EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

One of the new things in the TOEFL ibt is the inclusion of what is known as Integrated Skills. There are Integrated Skills in the Speaking and in the Writing sections.  An Integrated Skill is actually an activity where skills other than the one that is being tested are brought into the context of the exercise, e.g. if a  test taker is in the Speaking section of the exam, question 3 to be more precise, for he or she to respond to that question first there is a short text to be read (usually a memo to college students) and next there is the recording of a conversation between two students making comments about that text.   The Speaking section contains four exercises with Integrated Skills. Questions 3 and 4 integrate Reading and Listening whereas questions 5 and 6 integrate Listening only. Questions 1 and 2 are not Integrated Skills. The Writing section, the last in the test, contains only one Integrated Skill and it integrates Reading and Listening.  Ex...

I do not really understand how this happened but I would like to refer to one name in particular which is precisely that of the person who could have become Queen of England one day: the late  lady Diana of Wales.  The problem with this name is how it sounds. It sounds quite different from the Spanish version to start with: DAYANA. If we check the books written long ago there is no reference in the Spanish culture of such name, meaning that there were Dianas but not DAYANAS. Coincidentally the name spelled that way began appearing in the Latin American culture when the influence of the U.S. culture on ours became notoriously strong and now is everywhere. In fact in my country the name DAYANA is more popular than DIANA. For us they are not the same name because though their spelling is similar the way they are pronounced (in Spanish) is not. So, you can easily find two women sitting side by side, one named DIANA and the other DAYANA, without realizing they actually have t...

Here is one activity you can have in class which is great at helping students understand and also present their own view of literary characters. They should of course have read one book or at least a good portion of it so they can offer a perspective of who the characters in the story are and what their motivations could be. Next, tell them you are going to proceed with a review of the story they have been reading but focusing on the two or three most important characters. On the board draw figures resembling the human body. No need to be artistic: a basic sketch will do. You have to emphasize two organs though (preferably use a different ink to draw them), and those would be the brain and the heart. Ask your students to write inside the brain what is in that character's mind and in his or her heart what is in his or her heart. Have them also work in pais or in groups. Set a time limit and once the time is up ask one person pr group to come to the board and write their respon...

Let's be clear about this. Django Unchained is not a good movie. It is a good Quentin Tarantino movie which is perhaps a better thing to say. Tarantino here tells the story of a German bounty hunter called Dr. Schultz (Christopher Waltz) who in his quest to nab three criminals he does not know, seeks the help of a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who knows those criminals because they tortured him and his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Django does help Dr. Schultz who asks Django to stay with him and help him in other bounty cases. In exchange the doctor will help Django find his wife so the former slave accepts and for an entire season (winter) the doctor is helped by Django who receives training in shooting and bounty hunting. When the term of their deal expires Dr. Schults and Django look for Broomhilda in Mississipi and find she is now a slave in Candyland, a farm that belongs to Calvin J Candie (Leonardo Di Caprio) who is assisted by his loyal black butler, Stephen ...

Ever wondered where her name comes from?  To start with, BARBIE is not really a name. It is a nickname, just like Sam for example which is short for Samuel or Liz is short for Elizabeth. Both Sam and Liz are also nicknames. many of the words we believe to be names are nicknames actually, and here are some more examples:  Alexander - Alex Amanda - Amy Andrew - Andy Anthony - Tony Bartolomew - Bart Bénédict - Benny Charles - Chuck Edward - Eddy James - Jimmy John - Johnny Joseph - Joe Kenneth - Ken Lawrence - Larry Margaret - Maggie Michael - Mike Philbert - Phil Robert - Bob Samuel - Sammy Thomas - Tom Wallace - Wally And what about Barbie? Well, Barbie is the short for Barbara, for this famous doll apparently even has a name all of her own: Barbara Millicent Roberts.

