Taking Chances

It's time for a new class and a new task! At the moment, Felicity is teaching a pre-advanced English class. Say hello to the students:

Malak, Khalood and Mohammed from Saudi Arabia
Flavia from Italy
Mahsa from Iran
Wook, Chris and Jungwoo from South Korea
Palm from Thailand

Felicity and her class have been looking at how to survive in dangerous situations. The language they looked at was to do with chances. For example:

"you don't have a cat in hell's chance"
"you've got a good chance"
"you've got a 50-50 chance"

They also looked at the more functional language you'd use to judge how risky a situation might be. For example:

"it's a good idea to..."
"it's not a clever idea to..."
"it's a bad idea to..."
"don't even think about doing..."

After practising this language for a couple of days, the class had to think of a dangerous situation and describe it in writing. The piece of writing had to set the scene and give three options for survival.

The class then read each others writing and chose what they thought was the best option for survival. Finally the story writer revealed which was the correct option and why.

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See if you can work out the correct answer to Khalood and Wook's scenario below:

You are on the way home crossing the desert with your family; you have lost your way, and direction. Your GPS satellite navigation doesn’t work properly also you don’t have any food and you have only a small amount of water.

Do you -

1. Stay in the car and wait in a shady shelter where you can avoid the sunshine and drink all of your water as quickly as possible.
2. Leave the car and search for some help.
3. Sit in the shade of the car and drink your water slowly.

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Now have a look at Jungwoo and Malak's scenario:

You’re a father or mother of 3 children, you’re on a big ship with 500 people, the ship is heading directly for a huge iceberg and the ship is about to crash into the iceberg and there are only three escape boats which can only carry a maximum of 100 people.

Do you -

1. Just stay calm where you were and wait for a security guard to rescue you.
2. Wait in a line in order to get on an escape boat.
3. Use your Louis Vuitton bag to float on the water and wait for rescue.

In both cases, what would you do....?

Story time for English students - part three

Another story from Felicity's Upper Intermediate English class by So Yeon and Matheus:

Love on the edge

It was three o’clock in the morning. When the phone rang, Rose instinctively knew why. Her agency was sending her on a mission, she needed to get information about alien troops who were on the warpath to Earth.

She took the train to go to the space station and suddenly meet an extraordinary alien who looked like a human, he was called Jack and he was going to the station too. They fell in love at the first sight. They were surprised because they both took the same aircraft so they had a good time travelling together.

Suddenly the aircraft crashed against a small planet. The impact was so strong that all the people in the aircraft lost consciousness, so did Jack. They were sent back to Earth. Fortunately Rose had a minor injury, but Jack’s condition was serious and he had to stay in hospital and take lots of medicines.

Jack’s DNA suffered an unexpected change, making him human. When he woke up, he could feel something different, the colour of the scar on his arm had changed from green to red, he noticed that his mind was also changed so he decided to tell her the truth and save the earth. When he told her the secret story, she also told him that she was a spy from Earth. They shared their information. Finally they could save the earth from aliens.

Story time for English students - part two

Last month, Felicity's Upper-intermediate English class studied different kinds of stories. They looked at everything from traditional fairytales to sagas. (Sagas are usually stories from the 12th to 14th Century about the adventures of a hero or a family in northern Europe).

Looking at different stories is a good way to practise grammar and see how different types of language is used - especially adjectives.

Once the students had looked at a variety of stories, it was time to write their own. Felicity gave them a selection of pictures, places, types of transport and famous people to choose from. These would then have to fit into the story.

Here is Sam and Sarah's story:

The Unfortunate Incident

It was three o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. It was Meg Ryan’s manager, who organizes everything for her. He wanted to tell her that she had to leave Paris immediately and fly to London.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten to tell her about the fact that the Oscars would be held there the next day. He had been so busy arranging other events that the Oscars had completely slipped his mind.

She felt extremely angry with him because he hadn’t given her enough notice, so she didn’t have a designer dress. “What am I going to do?” she thought. She decided to see if there were any dresses in the duty-free shops at the airport. Unfortunately by the time she got to the airport the flight was about to leave so she didn’t have enough time to look for a dress. She decided to buy dress from London.

The next flight to London wasn’t until the next day but she had to leave that day, so she called her manager to ask him what she should do. He asked her to take the Eurostar, she rushed to the train station and caught the train by the skin of her teeth.

She felt very uncomfortable while she was on the Eurostar because there were a lot of people who wanted to talk to her and take a picture with her or get her autograph.

When she arrived in London, it was eight o’clock in the morning so she was really tired. The Oscars were in Trafalgar Square and she had to stay in a hotel near there. When she got to the hotel she was so exhausted that she turned off her phone and decided to have a quick nap. She slept like a baby. After all that, she missed the Oscars. She was devastated because she won an award for her latest film.

The results of May's student writing competition are in!

The theme of May's writing competition was Wonders of your Country. It challenged English language students of all levels to describe the natural wonders of their country in no more than 300 words. Students could write a review, article, or a short story for a student magazine. Our theme was inspired by Sacred Planet - a film showing the world's most fascinating and unusual landscapes, animals and people. Watch the trailer.

We were so impressed with all the entries that it was impossible to pick one winner. First place goes to Yukiko Kono and Agostinho Vieira, who both win tickets to a fantastic London show.

Well done to runners up JooHee Hwang and Cristina Ventura.

Here are the winning stories in full:

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The Wonders of Japan, by Yukiko Kono

It is absolutely breath-taking scenery overlooking the whole mountainside ablaze with scarlet-tinged leaves. Imagine if you are looking over this scenery soaking in a hot spring and drinking sake.

