Participle

There is a page that has a very good collection of participle exercises which our grammar workbook does not have on the particular topic... Feel free to practice participles here

and
I'll be adding some good links into my Link-List

Have a happy holiday!

Manic Monday vol. 4

Joosep - Slayer: Catalyst

Information about the band.

Gapped lyrics + a couple of questions.

Animal idioms

English idioms are fun to learn because they are sometimes absolutely different from what we use in Estonian. Instead of raining cats and dogs as it does in English, in Estonian it "rains from a bean's stalk", you're "as stupid as a sheep" and "the chest of a bold wolf is greasy"... These would be much fun to learn for a foreigner as well. In addition to that, we have things like 'bear's trousers' which are woollen trousers worn by small kids, 'cow cake' - meaning cow pat and all the food is referred to as being 'addition to bread' and much more.
Feel free to add any interesting translations of Estonian idioms in comments!

You may also check out a very good page for finding Animal Idioms in English.

A general idiom page (with an awful colour palette, I must add).

Pronouncing words

I cannot stress enough that you need to check how the unfamiliar words are pronounced before starting your presentation. Bombing the teacher with questions 5 seconds before you start - is too late - you won't remember the answers anyway... So there is the dictionary that you can use: www.webster.com - type in the word, click on the loudspeaker icon and listen/repeat as long as it takes. Good luck!

Manic Monday vol.3

Rivo - Urban Trad.
"Rapadoo"

The task will come later...
Just enjoy!

The Use of Board

The thing is with my teaching that it is all clear in my head. As soon as it pours out in form of sounds or images - it gets complicated. Take the given photograph for example. That's the closest I have come yet to explain Present and Past Participle.

People said I should get another whiteboard which won't help at all I fear - I'll just have two boards crammed with information that won't make any sense to the viewers.

Any suggestions concerning improvement are welcome!

Happy Teacher's Day!

Today is the Teacher's Day in Estonia (it's a kind of moving holiday here -> end of the first week in October).

For the school it usually means that the 12th-graders are appointed the leaders of the school and they do all sorts of crazy things like ask teachers to fold a paper plane and throw it out of the window or test their drawing skills etc. etc.
I've been a pig-tailed pupil drawing with crayons on a Teacher's Day in my previous workplace making hell of the student-teacher's life :)

By the way, the Teacher's Day is not on the same day in every country (if you didn't know that yet)!
In Turkey it is November 24th;
In Malaysia May 16th;
In India September 5th
and they spend it, like Estonians do, on a working day.
In some countries the Teacher's Day is considered the national holiday.
In some countries the Teacher's Day is celebrated to commemorate somebody's death or birth - in China the birthday of Confucius (28.09) or in Czech Republic the birthday of Jan Ámos Komenský (28.03) also known as Comenius.

Manic Monday vol. 2

Kaisa presented a song by Norah Jones today and asked the following questions:
(You can listen to the song on her webpage ...)

Task

1) Put the lines in the right order, number them.
The mingled text as well as the original lyrics and some info about her life.

2.) What is the title of the song?
3.) Who is the artist?
4.) It blends elements of a.) soul b.) jazz c.) country d.) all of them
5.) Which is not her album a.) Come away with me b.) Get your glow on
c.) Feeling the same way d.) Feels like home

Junior Achievement

Today we had a lecture on making pupil's companies.
Was very enlightening.

Of data (lacking a writing stick), I only managed to remember one webpage www.ja.ee
Carina wrote down the e-mails of the people who made the presentation (previously members of award-winning pupil's companies): pilleperi@hot.ee and martjallai@gmail.com - if you have any questions concerning the JA-issues, write and ask.

Let's all make a company.
We'll go through basics in tomorrow's business English class...