One of those movies that I watch over and over again and I don't get tired of is Forrest Gump. Perhaps this quality is what makes this 1994 film to be among the best movies ever made.  Forrest Gump is a man who is not very bright so to speak which is why many of the people around him believe him to be stupid. Forrest might be retarded but his heart and his spirit are ten times bigger than anyone else's. We meet Forrest when he is a child, we see the extraordinary mother he has, we witness the problems he has since then because the other kids mocked himall the time  and also how he met the girl he would love forever. Forrest is apparently also quite lucky and while he never tries the way he is opens a lot of opportunities to him which he grabs always inadvertently and thereforein the story we see how he becomes a college football star, goes to Vietnam and survives, becomes a Ping Pong international champion, enters the shrimp business and becomes rich, gets to meet import...

The Interlopers by Saki (1870-1916) is one of those short stories that stand out because of their simplicity and elegance in leading the reader to the belief that the story is going on one direction when actually is following another, The most amazing thing is that the writer is completely honest and puts all the clues there as the story progresses so if you pay attention you can actually tell what the writer´s real intentions are but the reader fails to see them and is then pleasantly surprised by the ending which is lcompletely unexpected. Two men Ulrich and Georg are by right the heads of their respective families that for years have quarrelled over s forest that lies in the middle of their respective properties. One night they run into each other in that forrest, both alone, when suddenly they are accidentally trapped under an enormus tree branch. no one comes ot rescue them but they patiently wait and in the meantime they decide to talk. As their conversation continues they ...

There are alternatives to the use of FOR EXAMPLE, e.g. , e.g. As you can see in the picture, e.g. is an alternative to the common expression FOR EXAMPLE, but to use it correctly you must first say something that requires an example, next use a comma, insert e.g., add another comma, and finally the words that serve as an example. Here is how you do it:       David has visited many countries and learned several languages in the places he has visited, e.g. , he can speak Mandarin and a little Cantonese because he traveled to China and stayed there for two years. The term e.g. is not English but Latin and means exempli gratia. Since Latin seems so hard for some people to remember some teachers, or parents, teach e.g. as example given . If it works for you then it is all right.  BTW, other expressions that can replace FOR EXAMPLE are FOR INSTANCE and also SUCH AS.

The problem with the word THAT for English learners is how often we use one of the possible meanings this word has. The  meaning in question is QUE which is used as a conjunction. In English using THAT as a conjunction is optional. Here are some examples: I think THAT you're quite right. She believed THAT you were guilty. It will be a party THAT you´ll never forget. In all these cases THAT is working as a conjunction (a conjunction is a word that connects two sentences). If you take it out the meaning remains the same so using THAT here is not essential. I think you're quite right. She believed you were guilty. It will be a party you´ll never forget. Now this is something we cannot do in Spanish. For us the use of THAT, which is QUE, is mandatory in this case and without it each sentence would sound awkward. This only can be done is THAT is a conjunction but if it is working as the subject of sentence,  a ersonal pronoun, it is incorrect to eliminate THAT,...

Everybody in Guayaquil knows the name, but not everyone knows the story behind that name. George Capwell (1902-1970) was born in New York who later on lived in Panamá and then studied in Cuba. Having great organizational skills he was hired to be the general manager of Empresa Eléctrica del Ecuador in 1926. During his tenure he founded a sports club since he loved sports and used the name of the  Empresa Eléctrica (C.S. Emelec) as the name of the club. Originally the club focused on the promotion of sports other than soccer but eventually a football team was formed in 1929 and later on a stadium would begin construction in 1940 to be inagugruated around 1945. That stadium still stands (after being remodeled several times) and in recognition of the great man who started it all, it has his name: George Capwell.

This movie based on the best-selling book of the same title is one more of those light-hearted comedies that Hollywood loves to produce trying in this case to repeat the success this story had as a book.  With stars such as Cameron Díaz, Jennifer López Elizabeth Banks (Sherlock Holmes) and Chace Crawford (Up in the Sky) you would expect a much better product but perhaps that is the problem with this film: there are too many cooks in the kitchen. And it is not only for the actresses already mentioned since there are others there such as Chris Rollllck and Dennis Quaid whose performances suffer of the limited time they have in screen.  The story itself is not the problem but perhaps how ambitious as a project this film is. With so many lives to portray and the sudden problems each one has to face when they know or try to become parents, it is understandable that this movie did not perform better. Though still it is nice to see all these actors and actresses in only one p...

