations)
  • Love / special occasions (weddings, birthdays, anniversaries)
  • Personal (apologies, family invitations, (for sale/to buy) letters)
  • Educational (applications, scholarships, presentations)
Task:

You are going to look at three different letters from people who are introducing themselves. They are:
  1. Teacher's introduction to his / her students
  2. Person introducing themselves to someone on an online dating site
  3. New employee introduction to other staff
Before you look at the letters, think about:
  • Which will be longest / shortest?
  • Which will be most formal / informal?
  • What information do you think each will include?
Try to draft each of the letters yourself as you would write them.
Now look at the letters and compare them to see how close your guesses were.
Did any of the letters surprise you?
  • Now edit the letters so that they are from you. It's important if you do use any of these letters from the site, that you make sure you change them so that the information in them is about you and it is true. There are some things more important than writing grammatically correct letters. - the truth and sincerity of the content is also very important.
I hope you've enjoyed this activity and that you search through the other letter templates and find useful ones to help with your writing.

Come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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Learn How to Pronounce New Words

It's very important when you learn what a new word means, to also learn how to pronounce the word, so today's activity use a very simple website which gives you models of how to pronounce words.
The website is called 'HowJSay' and all you have to do is type a word in to the search box and click on the submit button.

You will then see a list of words that have a similar spelling. The word you want will be highlighted in pink.

Task:
  • You can use this tool whenever you find new words that you want to use, but to get some practice, let's learn some quotes from Shakespeare. Go to Shakespeare quotes
  • Try to learn 4 quotes. Check the pronunciation of any words you don't know using 'HowJSay' .
  • You could also go to the BBC news site at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/and look for words there that you can't pronounce. After you hear the words try to pronounce them.
I hope you enjoy this activity and come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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Improve your Brain Power

Exercising your brain regularly can help to keep it agile and improve you memory and your ability to learn language.

Today's activity is designed to help you improve your visual memory.
The exercises is based on memorising groups of images and then trying to decide which image has been added. The activity comes from the Games for the Brain website.

Task:
  • Look at the images in the grid below and try to memorise them. Once you think you can remember them all, click on 'Continue'. You will see the images again, but one will be replaced with a new image. Click on the image you think has been added.


  • As you play, you will see your IQ score. Play until your score IQ score is 100.
  • Then try to write a list of all the images that you saw in the game.
  • If you play the game here: Mastermind, you will also get tips on how to improve your brain.

Hope you enjoy this and come back for more EFL ESL activities tomorrow.

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Where in America?

Today's activity focuses on challenging your reading skills and finding out a bit more about the USA. It uses a blog that is written by Ted Landphair, a journalist for Voice of America.

Ted writes about aspects of North American culture, so his blog is a 'good read' if you want to find out more about the USA. At the end of each posting he also writes a 'wild words' section which gives explanations of some of the more unusual words from his text, so be sure to check these and make vocabulary record of them.

Task:
  • In this activity you will read one of his articles called Real America.
  • Go to the article at: Real America It describes a number of places in the USA.
  • Before you start to read, scroll down the page and take a few moments to look at the images on the page. Read the caption for each image.

  • Next, scan the text quickly ( don't read every word) and try to find all the place names that each of the sections describes. Make a note of each one.
  • Once you have done this read the article again in more detail and make notes of any information you can find about each of these places.
  • Once you have done this, read the article in more detail and try to decide which of the places mentioned in the article you would most like to visit.
  • Once you have decided you could leave a comment here to say which one you would like to visit and why.
  • Also be sure to read abut the 'wild words' he included and try to find them in the text. You could even create a vocabulary record of this text using yesterdays activity Remember More Vocabulary
I hope you enjoyed this reading activity and learned a little more about the USA. If you would like to find out more, you can read some more of Ted's articles. You could find out more about Texas or West Virginia

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Remember More Vocabulary

In today's activity we are going to look at a way to help you record, remember and build up your vocabulary. To do this we are going to use a simple tool called Bubbl.us which you can use to create 'mind maps' or what some people call 'spidergrams' or 'vocabulary webs'.

These are graphs which show relationships. They are very useful tools to help you think about and arrange words or ideas as well as to show the relationship between those ideas or words. we are going to use them today to help us look at relationships between words and help us remember them.

Task:
  • You will then see a bubble in the centre of the page that says 'Start here' click on it and enter the theme for your first 'vocabulary web'. For this web we will use the topic of 'Entertainment'. Click on 'Start here' and replace the text with the word 'Entertainment' then pres enter. Another bubble will appear below it.
  • Click on the next bubble and add a type of entertainment, e.g. 'video games', then click back on the word entertainment and press enter again, you should get a second bubble, add another form of entertainment in this bubble. Keep adding and building up words around the central theme. You can drag the words to arrange them.
  • Once you have 5 or 6 words around your central thee start to add words that are connected to each form of entertainment. Again, you do this by clicking on the word and pressing enter on your keyboard
  • You can then add words that are connected with each of those words. Keep adding as many words as you can.
  • Once you have added as many words as you can, click on 'Save'. You will then have to create a free account.
  • You will need to create a user name and password and have an email address.

