On May 3, 2008 it will be one year since little Madeleine McCann went missing from Praia da Luz in Portugal.

In that year I have learnt a great deal about missing children all over the world – most of it I wish I didn’t have to know.

There are many many tragic and horrifying stories – enough to make a stone weep. However, there are also some amazing ones of children who have been FOUND. Natascha Kampusch, Elizabeth Smart and Shawn Hornbeck were all discovered long after they were believed to be dead. It is clear that it is VITAL that the world does not forget missing kids and NEVER gives up hope for them.

On May 3rd I for one will be lighting a candle for Madeleine and all missing children everywhere. Don’t stop looking, keep this little girl in mind. She could be anywhere in the world. Always pay attention to children around you, yours and other people’s. If you see or hear something, anything, that makes you think a child is in danger call the police. Please join all the people who will light candles that night and take a moment to say a prayer or meditate or do whatever you think is best. Maybe together we can light Madeleine’s way home and make the world a better kinder place for all the children in it.

http://www.helpingtofindmadeleine.com/

I’ve not been making posts as frequently as usual recently as I have been very busy so here is a special edition to make up for it. Last night someone introduced me to NASA TV at the website of the US Space Exploration Program. Wow! You can watch a live webcam broadcast of astronauts aboard the shuttle and hear as they chat to ground control staff. The website also has many other features which are fascinating and fun to use.

Many ESL students find that they need to write or speak about Space Exploration and it is one of the most fun topics to work on. Questions are often related to how valuable it is to the world. Should we not be spending money on things closer to home? NASA scientists obviously think the money is well spent on their programs. If you visit their website you will find that not only can you watch the live webcam and see beautiful live pictures of our planet Earth hanging serenely in space but you can also use great interactive features.

On this page you will find a selection of interesting resources. I thought that the one called Nasa Home and City (sorry, can’t link directly to it – you have to go and find it on the page) was particularly useful for ESL students. As well as using vocabulary about space, exploration and technology it is a great opportunity to practice words to do with houses and cities.

There is lots more on the site including fantastic images and pages where you can learn about the Universe and our Solar System.

You should also look at this excellent set of pictures with a news item at Sky.com about the recent launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Oh and by the way, make sure you check out the outstanding section at the NASA site about the voyages of the Hubble Telescope where these images below come from. It must be one of the most beautiful and exciting places to visit on the Internet. There is so much there (including some great teaching resources) that it has been almost impossible to choose what to highlight here. Quite Out of this World!

http://hubblesite.org/

So here is a small selection of words which it would be useful for you to learn.

mission; crew; space; exploration; spacewalk; space; shuttle; astronaut; payload; satellite; maximise; minimise; zero-gravity; innovative; invention; expertise; heat-sensitive; Universe; Solar System.

There are of course many more and NASA’s website is a brilliant place to make sure you not only know the words but have plenty of answers for questions that examiners might ask you about Space Exploration. As ever here are the links to the dictionary and vocabulary learning tools I recommend. If ever you find a word that is not already in Pop-up Dictionary (and Space Scientists do make up new ones all the time) it is easy to add it yourself:

Pop-up Dictionary and Ultimate Vocabulary

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Download a free 21 day trial of Pop-up Dictionary here

Go to Pop-up to find the free dictionary files in your own language. (See the menu tab marked “Dictionaries” on the left hand side.)

All the Daily Words posts are collected together on the Daily Words page.

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I’m embarrassed to say I appear to have annoyed someone with my post Cats Cant’ Spell and Have Terrible Grammar

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

So sorry! Do excuse me!

Here are the today’s words for vocabulary learners everywhere. Sorry if these posts are not that frequent at the moment, I haven’t been too well lately. However, I have found a new internet tool that will really help you to enjoy learning words and investigating their meaning. It is called Visuwords and is a perfect way to work with your word lists (and to increase your score in the Derivatives task CPE people!) . Do try it out with today’s list, I think you will really enjoy it.

proceed v. ~ (to sth) go to a further or the next stage; go on

so-called adj. (used to suggest that the words used to describe sb/sth are not appropriate )

design n. ~ (for sth) drawing or outline from which sth may be made

quote v. ~ (from sb/sth) repeat in speech or writing (words previously said or written by another person)

sex n. condition of being male or female; gender

volume n. book, esp one of a matching set or a series

accommodate v. provide lodging or room for

classic adj. having a high quality that is recognized and unquestioned; of lasting value and importance

contribute v. ~ (to/towards sth) give one’s share of (money, help, advice, etc) to help a joint cause

duration n. time during which sth lasts or continues

qualitative adj. of or concerned with quality

confine v. ~ sb/sth keep (a person or an animal) in a restricted space

drama n. play for the theatre, radio or TV

As ever here are the links to the dictionary and vocabulary learning tools I recommend:

Pop-up Dictionary and Ultimate Vocabulary

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Download a free 21 day trial of Pop-up Dictionary here

Go to Pop-up to find the free dictionary files in your own language. (See the menu tab marked “Dictionaries” on the left hand side.)

All the Daily Words posts are collected together on the Daily Words page.