Blade is a Marvel character, one of those that are too dark to be considered a superhero because of the violence they have to use in order to dispose of their enemies. Still Marvel owes a lot  to this character because hismovies were the first successful live Marvel films ever. Before Blade movies all of the attempts Marvel had made to produce movies with characters such as The Fantastic Four and Captain America had been pretty unsuccessful perhaps due to poor scripts or lousy actors or just it was not the right time for that to happen. But when Wesley Snipes was hired to become Blade the panorama changed for Marvel and ever since it has been one success after another (with some disappointmens but the ups have definitely been more than the downs). So it was justice that after Blade had a successful trilogy, there was a TV series and most recently in 2012 Blade got the Anime treatment. As a result of a project Iron Man, then Wolverine, and later the X-Men were each given a twe...

A SHOOTING STAR (known in Spanish as ESTRELLA FUGAZ) is not a star. It is actually a meteorite entering the atmosphere of our planet. Since the atmosphere is full of gases, the materials that make up the meteorite burn because of the friction produced by the speed with which the meteorite enters. This burning usually destroys a good part of the meteorite though not all of it.   The meteorite that entered our atmosphere recently, and was caught with a camera, is not an unusual occurrence since hundreds os these objects arrive all the time but the atmosphere protects us and takes over the problem before it actually becomes a threat. Sometimes we are not that lucky. If the meteor is actually a big chunk chances are that even with the protection of our atmosphere still a considerable portion of the meteor hits the Earth, or the oceans, and in both cases the damage would be considerable if not catastrophic. Evidence of large collisions can be found in certain parts of the world an...

The Impossible is a movie precisely about The Impossible. In 2004 a Spanish family were spending their vacation in a tropical island of the Indian Ocean somewhere in Thailand when then the most devastating tsunami in recorded history hit the coastal zone of that part of the world. Thousands died that day but the impossible happened and the Spanish family of five managed to survive (three of them were merely children) and not only that they reunited some days later. Not a Hollywood product, this Sapnish funded film stars the powerful interpretation of Naomi Watts as Mrs. Bennet (the original family became quite British for the film and changed names) and also Ewan Mc Gregor, who plays the father. The young actor who plays Lucas, their oldest son, delivers a great performance as well. The premise is simple: when the tsunami hits the family gets separated and Mrs. Bennet is with Lucas while Mr. Bennet manages to keep the two youngest children. When the two waves have finished their ...

Valentine's Day and el Día de San Valentín are almost the same but they are not the same necessarily.  First, though the name in English is Saint Valentine´s Day, the word Saint is usually out in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. In Spanish we keep the "full name" so to speak and it is common to wish other people: "¡Feliz Día de San Valentín!" or "¡Feliz Día del Amor y la Amistad!" (the latter may sound corny though). It is custormary everywhere to send cards, flowers or chocolates to that person who is special to us, but here is another difference: in the Anglo-Saxon tradition you can identify that person as "your Valentine" something we are not used to in Spanish-speaking countries. In fact, you yourself become that person´s Valentine. This custom apparently stems from what happened to Saint Valentine, the person after whom Valentine's Day is called Valentine. Believe it or not he really existed and he seemss to have been a Christian m...

The second installment that takes to animation the cult story that decades ago revitalized Batman giving him back his grim reputation has finally seen the light. Those who still would like to see the Adam West Batman do a comeback will have to continue waiting just because that was never the real Batman. Frank Miller's version of Batman is. And this second part shows a more ruthless vigilante than before. Back to protect Gotham in its direst hour Batman now has to face an old problem. The Joker has been in a mental institution all these years, bored to death and feeling there is nothing interesting in his life until he hears the news. The hero has returned and he, as his opposite number, feels the need to come back to action as well. And he does. Knowing that the new commissioner does not condone Batman's actions, the Joker uses his own doctor to get an invitation to a live night show where he kills everyone. Batman is unable to save anyone because the Police intervenes t...

