All 257 Lessons by Date.

An Offer You Can't Refuse

This Conversation Activation Pack will give you practice in using the following expressions in a natural, realistic way: a bit rich, bail out, bite the hand that feeds you, build bridges, bump into, by any means, call on, come across, come by, come off it, contrite, get out of hand, hear someone out, hook up, jammy, make amends, not have the foggiest, not put something past someone, olive branch, pay off a debt, pilfer, Ponzi scheme, pop in, pull someone’s leg, reflect on, ring a bell, run into, sent down, spot on, sure-fire, time off for good behaviour, to sink something, to what do I owe this pleasure, turn over a new leaf, turn the clock back, weasel, and win someone round.

Greetings - Conversation Activator

Practice how to greet someone with this conversation activator which will also teach you some useful vocabulary and expressions. This English Conversation Activation Pack gives you practicing in greeting people you meet for the first time. Expressions such as, Hi, Nice to meet you, Good morning, Pleased to meet you, Are you here on…, as well as showing you how not to greet people and how to avoid sounding rude or worse. You will also learn some new expressions and vocabulary such as: abrupt, architect, break the ice, Christopher Wren, come across as, decent, do you fancy, go out for, going nowhere, gorgeous, hold something against someone, Holland, in banking, intrusive, look good on, Lothario, lovely, married, miss the chance, motive, museum, on business, perhaps, pervert, plan on, pub, reception, something in common, St Paul’s Cathedral, suspicious, take someone out, weirdo, and What brings you here?      

Consonants 1

An introduction to Britlish English Consonants (I have hayfever so had to use AI voices for this pack). There are 24 consonant sounds in British English. The consonant sounds are shown in the blue box at the bottom of the British English IPA chart, under the vowels. A consonant is a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partially obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable. Consonants can only be produced with a vowel. There are 21 letters in the English alphabet which represent consonants but there are 24 consonant sounds. The consonant letters of the alphabet are, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y. The consonant sounds are grouped into several types. There are the plosives, the fricatives, the affricates, the nasals and the approximants. English consonants are classified by technical terms which refer to the way air escapes as we say the sound, where the obstruction to the air flow takes place, and whether the vocal cords are used. 

A Deadly Lesson - An English Murder Mystery

Interact with each character and ask questions to help you uncover their secrets and reveal the clues that will help you accuse the right character of the crime. Find important clues in each round and understand each character’s motives for committing the crime. As you investigate the characters you will come to understand them and the little secrets they keep hidden. To correctly solve the mystery, the player must understand what they are reading, hearing, and learning.    

Will Continuous and Will Perfect - GA15

In Grammar Activation Pack 13, we looked at how we use will and shall to talk about the future. In this Pack we will be looking at other ways to use will to talk about the future. You already know that the future tense is marked by will, the continuous aspect is marked by be +ing, and the perfect aspect is marked by have plus past participle. In this pack we will be looking at the differences between the future continuous the future perfect, and the future perfect continuous. The future continuous tell us that at a time in the future the action will be ongoing. We can use will be +ing in a similar way to be going to to talk about things we plan to do. This British English grammar is essential for all students of English and the many exercises in the pack will help you master it quickly and enjoyably.    

Vocabulary Activation Pack - Smells

A dog without a nose would not be able to smell smells, but it could still be a very smelly dog. Smell is both a verb and a noun, while smelly is an adjective. In this Vocabulary Activation Pack, I will be looking at the various words we have to describe different types of smells, be they good, bad, or somewhere in between. Words we will examine include aroma, bouquet, fetor, fragrance, odour, perfume, pong, reek, scent, smell, stench, stink, and whiff. 

Vowel in Owl / aʊ /

Activate the Vowel in Owl / aʊ / with this Pronunciation Activation Pack. In this Pronunciation Activation Pack we will be looking at the eighth and last of the gliding vowels / aʊ /. This is also the last of the 20 British English vowels on our IPA chart. We will look at the letter combinations that give the / aʊ / sound. We will look at lots of words which have the / aʊ / sound in them. Finally, we will activate your ability to hear and produce the / aʊ / sound correctly. Letter Combinations for / aʊ / - This gliding vowel sound is the vowel sound with the fewest letter combinations, being formed from only: OU and OW. There are two vowel sound which have the potential to cause confusion with the / aʊ / sound. These are the / ɔː / and the / ɑː / sounds. I looked at the minimal pairs / ɔː / vs / aʊ / in Pronunciation Activation Pack 8 – the Vowel in Horse, so I will not cover it in this lesson. In this lesson, I will look at the / aʊ / vs / ɑː / minimal pairs.

Future 3 - GA14

The second most common way, after will, of talking about the future in English is by the use of be going to. I have already shown how an –ing form needs the finite verb be to form the continuous aspect. Be going to is the present continuous and acts as an auxiliary verb, like will, to talk about the future. We use be going to to talk about future things which are already planned. We use be going to to talk about future things which we can predict from present evidence. There is often no difference in meaning between be going to and the present continuous. When we talk about events that are outside of our control, we tend to use be going to NOT the present continuous. Sometimes there is not much difference, if any, between using will, or be going to when talking about the future. Only when we have evidence that something is going to happen should we prefer be going to. We can say that we are going to do something in the immediate future by using be about to. This British English grammar is essential for all students of English and the many exercises in the pack will help you master it quickly and enjoyably.      

Idiom Activation Pack - Food Idioms 9

Idioms are expressions that are natural to native English speakers. They are very confusing for non-native English speakers. They're confusing because idioms don't mean what the words say. You cannot literally translate English idioms into another language. The vocabulary in this British English lesson is important for students to learn and master. There are a lot of idioms in this lesson as well as a set of questions which I have designed to help you learn, remember, and use the vocabulary and make it part of your active vocabulary. If you are serious about improving your British English vocabulary, these common British English idioms are essential. The food idioms are: Red herring, Look to laurels, A different kettle of fish, Chicken and egg, Jam down throat, Too many cooks, Drive bananas, Easy meat, Spill the beans, and Half-baked.

The Periodic Table of the Elements

How to say all of the 118 elements of the periodic table while learning about comparatives and superlatives. I’m not a chemist, I’m an English teacher. That much, I hope, is apparent to you by now. I did, however, study Chemistry at school and found it fascinating. I thought it would be fun to make this English Activation Pack if only to refresh my own memory of the names of the elements. For those students out there who have an interest in the periodic table and the chemical elements, this English Activation Pack will ensure that you can correctly pronounce them all with a British accent. Some of the elements are pronounced differently in American English. This English Activation Pack also looks at superlatives and comparatives in English. Most of the information about the elements contains comparative or superlative forms to give you plenty of examples of how to use them. There are also exercises at the back of the eBook to give you some practice using comparative and superlatives in English.