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Sea 'Monster' Hijacks Boaters
Two Florida boaters met a real sea monster this week when their craft was dragged for hours by a powerful creature. Do this lesson to find out what it was. (Fishing, boats, the passive voice)
Intermediate
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Science Fiction
A fast-growing plant was used to decorate saltwater aquariums. Next, a hardier, cloned version of the species was developed for display at the Stuttgart Aquarium in Germany. Now, this green toxic invader has spread throughout the north Mediterranean. (toxins, cloning, GM, the passive voice)
Upper-Intermediate to Advanced
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Say Cheese
Americans love cheese, but their hearts don't love them for it. (Diet, health, the USA, gerunds)
Intermediate
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Running Man
Many people today want to be the best at something. Read through these recent news articles to get an idea of what sort of records people try to break. (world records, sauna, Everest, running around the world, muti-word adjectives)
Intermediate
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Private Lives
Does what people do away from work not influence how they perform or behave at work? Find out what the answer to this question has been in these two articles. (Religious freedom, teachers', parents' rights, sport, reported or indirect speech)
Upper-Intermediate
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Politics - No way
The article in this lesson tells of a survey of high school seniors in Japan on which jobs were least popular. The survey quoted students as saying, "the image of politicians is awful. It is a boring job. Their work doesn't matter." (Careers, politicians, Japan, 'because of' and/or 'because') Elementary
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Pocket Monsters
British teachers have accused the makers of Pokemon "fantasy monster" cards of fueling an obsession among children which has turned to violence. What do you think? (Pokemon cards, marketing, Britain, Puerto Rico, children, obsessions, trends, verb tense review: Present Simple/Simple Past/Present Perfect or Future)
Intermediate
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Playground Safety
When it comes to safety, sand appears to be a better playground surface than grass--even though you may be left cleaning it out of every crack and crevice of your youngster for days after a trip to the playground. (safety, children, swings, injuries, 'during' or 'while')
Intermediate
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Plant and Animals
The African honeyguide is a bird that aid hunters in rare, sweet partnership. Plants, like humans, also talk to each other and warn of impending danger. (plants, research, animal communication, body language, 'by + verb + ing' when we want to express how something is done, homophones)
Intermediate
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Brow Beating
British men are becoming increasingly interested in having their eyebrows professionally groomed, according to Debenhams department store which plans to hold men-only "guybrow" nights. Men, it said, now make up 40 percent of the visitors to its brow bars, double the proportion of a year ago. (Personal appearance, image, fashion, quantifiers: some and any) Upper-Intermediate
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Nunavut: A New Territory
In the first redrawing of Canada's maps in 50 years, a vast new Arctic territory has been created. (Geography, Canada, local autonomy, dependent clauses)
Intermediate
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Noisy Neighbors
Apartment dwellers have a new weapon to use on noisy neighbors: a CD of 64 minutes of lawnmower noise! (Cities, revenge, weapons, noise, neighbours, phrasal verbs)
Intermediate
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Mothers In Law
According to a Canadian survey, mothers-in-law are not the hated, interfering monsters the stand-up comics would have us believe. (Families, relatives, Canada, survey, compound nouns)
Intermediate
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Monkey Business
Scientists have genetically engineered a monkey, the closest relative yet to a human to be genetically altered. What's next? (Genetic engineering, science, health, punctuation) Advanced
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Mixed Messages from Role Models.
Famous athletes are among the most important role models in the lives of American children, but the youngsters themselves recognize that their heroes' behavior is not always good.(Famous sports stars, teenagers, the USA, Synonyms, verbs to give instructions)
Upper-Intermediate
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Mice Out For Dinner
Wanted: Pied Piper in Paris! Mice are on the loose. (pests, restaurants, Paris, '-ed and -ing' adjectives)
Upper-Intermediate
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Another World Record
This is about the largest ozone hole ever observed opening up over Antarctica... When? Now. Do the lesson and stay out of the sun!
(ozone layer, greenhouse gases, the future, global warming, pollution, prefixes)
Upper-Intermediate
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Corking Row over Sour Grapes
Researchers in Australia say metal screwcaps appear to be better at preserving the quality of white wine than corks. (Tradition, wine connoisseurs, descriptive language.)
Advanced
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A Cruise Ship Home
A retired British woman has decided to live on a cruise ship all the time and sail round the world, because it costs no more than staying in an old people's home. (Life styles, retirement, email, summarizing ideas, the present perfect with 'already'.) Elementary
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Very Wrong
Two Canadians wanting to buy cocaine in the Cayman Islands got a dramatically wrong number, and ended up talking to a top anti-drug officer. They also got busted. (dialling, phones, crime, drugs, adverbs, 'actually') Pre-Intermediate
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Dog Boy
A 10-year-old boy who had been abandoned by his parents survived for two years in a cave with a pack of stray dogs who scavenged for food with him and may even have suckled him. (Living in remote places, child being cared for and fed by dogs, vocabulary.) Intermediate
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To have or not to have
Leo from Belgium asks about making questions using the verb "to have". Intermediate
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Is Anybody Listening to Me?
