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Human Interest
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Time for some good cheer
Japanese cheerleaders danced and cheered on commuters outside a Tokyo rail station on Thursday in a bid to lift spirits with the capital heading into another state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Intermediate
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Free holiday anyone?
Bargain hunters and frustrated globe trotters have swamped an Italian village with requests to stay after the village offered free accommodation to attract tourists to its abandoned hilltop hamlets. (Tourism, migration, marketing, Covid 19 effects, travel, used to for past habits and states.)
Intermediate
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Never Too Old To Graduate
This lesson is about graduating at 96, 90 and 85, people determined to continue their education despite the path life takes them. Maybe there is still time. (Old age, learning, retirement, education.)
Elementary
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I want a Lamborghini
A police officer stopped a car on a US freeway and found a 5-year-old driver. The child said he was driving to California to buy a Lamborghini.
Elementary
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Post Lockdown...
Learning Australian bush survival skills is becoming popular as city folk turn to nature with the easing of the coronavirus lockdown.
The Bushcraft course teaches basic survival skills and offers insight into traditional indigenous cultures. (Understanding words in context, Scanning, Grammar - second conditional)
Intermediate
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Battling the Pandemic
By night, nurse Rachel Hartley is on the front line of the war against the coronavirus. By day, she rests on the sailboat that brought her from Virginia, wondering how she will explain it all to her children someday. (Nursing, New York, Covid-19, living on a boat )
Upper-Intermediate
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Joggers Versus Dog Walkers
A stroll in the park has turned into a battle for space among people in cities. Rules on social distancing to stop coronavirus spreading have started.(Social/physical distancing, tension between different groups, effects of Covid-19, urban designs, group design activities.)
Intermediate
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Humour
Americans are using humor as a balm to soothe nerves during the coronavirus pandemic. "Humor is a really powerful way to manage the unmanageable. Just to make fun of it and to gain control by laughing at it. That's a really powerful psychological move we can make".
Upper-Intermediate
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Virus Control
A day after Jeanhee Kim learned of a coronavirus case in her Singapore apartment block, she was visited by a distinguished-looking man she later learned was a senior government minister. (Dealing with an epidemic, COVID - 19, Singapore, staying healthy, quarantine.
Upper-Intermediate
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A Lifesaver
An Indian schoolgirl was very brave. In 2019 11-year-old Carolyn Malsawmtluangi helped a little girl escape from a trafficker. (Human trafficking, being brave.)
Elementary
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Pooch Podcasts
Spotify has made playlists and a podcast for dogs to listen to in their owners’ absence. (Scanning, matching details, true or false, choosing a headline)
Pre-Intermediate
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Looking For A Green Love Match
Despite the public perception that cyberspace is a shallow, hostile environment, lovers who meet through apps may actually end up forming strong relationships. Young people looking for love are throwing aside traditional dating rules and bonding over shared social causes, particularly tackling global warming. (Internet relationships, scanning, summarizing, 'despite', 'in spite of' and 'although', discourse markers, understanding a graph, writing an ad, interviews.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Dreaming of a Green Christmas
Families should wrap their Christmas presents in recyclable brown paper and make their own Christmas crackers using old toilet rolls this year to help ensure a more sustainable festive season, a leading waste company said. (Gift giving, predicting from the headline, guessing meanings from context, scanning, true or false, jigsaw reading game, present perfect simple and present simple.)
Upper-Intermediate
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You Make Me Feel Like Dancing ....
She is wearing yellow trousers, shiny platform shoes, red lipstick and headphones. 80-year-old “DJ Wika” is standing behind the decks. (Dj-ing, elderly people, music and dance.)
Elementary
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Keep On Moving
Using a wheelchair in war-torn Yemen is not easy. To get to work each day, 26-year-old Yaarub Eissa rolls over dusty, bumpy roads and up and down steps. He then lifts himself onto the back of a passing motorbike and hooks his folded chair on the back. (Yemen, conflict, future dreams, disability, writing a message, identifying and using present perfect simple, present simple and past simple verb forms)
Intermediate
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Get Smashing
It took Smash customer Qiu Siyu just a few sharp blows with a baseball bat to wreck what looked like an old car radio. Then two friends smashed audio speakers, rice cookers and even a mannequin. (Stress, smashing plates, setting up a business, verb patterns: like/love/dislike + infinitive or verb-ing and enjoy + verb-ing.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Freedom!
