Welcome 2015!

Happy New Year students and friends!!!

I hope you had a great time over the holidays and enjoyed the free time.

It is very nice to spend a few days aways from the office and not think about obligations isn't it?

I imagine you saw your family members, some of you ate a little more than you should, some slept in and some just hung out with friends.

The Christmas and New Year holidays in Brazil happen in summer, so many of us enjoy going to the beach! Which ends up in huge traffic jams over the roads that leave the big cities like Imigrantes e Anchieta.

Then, when the tourists do get there, the cities on the coast are usually crowded as well, generating other kinds of problems such as water and food shortage.

Nevertheless the tourists enjoy being on the coast sunbathing. It seems that us, Brazilians, prefer the beach as a holiday destination.

Do you take care of your skin when you sunbathe? Another name for sunbathe is lie in the sun, and also get a tan. Do you wear sunscreen lotion?

I went to the beach this Christmas and I got a sunburn... : S   It hurt a lot and I needed to apply lots of ointment on my body for many days. That happened because the day was warm and I fell asleep on the beach... What a wrong thing to do! And now as a result, my skin is peeling! New skin for a new year!

How about you? How did you spend your holidays?

Many kisses and welcome to a great year of lots of English!

A nice party!

Who does not want to have the opportunity to spend a few hours practicing English in a very informal way?

Well, that's exactly what happened here at the teacher's house last Friday, December, 05.

A nice gathering of students, outside the classroom environment, drinking, eating and enjoying free conversation. The teacher influenced as little as possible, actually her participation was practically unnoticed, rs...

Conversation went from basic job and family information to literature, police novels, pets, life in Brazil, politics, everything you can imagine.

I have to say I am incredibly proud of those who were able to come. And those who didn't make it, you don't know what you missed. But don't worry, there will be other events. Now that the party was a success, I am totally encouraged to continue trying to put people together.

Special thanks for the guest of honor, Julia, who was essential for the speaking.

Wonderful participation Oscar for Juliano Alves, who started a conversation with everyone present.

Congratulations for overcoming her shyness for Rose Desidério.

Congratulations on his courage also for Marcelo Akira who is at the early stages of learning but was not discouraged to come.

Great job to Tom, who, together with his wife, helped Juliano Alves understand a bit more of how our international laws work.

Take a look at some moments and feel inspired for the next time:

Make or Do

Here is the genius Fluency MC with a great clip full of DO and MAKE collocations he calls collo, enjoy:

Can you follow the MC and sing along in the second half of the clip?

Try and write down these collo (collocations) for your improvement! And then choose a few, perhaps 5 a week, to put in a real sentence that makes sense in your world. That will help you remember them easily.

This guy is great, check out more of his work here:

In time - On time a great explanation

Hello everyone, how are things going?

I've recently come across this wonderful channel on youtube with simple English videos that teach you great things in a simple way.

This one will talk about two very confusing expressions:

in time x on time

Do you know the difference of those two? Can you use them correctly?

Watch Vicki Hollet's video and and test yourself at the end:

Now tell me, have you finished your latest homework piece yet?

Are you on time with it? Or are you behind schedule?

To be behind schedule means to be late. 

How about at work? Did you send that business proposal on time? This is extremely important. You don't want to risk the company's image...

When was the last time you've been to the theater to watch a musical, a play, an opera, a concert or even a dance show? Did you arrive in time for it? You mustn't arrive at the last moment. That it because you need to find your seat. Sometimes people want to get refreshments. Or even use the ladies' or men's room. If you're going to see an opera, a ballet or a concert you might want to spend some time at the theater, enjoying yourself. Having a drink perhaps. So, it's good to arrive in time for all that.

Right?

Check out Vicky Hollet's YouTube channel, she has amazing videos there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCskz5P7AEEVieGX2-Vtc4Dg

Thanks for now folks!

Collocations with the word conversation

Hi everyone!

I have been following this EFL (English as a Foreign Language) blog recently and I'd like to share with you a very good lesson the teacher has posted this week.

Her name is Shanti Cumaraswamy. She was born in England but grew up in Kuala Lumpur. Her posts are incredible and of very good quality. So, it is also further reference for your studies.