Procrastination is a habit, a bad one. It happens when you decide to put off things that are important. If you delay throwing the garbage until your favorite TV show is over that is understandable, but if you do it  after two days that is wrong and you have become a procrastinator. Those who procrastinate are excellent at finding eexcuses for not doing the job that is required from them. It is is like any other future moment is a better moment than now. And thus a procrastinator never fully realizes he or she is one... until several different people get mad at you.  Guayaquileans are excellent at procrastinating, but we have done it for so long we say it is because "we are easygoing". By the way, there is no direct translation. PROCRASTINATION  in Spanish is only DEJAR TODO PARA DESPUES.                               

Here is another activity you can do in class and it is good practice if you want your students to develop their speaking skill.  Have them work in pairs. They should sit down one in front of the other. One of them should also be able to watch a short video in front of him or her and his or her task is to describe what he sees to his or her partner who in turn takes notes.  For this one I prefer a "Benny Hill chase" which is obviously taken from Benny Hill's show. They are perfect because they are not long, each one is a story upon itself, they are funny and nothing is said so the other person depends on his or her partner to know what is going on in the video. Another one that would do well is undoubtedly, Rowan Atkinson and his character, Mr. Bean. Younger students are more familiar with Mr. Bean then Benny Hill so if you have a teen course perhaps you could use Mr. Bean´s sequences.  There are plenty of actors who used or use physical humor so if you don´t mind ...

A movie produced and directed by Ben Affleck, Argo tells you the real story of what happened to the staff of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, in 1979 that was overriden by Islam fundamentalists who took hostage all of the staff of the embassy with the exception of six of them who escaped unnoticed and went into the Canadian embassy where they remained hidden. Soon a plan is devised and the person in charge of the rescue is Tony Mendez, CIA operative, who comes with the most unlikely idea: to make the escapées pretend they are part of a filming crew of a movie called Argo who have come to Teheran looking for a good filming location for their phony Sci.fi film. Amazing as it is, no part of this is fictional. All of it really happened and if the plan Mendez came up with worked or not, well, that is part of History already and if you are curious about it you should see this movie that has been praised by the critics and the public alike and thaqt alone should tell you something. Up...

This is a movie produced, not directed by Quentin Tarantino, thus the heavy influence of Tarantino´s style in the many and endless action sequences. The story is set in the time of Imperial China. in the very fictional Jungle Village, home of several groups, clans that have adopted an animal as a a way to identify their combat styles, their clothes and they weapons they use. The story is told in first person by the town's blacksmith, an African american who came to China escaping slavery in the U.S. and was trained in a temple. The Emperor is to receive a gold shpment and this treasure is to be safguarded. The first protector of the shipment is the leader of the Lion clan called Gold Lion who is murdered by an assassin called Poison Dagger who is secretly working with Silver Lion, the second in command to take over the shipment. When he gets news of his father's death, Gold Lion's son, Zen-Yi, decides to return to the village he had left in the past to be his father...

If you have seen "Ferris Bueller´s Day Off" then you are familiar with the term JOYRIDE.  In this movie the cnetral character, Ferris Bueller (Matthew Brodderick) and his girlfriend, convince Ferris´s best friend to take his father´s favorite car for a ride around Chicago. That's a joyride. And once they get to the city , they leave the car in a parking lot and the parking valet with a friend  also take e car and go riding  as well. That is a joyride as well. If consulted, dictionaries basically state  that is a ride of pleasure by a group of friends (usually youngsters) in a car that is usually taken without the car owner´s permission.   Joyriding is considered a minor offense that is only aggravated if the driver has driven recklessly or has disturbed other people, or has killed someone accidentally.                                             ...

The End of Eternity is a Science Fiction classic that focuses in Time Travel and tries to answer the question of "What would happen if we could go back in time and prevent all wars?" Andrew Harlan is an agent of Eternity an organization that exists outside time and that operates to prevent mankind from suffering. Eternity and its members, the Eternals, are all powerful since they can enter the timestream st any point, though they have two limitations: there is a section of the future which they cannot access and they cannot travel to a time before the existence of Eternity.  This point is extremely important for the Eternals since they have discovered that their existence is actually the result of a paradox: they must send someone into the past, some guy called Cooper before Eternity to begin the experiments that eventually will lead into the creation of Eternity.  There is an unexpected element, a woman, who Harlan is in love with. This woman, Noys Lambent, is not from...

