COMPETITION – can you lose the game?

Competition is an inevitable part of sport. I bet that almost all of our readers (and bloggers too) are keen on winning! But who doesn’t like that? J

However, when there is a winner, there also has to be a loser, which is especially painful when you play for a high stake. 

And how about you? How do you cope with losing?

Look at the words below – which of them collocate with play (P) and which with go (G)?

SURFING      BASKETBALL         RUNNING    BADMINTON          HORSE RACING JOGGING            RUGBY         CRICKET      CYCLING     VOLLEYBALL       SWIMMING SQUASH            ROLLERBADING   FOOTBALL  SKIING      WINDSURFING  TENNIS

Read the information about the video:

"TWO RONNIES - SQUASH GAME" presents the story of two friends Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker. In this episode both Ronnies have just had a game of squash. Barker has never played before but Corbett is the local squash champion. After the game Ronnie Corbett is a little bit nervous.

Why do you think he is finding it difficult to keep calm?

Narratives

Many students consider writing a narrative the easiest among all types of written assignments. But is this really the case?

In fact, narratives are the most difficult to write. First of all, they involve a lot of planning beforehand. What is even more important is the fact that narratives require the use of numerous adjectives and adverbs to make the story flow – the knowledge of which students usually lack. Nevertheless, we can definitely make it easier for our students to learn useful methods and strategies to write a gripping story.

Following are some useful tips concerning narratives as well as two exercises that will expand students’ knowledge of more sophisticated vocabulary items.

Vocabulary - sport

Sport is a universal topic to discuss. Surely all students will be eager to learn some new vocabulary which they need to talk about their favourite sport disciplines.

1. Match equipments with their names:

net        helmet     cap     racket     club      shin pads

Equipment pictures

2. Guess from the context what the underlined words mean. Write their Polish equivalents:

• We all cheered as the team came on to the field.
• He played well in the team’s 2–2 draw with Southampton.
• There were more skiers further up the slope.
• He missed a penalty in the last minute of the game.  (in soccer)
• The new football stadium will hold 75 000 spectators.
• He has knocked out 15 opponents in 20 fights.

Let's get the ball rolling! Let's talk sports!

Today we are going to move our students from their comfortable sofas and do some speaking push ups :) But don't worry, even if you are out of shape, you'll catch up with our pace easily.

Actually, no serious workout today (I hate push ups, what about you?). Let's start with some warming up activities that will encourage our students to use sport-related vocabulary in speaking. Besides, it is said that a good warm-up is the most important part of your workout and the key to success. I bet it is the same with speaking!

An Olympic blog - reading

We all know that exercising is important but these days most of young people aren’t getting enough. An average young person spends as much as thirty hours a week in front of TV. Researchers at the University of Tennessee have recently found out that 'couch potatoes' burn fewer calories when they watch TV than when they’re asleep!

Our BuildUpYourEnglishSuperpower team strongly opposes laziness and encourages you to keep in shape. Perhaps, if such an average 'couch potato' watched some Olympics he’d be motivated to get up and do some sport :)

But for now, let’s read the blogger's memories of the 2012 London Olympics (see below).

After reading, do some exercises to check if you understand the text correctly. Good luck! :)

New week - new challenges: sports!

Hi there everyone!

We're beginning the second week on our blog. This week's tasks will surely get to the hearts of the masculine part of your students as the topic is about SPORTS.

We're going to present you a wide range of materials that you'll be able to use during your English classes.

And, btw, thanks for so many visits in the very first week of our blog. We have surpassed the threshold of 1000 views since the launch. Thanks a lot and we're looking forward to more visits and comments.


See you!

"Health" week - revisited

Phew ... This was a busy week! We've just ended the first week on our blog. We hope you enjoy it and find the particular materials useful.

Below you'll find the recollection of all posts devoted to the topic of "Health".

1. Smoking - a good or bad habit?

Our very first post featured the topic of smoking and was mainly focused on developing listening skills.





2. Is your lifestyle healthy?


The lifestyle post was our second one. Use this in case you need any healthy lifestyle-related exercises that are focused on developing reading.

Saturday - a perfect day for revision

Everybody knows that learning a language without revising is not a good idea. Since we want your students to remember what they have learned, we have prepared some extra exercises. Ask them to do the tasks without any help. If they really don't remember some words or phrases they can always check the answer in the sections given in brackets.
Have fun and remember: revision done on Saturday means a free Sunday!:)

I.   Let's start with something easy. Fill in the gaps: (taken from: "Health-vocabulary")

1. sore ...................
2. .............. dizzy
3. come ........ with a cold
4. ................. a patient (badać)
5. ................ /............ your temperature (zmierzyć)
6. be allergic............ something
7. have a ............ ankle (skręcona)
8. suffer .............. something
9. heart ................. (zawał)
10. ............ nose (katar)

Time for some practice ;)

I have prepared some exercises which can be used for practising vocabulary, warm-up or revision. English does not have to be boring ;)

Speaking exercise

Work in pairs. Choose a quotation and tell your partner how you understand it and whether you agree with it or not.

