LEARNING ENGLISH FROM CARTOONS: THE SHOTGUN WEDDING.

This cartoon by John Cole, editorial cartoonist for The Times-Tribune is part of a collection of cartoons from The Cagle Post relating to President Obama's support for gay marriage. The Guardian explains the context:

Obama's announcement, in a hastily-arranged ABC interview on Wednesday, came after years of dodging the issue. He was forced to go public partly because Vice-president Joe Biden ignited the debate with a remark in support of gay marriage at the weekend.

In the interview, Obama said he had long supported civil unions but his position on same-sex marriages had been evolving because of the powerful traditions and religious beliefs attached to the word marriage.

LANGUAGE NOTES

1. A shotgun wedding is a wedding that has to take place quickly, often because the woman is pregnant. The cartoon implies that Obama was forced to come out in favor of gay marriage because of Biden's remarks, which is why Biden is portrayed with a shotgun for a mouth. The cartoonist may also have been thinking of the expression to shoot one's mouth off, which means "to talk too much in a loud and uncontrolled way".

2. If you are uncertain about the difference between the words 'marriage' and 'wedding', a good rule of thumb is that marriage refers to the institution and wedding to the ceremony. 

EXAMPLE:

• The wedding cost over $25,000 but their marriage lasted just a few months.

FROM: TheEnglishBlog.com 

VIDEO: Learning German to escape debt crisis.

TRANSCRIPT

REPORTER: Grappling with grammar and new vocabulary. These students are learning German at Berlin's Goethe Institute. And they're in good company. The Goethe Institute - Germany's cultural institution - saw record numbers of learners at its centres around the world in 2011. German's growing popularity is an unexpected side-effect of the euro zone debt crisis. The head of language courses at the Berlin centre, Guenther Neuhaus, says there's a lot more demand from southern Europe. 

GUENTHER NEHHAUS, HEAD OF LANGUAGE COURSES AT GOETHE INSTITUTE BERLIN: "The numbers of students who are learning German in Goethe Institutes abroad rose by around 10 percent last year, and numbers rose even more in certain regions like Spain, Italy and Greece. Of course we are pleased that more people are learning German. I have to add that at the Institute we usually teach adults."

REPORTER: Alejandra Segura is from Spain. She's learning German so she can study at a Berlin theatre school. Her fellow students are from as far afield as Greece, Palestine and the USA. In this German class alone there are students from eight different countries. And while they are all learning German for different reasons, the country's economic boom has undoubtedly attracted many of them to study or work here. Come break time, the students have a chance to chat - most already speak English but believe learning German will open new doors.

ALEJANDRA SEGURA, SPANISH STUDENT LEARNING GERMAN: "I'm studying German because I want to study here in Berlin. I already did my training in Spain but I didn't think it was enough so I want to study more."

 
MALINE MOLIN, SWEDISH STUDENT LEARNING GERMAN: "I'm studying business and it's a really good "Handlessprache", like a business language, to learn. Sweden has a lot of exchange with Germany so it's for professional use mostly."

 
REPORTER: Vo Ha is from Vietnam and is working as an intern at the Goethe Institute.

 
VP THI HAI HA:  "I definitely want to become a German teacher, as I think it would be great to teach the language to others."

 
REPORTER: German has long had a reputation as difficult to learn. But unemployment is at a 20-year low, and as long as the country has jobs to offer - many more students are expected to get their tongues around Deutsch. Joanna Partridge, Reuters.

English as a Second Language (ESL) Podcasts

These are the 30 newest podcasts for ESL learners.

Fazendo uma rápida busca na internet, encontrei esse material para a prática do Listening (habilidade auditiva). Trata-se de um link que direciona direto para um site com Podcasts. Espero que o mesmo ajude aos meus alunos.

Clique nesse link>>

Lista com os Irregular Verbs.

Irregular Verbs

How confident are you about English irregular verbs?