  • Once you have created an account you can save your vocabulary web, give it a name and start creating more on different themes. You can go back and click 'Load' to see the vocabulary maps you have created and add new words as you learn them.

This is a great way to remember, review and extend your vocabulary and it can help you to build up your own theme related dictionary.

I hope you enjoy this activity and find it useful. Come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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Your Learning 'To Do' List

When you are learning a language it's a good idea to set yourself tasks and things to do to improve, but it easy to forget about them. Today's activity is a way of trying to be disciplined and to set yourself regular learning goals.

The activity uses an online 'To Do' list, which should help you to remember what your tasks are.

You simply write your tasks on a list, then save the link to the list or email it to yourself then and comeback and edit the list as you achieve your goals.

Task:
  • Then click on the list of things you want to do and add our tasks. Also add the URL of the webpage to help you find the task.
  • Once you have added the tasks, click on 'send this list's URL' and email the link to yourself.
  • You can then open the list from your email and edit it each time you do a task. Just click at the end of the line once the task is done.
  • Remember, each time you complete a task to add a new one. Try to do two or three tasks each day. The more you do, the quicker your English will improve.
Another way you can use this tool, is to make notes of new words you learn each time you study, then email the list to yourself and check through your list in a couple of days to see if you can remember them.

Hope you enjoy this and come back tomorrow to do more EFL ESL activities.

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Learn More About Business

Today's activity is a business listening one. For this activity we are going to use a website called Openforum which has lots of information about business and also lots of short video clips from very successful business people.


This site has a lot of other information on if you are interested in business and even has business discussion forums that you can read or if you become a member you can join in the discussion.

Task:
  • You are going to watch two video interviews with Richard Branson the owner of 'Virgin'. In the first he will talk about 'Brand' .
  • Before you listen try to remember what you know about 'Virgin' and what kind of products and services they have produced.
  • Listen to the first interview and see which of those products are mentioned and what information he gives about his ideas of the importance of 'Brand'.
  • Click here to watch the video: Branson on Business: Protecting your brand

  • Now watch this second video. Richard Branson defends some of his more unusual business decisions. Listen and make notes about:
    - What other Brands are mentioned?
    - What decisions does he defend?
    - What arguments does he use to defend the decisions?

Well I hope you enjoyed this task and learned a little about business and English from it. If you did enjoy it then try to spend some more time each day watching some more of the videos. Watching one each day will help to boost your listening skills and improve your business vocabulary.

Come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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Learn English with Pictures

Today's activity is to help you build up your vocabulary and pronunciation of new words. The activity uses the Learning with Pictures and Audio website and that is what you will do.

The site has a collection of 34 word lists and each of these has 16 words. You can find a complete index here: Word Lists


Each word has a picture that shows you what the word means and then you can click through to get an audio to hear how the word is pronounced.

Task:

  • You can use this site in two ways. You can work through one list each day, listening and pronouncing the words or you could use it as a dictionary resource when you find words that you don't know.
  • My advice is to try to look at one list each day and then go to the list again the next day and see if you can remember how the words are pronounced. Say the words to yourself and then listen to the words to see if your pronunciation is the same.
  • Start by going to the list of A words: http://www.my-english-dictionary.com/list1.htm
  • Listen to the A words and hear how the A at the beginning of each word is pronounced differently. Try to note down the words that have a similar pronunciation of A.


  • Example: Abacus, Apples and Avocados all have the same A sound at the beginning, but in 'Air conditioner' the A is pronounced differently.
  • Try to do the same thing for all the other words. Look for similarities and differences in the pronunciation. This will help you to remember the words and pronounce them well.

Hope you enjoy this activity and come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

This task was sponsored by the Maltalingua English language school


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Have a Chat with Santa

As today is the first of December and Christmas is approaching, I thought today's activity could be a seasonal one, so today you can have a chat with Father Christmas, or Santa if you prefer and find out a bit more about him. The aim of this task is for you to practice your personal information questions. These are important as they help you to find out more about people?


You are going to use the 'This is Santa' website to have a text chat with Santa. You'll have to be very careful about your spelling and punctuation though as Santa can only understand grammatically correct sentences.

Task:
  • Before you interview Santa, perhaps you could think of 8 - 10 questions that you would like to ask him.
  • When you are ready, go to: http://www.thisissanta.com/ you'll see a picture of Santa and two text fields. Type your questions into the bottom field and then wait for the answers. They should appear in the top field.


I hope you enjoy chatting with Santa and come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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