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August Language Toolbox

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No sex please! We’re not in New York!

Maybe it was just a case of being surprisingly satisfied by something when your expectations are low rather than the usual scenario of being bitterly disappointed by an over-hyped, star-studded blockbuster which can only fail to deliver.

When a popular TV series transcends to the big screen, critics are quick to jump in with negative comparisons. And usually they are justified. But for me, SITC 2 had all the elements I would have expected from being a fan of the original show – crass humour, ridiculous outfits, soppy sentiment and cringe-worthy extravagance. Everything I love to hate!

I didn’t go to watch the movie for a cultural insight into US-Middle eastern relations, or to come away with an enlightened view of marriage and relationships, nor did I expect to relate to any of the over-indulgent, self-obsessed characters whose lives couldn’t be further removed from my own. And I doubt if that’s the reason that most people go to see this film.

It’s fantasy. It’s escapism. It’s your very ordinary life glammed up to the hilt which dares to dips a beautifully manicured toe into the day-to-day issues of modern life for middle-aged women. Family versus career? Marriage insecurities and infidelities. Motherhood guilt. Inequality in the workplace. The menopause!!
And while I said I didn’t relate to any of the Fab Four, there were moments in the film that struck a familiar chord. Charlotte locking herself in the larder on the verge of breakdown with two screaming children outside (we’ve all been there haven’t we?) and when career-driven Miranda finally jacks in her male-dominated job and as a result arrives just in time to witness her son winning 1st prize in his school science competition. Ahhh!

And then on the emotional flipside, there were slightly hysterical laugh-out-loud moments too. Charlotte’s initial reaction to her husband running off with the buxom bra-less nanny was “I can’t lose the nanny!” but for me the best laugh came towards the end with Samantha’s screaming confession in the middle of the Souk market, surrounded by shocked Arabs, “Yes, I have sex!” while the other three shamefully scrabble about on the floor picking up the impressive collection of condoms that have spilled from Samantha’s bag.

So, yes, it’s not very PC and could easily cause offense to those who take a serious stance on Middle Eastern values and the catastrophic consequences of Western greed. But you have to remember this was written as a comedy, not a social commentary intending to shed light on such delicate issues. It neatly sidesteps anything that might threaten to dampen its fluff and frivolity with off-the-cuff remarks about the credit-crunch and sexual inequality.

Agreeably, you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy this film. And that may involve emptying your mind of any right-on views or prejudices before you sit down to enjoy your popcorn.

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Win a FREE English Course!!

The 1st iPass video to feature on YouTube in March 2008 has now received 482,939 views and we’re inviting you to guess the date when that figure will reach 500,000!

The video showing Zara, from Portugal, being interviewed for a practice IELTS speaking test, can be seen at iPass IELTS videos on YouTube.

The 1st person to guess the correct date when Zara’s video reaches 500,000 views will win a FREE online English course from the iPass Store.

To enter the competition, check out the video and leave a comment to this post with the following details:

1) The date on which you think the video will receive 500,000 views
2) Your full name
3) Your email address

Please note that only one entry per person is permitted.

Hurry! The countdown has already begun!!

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Motivating your students this summer!

Our summer course at the British Council, Barcelona is now in full swing and involves involve kids aged 10 - 16 coming to classes Monday to Friday from 9.30am until 2pm while their mates hang out and generally do other things apart from learning English. I wonder how motivated they are!!!

Here are a few ideas for keeping them distracted from the world outside in an attempt to keep them focused on their learning…

Photo register: Take photos of all the students and create a page on a flipchart that you have open at the start of the class. As students come in, draw a circle round their picture. You can also give each student a page on the flipchart, where you record information about them (their likes, favourite band, starsign, prominent learning style, etc. which you can build up over the duration of the course. This information can be used when you want to try activities that will appeal to particular students.


Video bio: Have students make a very short (1 minute) video bio that you can post via Posterous to a virtual wall using Wallwisher. Spend time in the first class getting them to plan a mini-presentation about what they want to say about themselves, then either film them with a digital camera or they can use their mobile phones. Again, they can make more videos during the course to add more information.


Use a screen-capture tool like Jing to mark their writing. I’m a bit rubbish at marking students’ written work and I know that, more often than not, students put their marked compositions in their folders never to be seen again. As a result, I’ve been experimenting with marking their writing using screen capture, which is a tool for ‘filming’ what you’re doing on the computer and recording your voice talking. It then saves the video you’ve made and creates a weblink that you can send, or html that you can use to embed the video into a blog, wiki, etc. (a much clearer explanation can be found here).