Health - vocabulary

Assume you need to go to see a doctor. How would you describe your health condition without HEALTH VOCABULARY? Yes, it would be extremely difficult. 

This post is devoted to the vocabulary connected with illnesses, injuries, medicine and treatment.

Coming back to our appointment, let’s see what kind of vocabulary we should know to lead the conversation with a doctor.

Illnesses and injuries

ache	ból
backache	ból pleców
stomachache	ból brzucha
toothache	ból zęba
headache	ból głowy
earache	ból ucha
ill / sick	chory
sore throat	ból gardła
backache	ból pleców
broken	złamany
cut	skaleczenie
bruise	siniak
feeling sick	mdłości
injury	uraz
wound	rana
fever	gorączka
cold	przeziębienie
flu	grypa
heart attack	zawał serca
cough	kaszel
pneumonia	zapalenie płuc
stroke	udar
measles	odra
runny nose	katar

...and some more!

Body idioms

As a result of a complicated history, English has the most extensive vocabulary in the world. There are a myriad of different idioms and phrasal verbs which ESL students need to learn by heart. 

If this task is not approached skilfully,  the words can be a real pain in the neck!

How can you deal with that? Rote memorization rarely works, so we have to come up with some creative ideas to make this process more enjoyable for our students. All we have to do is to engage their brains in a meaningful practice that would help them to remember the material better and for a longer time. 

Here’s an example of how to create a meaningful personalized glossary of body-related idioms:

IDIOM	PICTURE/CARTOON	EXPLANATION & EXAMPLES
To be all ears		To listen to somebody carefully
To be all fingers and thumbs		Mieć dwie lewe ręce Can you thread this needle for me? I’m all thumbs today. When I get nervous I’m all fingers and thumbs.
To be all skin and bones		To be very thin e.g. I am no longer all skin and bones.
To bite one’s tongue		Ugryźć się w język I bit my tongue when she asked me about my sister’s boyfriend.

Is your lifestyle healthy?

For a few years now, it has been one of the most popular trends in Western societies.
It is something that the majority of people dream about, many of them work hard to achieve  but only some of them can be proud of .

What is it?? Yes, you've guessed!

It's a HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.

Although I am not in favour of promoting fading trends that, eventually, will disappear, I strongly believe that a helathy lifestyle is a thing worth clinging on to for the whole life.

However, being surrounded by countless experts in the area of health and overwhelmed with the information from all sorts of media, it is sometimes difficult to judge what a healhy lifestyle really is.
Let's do it together!

This lesson is going to make students familiar with the subject of a healthy lifestyle and allow them to decide what a healthy lifestyle means to them.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-presentation-healthy-lifestyle-concept-female-doctor-drawing-marker-glass-wall-image44761307

The lesson should be conducted after reading the text titled Turn off TV, Turn on a Healthier Lifestyle 

based on the website www.tvturnoff.org 

The original text has been changed to make it suitable for pre-intermediate students.

TEXT TURN OFF TV, TURN ON A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE

Below you will find pre-, while- and post-reading tasks specially designed on the basis of abovementioned text.

Smoking - a good or bad habit?

Undoubtedly, adolescence is the time of rebellion. Until they find the right path to follow, teenagers eagerly experiment with various things. Unfortunately, these include substances that can seriously damage their health.

 

Smoking and, to be more precise, its effects on our health still remain a part of a hotly debated issue. Not only parents, but also teachers struggle with teenagers smoking cigarettes. The question is - how to make them quit smoking? The answer is really simple – make them realise that this bad habit has definitely more dark sides than the bright ones.

However, don’t do it straightforwardly! Don’t try to harangue teenagers in any way since it will only bring about effects contrary to what has been intended. How to make them realise it by themselves then? Let’s use a short video about the negative effects of smoking and adapt it to listening comprehension! Below you will find a short video by iheedinstitute, entitled Smoking and its effects on health – stop today!

Hello!

Hello everyone! Today we will be launching our ‘Build Up Your English Superpower’ blog!

This blog is going to be topic-based where each consecutive week is going to feature different subject, yet all posts that you are about to see will mostly regard the methodology, strategies and useful exercises that can be utilized in EFL lessons.

This upcoming weekly blog session will be mainly focused on the topic of HEALTH.

On daily basis, our bloggers will be posting relevant ideas about useful exercises that you can employ in your EFL classroom. The idea behind this blog is to enable all the prospective and yet-to-be teachers to be more flexible in terms of variety of exercises and approaches in their everyday teaching as well as to breathe some new ideas into already experienced teachers. 

Feel free to leave a comment, we look forward to your ideas!