Feelings & Emotions

How are you feeling today?

Turn this coloured wheel (click on the image to download it or to see it enlarged) and find the right adjective to express and describe your feelings and emotions accurately:

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial pursposes only.

13 Study Tips: The Science of Better Learning

Our brain can potentially memorize 2.5 petabytes of information, which is roughly the equivalent of 3 million hours of YouTube videos. In order to use some of that staggering capacity a little more effectively when you study, here are some tips that are based on widely-accepted research by neuroscientists and learning experts.

Scene 1
Our brain can potentially memorize 2.5 petabytes of information, which is roughly the equivalent of 3 million hours of YouTube videos. In order to use some of that staggering capacity a little more effectively when you learn, here are some tips that are based on widely-accepted research by neuroscientists and learning experts.

The Feynman Technique for learning

Richard Feynman was a physicist who received a Nobel prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was notorious for asking others to explain concepts in simple language to test their understanding.

Here his unique technique to learn new materials:

Step 1. Choose a topic you want to understand and start studying it. Once you know what it is about, take a piece of paper and write the topic at the top of the page.

Step 2. Pretend you’re teaching the idea to someone else. Write out an explanation on paper while you describe them out loud. Like this, you get an idea of what you understand and where you still have gaps. Whenever you get stuck, go back and study. Repeat that process until you can explain it.

Step 3. Finally, do it again, but now simplify your language or use an analogy to make the point. If your explanation ends up wordy and confusing, that’s an indication that you do not understand the idea well enough. If that happens, go back until you have mastered it.

It is the process of thinking about an idea while teaching it that makes the method so effective. Once you can explain an idea with simple language and create graphic analogies, you have deeply understood it and will remember it for a long time.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

"How to learn languages using your smartphone", by Delfín Carbonell

(Reblogged from Mr. Carbonell's Instagram account)

Those who bemoan their lack of language skills forget they have a secret ally in their struggle to master a language: their smart phone: the cell phone gives us instant information on the meaning of words and how to pronounce them. 

Dictionary apps. Download one or two. And use them.

• Audio books. These apps allow you to listen to your favourite works of literature in your target language. Check YouTube. 
• You can have "penpals" from any place in the world. Check WhatsApp.
• Biographies can be read in the original tongue. Check Wikipedia.
• And you can also speak and converse with anybody in the world without spending a penny! Make an effort and check WhatsApp.

All the above can be used anywhere, anytime!

So, don´t give me the song and dance of not having time or free resources, please!

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

P.S.: Follow Mr. Carbonell's Instagram account and you will have an endless array of resources to learn English and, at the same time, have a very nice time!

Eight Ways to Study Better

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

How to Become an Early Riser?

(Reblogged from 99u.com)

ESO Students,

The beginning of a new schoolyear is approaching and we bet your work routines have faded during the summer... or at least they should have, because that is, after all, what holidays is about: forget school, forget work, have the nicest of times out with friends, enjoy the sun and the beach...

The bad news is now we need to get back to regular life and its routines.... and you need to get up early again! We hope these pieces of advice can help you achieve it. Yes, we know it will be hard, but it will be worth it.

Getting up early is like most any habit that makes you a more productive creative: It’s hard at first. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Set an exact time to get out of bed. If you normally get up at 11am, it’s unrealistic to start abruptly getting up at 6am. Think about what time you’d like to be getting up in the morning, and work up to it. Try to wake up 30 minutes earlier every week, until you get to the desired time.

2. Move up your bedtime in sync with the time you plan to get up. Seven to eight hours of sleep is the recommended dosage for maximal productivity (with a few super-human exceptions). So if you’re getting up at 6am, you’ll want to go to bed by 11pm at the latest. If you try to go to bed at midnight and get up at 5am, you’re eventually going to run into some problems.

3. Get out of bed immediately. The moment that you start procrastinating – read: hit the snooze button – it’s very easy to convince yourself of a multiplicity of reasons why you wouldn’t want to get out of bed yet. Don’t even allow those thoughts to kick in – just get up!

4. Expose yourself to sunlight. Sunlight is key to adapting yourcircadian rhythms. If you’re having trouble getting up, don’t close your blinds all the way, so you have some natural light as your wake-up call. Once you’re up, a short walk (or run) outside helps reinforce the message with your body.