I came across this great software Language Learning Course for my visitors to this blog who come here for the Modern Greek resources. It’s not that easy to find good software with games, mp3 audio you can use on your ipod, vocabulary tools and flashcards and this one is very reasonably priced at $49.95 – and currently carrying a 20% discount so it is only $39.95

Greek BYKI 3.6“For beginners to advanced learners, Greek Before You Know It is the simple and effective way to master Greek with Perfect Recall, guaranteed! Whether for business, travel, school or personal enjoyment, you’ll quickly learn to understand and speak 1,000 common Greek words and 250 essential phrases.”

Click this link to find out more and buy:
Greek BYKI 3.6

They also have a downloadable course which helps you learn thousands of words in Greek quickly and easily with a huge number of activities and games. Dialogues with native speaker audio, pronunciation practice, and advanced speech analysis will help you make really good progress with your Greek in next to no time. The downloads which I think they offer for nearly all the languages are only $19.95 and you can get them right away.
For more Modern Greek resources see my page here.

Transparent also provide similar software and download courses for over 100 other languages including English with many resources suitable for kids as well as adults. Their courses contain everything you need to learn at home and are perfect resources for EFL/ESL teachers and travellers heading off to foreign lands to take up a post. I think these sort of courses are also very nice for shy students who are a bit worried about their speaking – you can practice pronunciation quietly on your own and gain a lot of confidence and accuracy that way.

They have a Total Immersion English programme and also two products especially for Spanish speaking students of English. You have to look a bit for the English version. On the left hand side of the page you will see a short list of languages and then below it “Other Languages” – go there to find English and all the others listed.

Transparent Courses include:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belorussian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Malay, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Braz.), Portuguese (Eur.), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Yiddish, Zulu

Of course, Pop-up Dictionary is also a perfect complement to all those languages. Bon Chance, Κάλη Τύχη, Good Luck…..(know any more ways of saying Good Luck? – please post below. Thanks!

Hello to everyone who is working their way through my Daily Words posts. Here are the words for today:

integrity n. quality of being honest and morally upright

intervene v. (of time) come or be between

mature adj. fully grown or developed mentally or physically; having achieved one’s full potential

site n. place where a building, town, etc was, is, or will be situated

clause n. group of words that includes a subject1(4a) and a verb, forming a sentence or part of a sentence

convert v. ~ (sth) (from sth) (into/to sth) change (sth) from one form or use to another

currency n. money system in use in a country

deviate v. ~ from sth stop following

incline v. ~ towards sth lean or slope in the direction of sth

overall adj. including everything; total

principal adj. first in rank or importance; chief; main

These are all words that are great to know for any English examination. For IELTS, CPE and ECPE they are essential. For Topic Vocabulary get a good start here.

There’s also this page which is full of Vocabulary resources for all levels.

And don’t forget you can download a free trial version of Pop-up Dictionary here

to help you look up the words and store them as tests. You can also use this tool for any other language you are learning. See the full list here at The World’s Dictionary

Click through this link for an amazing 90-day free trial of the excellent Ultimate Vocabulary software

You can read about why those tools are so important and useful on the Daily Words page where you can also find all the Daily Words posts stored together. Both can be customised to have a very large and clear visual impact which makes them great for dyslexic people too.

We’ve done about 25% of the list now. Courage Mes Amis!! Onward and Upward!

One of my more popular posts here was a mini-lesson, suitable for all English learners who need to write or speak about solutions for Environmental problems, featuring the work of two inspirational friends of mine, Stella and Tara Joy in India. They have been hard at work recently creating an online exhibition featuring words and images that explain their work. Here is one of their pictures showing Tibetan Monks viewing the live exhibition:

The original post, plus a special edition of Daily Words to go with it can be found here

Stella posted this comment on the original post today but I thought I would give it a bump so that more people notice their terrific work.

For the last 5 years we have been researching
“A Cure For Global Warming”
Here is a flickr connection for a presentation of our findings in an Exhibition format.
Please check send and show to as many others as you can think of and maybe we’ll succeed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/activeremedy/sets/72157603969301051

Yours Truly
Tara and Stella Joy

Here are the words for today. This is the 17th Daily Words post. All the words are in these lists have been chosen because they are the ones that really do turn up regularly in advanced exams including CPE, ECPE, CAE, IELTS and TOEFL and are useful for FCE and ECCE. They are the kinds of words that you do not learn in any specific topic (see my page of Topic Vocabulary) and are possibly a bit more difficult to learn. It’s very worthwhile to do the small number I post here every day.

sustain           v.  bear (weight) without breaking or falling

whereas           conj  taking into consideration the fact that …

appreciate        v.  understand and enjoy (sth); value highly

distribute        v.  ~ sth separate sth into parts and give a share to each person or thing

exceed            v. be greater or more numerous than (esp a quantity)

nevertheless      adv, conj in spite of this; however; still

offset            v. ~ sth (by sth/doing sth) compensate for sth; balance sth

panel             n.  separate, usu rectangular, part of the surface of a door, wall, ceiling, etc, usu raised above or sunk below the surrounding area

theme             n.  subject of a talk, a piece of writing or a person’s thoughts; topic

underlie          v.  lie or exist beneath (sth)

instruct          to direct to do something; order

 These lists are ideal for using with the dictionary and vocabulary learning tools I recommend:

Pop-up Dictionary and Ultimate Vocabulary

With Pop-up Dictionary English speakers can also use the lists for any other language they are learning by downloading the relevant dictionary files from Pop-up’s website.

