Climate change/ The environment

Click here to see some vocabulary.

Natural disasters

Social networking sites

Facebook can be depressing because everyone else's lives are better than yours... But are they really?

1. Staying connected. 
Click here. Listen and take notes. Then listen and read the script.
2. Social media revolution. 
Watch the video and do the activities.

Conditionals

Watch the video and complete the conversation (check your answers in 'comments').




Phoebe: It's my bank.
Monica: What did they do to you?
Phoebe: I'm going through my mail and I open up their ________ (1) statement!
Ross: Easy!
Phoebe: And there's ________ (2) extra dollars in my ________ (3).
Chandler: Oh! Satan's minions at work again...
Phoebe: Yes, 'cause now I have to go down there and deal with them.
Joey: What are you talking about? ________ (4) it!
Phoebe: It's not ________ (5) . I didn't ________ (6) it. If I ________(7) it, it would be like ________ (8)!
Rachel: Yeah!, but if you ________  (9) it, it would be like ________ (10)!
Phoebe: Ok, Ok... Let's say I buy a really great pair of shoes. Do you know what I'd ________ (11) with every step I ________(12)? "Not mine, not mine..." Even if I ________  (13)happy and skipping, I'd ________ (14) "Not, not mine, not, not mine".
Monica: We're with you. We've got it.
Phoebe: Ok. I'd just never ________  ________  ________ ________ (15) it. It would be like this giant "karmic debt"...

Birthdays

Some vocabulary.
Listening to practise that vocabulary.
A listening about a birthday party.


The story is repeated three times: 1st time, normal reading speed; 2nd time, slower, with pauses for dictation followed by repetition and captions; and 3rd time, normal reading speed, with captions.

Celebrations and festivities

Click here to learn some vocabulary.

Listen and do the activities.

The Edinburgh Festival

Mother's Day 

LISTENING GAP FILL

Mother's Day is an important ________________ world, even though it started in North America and Europe. Not all countries celebrate it ________________, but the most popular day is the second Sunday in May. It is, of course, a day to honour our mothers and make them ________________. A punctuation point about the day is that most countries choose the singular possessive “Mother’s Day”, with the apostrophe before the ‘s’ __________________ family honours their mother, rather than all of the world’s mothers. Young children get especially excited about Mother’s Day and put ________________ making cards and presents for their Mums, or Moms in America. For mothers, ________________ a second birthday.

Mother’s Day in the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc. means mothers ________________ day off from housework. It is common for children to cook for their mother ________________ breakfast in bed. She also receives presents, flowers and cards. In America, Mother's Day is ________________ the year for restaurants, as children take their Mums __________________. Americans spend a lot on this day - over $2.5 billion on flowers and $70 million on Mother’s Day cards. In Sweden, people buy small plastic flowers and the money raised ________________ mothers and their children. Many people are against the idea of Mother’s Day as it is upsetting for children (and adults) who have lost their mother. ________________ for them this Mother’s Day.

Click here, check your answers and do more activities.

Problems at a hotel

Watch the video and fill in the chart. Check your answers in "comments".

Guest’s name: 

Guest’s room number:

Things she complains about:

-          

-         

-          

-          

The Guest House

Watch the video and take notes. Then you can click here to read the script and see some vocabulary about the lesson.

Indirect Questions

1. Watch a video about indirect questions.

2. Read the grammar explanation and try the exercises at the bottom of the page.

3. Listen to a programme about indirect questions.

St. Patrick's Day

Click here to listen to some facts about St Patrick's Day (you have the photocopy with the exercises).
Try this quiz and check what you know about this festivity.
Read about St Patrick's Day here.
*Remember to look at old posts about St Patrick's Day in "Festivities".

Transport and Travel

Click here. There are five video activities (two of them about the use of the present perfect). You'll also enjoy some London views.

JOB / WORK / CAREER

 1. Click here to learn the difference between these words (watch the video and read the script). There's an exercise at the bottom of the page. 

2. More examples and another exercise.

3. Exercise

Leo DiCaprio's Bad Luck, interview with Ellen

Click here to watch the interview and do some comprehension activities.

Facts about sleep

New Year's Resolutions

1. Click here to see some vocabulary and watch a video about New Year's Resolutions.

2. Listen to this podcast about the same topic and do the different tasks.

Merry Christmas!!

Click here to see some vocabulary about Christmas.
Click here and read about Christmas in the UK.





Click here and read about Christmas traditions around the world.

Watch a video about Extreme Christmas Lighting and learn some vocabulary.

Try to complete the song All I Want for Christmas is You (it's full of Christmas symbols). 

Relative clauses

1. Click here and listen to a lesson about defining relative clauses.

2. Click here to watch a grammar video with some examples of relative clauses. Read the grammar explanation and do the exercises. 

Look at the old post about the same topic.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

1. Watch the video and fill in the gaps. Check your answers in 'comments'. 

We’re all familiar with the story of the first Thanksgiving when the 1._________ invited local Native Americans to share a meal with them. But we bet you didn’t know Thanksgiving didn’t become an 2.______________ until more than 200 years later.  
That first Thanksgiving in 1621 wasn’t just one big meal, it was a three day festival of eating and hunting and other 3.________________ in honour of the pilgrim’s first successful harvest. The Indians killed 5 deer as gifts for the 4._____________ so venison was definitely on the first Thanksgiving menu. But we bet you didn’t know that turkey was not. They also didn’t have pumpkin pie or potatoes, which hadn’t been introduced to New England yet. And while they may have eaten cranberries, they would have been served 5.__________, and not in a sauce or 6.__________. The pilgrims didn’t plan on starting a Thanksgiving tradition. In fact they didn’t repeat the November celebration in 7._________________ years. 
In 1789, President George Washington announced the first ever national Thanksgiving holiday, which took place on Thursday November 26th. But it didn’t become an annual tradition 8.____________ until the 19th century, that’s when an American writer named Sara Josepha Hale, most famous for writing the 9.______________ ‘Mary had a little lamb’, was inspired by a diary of pilgrim life to 10._____________ that first Thanksgiving feast, beginning in 1827, Hale 11. _____________ a nearly 30 year campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She also published recipes for pumpkin pie, turkey, and stuffing, that probably didn’t appear on the pilgrim’s plates, but would become the 12.______________ of modern Thanksgiving meals. 
In 1863, in the 13._________ of the civil war, President Abraham Lincoln announced that the nation would celebrate Thanksgiving every year on the final Thursday in November. But did you know in 1939, President Franklin D Roosevelt decided to move the holiday up a week to give 14.______________ era retailers more time to make money during the pre-Christmas shopping season. The move was widely 15._____________, and in 1941 FDR signed a bill fixing Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, where it stays today. 
One of the 16._______________ Thanksgiving traditions began in 1989 when President George H.W. Bush granted the first official pardon to a turkey. Every November since then, the 17._____________________________________ has given a reprieve to one or two turkeys, sending them to 18.____________________ on a farm rather than to a dinner table. Though it only began in the late 20th century, this story has become one of the more unusual chapters in the long history of Thanksgiving traditions. 

2. Black Friday
Click here to watch a lesson about Black Friday.
Another short video here.

Don't forget to look at old posts about Thanksgiving!

My Favourite Restaurant

Click here to get to the post with the video about a favourite restaurant.

Question tags

1. Watch a video with question tag examples and read the explanations.

2. Watch a video explaining how to use question tags in English. Do the exercise to check your understanding of the lesson.

3. Click here to read the grammar and see more examples and exceptions.

4. Click here to do an exercise.