Basically, get students to email their written work to you. Open up the email and mark it by using whatever screen capture tool you’re using and then send the video to the student. They then listen to your comments and use them to correct the piece of writing. They send an email back to you with their corrected version of the writing. I’ve found it much more motivating than the traditional method and also that students have tended to improve. It also turns a writing task into a listening task and you can check their comprehension by how well they corrected their writing. Students also seem more motivated to write, which is nice!


Get a project going on: Give students 30 minutes a day, near the end of the lesson to work on a weekly ‘project’ of their choice. Tell them to aim for giving a short presentation about their project to the class at the end of each week, but get them to give brief feedback to the rest of the class each day as it will help them to feel more comfortable about giving a presentation to the class later on. Their presentations can use PowerPoint and could tell students to present their project in a pecha kucha format, or they could use a really great tool I’ve been experimenting with called Prezi Their homework each day can be to research their project, thereby creating a real-world, motivating purpose for doing homework.


Make a friend of Facebook: Nearly all my students have a facebook page and when we go to the computer room, the first thing they do is log in to their account. In the final lesson of the year, I had a few students missing as they were studying for school exams. As most of my class were friends with each other on Facebook, it was easy to check which of the absent students were currently online(!) so I got the students who were present to chat to the absent students in English via Instant Messenger, asking them what they were doing and telling them what a great class they were missing!!

I also asked them to choose either a photo or a photo album from their account that they particularly liked or that had a story to it, and tell their partner about it. Both activities worked well and the students were happy to be using their favourite (but usually banned) social networking site!

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July Language Toolbox

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England reach an all-time Capel - low

At first, it is hard not to take out your frustrations on the players, who could have been forgiven for their absence of skill or flair if they had showed any true grit and determination to win a match. Where was their national pride? Where was their passion? Never mind 3 lions on their shirts, 3 blind mice would have been more appropriate!

After the painfully tense draws against America and Algeria, it seemd that nerves had gotten the better of the so-called “Golden Generation” of England players. So, as mere spectators, we try to justify their lack of creativity and movement by remembering the enormity of the pressure these players are under, the immense weight of expectation that rests so heavily on their shoulders. And let’s not forget how tired they all are after a gruelling season of relentless Premiership football, which doesn’t even allow them a proper Christmas break. But then we are quickly reminded of their obscene weekly wage packets and their overwhelming experience of playing and performing at the top level and our sympathies soon revert back to a simmering mix of anger and resentment.

However tense they might have been, playing on the biggest stage in the world, with the ridiculous misconception that they were somehow good enough to win the tournament, it should not have affected their desire to win. After watching teams like Chile and Ghana, who play so competitively (maybe a little too competitively in the case of Chile) with real heart and spirit, it was shameful watching an England team who, with few exceptions, looked like the effort of tying their boot laces was about as much as they could muster.

All this begs the question why? Why is there no evidence of the fantastic team spirit that apparently exists off the pitch? Why is there no evidence of any player being hungry for the victory that they seem to think is so easily within their grasp? Why is there no evidence of the star quality that these “world-class” players display on a weekly basis throughout the season for their individual clubs? What happens to these players when they put on an England shirt?

Sooner or later the blame has to fall at the feet of the manager, whose role surely has to go beyond picking the best players that are available and telling them where to stand on the pitch. Looking at our statuesque first eleven against Germany you begin to wonder if that is all Capello has really done? He kept telling us after each game that the players “know what they have to do” but did they? Really? I failed to see any real team unity or collective work ethic that is crucial for a successful World Cup campaign. And every team needs a leader, someone who can motivate the players, someone who commands enough respect that they can bring out the best in the players and above all, in my opinion, someone who speaks the same language.

This last point may seem harsh but I cannot imagine Fabio Capello giving the England players the rousing half-time team talk that they clearly needed in all of their matches. Why is it that for any other professional post to be undertaken by a foreign national, that individual must first prove his/her level of English regardless of their qualifications and experience, and yet for the top job in English football, it seems reputation alone is enough. No-one is disputing Capello’s excellent footballing credentials but maybe an IELTS band score of 7 should be among them.

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June Language Toolbox

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Win a FREE English Course!!

Answer the following questions correctly and you could win a €40 Amazon voucher or a FREE iPass English course up to the same value. All the answers can be found in the current articles published on the iPass Blog.