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Download a free 21 day trial of Pop-up Dictionary here

Pop-up Dictionary is the best translation dictionary for over 60 ancient and modern languages and makes it possible not only to look up a translation for any word you can see on your computer screen but to store it so you can be sure to learn it. You can customise it so it’s large and bright and it makes it MUCH faster and easier to look up words which encourages you to do more reading and writing. It’s a good tool for dyslexics struggling to train their minds to accept more words and more accuracy – you will find that by customising the dictionary with large fonts on a nice coloured background it will help you a great deal. Say each letter out loud so that you get your ears to work as well as your eyes. All good!!!

Ultimate Vocabulary software uses 7 key strategies to make your quest for a great vocabulary interesting, fast and effective. It’s packed with features to help you enjoy gaining a true and deep understanding of the words you learn so that you use them confidently and never forget them. For instance you could use it to explore the ‘families’ of the words you learn each day (very important for the Derivatives task in CPE but also for many other questions)

Go to Pop-up to find the free dictionary files in your own language. (See the menu tab marked “Dictionaries” on the left hand side.)

All the Daily Words posts are collected together on the Daily Words page.

 

Most of my students have come to me hating Phrasal Verbs and I am not surprised. These wicked little English Language beasts could not be more confusing if a set of ingenious Ancient Britons had sat down with the deliberate intention of making life difficult for foreigners. Many of them mean several different things. If I ask you to put the cat out should you fetch a fire extinguisher or just open the front door and eject it? Get it wrong and the cat may well be considerably put out.

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

Cats are cute but watch out for their grammar – that should read “you lose it” – or better still, “you have lost it” !!

Many students have enough trouble using prepositions correctly when they just mean time or place, let alone when they are being used metaphorically as they are in Phrasal Verbs. They have no rhyme nor reason apparently and yet any English kid can use them perfectly.

One of the problems is the way they are taught. English grammar books love to give you lists in alphabetical order. There could hardly be a worse way to try and learn Phrasal Verbs. For instance, if you look at all the PVs that begin with “Take” or “Put” they do not have much in common – the point of phrasal verbs is that the preposition changes the meaning of the main verb. You will only get more confused studying them that way. Fortunately there is a great website that teaches them properly (arranged according to the preposition not the verb) and gives you everything you need to understand and learn these pesky problematic PVs. Appropriately it is called

Phrasal Verb Demon 

I highly recommend it. Put it in your favourites and try and go there several times a week. Nothing will take away the necessity of spending time learning these verbs – you need to keep at it over a long period to really get the hang of them – but you can make the time you spend much more effective and satisfying. You need not only a definition but also (very importantly) at least one synonym for each verb. And there is no better tool for helping you deal with that than Ultimate Vocabulary. This is the kind of thing that makes that software tool so valuable.

You can also make good daily use of the dictionary resources I tell you about on the Daily Words page 

I’ll try and add some good exercise resources from other sites soon and make a special page for Phrasal Verbs here.  However in the meantime, check out my Vocabulary page - you will find some good PV resources towards the end.

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Hello again!

Sorry there haven’t been any Daily Words for a while. I’ve been away on a working trip which went on a bit longer than I anticipated mostly because of the weather. You might have seen that we had heavy snow in Greece – that meant no boats so I got stuck on a neighbouring island (which was good fun in good company) but left you all without your Daily Words. Oh dear!

So here they are:

promote           to contribute to the growth or prosperity of: to further

select            v. ~ sb/sth choose sb/sth, esp as being the best or most suitable

sole              n. flat sea-fish that is eaten as food

unique            adj.  being the only one of its type

version           n.  account of an event, etc from the point of view of one person

controversy       n. ~ public discussion or argument, often rather angry, about sth which many people disagree with

decade            n. period of ten years

detect            v. discover or recognize that (sth) is present

distort           v.  pull or twist out of its usual shape

formula           n. (chemistry ) set of symbols showing the elements that a substance is made of

Whilst I was away I had the chance to think about my own Greek studies which are progressing at snail’s pace. I must be a bit slow because I have only just realised that by using Pop-up Dictionary there is nothing to stop me (or anyone else learning any other language) using these daily lists to learn the words in another language. And it’s so easy to do – all you have to do is select the right dictionary from English to the language you are learning, select the word with your cursor and press Ctrl-Ins-Ins on your keyboard and there it is. You can then add the word to your test selections and make it part of your daily learning program. Now I’ve just got to find the time to actually do it.

All the same I look forward to the day when I can make use of a tool like Ultimate Vocabulary for Greek or any other language I might learn. I’ve never seen anything like it for making vocabulary learning interesting and productive. You can have all sorts of word adventures and explore roots and families and usage in such a way that the words truly become yours.

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Download a free 21 day trial of Pop-up Dictionary here

All the Daily Words posts are collected together on the Daily Words page.