5. Develop a routine for your morning. Whether it’s taking in the sunrise, brewing a cup of tea and reading the paper, or walking to the café down the street for a cup of joe, you’re more likely to continue to get up early if you develop a brief routine that is, in itself, a reward.

6. Stick with it. Know going in that it’s going to take some time to adapt to waking up early – probably about 30 days. Don’t expect to feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from Day 1. But if you stick with it, getting up early is likely to become one of your favorite rituals.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only

5 Ways to Make Your Life More Creative, by John Cleese

(Reblogged from Explore Blog and Brain Pickings)

“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”

Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. In this excerpt from his fantastic 1991 lecture, John Cleese offers a recipe for creativity, delivered with his signature blend of cultural insight and comedic genius. Specifically, Cleese outlines “the 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative”:

1. Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”)
2. Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”)
3. Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate thediscomfort of pondering time and indecision.)
4. Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”)
5. Humor (“The main evolutionary significance of humoris that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”)

Message to a Graduate, by Grant Snider

(Reblogged from Incidental Comics)

Although this comic by Grand Snider was originally intended for graduates, as its heading states, at LEZ we find it so truly inspirational that we believe that every student at every level can benefit from it. Enjoy!

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Revision tips: why sleep and repetition will boost your brain power, by Abby Young-Powell

(Reblogged from The Guardian, thanks to a tip from our colleague Rodrigo Gómez)

When it comes to revising, how do you know which techniques work? We chat to students and experts to find out what methods really help you remember

With so many different revision guides, it can be hard to know what's good practice and what's not. We talked to a brain expert, as well as students and lecturers from universities across Britain, to get the best advice on how to revise effectively and remember what you've learned.

Getting a good night's sleep can help your brain recall and make revision easier
Photograph: Matteo Colombo/Getty Images

Plan your time

Start early: "The best revision is continuous revision, started as early as possible," says Sergio Della Sala, professor of human cognitive neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. Revision should be "spread into several sessions, rather than lumped in at the last minute".

Revise on the go: By not confining your revision to one place, you can revise regularly, even if it's for short periods of time, says George Brooke-Smith, PPE student at York University: "Flashcards are great because you can carry them in your bag. Having them on the go can help you to take in information."

Advice on Accent Reduction

ESO Students,

Watch the video below and you'll see some familiar, useful pieces of advice from Paddy Kennedy, principal of Kennedy Communication Studio... yes, you have heard them from us time and again!

• Your accent is not the problem
• Language has rhythm
• Hear the music in the language
• You're trying to speak my language in the rhythm pattern of your language and I can't understand it.
• English is a beat-driven language... everything we say can be drummed out.
• We speak in sound units: We-do-not-speak-word-by-word
• You don't want to see the language... you need to hear it, to listen to it.
• Imitate native speakers, everything they say... and exaggerate, make the sound big!!.
• You need to train the organs of articulation: your tongue, your cheeks, your mouth (that's why no chewing gum is allowed in class!)
• Tongue twisters: find them and say them as if they mean something... and say them with rhythm.
• The most important thing is the up and down of the language.
• Just keep practising... that's how we learnt our mother tongue.

British English vs American English

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only

British Isles

ESO Students,

We are sure that all you have some time or another wondered what the difference between England, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Britain Islands and British Isles is... This mind map will certainly help you understand it once and for all!

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Emotions - Feelings Word Vocabulary

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Said is Dead

ESO 4 Students,

Later this year you will be learning about the Reported Speech. The most common verb speakers use is Say (usually in its past form, Said), but if you wish to go further and improve your skills in English you should try and use a wide variety of the so-called language verbs. We are sure this chart will be most useful (reblogged from Life of a Newspaper Editor)... and remember Said is Dead!!:

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

What Type of Learner Are You?

(Original source: OnlineCollege.org)

ESO Students,

What type of learners are you? What's the most efective way you learn? Are you a visual learner, an auditory learner, a read/write learner or a kinesthetic learner? Click here to see the image enlarged and find out:

Original source: OnlineCollege.org

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

How Are You Feeling Today?

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Superb Job

Labor Students,

We would like to post ESO 1 unit 3 outline by ESO 1 B student, Andrea Aguado. Andrea has done it voluntarily as a preparation for her unit 3 test. We thought it was not only a brilliant idea, but a superb job, and that is why we would like to share it with you all. We would also like to suggest to you to do similar lesson outlines and summaries for your exams. If you do this we are sure your test results will improve dramatically.

Congratulations, Andrea!!