1. How many people took the IELTS exam in 2006?
2. What was the name of the Bulgarian Music Idol contestant who sang her unique “Ken Lee” version of Mariah Carey’s “Without You” which became a YouTube classic?
3. Can you name 3 breeds of dog that were removed from a leading children’s dictionary in 2009?
4. Who directed the film ‘Revolutionary Road’, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio?
5. What are the names of the two female entrepreneurs who run a fish and chip shop in Barcelona?
6. What is the Greek word for “well-spoken” and also the name of Laia Sanmarti’s Interpreting and Translating Agency?
7. Who said “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life?”
8. Who wrote the screenplay of The Reader, the oscar-winning film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes?
9. Which English chef had a popular TV series called ‘Ministry of Food’?
10. Who wrote the World War II novel ‘The Book Thief’?
11. Who are Larry Page and Sergey Brin?
12. What grew 1400% in 2009?
13. Who wrote ‘Origin of the Species’ ?
14. What was important about 09/09/09?
15. Who might love Ophelia?
16. Who are ‘The Tories’?
17. What happened in 79 AD?
18. Where are drones planned to be used?
19. Who is best selling author of ‘Going Rogue’?
20. What can you write in 140 characters?

Then complete this sentence “I like reading the iPass blog articles because ...”

Email your answers to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)   

Competition ends June 12th

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The beauty of maps

There’s a fascinating programme on BBC TV called The Beauty of Maps in celebration of ‘Magnificent Maps’ exhibition staring soon at the British Library in London.
It’s hard to underestimate the importance of maps in history. In fact the exhibition also has the title of ‘Power Propaganda and Art’, which shows their real significance.
Nowadays its easy to know where you are – SatNav, Google Maps and specialist maps galore – it is hard to get really lost almost wherever you are, and its impossible to imagine a world without maps.
As a pictorial representation of the world that we live in, maps were probably the earliest pictures that humans drew, but as people started to leave their own surroundings and travel around and then to other countries they needed some more accurate.
So maps making started to develop. First people had to understand the size of countries and places. When maps first started being drawn it was common for important places to be bigger in proportion to their size; often in the centre of the known world!
But people didn’t understand where they were in the world or the scale involved in distances. It was only when cartography became a science and mathematics could measure and represent size accurately, that maps really started to mean something.
When, in 1570, Mercator published his Atlas (a word Mercator chose to describe his first collection of maps) using his revolutionary ‘projection’, it transformed mapmaking. Using maths he constructed the first accurate view of the world and people could now travel from their armchair.
In fact this golden age of cartography came just at the right time as it changed the world of commerce. Nations became powerful as they began racing to expand overseas and discover the riches on the other side of the world.
So maps also became symbols of power – ‘the Empire on which the sun never sets’ was the phrase that was often used to describe the map featuring the British Empire coloured in red – as they helped show people their place in the world, create national identity and made politics real.
Hopefully those days are over and people will see and use maps for the objects of beauty and wonder that they are. You just have to look at those incredible satellite pictures of the earth to marvel at how Mercator got it so right all those centuries ago and what maps mean to us today.

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May Language Toolbox

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Is the art of conversation dead?

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? People not talking to each other, can this really be true?
Well, ask any teenagers and they will tell you that most of them spend their time texting not calling each other and having an ‘old fashioned’ chat.
Many teenagers send over 100 emails a day – interestingly, girls send more than boys – and if you think that sounds excessive, some send many more than that. With free text options, using more than one phone and having a large address book I met one young man the other day who claimed he sent thousands.
No wonder that there is new generation of young people developing larger thumbs!
It’s an easy and fun way to keep in touch with your friends and you don’t need a state of the art mobile phone to join in. It also is private and you can still use while you are doing other things – at school in class or even talking to your parents and no one knows what you are saying. How perfect is that?
In fact texting has completely taken over even from email – ‘What’s that? Something my Mum and Dad do at the office!’
Of course Twitter is the latest way to keep in touch with people and tell them what you are doing. You collect followers as well as friends so with clever networking you can reach many more people than you know and start telling them everything you are doing with your Tweet in just 140 characters.
Its one of the fastest growing social networking sites and with more and more people using their iPhone to stay online its an ideal way to communicate and stay in touch.
Its public access means that many people are using it to promote themselves. From politicians like Barack Obama (3.7 million followers) to movie stars like Demi Moore (over 2.5 million followers, although her husband Ashton Kutchner has nearly 5 million followers!) people are keen to read about their every move as well as Tweet back.
Are you? Follow iPass on Twitter, read what we’re up to and tell us about you too!

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Choices: The parties we love to hate?

