This is a weekly selection of reading articles, free online exercises, YouTube videos, games, quizzes and resources for you to further improve your English language skills while having fun –ENJOY!
📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, quizzes and more:
From BBC CAPITAL: How to avoid awkward work conversations, by Alison Green. BBC World Service contributor Alison Green has been giving workplace advice for over a decade. She is still surprised at how many people avoid difficult interactions with colleagues. [This story is from an episode of Business Matters from the BBC World Service. To listen to more episodes, please click here.] (Continue reading)
From BBC FUTURE: A little bit of boasting could have benefits, by Talya Rachel Meyers. Many cultures tend to praise modesty and humility. But new research has revealed that the tendency to feel, and show, pride evolved for a reason – and plays a key role even today.
Pride is the downfall of many a tragic hero. Mr Darcy has to let his go before he can earn Elizabeth Bennet’s love. Dante listed it as one of the seven deadly sins. And as the famous (and oft-misquoted) verse from Proverbs cautions us, it “goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”.
There’s no question about it: we’re consistently told that pride makes us obnoxious at best and doomed at worst.
But pride may not entirely deserve this reputation as a destructive force. There’s new evidence that this emotion has an evolutionary function, and that it plays an important role in the way that we interact with the world. (Continue reading)
🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:
LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:
Visiting London - Beginner's Guide for Shopping in London (3:48 minutes)
- How does your body process medicine? - Céline Valéry (4:12 minutes)
- TIPS FOR FOOD TO EAT WHEN VISITING LONDON (3:35 minutes)
- Why Are You Anxious? (3:46 minutes)
- BBC Masterclass: Question tags (4:30 minutes)
- Why do airlines sell too many tickets? - Nina Klietsch (4:59 minutes)
- Getting down to business - 64 - English at Work gets you working (3:38 minutes)
5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:
HOW TO: Making informal invitations (6:02 minutes)
- Tell Me About Yourself - A Good Answer to This Interview Question (7:05 minutes)
- 9 TURN Phrasal Verbs: turn on, turn off, turn over, turn around, turn out... (6:50 minutes)
- News Review: Toxicity tax for London's polluting cars (7:40 minutes)
- CRITICAL THINKING - Fundamentals: Bayes' Theorem [HD] (6:20 minutes)
- How to Keep a Conversation Going in English (5:35 minutes)
- 13 Ways How Pickpockets Rob You! (9:30 minutes)
A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!
5 English Pronunciation Tricks EVERY English Student Should Be Using (13:59 minutes)
- PHILOSOPHY - Kant: On Metaphysical Knowledge [HD] (10:08 minutes)
- 12 English Expressions with ALL: "for all I know", "all along", "all talk"... (17:32 minutes)
- Ancient & Medieval Medicine: Crash Course History of Science #9 (12:05 minutes)
- Why We Can't Invent a Perfect Engine: Crash Course Engineering #10 (12:54 minutes)
💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:
VOCABULARY: How to use synonyms (6:08 minutes)
- ESL Vocabulary Test (Multiple choice exercise: Choose the correct words to complete the sentences.)
- Football / Soccer (Vocabulary about the world's most popular sport.)
- Kitchen (Different things you will find in a kitchen and their uses)
- See Look Watch Hear Listen
- Weather Idioms (The meaning of common idioms about the weather.)
- Idioms - exercise 12
- Food Containers
- Antonyms Matching Worksheet 4 (DRAG & DROP exercise)
- Work & jobs
💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:
BBC Learning English - 6 Minute Grammar - Phrasal and prepositional verbs (6:32 minutes)
- Phrasal Verbs with GET
- Amount / Number - exercise 2
- Prepositions of Place Multiple Choice Exercise (Choose the correct preposition of place for each question.)
- Prepositions Of Time (When do you use "on", "in" or "at"? When don't you use any preposition? This exercise will help you.)
- CAUSATIVE FORM (Passive) 2
- Past Simple or Present Perfect Gap Fill (Which of these two tenses should you use to complete each of these sentences?)
- Past Simple or Present Perfect Gap Fill 2 (Further practice of the difference between past simple and present perfect.)
MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!