It has one article saying that a dog wagging its tail could be eyeing you as its next meal (and a snarling dog could be just smiling at you), and another article saying that humans and animals communicate with one another telepathically all the time. You can try this at home! (Dogs, animal communication, body language, conjunctions) Upper-Intermediate to Advanced
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Meeting an Actor
"It's not every day you get a Hollywood superstar phoning you when you're doing the housework". (Dustin Hoffman, famous people, taxi drivers, actors, articles)
Pre-Intermediate
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Lunch Hour Chewed Up
Increasing work pressures have eaten into Britain's traditional lunch hour, reducing it to a 36-minute break. (Work pressure, lunch hours, health, changes in workplace, Britain, word order)
Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate
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Lost Animals
This is about runaway animals - rabbits and a kangaroo hopping around a London suburb and a German motorway. (Kangaroos, rabbits, animals, escapes London, present perfect simple, nouns or verbs) Elementary
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Lawyer Has No Luck At All
If there were a prize for the world's unluckiest man, British solicitor Edward Bentley would surely be in the running. (Gambling, bad luck, crime, regrets about the past, "I wish")
Intermediate
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Keeping a City Clean
This is about, well, animal droppings. Did you know dog poop, when scooped, costs 10 francs a kilo in Paris? If that is your cup of tea, then do this lesson!(Cities, pets, Paris, to + infinitive, purpose)
Intermediate
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Justice Systems
Aromatherapy? Soft lights? Soothing string music? It sounds like a new age seance, but it's the new way of doling out justice, Brazilian-style.
(Judges, courts, legal systems, punishment, phrasal verbs, smell/sound/feel/ + like, metaphors.)
Intermediate
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"Ice Hotel"
Canada's first Ice Hotel made of ice and snow... Are the rooms heated?? (Hotels, tourism, Canada, reported speech.)
Intermediate
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How Good Is Your Nose?
This is about: a dog that has been trained to smell money; mechanical dogs that can smell land mines; and the high cost of a dog at the United Nations that can smell bombs. (Working dogs, dogs smelling for money, bombs and land mines, prepositions.)
Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate
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How Good are You?
A pair of social psychologists say that luckily, the truly incompetent may never know the depths of their own incompetence. (ability, overconfidence, incompetence, synonyms, modal verbs, narrative tenses)
Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate
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Hospital Or Home
A lot of assumptions have been made about what older people's preferences are for health care, and according to this lesson, these may be wrong(Old age, health care, death, illness, 'prefer', 'would prefer' and 'preference')
Upper-Intermediate
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High Tech Garbage
The city of Barcelona is putting micro chips in its 18,000 litter bins to try and make garbage collection easier. How? Do the lesson and find out!(Computers, micro chips, litter bins, Spain, technology, 'can' & 'can't', linkers, listing.) Elementary
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High Flyer
This is about a 300-pound (135 kg) pig that flew first-class across the United States. (Air travel with animals, pigs, rules and laws, 'ever' and 'never')
Intermediate
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Helping The Government
This lesson is about a British retiree who mailed a check for 75 pence ($1.09) to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in disgust at the very small 75 pence weekly rise in the state pension, and was surprised to find it had been cashed. (Retirement, money, governments, the UK, clauses using 'that')
Intermediate
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Heavy Fish
Why are South Korean quarantine officials using metal detectors? (Fish, imports, crime, customs officials, China, comparatives)
Elementary
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Heart Disease Factor
Interrupting others in the middle of a sentence and being interrupted, not only are they irritating but they may also be dangerous. (Health, irritable people, heart disease, word order, prepositions)
Upper-Intermediate
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Happiness is...
People believe you are happiest when you are younger although studies show this isn't the case and marriage brings as much happiness as an additional $100,000 in income. (Happiness, age, marriage and money, USA, Britain, income, adjectives, comparative and superlative adjectives.) Intermediate
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Home Schooled Spelling Champion
A 13-year-old computer whiz who taught himself to read at the age of 2 won the U.S. national spelling bee with the word "succedaneum." (Spelling competitions, home schooling, adverbs.) Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate
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Europe's Worst Linguists
This is about, well, Europe's worst linguists, and Europe's best. Who do you think they are?
(languages, Europe, English, prepositions)
Intermediate
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A bungling armed raider
A bungling armed raider was caught trying to hold up a French post office after he tried to withdraw money from his own account. (Money, crime, past perfect, phrasal verbs.) Pre-Intermediate
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Something to whine about
DNA coding technology is being used by Australian wine producers to fight the growing theft and forgery of expensive premium wine brands. (Wine collecting, law, the second conditional, homophones.) Intermediate
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Late Learner
Read about school for the elderly in Thailand and a Cameroonian man who dropped out of school in 1940 has gone back and passed his primary school exam at the age of 75. (Education system, school, Past Simple / Present Simple / Present Perfect.) Elementary
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Float Like a Butterfly...
Is 'butterfly', that symbol of lightness and delicacy, an example of a reversal? Once upon a time, was the word in fact 'flutter-by'. Find out what Max has to say! Intermediate
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Nuts
Ever wanted to find out more about 'nuts' and 'nut cases'? Max presents us with the perfect opportunity. Intermediate
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Skip-Skipper-Skipping
These three words look and sound as if they are related to each other, but you may be surprised to know that they came into English from three different languages, and have no connection at all. They are, in fact, a good example of how English borrows words from other languages. Intermediate
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Winning Justice
This lesson is a follow-on from our previous lesson "Under Attack" and looks at how a Swedish court set a precedent on Friday by awarding damages to a student who was mercilessly bullied for being an "outsider". (Bullying, schools, court case, Sweden, parallelism or ellipsis.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Have you ever ...?
This warmer uses a wordnet to practise the present perfect. Pre-Intermediate
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The Shape of Things to Come
An activity that uses shapes and prepositions of
place to describe a picture. Students use imperatives to give instructions. Pre-Intermediate
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