Love it or hate it the UK General Election is here again.
On 6 May the British public will now decide who will be governing them for the next 5 years - or will they?
After three weeks of high-level persuasion by the various parties, the electorate will be given the chance to vote and choose a winning party, but the problem is that for this election it seems that nobody can be sure that any one party will win!
What’s happened? Well, it seems that the two main parties - the Labour party led by Gordon Brown, and the Conservative Party (also called the Tories) led by David Cameron - have seriously misjudged the mood of the country. They haven’t realised how fed up the British people are with their politicians who, as a result of revelations by a leading newspaper, were seen to be lining their own pockets and enjoying all the perks of being an MP – more than one house and huge expense accounts.
People want change and when Nick Clegg, the leader of the third party - the Liberal Democrats - started to offer real alternatives people started to be interested.
It all happened on a televised debate between the three leaders. The debate itself was a milestone as we have never had one before, but Nick Clegg turned the tables on the ‘old parties’ and showed the country that he had new policies and people could choose something new and different. His policies were all about ‘fairness’.
The opinion polls immediately showed that he had split the votes normally expected by either Labour or the Tories, and he seems to be able to maintain his popularity.
So as we approach Voting Day, the final result could be a hung Parliament – when no one party is the outright winner and the country could see a coalition government. Historically these have never been successful in Britain so we could also see new elections sooner than we think.
Whatever happens it looks as if British politics will never be the same again, but maybe we should wait to see what the British public really wants. Who knows, there could still be some more surprises yet to come.

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April Language Toolbox

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iPass Press Release - April 2010

Vital English is a world leader in designing and distributing English Language teaching and learning solutions. They have one of the largest product ranges of any online ELT provider in the market.

“The Vital English language packages are designed and created in harmony with existing principles of instructed language learning. These materials take a fresh approach to curriculum design by drawing on the idea of task-supported teaching. They do not merely provide more of the same practice found in existing text book materials but they aim to extend the learning experience in ways which challenge and motivate learners and contribute to the development of their communicative skills.”

Professor Rod Ellis 2006 – Professor, University of Auckland and University of Anaheim
 
In conjunction with Vital English, iPass aims to offer to its 7000 strong membership a much wider range of English language products covering a wider spectrum of professions and academic qualifications.

“The Vital English learning resources are based on the best recent research in language learning. Students receive excellent resources for language competence.”

Richard Lawrence, Wintec, New Zealand

Until now, iPass has been solely focused on providing exam practice material for the Academic IELTS test, which is aimed at students who already have an intermediate or above level of English. By increasing their product range to include 6 levels of General English courses they hope to provide flexible and affordable learning opportunities for students of all levels.

“It is a good programme for students with no or little English. It is helpful in terms of speaking and grammar practice because you can hear what you have recorded and it gives you a chance to practice several times. I will recommend this programme to other students.”

Prashila Narayan

iPass still retains IELTS as the main focus of its objectives and they plan to continue expanding the content of their tutored IELTS preparation course which offers a unique and successful blend of self-study practice material and professional input from an online tutor. The role of the online tutor is not only to give feedback on students’ speaking and writing skills but also to provide information and advice on all aspects of the IELTS exam.

“Since launching the tutored course last October we have played a part in helping many students from a variety of backgrounds to achieve success in the IELTS exam. Due to the personal nature of the course we’re able to really get to know the students, and their reasons for taking IELTS. Therefore when they get the results they need it is a very rewarding experience.”

Jenny Bedwell, iPass Tutor and Co-founder

The course has been well received by students too, some of whom have taken advantage of the new iPass IELTS Course Extra which provides an additional 3-month subscription to iPass including extra tutorial support.

“You went above and beyond my expectations! The tutors are so efficient and very helpful. I have tried other IELTS tutoring services, but I wish I had known about your excellent service from the beginning. I love how you comprehensively graded my papers with feedback and positive encouragement. Thanks to you, I got an overall score of 8.0!!”

Haruko, Japan

With the launch of two more IELTS-related courses, each offering 500 hours of e-learning content, iPass hopes to provide its members with an unrivalled resource of top quality online self-study practice material.

“We’re really excited to be working with Vital English as we not only want to offer any student studying for IELTS the chance to get a better score, but we also want to give anybody learning English anywhere in the world the opportunity to practice and improve their language skills whatever their level – from beginner to advanced. Our aim is to provide high quality and affordable products, and we are always looking to develop new ideas and improve what we offer - especially to those who prefer to study online at their own pace, in there own time. With the launch of these new online courses iPass is now offering a complete range of unique courses suitable for any student who wants to study English online with confidence.”

Nigel Haines, iPass Tutor and Co-founder

For more information about all the iPass English courses, please visit our new Store page at

http://www.ipass.uk.net/index.php/store/

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March Language Toolbox

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