More Spelling Practice - Tricky Words

Do you need more spelling practice?

Click on the picture below.

WORDCOUNT.org

There are 86800 words in this list!

You can search for the 1000th word (it's 'James')

Or you can search for a word like, 'Hannah' (it's the 8,504th most frequently used word in English)

 http://www.wordcount.org/main.php

My favourite online dictionary

This is my favourite online dictionary and I think it should be yours too. This is why:

• Spelling - you can find a word even if you don't know how to spell it exactly. Just type in the first three letters into the box.
• Pronunciation - we know that a word can have different spelling and pronunciation in English. You can see the phonetic symbols which tell us the sound of the word, or you can just click  and hear how it should sound.

Click here for an interactive phonetic chart for the sounds of English

• Different word forms - I know the word 'take' but I do I spell the -ing form? Is it 'taking' or 'takeing'? If you click on  it will tell you all the five verb forms: take, takes, took, taken, taking. If you check the adjective 'happy' it will give you 'happier' and 'happiest'. If you check the noun 'person' you will find the plural is 'people'.
• Red words and stars  What are red words? 90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing. These words appear in red, and are graded with stars. One-star words are frequent, two-star words are more frequent, and three-star words are the most frequent.
• Collocations - In Italian they 'make' a question (fare una domanda), in German they 'stand' a question (eine Frage stellen), but in English we ask a question. If you want to know the correct collocation for a word, look at the examples:

Collocations: problem

▪  [adj + problem]    big, fundamental, important, major, real, serious

▪  [verb + problem]    cause, create, experience, face, overcome, solve

• Synonyms - do you need to find a word with a similar meaning? Click on 'View thesaurus entry for'

Feeling happy: glad, pleased, content, satisfied, contented, cheerful, carefree, exuberant

How difficult is this text?

The keywords of the Oxford 3000™ have been carefully selected by language experts and experienced teachers as words which students should know and study because of their importance and usefulness.

To find out which words in a text are part of the Oxford 3000, type or paste it into the box, then click ‘submit’. The words which are not part of the Oxford 3000 will be highlighted in red. The Text Checker will also tell you what percentage (%) of the words in your text are part of the Oxford 3000. You can use this information to judge the difficulty of a text. In general, the more words highlighted in red, the more difficult the text.

In a lower intermediate text nearly 100% of the words will be Oxford 3000 keywords.

In an upper intermediate text 90-95% of the words will be Oxford 3000 keywords.

In an advanced text 75-90% of the words will be Oxford 3000 keywords.

http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/oxford3000/oxford_3000_profiler.html

("Punctuation??!?!!")

Click on the picture to play a punctuation game!

one, two, three ... first, second, third

Are you confident that you can spell all the cardinal numbers (one, two, three ...etc.) and ordinal numbers (first, second, third ... etc.) correctly?

If not, here is a nice link for you to check the spelling (click on the picture):

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/vocabulary/numbers/ordinal

Computers: are they useful, or do they lead to declining intelligence?

The first computer was developed 1941 from Konrad Zuse, from this moment this machine is our best friend and employee. We use it now everywhere in our businesses, hospital, at home, an our phones, anywhere. But the pc makes our life not only easy but difficult also. Experts say that we use those to much and forgot to think with our own brain some times. Teachers success parents to does not let their children play all time with the PC's.

Yes I agree with the opinion that the computers are a big help and do a lot of our work and so I will show you the benefits of them. Computers has change our life we need only a few minutes to find every information we want. To listen to music, playing games, booking our tickets for the journey, but we use they not only to have fun but to work also. The police can solve crimes quickly and better, every businesses man use it for his company, the factory to work and the doctors to help us better and for a lot of operation.

But we must also talk about the disadvantages of computers, there is the threat of intelligence because we use the PC not only to find difficult things but realy easy too and so the brain gets lazy.

Also children play a lot of games with guns and faiths so some of them gets criminally or can not concentrade in the shool. The people do not talk with each other the are all time chatting with those phones or computers in social rooms and so the communication get lost. A lot of people lost his jobs because a machine does their work or the employee can not use the machine so their employer fire them.