This video that shows you how to pronounce 50 of the most common ones (see the list below):

Here is a list of fifty of the most common irregular verbs, with exercises below. This is a good place to start if you are intermediate or beginner level. Download a copy of this list in PDF. If you are more advanced, download this much longer list, which includes most of the crazy verbs in English.

Infinitive	Past Simple	Past Participle
be	was / were	been
become	became	become
begin	began	begun
bring	brought	brought
buy	bought	bought
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
do	did	done
drink	drank	drunk
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
fall	fell	fallen
feel	felt	felt
find	found	found
fly	flew	flown
forget	forgot	forgotten
get	got	got (gotten in USA)
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
have	had	had
hear	heard	heard
keep	kept	kept
know	knew	known
leave	left	left
lend	lent	lent
let	let	let
lose	lost	lost
make	made	made
meet	met	met
pay	paid	paid
put	put	put
read	read (pronounced /red/)	read (pronounced /red/)
run	ran	run
say	said	said
see	saw	seen
sell	sold	sold
send	sent	sent
sing	sang	sung
sit	sat	sat
sleep	slept	slept
speak	spoke	spoken
stand	stood	stood
swim	swam	swum
take	took	taken
teach	taught	taught
tell	told	told
think	thought	thought
understand	understood	understood
wear	wore	worn
write	wrote	written

[QUER ESTUDAR EM HARVARD?] Full-Time Intensive Programs

Full-Time Intensive Programs

The programs described below require, at a minimum, basic literacy in English. Some programs require intermediate, advanced, and high advanced English proficiency.

Your level is determined by your score on the Harvard English language placement test, then finalized by an essay and an oral test in the first class.

You must be at least 18 years old by July 1, 2011, to participate in the following program.

IEL S-DAY Intensive Integrated Skills (30900)

Mondays–Fridays, 9–11 am and 1–3 pm. Tuition: $5,280

Levels: A (beginning), B (intermediate), C (high intermediate), D (advanced), and E (high advanced)

Students in this program develop balanced proficiency in the 4 major communicative skills—listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

Students practice the methods used in American universities as they analyze and produce academic work in English, developing a wide and sophisticated vocabulary and improving their use of English in group and individual research projects, formal writing, oral presentations, and seminar discussions about scholarly papers, novels, and other forms of contemporary literature. Students use information presented in English in different media on the themes of education, politics, and the environment as springboards for their oral and written work in daily skills classes and three workshops each week. Once a week, students attend lectures by a Harvard professor or visit a local site of academic and cultural importance, and on Fridays all IEL students participate in a lecture and discussion session led by a Harvard professor.

How to register >>

http://iel.harvard.edu/summer/intensive/#day

VEJA O QUE LULA FALOU DO BLOG - PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA.

Everybody knows that Brazilian ex-president Mr. da Silva (Lula) was one of the best South American president ever. Moreover, he was a working class hero that showed the world how to start making a country a better place to live in.

Now he is studying English just by reading PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA. Of course, I am just kidding. In fact, in this picture he is using a very difficult tense in English – the present perfect continuous tense. Do you know how to use it?

GRAMMAR:

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

I have been singing

How do we make the Present Perfect Continuous Tense?

The structure of the present perfect continuous tense is:

subject	+	auxiliary verb	+	auxiliary verb	+	main verb
		have has		been		base + ing

Here are some examples of the present perfect continuous tense:

	subject	auxiliary verb		auxiliary verb	main verb
+	I	have		been	waiting	for one hour.
+	You	have		been	talking	too much.
-	It	has	not	been	raining.
-	We	have	not	been	playing	football.
?	Have	you		been	seeing	her?
?	Have	they		been	doing	their homework?

Contractions

When we use the present perfect continuous tense in speaking, we often contract the subject and the first auxiliary. We also sometimes do this in informal writing.

I have been	I've been
You have been	You've been
He has been She has been It has been John has been The car has been	He's been She's been It's been John's been The car's been
We have been	We've been
They have been	They've been

Here are some examples: