WEEKLY PICKS - 13

This post offers you a selection of recommended free online exercises, games, videos and resources so that you can improve your English language skills while having fun – ENJOY!

📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, quizzes and more:

From BBC FUTURE: The new phones that are stuck in the past, by Peter Rubinstein. These sleek, downgraded cell phones are meant to promote mental wellbeing – by turning the clock back to the pre-smartphone era.
… After several years of tinkering, Neby invented the solution to his mobile obsession: another cell phone. But unlike his Blackberry, this one was specifically designed to promote healthy behaviour by being used as little as possible. With this idea in mind, Neby’s company Punkt was born.
It now stands as one of several start-ups aimed at tempering advanced technologies with a return to good old-fashioned humanity, providing an escape route from the anxiety and addiction of smartphones. Because these secondary devices do little more than make calls, owners say they have rediscovered the freedom they had before their iPhones were surgically attached to their palms. (Continue reading)

From BBC CAPITAL: Are you guilty of 'cyberloafing'?, by Emily Lowe-Calverley and Rachel Grieve. A spot of online shopping, checking out your holiday snaps on Facebook: if you break up your work day with non-work online activities you may be guilty of 'cyberloafing'.

Cyberloafing – engaging in non-work online activities while “on the clock” – is a modern form of counterproductive workplace behaviour ...
Cyberloafing can lack malicious intent, but not always ... So, who is likely to cyberloaf, and why? (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

BBC Masterclass: Advanced Learner Mistakes - go, come, bring and take (3:26 minutes)

• BBC ENGLISH: Stop Saying: Answering negative questions (3:06 minutes)
• The Egyptian Book of the Dead: A guidebook for the underworld - Tejal Gala (4:31 minutes)
• How memories form and how we lose them - Catharine Young (4:19 minutes)
• Disagreeing - 10 - English at Work gives you the language to disagree (3:58 minutes)
• This is Sparta: Fierce warriors of the ancient world - Craig Zimmer (4:27 minutes)
• Learners' Questions: Using the word 'though' (2:43 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

News Review: Money spent on time makes you happy (8:14 minutes)

• Basque - A Language of Mystery (8:56 minutes)
• What Does Your Search History Say About You? (5:00 minutes)
• How Is KISSING Different Around The World (6:46 minutes)
• 10 Psychological Facts About Human Feelings (6:25 minutes)
• The Silk Road: Connecting the ancient world through trade - Shannon Harris Castelo (5:19 minutes)
• Visit Europe - 10 Things That Will SHOCK You about Europe (10:12 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

Meet Your Master: Getting to Know Your Brain – Crash Course Psychology #4 (12:33 minutes)

• Top 20 Happiest Countries To Live In The World (13:47 minutes)
• Netflix: How a $40 Late Fee Revolutionized Television (12:52 minutes)
• Talking on the Phone in English – English Phone Vocabulary Lesson (11:47 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

• Last & the last
• Quiz: Journey, Travel & Trip (⇒ Brief explanation: TRAVEL – TRIP – JOURNEY – TOUR – VOYAGE)
• Quiz: Hear & Listen
• Advice and advise
• Quiz: Bring, Fetch & Take
• Quiz: Job or Work
• Text Completion Exercise 4 (easy)
• Text Completion Exercise 10 (intermediate)

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

• Quiz: Phrasal Verbs - Take
• Mixed Articles 1
• Mixed Articles 2
• Avoiding double negatives 1
• GERUND or INFINITIVE? 2
• Tag questions 2
• Quiz: Countable or Uncountable - 2
• Time prepositions exercise 1
• Time prepositions exercise 2
• Place prepositions exercise 1
• Place prepositions exercise 2
• MODALS (Couldn't/Might Not) (Which alternative is correct? Click on ‘Answer’ to see the correct response.)
• Quiz: Many or Many of

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!

WEEKLY PICKS - 12

This post offers you a selection of recommended free online exercises, games, videos and resources so that you can improve your English language skills while having fun! ENJOY!

📜 READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, and more:

From BBC CAPITAL: What is the future of English in the US? By Bryan Lufkin. Similar to the UK and Australia, US citizens can rely on the luxury of being native English speakers – but in today's changing world, could monolingual Americans be left behind? (Continue reading)

From BBC FUTURE: The 'invisible allies' inside the body, by David Robson. How bacteria can save children’s lives. A ground-breaking new project in Bangladesh could help reduce the life-long health problems that come from childhood malnourishment – by focusing on the gut. (Continue reading)

From BBC NEWS: The troubled 29-year-old helped to die by Dutch doctors, by Linda Pressly. BBC News, The Netherlands. In January a young Dutch woman drank poison supplied by a doctor and lay down to die. Euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide are legal in Holland, so hers was a death sanctioned by the state. But Aurelia Brouwers was not terminally ill – she was allowed to end her life on account of her psychiatric illness.