Surviving sex trafficking, battling drug and alcohol addiction, struggling to get asylum in Britain: not the usual conversation topics one would expect from students at an adult college. This is not your average class, but a unique course which offers free education to survivors of modern slavery. (Education and survivors of modern slavery, Britain, trafficking, collocation, talking about your first day at high school.)
Advanced
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Slow and Steady
The race starter stood up and shouted: “Ready, steady, slow!” The crowd cheered, but the competitors remained stuck at the start line. Welcome to the world slowest racing championship? (Gambling, discussion, understanding text organization, question construction, true, false or not given, error recognition, crossword, questionnaire.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Old Timers
The world's oldest man lives in Japan. (Longevity, world records, scanning, making questions, discussion.)
Elementary
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Green Spaces
In a square in central Barcelona, families with young children perch at picnic tables as traffic thunders past and high-rise blocks loom above them. The concrete mecca that is Plaça de les Glòries Catalanese is having a major facelift that will create a new green public space. Cities are increasingly looking for ways to provide more greenery.
Intermediate
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Surprise Trips
A seven-year-old girl caught a train to Geneva airport and boarded a plane although she did not have a ticket. A 9-year-old boy from Minneapolis caught a flight to Las Vegas without a ticket and three German children aged five, six and seven who said they were fed up with cold weather set off to Africa but only got as far as the local train station. (Children, transport, taxis, past simple and past continuous tenses, ordinal numbers, the prefix -un.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Growing Up During The War
In just a year, a small Bosnian museum dedicated to the experience of growing up during the Balkan wars has opened, won a best European museum prize and decided to go global. The War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, full of memorabilia from Bosnians whose childhood was traumatized by the 1990s war, has started collecting personal items from children affected by other wars. (Children, wartime situations, memories.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Free Time ....
People tend to become less involved with community work and social groups as they age, but those who were most active in their high school years are the most likely to stay engaged as they age, researchers say. (Community involvement, young people and older people and involvement.)
Intermediate
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Enslaved
Pimp turned do-gooder Kaushic Biswas has swapped the brothel for the kitchen and is now teaching the sort of women he once exploited how to cook their way out of sex trafficking. (Slavery and forced labor.)
Advanced
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First Lady A Climber
Scientists using sophisticated scanning technology on the fossil bones of the ancient human ancestor from Ethiopia dubbed "Lucy" have determined that she was adept at climbing trees as well as walking. (Lucy and fossils, gerund following preposition.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Beauty Beyond the Skin
With its evening gowns, celebrity judges and tears of joy, the beauty pageant in Nairobi was like others elsewhere, except for one thing - all 20 contestants who strutted, sashayed and swaggered down the catwalk had albinism. (Beauty, albinos, discrimination, Kenya.)
Advanced
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Soccer Speaks
On a muggy day in late July, dozens of student refugees ran relentlessly after a soccer ball, stopping only to help up a fellow player who had slipped. (Writing questions, matching sentence beginnings and endings, ordering a text, giving an opinion)
Upper-Intermediate
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Lots of Hot Dogs!
Every year the world hot dog eating competition is held in New York. (World records, hot dogs, food, competitive eating, expressions of quantity.)
Elementary Lesson Updated: 3 October 2016
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Lunching Billionaire Style
A bidder appears to have won lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett after bidding in a week-long auction on eBay Inc.'s Web site. As in previous years, the billionaire will host the winner and up to seven friends for lunch in either Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett lives and works.(Charity auctions, business, brainstorming, finding the main idea, true or false, summarizing, peer editing, past perfect.)