All you can hear is just birds’ humming, the flow of water and a soft breeze rustling through the trees. Just relax and forget about your worries and say a brief good-bye to the hustle and bustle in the city. The view of gradation of yellow, orange and red takes you to fleeting but a stunningly beautiful piece of art site which only nature can create once a year.

There are Japanese-style hotels, called Ryokan with a hot spring in Beppu in the southern part of Japan, which is famous for its wide variety of hot springs. The effectiveness of the hot springs here varies so many people visit here to heal themselves. A ryokan offers local specialities including delicious meat or fresh fish and lobsters. Skilful chefs entertain you with seasonal vegetables and edible wild plants beautifully decorated. Sushi, sashimi, tempura, all kinds of Japanese cuisine is available at Ryokan. They often have rooms with a private hot spring which you can overlook the mountains.

If you are adventurous enough to see the terrifying bubble-bubble sights in Beppu, go to the burning hell tour. Although the phenomenal natural hot springs look intimidating,　you cannot but appreciate the power and beauty of nature. The names were inspired by the concept of hell in Buddhism.

You might feel purifying yourself through your five senses. Dazzling red coloured leaves will leave you an impressive memory so does the colour. You would find yourself in a part of enormous piece of autumn landscape painting.

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The Wonders of Brazil, by Agostinho Vieira

“God was born in Brazil”, goes an old saying in my country. However, when we use this sentence, normally we aren`t speaking about Carnival, beautiful women and football. Three strong symbols of our culture, but not enough to represent all Brazilian biodiversity. Brazil is the fifth extensive country in the world and the eighth biggest economy. It has a lot of amazing beaches, some absolutely cleaner rivers, fantastic mountains and delicately colored birds. It goes without saying that sixty percent of Amazon Rainforest is in our territory.

I could write about numbers, different species of plants, quantities of freshwater fish, mammals, reptiles or something like that. But, I am not a geographer or a biologist. I`m just a Brazilian guy and can write a little bit about huge landscapes that I have seen, diverse animals I have admired or about a lot of pleasures I have felt. However, I have a problem. How can I describe the sound of the “sabiá” in the morning or the aroma of an orchid in the end of afternoon?

Brazil`s immense area is divided into different regions and a several kind of microclimates. It`s possible to watch an incredible and controversial anaconda in the Amazon or crocodiles in the “Pantanal”. I have never seen an anaconda. It´s, frequently, described as the largest snake on the planet. But, three years ago, I had an opportunity to be in security fifty meters from some crocodiles. In this same region, in a place called “Bonito” (means beautiful in Portuguese) there are two of the cleaner rivers on the world.

Another very simple detail can prove that if God wasn`t born in Brazil, at least it has been a special affection for our country: the sun. We have sunny days and blue skies almost 300 days per year. Curiously, Brazilian people only appreciate this natural treasure when they are visiting countries such as the United Kingdom, France or Germany. Once, five years ago, a north-east government made a tourism promotion promising give back the money for all visitors if rained in their state during the summer.

Finally, I would like to remember our most important wonder: the Brazilian people. This specie is not rare, can be found in any parts around de world. But, their happiness, their routine full of life and their capacity to live in peace could be an example for other countries. It could inspire the rest of the world, minimizing prejudice and maximizing tolerance.

IH London Directors on the road in Egypt

IH London is part of a network of schools that make up the International House World Organisation (IHWO). Last month, two of our directors travelled to Cairo for the IHWO Directors’ Conference and Agents' Workshop. The conference was held in the historic Palace Al Gezira, built for guests who attended the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

IH London Director Steve Brent attended the Directors' Conference - a good opportunity for schools to share ideas and discuss future plans for the organisation. There was also time to discover some of Egypt's ancient civilisation, and Steve is pictured above visiting the Pyramids.

Duncan Jackman, our Business and Marketing Director, attended the very successful Agents’ Workshop, which is a chance to meet agents from all over the world. He is pictured on the right with the Sphinx (the Sphinx is the one without the nose).

Story time for English students - part one

Over the last month, my (Felicity) Upper-intermediate English class have been studying different kinds of stories, including mini sagas and more traditional tales.

This has been a useful tool to help the students learn different narrative tenses, as well as reviewing a lot of other grammatical tenses. I gave my wonderful class a variety of pictures and asked them to choose a location, some characters and a mode of transport. After that, I let their imaginations go crazy and I will be uploading their stories one by one to keep you all interested. Here is the first installment - please post your comments below to let us know what you think.

Tom and Tradgedy
by Nori and Jaeho

It was three o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. Tom picked the phone up and answered very angrily, “Who is calling so early?” The call was from his stupid old friend who had been living in London. He told Tom that he had to go to the Sydney Opera House to watch Phantom of the Opera. Tom decided to go there with his stunning wife, Penelope. They immediately got up and prepared to set off.

Unfortunately they lived in a tiny village called Ayers Rock, in the centre of Australia, and they only had a retro tractor made by John Deer for transport. After breakfast they set off on their long life-changing journey. In the middle of their journey they noticed two tiny dots in the sky.

A few minutes later they realised that those two dots were skydivers. When the skydivers touched down, Tom and Penelope were extremely shocked because they were two of the most famous politicians in the world. Unbelievably, they were Tony Blair and Colonel Gadafy!

Obviously, they looked miserable. Tom and Penelope asked them “What has happened to you?” They briefly explained that they’d had a horrible accident and they were forced to jump out of their jet. As soon as they had cleared the plane, it exploded into a ball of fire.

Tony and Gadafy asked them to pick them up and take them to the nearest city. However, unfortunately Tom’s tractor didn’t have any extra space, so Tony and Gadafy had to take a seat on the cover of the plough.

A few hours after they met, the tractor suddenly broke down. Sadly, they didn’t have any food or water, so they died in the desert. The whole world mourned their death.

THE END