"I'm 29 years old and I've chosen to be voluntarily euthanised. I've chosen this because I have a lot of mental health issues. I suffer unbearably and hopelessly. Every breath I take is torture…" (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

How do we smell? - Rose Eveleth (4:19 minutes)

• How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it) - Katherine Hampsten (4:32 minutes)
• Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler (4:32 minutes)
• British and American terms: fashion and clothing (1:35 minutes)
• David Crystal - How is the internet changing language today? (3:35 minutes)
• Why Clothes Matter (4:38 minutes)
• How Anesthesia Affects Your Brain And Body (3:15 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

PHILOSOPHY - Aristotle (7:30 minutes)

• SAMPLE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEST: Leisure time (7:59 minutes)
• Conveying your ideas: ENGLISH AT WORK helps you present your thoughts (5:51 minutes)
• Taboos Around the World (7:34 minutes)
• BBC 6 Minute English | FOOD WASTE | English Subtitle (5:57 minutes)
• BBC Learning English from the News => News Review: 450,000 need help in Texan floods (8:13 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

LITERATURE: Franz Kafka (10:32 minutes)

• Small talk & American conversation codes [Summer School Revision] (11:27 minutes)
• 10 ways to have a better conversation | Celeste Headlee (11:44 minutes)
• Ancient & Medieval Medicine: Crash Course History of Science #9 (12:05 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

• CHALLENGE: How Strong Is Your Vocabulary? (From Merriam-Webster) Test your vocabulary with this 10-question quiz — and maybe learn some new words along the way! You can try it as often as you'd like (there are dozens of different versions). You'll have 10 seconds to answer each question. The faster you answer, the higher your score. The harder the question, the higher your score. ⇒ TAKE THE QUIZ
• Which word?: DO or MAKE? 1 (Click on "Answer" to see the correct response.)
• Which word?: DO or MAKE? 2 (Click on "Answer" to see the correct response.)
• Clothing and Accessories Exercise 1
• Parts of the House Fill in Exercise 1
• Buildings and Places Fill in Exercise

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

• Mixed modals 1 (should, can, must)
• Mixed modals 2 (should, can, must)
• Phrasal Verbs (TO PULL +) 1
• GERUND or INFINITIVE? 3
• A or An Basic Exercise 1 / 2 / 3 (DRAG & DROP EXERCISES)
• A / An / The Worksheets 1 (Online multiple-choice exercise)
• A / An / The or Nothing 2 (Online multiple-choice exercise)
• A / An / The or Nothing 3 (Online fill in the blanks exercise)
• Quiz: Phrasal Verbs - Go

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!

WEEKLY PICKS - 11

This post offers you a selection of recommended free online exercises, games, videos and resources so that you can improve your English language skills while having fun! ENJOY!

📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, and more:

Article from BBC FUTURE: Five myths about heatwaves, by Claudia Hammond. What you should – and shouldn’t – do in a heatwave.

As summer temperatures climb, keeping cool becomes a priority. But what age-old tips are worth sticking to? BBC Future takes a look.

With heatwaves everywhere from Japan to the UK, and Algeria to California, everyone has plenty of tips on how to keep cool. But which tips and facts stand up to scientific scrutiny? We look at the evidence for whether you should do the following 5 things or not. (Continue reading)

Article from BBC CAPITAL: Does ‘mindfulness’ kill motivation? By Jessica Brown. Companies are investing huge sums in mindfulness programmes for employees, but could these be having unintended results?

Meditation has long shed its Buddhist roots to become a secular answer to all of our ills in the West, with numerous studies finding benefits like reduced stress and better concentration.

Some of the world’s biggest firms, including Google and Nike, have embraced the practice, using meditation programmes as a way of tackling stress, staff turnover and absenteeism.

