How to get cars out of inner cities? Watch Janett Sadik-Khan’s TED talk about an experiment she initiated as trafic commissioner in New York City.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: October 2022
Verb grammar in context – a little verb grammar practice
Check the texts below. Tip: Before you start filling in appropriate forms, note what kind of text you are dealing with. Is it a technical text, non-fiction, opinion, part of a novel etc. Certain text types tend to be structured and written in a certain way. In a novel, for instance, a narrator tells a story mostly using a past tense form. Nevertheless, the story-telling feels immediate or present, which is why you would find something like: All was quiet tonight – ‘tonight’ suggesting present time. For this reason, some call the past tense form in stories ‘literary past tense’: though using the past tense, the story still feels as if it is unfolding ‘now’ while you are reading (see also: Tenses in fiction writing).
Continue readingYoung Russians fleeing country
Adapted from New York Times, October 5, 2022
Below you find an adapted and abbreviated version of an article from the New York Times reported by Andrew Higgins. He describes the situation of many young Russian men who are trying to escape their home country in a desperate attempt to evade being pulled into a war they do not support.
Continue readingHow languages are learned (2)
I would like to share a little exerpt from a book that tries to encourage learners of any given language not to be afraid of exposure to original material even in their early stages of learning.
Language is one of the most complex systems our minds manage to master. We should or can trust our brains to acquire a lot of skills in ways we do not always understand or are able to describe. (And that we cannot or need not always control).
Continue readingTED Ed
Another great source are Ted Ed Talks. These are short, five minute videos covering various topics.
Here a list of some of my favorites:
Would you pass the wallet test? In this video we are presented with a moral or ethical dilemma asking how honest we would be in a given situation.
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