But nobudy want to be without computers in the furure, everyone or the most of us have a PC at home an in a few years it will not chance. Perhaps in the next years all will be controled by the machine if it is at the work or our free time. In the U.S.A. alredy yet there is in the super markets machine where every customer hat his own ID and the machine knows what he buy and save the informations, or the customer can choose what he want to buy and the machine shows him where it is in the shop. That is only a very small example of that will be in the future.

No one can say if it is really useful or not because some times is the technology good and other times not, but we can not live without now. All the system will be disturb if we do not use any more. I think it is important to use the computers but our brain too.

Eleni Zafiri

Who is Banksy???

   

    Banksy is a very famous "Graffiti artist" in the street art community. Banksy was born in Bristol (world capital of graffiti) and operates in this region. Nowadays, nobody can see his face as he always hides it but it is not a problem because this particularity increases the mystery around his character. In England, doing graffiti is forbidden by law but Banksy create his art work during the night. He always does graffiti in relation with  modern society and he criticizes or denounces an  inegality. To see his pieces and form your opinion about him you can just walk around Bristol and see his work all over the city. 

Some Spelling Tips

Click on the picture to go to Johanna Stirling's blog about English spelling!

Spin the verb wheel!

This is a great new learning tool to find out more about verb forms (to go/going/went/gone). Click on the link to reveal the verb wheel, choose a verb and learn (or simply refresh your memory!):

http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/wp-content/uploads/wheel_v1/verbWheelMain.swf

Enjoy.

Jo

Have you "keeked" anybody recently?

Tired of updating your status in the same old way via Facebook?

Why not try http://www.keek.com/? A really easy and fun way to post a quick video status update (''keeks") with your webcam or smartphone (yes, there's an app!). You can also send video moments and private messages to friends. All in English of course!

 
 

Pancake Day / Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday is a term used for the day before the first day of the Christian season of fasting and prayer called Lent.

On Shrove Tuesday people traditionally cook and eat pancakes, the reason for this was to use up foods such as fats and milk before Lent.

It is also called pancake day!!

Recipe for pancakes:
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes
110g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
200ml milk mixed with 75ml water
50g butter

My favourite topping is lemon juice and sugar.

Check out this new app!

Cool Speech is an app for listening and pronunciation. It provides intensive listening practice, and teaches fluent pronunciation, using recordings of spontaneous speech. It is suitable for upper-intermediate and advanced students of English, who need to understand everyday speech and to speak clearly and fluently in everyday situations.

http://www.speechinaction.com/coolspeech.htm

I just can't remember vocabulary!!!!! My memory is terrible!!!!!

This is a frequent thing said by students and you know what........it's not always true!

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN TRYING TO REMEMBER NEW VOCABULARY:

Where do you put your new vocabulary? On a piece of paper in your file? Back of your bus ticket? On the back of your hand? In a special book? On an Excel spreadsheet? Or are you someone who points to your head and say "it's all up here.... I don't need to write it down"?

You would be surprised that most of you can remember a lot of new words every week........ but what happens in one month when you are trying to remember that piece of vocabulary but just can't?

Do you know where it is?

Will you spend 4 hours trying to find it in all of your notes?

....or will you know exactly where it is and you find it easily?

Many of you may be the people who can't find it so forget about it and therefore loses the chance to use that word again. What a shame! All you needed to do was organise a vocabulary notebook so that you put all new words and you will know exactly where to go when you are looking for that word in the future.

OISE Bristol has created vocabulary notebooks for all of you and all you need to do is go to the student desktop in SAC and go to the folder VOCABULARY NOTEBOOKS and you can print one out there and then.

Try one out and tell me what you think!

Tony

Useful website for self study!

Hi everybody! Check out this really useful website - great for practising grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and reading skills in Self Access : )
http://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en

Using English in the Classroom

Hi OISE Bristol Students!

I'm currently at a training course in Exeter where I'm learning about setting up blogs.

Actually, OISE Bristol used to have a blog a few years ago, but I guess it fell into disuse after I left in 2008. Anyway I'd like to start it up again, because this training course has got me all enthusiastic!

Looking forward to reading your posts online.

All the best,

Hannah