Meditation is also used as a tool to motivate workers, partly thanks to research on the relationship between wellbeing and productivity. But a new study suggests that mindfulness meditation, a popular type of meditation that practises being aware in the present, may not be the best way to increase your motivation at work. (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

USING ZERO ARTICLES (2:05 MINUTES)

• 5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now (3:15 minutes)
• Where Does Compassion Really Come From? (2:43 minutes)
• What Does Your Bedroom Reveal About Your Personality? | Psych2Go (4:25 minutes)
• British and American English Pronunciation - Stop Saying (4:03 minutes)
• Why Plastic Straws Suck (4:37 minutes)
• The incredible history of China's terracotta warriors - Megan Campisi and Pen-Pen Chen (4:31 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

10 Things That Will SHOCK You About London, England (9:06 minutes)

• The Ultimate Test of Your Social Skills (5:29 minutes)
• Networking - 48 - English at Work gets you the contacts (5:51 minutes)
• SAMPLE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEST: Living in a city or the country (7:53 minutes)
• The art of the metaphor - Jane Hirshfield (5:38 minutes)
• What If We Have A Nuclear War? (5:01 minutes)
• Cherophobia: Why We Are Afraid of Being Happy (6:38 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

RSA ANIMATE: The Empathic Civilisation (10:39 minutes)

• Speak English CONFIDENTLY | 8 Expert Tips | PART ONE (12:41 minutes) + Speak English CONFIDENTLY | 8 expert Tips | PART TWO (9:45 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

• Commonly confused words in English 2
• Quiz: Plurals
• Enquiry and Inquiry (The Difference) (Brief explanation + top tips + short test! ⇒ See also Commonly Confused Words)
• Assure, Ensure, or Insure? (Brief explanation + top tips + short test! ⇒ See also Commonly Confused Words)
• Good or Well? (Brief and clear explanation + quick interactive test! ⇒ See also GOOD or WELL)

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

• ARTICLE or NO ARTICLE? 3
• ARTICLE or NO ARTICLE? 4
• Articles with idioms 3
• Reported Speech (Mixed tenses) 1
• Quiz: Adjective + Preposition
• Adjectives + prepositions 1 (Choose the best preposition to use in each of the sentences.)
• Quiz: Conjunctions
• REFLEXIVE pronoun or OBJECT pronoun? 1
• Phrasal Verbs with the verb LOOK – Exercise

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!

WEEKLY PICKS - 10

This post offers you a selection of recommended free online exercises, games, videos and resources so that you can improve your English language skills while having fun! ENJOY!

📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, quizzes and more:

Article from BBC EARTH: The river that runs through the dawn of life, by Vivien Cumming. Every river has a story to tell and this one covers 500 million years.

Rocks sculpted by the Coppermine River took us on a journey through 500 hundred million years of Earth’s history, starting over 1.5 billion years ago when the earliest multicellular life was beginning to emerge. By studying and sampling the rocks along the riverbanks, and hiking into the wilderness using drones to map the area, we hoped to expand our understanding of early life on Earth.

The Coppermine River winds its way through the high Arctic landscape, cutting the easiest path through a remote part of the world until it reaches the Arctic Ocean and the Inuit settlement of Kugluktuk, where we ended our journey. (Continue reading)

Article from BBC FUTURE: How your age affects your appetite, by Alex Johnstone. Our relationship with food changes through our lives, and there are seven stages of life that affect how we eat.

Do you eat to live or live to eat? We have a complicated relationship with food, influenced by cost, availability and even peer pressure. But something we all share is appetite – our desire to eat.

While hunger – our body’s way of making us desire food when it needs feeding – is a part of appetite, it is not the only factor. After all, we often eat when we’re not hungry, or may skip a meal despite pangs of hunger. Recent research has highlighted that the abundance of food cues – smells, sounds, advertising – in our environment is one of the main causes of overconsumption. (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

• David Crystal - Which English? (2:58 minutes)
• Why The Moon Turns Red During A Total Lunar Eclipse (3:08 minutes)
• 5 different ways to use the word wish: BBC MasterClass (4:56 minutes)
• BBC Masterclass: Formal and informal English (4:07 minutes)
• Why Are You Always Tired? (3:03 minutes)
• How languages evolve - Alex Gendler (4:02 minutes)
• Music and creativity in Ancient Greece - Tim Hansen (4:45 minutes)
• Everything Wrong With The iPhone (3:46 minutes)
• How art can help you analyze - Amy E. Herman (4:49 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

• Sample B2 Speaking Test 6 Mad about shopping/consumerism (5:56 minutes)
• The Impressionists (5:33 minutes)
• English at Work: 10 Phrasal Verbs for the Office (8:46 minutes)
• BBC News Review: Prince says: talk about your feelings (9:21 minutes)
• Academic English - Prof. David Crystal on standard vs. non-standard English (5:38 minutes)
• What is Emotional Intelligence? (5:28 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

• Visit Germany - 10 Things That Will SHOCK You About Germany (11:28 minutes)
• Pre-Columbian Theater, Spanish Empire, and Sor Juana: Crash Course Theater #22 (12:03 minutes)
• The New Anatomy: Crash Course History of Science #15 (12:15 minutes)
• Why We Can't Invent a Perfect Engine: Crash Course Engineering #10 (12:54 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