This week she started a series on collocations. I usually define collocations as very good combinations of words. Good combinations are words that often come together. In Portuguese we can give a few examples like: colocar a mesa, passar um fax, mascar chiclete, chupar manga, tomate cereja, leite azedo. Collocations are usually combinations of verbs and nouns; or adjectives and nouns.

Teacher Santi writes a nice text about collocations with a valid dictionary definition. After that she shows tons of great examples.

So, without further ado, let's move to the link below and check out what she has in stock for us:

English With a Twist - Collocations

How did you like it?

Let's choose a few examples to practice ourselves?

Vocabulary for the elections part II

Hello guys... After I wrote the post about the elections and shared it with some of my students new words came up, so here we go for another edition of elections 2014:

During the months that lead up to the elections we are quite forced to listen to and watch political propaganda on the radio and TV... : ( not so pleasant...

Now, suppose you're not very happy with your candidates and you wish to protest while you're voting, so you may annul or spoil your vote (although some people might argue that spoiling your vote is a prejudiced term... since what you are doing is an act of protest... what do you think?). That means you are not voting for any valid candidate.

And how about those who also wish to protest by simply not writing anything on the ballot? That is a bit different, and in English we express it by saying to cast a blank vote. In Brazil, we use machines, not paper ballots anymore. So when we go to our polling booth, there is a special key for those who wish to cast a blank vote. Have you ever done that? What reasons led you to it? Do you regret it? Are you planning to do it this year?

And when you are away from your town? What can you do? You may cast an absentee vote!

But this year, for the first time we will be able to vote by post! Thanks to advances in technology if you are not near your polling station you'll be able to go to another polling station available in the city where you are and vote by post... Nice, isn't? I've often wondered why this was not yet possible, haven't you?

Well, I'd also like to say which political offices we are going to vote for in this edition of the elections:

• president
• governor
• senator
• federal deputy
• state deputy

And last but not least, at least for this edition of the elections posts, we have a difference in pronunciation guys:

politics x politician

got it?

Can we try one more time?

Thanks for the attention and see you soon!!!

Vocabulary for the elections

Good morning everyone, since we are approaching the time to choose a candidate both for governing our state and our country I thought it might be a good idea to bring to front some relevant words to the theme:

The politician who wants a job in the government is called a candidate. The person who chooses him or her in an election is a voter. and all the people in a country who have the right to vote are called together the electorate.

When a candidate decides to be a candidate we can say that he is running for president, for example:

Marina Silva is running for president now that Eduardo Campo's died. 

Eduardo Suplicy is running for senator.

Gilberto Kasssab is running for senator of São Paulo state.

It's important to note that we use run for a position. Like:

run for president
run for governor
run for senator

The same word goes when you choose your candidate, you should say vote for somebody;  for example:

I'm going to vote for Eduardo Suplicy for senator.
I still haven't decided who I'm going to vote for in these elections.

The period of time we are in now is called in English run-up to the elections, this is when the candidates make their campaigns, talk to the voters and try to persuade the electorate to vote for them. During the run-up to the elections Brazilians must deal with intensive political propaganda on TV, radio, as well as debates with the main candidates.

On the day of the elections we must go to a polling place (this is a British term) and direct ourselves to a polling booth (a British and Canadian term for a voting booth), which is a compartment with one open side in which one voter at a time stands to mark their ballot (New Oxford American Dictionary).

The ballot is a synonym of vote, but it is also the name of the piece of paper on which we mark our vote. In Brazil we have a very modern voting system and we only need to press buttons. Our system is entirely computerized.

In our country a candidate for president, governor or even mayor of a city must have 50% + 1 of the votes. When this does not happen we have what is called a run-off election. A second chance for the 2 candidates who received the biggest number of votes in the first time.

When we read the news about who MIGHT win the elections, we are in fact reading survey results. Survey is like an investigation of the opinions or experience of a group of people, based on a series of questions (New Oxford American Dictionary).

Well, I guess this is the basic vocabulary.

How about you? Have you chosen your candidate yet?