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P.1 - Adult

Adjectives -ed or -ing

Average: 2.3 (486 votes)

Quick review of adjectives ending -ing and -ed.

Compare these two sentences:

"English grammar is confusing."
"I was confused by what I read."

-ing for descriptions

We use -ing adjectives to describe things. "It is boring."

In the News - Adoption

Average: 4.1 (21 votes)

There are new guidelines in the U.K. regarding adoption. Now, parents should be able to adopt a child of a different race to their own.

Adoption: (noun) the act of legally taking a child to be looked after as your own. Verb: adopt.

Officially, this has always been the policy, but has rarely happened, as efforts are made to place children with backgrounds 'similar' to their own.

Music Video Lesson - John Legend

Average: 3.9 (16 votes)

I love a bit of easy-listening in the evening.

John Legend is a great artist to listen to on the weekend when you need to unwind and relax before the working week starts all over again!

Listen to this song and try and put the correct words in each gap.

Before you listen, try reading through the lyrics and guessing which words are missing.

Lesson by Caroline Devane

Idiom: Long face

Average: 3.7 (14 votes)

rub it in

This month's joke is based on the expression long face.

As you know, a horse, compared to a human, has a long face! We can use long face to describe someone's physical appearance e.g. "I have a long face but my brother's is quite round."

As an idiom long face means to look unhappy or sad:

Idiom: Once in a blue moon

Average: 3.9 (163 votes)

Definition:

When we say that something happens once in a blue moon, what we mean is that it happens very rarely.

History of expression:

The 'moon' in this expression does, in fact, refer to the real moon when it is full.

There are generally three full moons in a season, although sometimes there may be four.

Danny's Reading: Storytelling

Average: 4 (6 votes)

Telling Stories

This is an article about airports. At least, I think it is...I'm not really entirely sure yet. But it definitely starts with airports. A lot of things do.

What do you do on Sunday?

Average: 1.9 (301 votes)

Phrasal Verbs Reading

The following text contains 10 highlighted phrasal verbs. Your task is to match them to the correct definitions.

During the week I always have to get up early for work so on Sunday I love to wake up late, usually around 9am and then get up 30 minutes later.

Twinglish - English on Twitter

Average: 3.6 (14 votes)

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking service (like Facebook or My Space) that allows users to send and read messages. Users post their messages on their wall and read messages sent by other people they 'follow'.

Each twitter post, called a tweet, uses a maximum of 140 characters which is about 30 words at most. That means you can write a couple of short sentences or one long one.

Twitter is very popular with famous people. US President Barack Obama has nearly 8 million people following his updates.

Learn Personal Pronouns

Average: 3.5 (16 votes)

How much can you remember about personal pronouns?

Which ones do we use for the object in the sentence, and which do we use for the subject? When do we use them and why?

In the following sentences, can you replace the words in quotation marks ("") with the correct personal pronoun?

I've given you the list of personal pronouns to help you remember.

When you're finished, see if you can post the answers to the questions above.
Lesson by Caroline Devane

The Cave - Mumford & Sons

Average: 3.8 (13 votes)

I chose this song for a listening lesson as I think it has some interesting vocabulary.

I hope there will be a mixture of words you know very well and perhaps some that are less familiar.

Listen to the song and then see if you can put the words in the correct gaps.

I've written the meanings of the missing words to aid your understanding.
Lesson by Caroline