Listening

As we were doing some listening exercises on Saturday and I mentioned the BBC site, I thought I'd include a link to some listening this week. This is a series of audio files on the topic of culture, made for learners of English. Have a listen to week 4. Click on 'Download mp.3' , then 'open'. You'll need to be quite patient because it'll take a minute or two for the file to download. Have a listen and try to answer these questions as you do.
1. What's different about a business meeting in the West and the Middle East?
2. What's different about communication in the West and Japan?
3. What did researchers find more inportant in communication, facial expression, intonation or the words?
4 How is Namibian culture described? (Coincidence - Nelson was talking about Namibia on Saturday!).

Then you can download the script and check your answers. You could also download the files to an mp3 player and listen to them on the bus, for example. There are other episodes you could listen to as well, and other files on different topics at bbclearningenglish - webcasts. Hopefully after a bit more practice you won't suffer so much!
Happy listening , Carolyn

Green day

Hi everyone,
I think I forgot to mention, but next Saturday is Green Day in the British Council and we'll be doing some special activities related to the environment. In preparation, I'd like you to think about environmental problems where you live. For example, I live in the countryside, but overuse of fertilizers is a problem which can contaminate water courses. Although the council where I live has a free service to collect 'oversized' rubbish such as TV sets etc, people still dump things like mattresses at the side of country roads, so it seems that there's still a long way to go as far as education is concerned. I'd like you to write a little bit about your area and what you think are the biggest problems there.See you next week, and wear something green if you have it.
Carolyn

Feedback

Hi everyone. Below are some sentences for correction from our speaking activity on Saturday. However, can I just remind you that making mistakes is OK. In fact, you probably need to make mistakes to learn, so don't worry too much about them. What's important is getting your message across, which I'm sure most of you did, so well done. But maybe if we think about the mistakes, then we won't make them again, so think about these ones during the week and we'll check them next Saturday.

it's the situation more difficult to us
I had scared
the light has afraid the animals
we slept there during 3 years
we had no bussel
when the plane crashed she spoke that she...
we don't build a house

Life stories

I heard a radio programme recently that talked about how someone bet the American write Ernest Hemmingway he couldn't write a story in 6 words. Hemmingway won the bet, but the story was very sad - something like 'For sale, baby shoes, never worn'. What I'd like you to do this week is write your life story - in 6 words. Quite a challenge! Mine is 'Science in Britain, English in Portugal' which summarises the 2 jobs I've had in two different countries. Others I heard which I liked were 'too young, too old, too late' and 'fell in love, married someone else'. so try to be imaginative and post your 6 word life stories.