As you can see on the picture there is a lady next to a chart full of information and pictures. She was one of my students and she was conducting a very informal exposition on Public Safety. I asked all of my students of my Adults 10 class to participate explaining different aspects on the topic given, the very last day they finished their studies and they all did wonderfully. It was not a requirement for them to finish but it was me who wanted to see how well they could do in a similar situation so I paid attention to their approach to the topic, their command of the language and their demeanor. On the first aspect I saw no essential difference from what they would probably have done if the exposition had been in their mother language and what they did using the target language. They tried to be "completists" and explain everything in detail just likethye would have done it in Spanish. On their command of the language there is still a couple of things to "tune u...

California is one of the most important states of the union. Important cities such as Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco are there . If you want to go to Hollywood then you have to go to California.  The tallest trees of the world, the California Redwood trees are there. This land produces some of the best grapes of the world which makes it also the land that produces the best wines in the United States. It was in California that the Gold rush took place first, an enormous quantity of gold that contributed to the wealth of the U.S. and the development of that region that otherwise would not have developed as quickly as it did. California was originally Spanish and then Mexican. It was ceded to the United States and admitted as part of the union in 1850. It is the third largest state after Alaska and Texas and if it were an independent country it would be in the list of the top ten economies of the world. It is a land of contrasts even in its climate. California has beaut...

This is another activity that requires to bring together different elements to make it happen. You will need to get a board which you can obtain from free from www.eslgamesworld.com. Download for free the crocodile board game. Once you have it, edit it and insert questions for your specific group of studentsand make as copies as you need for the groups that are going to participate (ideally each group should have four members). I do this manually and regularly I include questions about a story they are reading. In the present case, these students had recently read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. You will also need a dice per group and small tokens that represent each student. I use small chess pieces which also gives me the chance to teach them chess-related terms. The game is similar to Parchisi and you can add a prize for the winner, a small candy will do. Explain the rules and make sure everyone uses English. They will be having fun playing and also they will be reviewing ...

What are they doing?  These are EFL students at the academy I work for (COPEI). This class was made up by middle teens (13-16 years old) but the activity is for all ages and it works better with large groups. It is a writing activity. For it all you need is a blank sheet of paper, a small piece of Scotch tape and a pen or pencil (for each student)  Have students help one another attaching the piece of paper on their backs with the tape. Next they have to write anonymous messages on everrybody's papers (you can limit this number if you have many students). The message has to be a nice one. Students have to commend their partners´intelligence, elegance, good looks or anything else they can come up with as long as it is not offensive; and of course, all messages have to be in English.  It is great as an ice breaker, but can also be used as a closing activity of sorts as I did in tha time:  that day was my last with that group.  For lack of a better name...

Believe it or not the term is FRESH WATER which is defined as water that does not contain salt. According to that definition all inland water is Fresh Water (water in ponds, streams, lagoons and so on).  Of course, if we talk about AGUA DULCE then we must also mention AGUA SALADA. That one is easier: you only have to say SALT WATER. There is also another option which is SEAWATER.  And last but not least: what about AGUA POTABLE? That one is even easier because the term is POTABLE WATER. Still if you do not like that one (I don´t like it either), you can always say DRINKABLE WATER because that is what Agua Potable is, water you can drink.

This is one movie that you should see if you haven´t seen it yet. Jumanji is basically the story of four children that will meet because of a magical board game called Jumanji. Alan is one of them and he accidentally finds the game and invites his friend Sarah to play with him. As the game goes things start to happen and one of them is that Alan gets sucked into the game. Horrified Sarah flees and incidentally closes the game. Twenty five years or so pass and the game is accidentally found by two other kids, Judy and Peter, who realize the game is to be played by four people. They make their moves and each one brings a new surprise. sometimes is the appearance of giant insects or crazy and agressive monkeys or even a lion. One of their moves releases Alan who has spent twenty six years of his life inside a "jungle" within the game , a world within the board. Every time a move is made one part of that world invades reality. The grown up Alan (Robin Williams) will be fund...