• Lightening or Lightning? (Brief explanation + top tips + short test!)
• Loose or Lose? (Brief explanation + top tips + short test!)
• Late, last, later, latter, latest (Choose the right word.)
• maybe and may be (Brief and clear explanation + quick interactive test! When you finish, click on “Next Test” for a new set of sentences)
• Beauty Salon (Things that happen at a beauty salon.)
• Beauty Salon 2 (Hair and Skin Care at a beauty salon.)
• Vocabulary Fill-in (DRAG + DROP) Exercise 3

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

• Linking Words of Contrast (However /Despite / Although)
• Linking Words of Reason (Because / Since / As / Due to / Owing to)
• Commonly confused words in English 1
• ARTICLE or NO ARTICLE? 2
• Articles with idioms 2
• Is 'To Do' Separable or Inseparable? - Phrasal Verb Quiz
• Some and Any Exercise 1
• Some and Any Exercise 2
• Prepositions Exercise 5
• Prepositions Exercise 6

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!

RECOMMENDED: NEWS REVIEW (From BBC Learning English)

💡 How to use the language from the latest news stories:

• Go to BBC Learning English Website ⇒ Podcasts, vocabulary (key words and phrases), exercises and free downloads.
• Go to BBC News Review YouTube videos ⇒ (Less-than-10-minute videos! Learn how to use the hottest words and phrases from news headlines in your everyday English.

Check out the videos below and click on the links above for more!

(New videos on YouTube every Tuesday)

WEEKLY PICKS - 9

This post offers you a selection of recommended free online exercises, games, videos and resources so that you can improve your English language skills while having fun! ENJOY!

📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, quizzes and more:

Article from BBC CAPITAL: Your vocal quirks could be costing you jobs, Video by Kat Sud, Maeve Burke and Bowen Li, research by Debbi McCullough. These vocal tendencies can cost you at a job interview, but is it fair to judge people based on these vocal habits? (Continue reading)

Article from BBC FUTURE: The dangerous diseases hidden in caves, by Zaria Gorvett. The rescued Thai boys faced infectious organisms underground and are now in quarantine – but which diseases could they have been exposed to, and how serious are they? (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

• London | British Museum (3:45 minutes)
• The neuroscience of imagination - Andrey Vyshedskiy (4:48 minutes)
• Learners' Questions: Verb Patterns - full and bare infinitives (2:42 minutes)
• Commonly confused words (2:38 minutes)
• Learners' Questions: Using 'suppose' and 'supposed to' (3:07 minutes)
• 'I' or 'me'? (2:05 minutes)
• DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICAN AND BRITISH GROCERY STORES (UK VS USA GROCERY STORES) (4:39 minutes)
• Vulnerability with Brene Brown (3:02 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

• BBC 6 Minute English | THE MEANING OF CLOTHES | English CC | Daily Listening (5:58 minutes)
• Visit France - 10 Things That Will SHOCK You About France (9:27 minutes)
• Flight attendants Cabin crew service training (7:01 minutes)
• 8 Confusing Word Pairs Native Speakers Get WRONG (9:16 minutes)
• Talk about food expertise in 6 minutes (6:26 minutes)
• NORTHERN vs. SOUTHERN accents | British English Pronunciation (6:47 minutes)
• Looking for a job? Highlight your ability, not your experience | Jason Shen (6:30 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

• 5 Minute Biographies Season 2, Episode 1 - Theodore Roosevelt (12:42 minutes)
• How to Talk About Food - Adjectives to Describe Food in English - Spoken English Lesson (12:24 minutes)
• How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky (14:12 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

• Vocabulary DRAG + DROP - FILL IN Exercise 1
• Vocabulary DRAG + DROP - FILL IN Exercise 2
• Vocabulary DRAG + DROP - FILL IN Exercise 3
• Text Completion DRAG + DROP Exercise 3
• Exercise on Accomodation
• Exercise on Eating Out
• Idioms - exercise 6
• Idioms - exercise 7

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

• Gerunds and Infinitives Exercise 4
• Make or Do Exercise 2
• Would and used to – past habits and repeated actions (2 EXERCISES)
• used to/to be used to exercise
• Mixed Articles 1
• Mixed Articles 2
• Articles with idioms 2
• Articles with idioms 3
• Prepositions Exercise 2
• Phrasal Verbs with the verb COME – Exercise (Choose the correct preposition.)
• Preposition 'OUT' - Phrasal Verb Quiz (Choose the correct definition for each phrasal verb)

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!