Intermediate
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A Prince Among Men
Read articles about Prince William, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II of England, and share information about him to build a picture of what he is like. (Prince William, Queen Elizabeth, sharing information, family)
Pre-Intermediate
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A Hairy Issue
Here's a little marital tip: When financial experts say couples should compromise on absolutely everything, there are times when you just need to split hairs. For instance, just try to tell your spouse how much he or she should spend on getting their hair done. (vocabulary hunt, second conditional)
Upper-Intermediate
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Scarecrow Town
Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago. The straw scarecrow looked like her father, so she made more. Today, the tiny village of Nagoro is full of her scarecrows in houses, fields, trees, streets and at a bus stop. (Scarecrows, migration, families, apostrophe for possession.)
Elementary
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Men Give Birth
A hospital in eastern China is offering fathers-to-be a chance to experience the pain of childbirth after several new moms complained they got little sympathy from their partners. (Childbirth, expectant fathers, discussion.)
Intermediate
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Wanderlust
For Americans looking to retire abroad, deciding where to live can be a challenge. But Lynne and Tim Martin took that question off the table by deciding to retire everywhere and anywhere. (Retirement and travel, word families.)
Advanced
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Hurricane Gender
Because people unconsciously think a storm with a female name is less dangerous than one with a masculine name, those in its path are less likely to flee, and are therefore more vulnerable to harm. As a result, strong Atlantic hurricanes with the most feminine names caused an estimated five times more deaths than those with the most masculine names. (Hurricanes, power of names, gender stereotypes.)
Intermediate
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Avoidance Apps
Trying to avoid an awkward encounter with an ex? Fearful of an embarrassing meeting after an argument? New apps can help people avoid bumping into others and provide escape routes if they do. (Avoiding people you do not want to see, vocabulary hunt, answering a questionnaire.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Nine Months to Mars
More than a thousand people will now take tests to decide who will live on Mars. In 2011 two Dutchmen set up Mars One with the aim of having people live on Mars permanently from 2025. They hope the project will get money from investors and the rights from a TV documentary-reality television show of the tests, training and final selection. (Mars, reality television, science, travel, future forms and would like/love to do something.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Dear Santa
One 13-year-old boy who sent a "Dear Santa" letter to the U.S. Post Office this year asked only for covers for his bed, "so I can stay warm this winter." Heartrending letters like this are sent each year to the Post Office "Letters to Santa" program, now in its 100th year. Some of the letters are answered by charitable groups, businesses, schools, postal employees and individual anonymous givers, who pick letters and go shopping. (Santa letters, helping others, Ho!, Ho!, Ho! competition.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Doing The Right Thing
A Boston homeless man turned over to police a backpack stuffed with nearly $42,000 worth of cash and travelers checks shortly after he found it at a shopping mall. He has then been rewarded for his selfless act with about $60,000 worth of online donations from people impressed with his honesty. (Honesty, suffix -less, past simple and past continuous.)
Intermediate
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Leftovers
Xu Jiajie has gone on countless blind dates and to numerous match-making events in search of a husband. At 31 she is under enormous pressure to get married. But the right man is hard to find, for urban, educated and well-paid Chinese women in a society where the husband's social status is traditionally above the wife's. (China, professional women, linking words, words for discourse markers.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Super Hero
He wears a green Power Rangers suit and a mask. He waits by the stairs of a Tokyo subway station. He helps old people, passengers with heavy packages and mothers with baby strollers. He is a superhero. (Helping other people, Tokyo, superheroes, prepositions of place, simple past tense - negatives and rules.)
Elementary
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Record Chat
Popular Norwegian crime writer Hans Olav Lahlum set the world record for the longest interview on Thursday after spending more than 30 non-stop hours chatting in an online television broadcast.(World records, interviews, superlative adjectives, nationality suffixes.)
Pre-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 8 August 2013
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Not To Your Taste?
President Barack Obama likes burgers, hot dogs and such, but when it came time to answer a question about his favorite food, broccoli was the first word that sprang from his lips. Former American President George Bush Sr.'s famous dislike of broccoli might be put down to the fact that he could be a "supertaster". (Predicting using a headline, writing questions, summarizing the text, metaphors, writing a report, prepositions, future - will for predictions.)
Intermediate
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Barbie Land
Are you a Barbie fan? There is tea, tutus and pink tables at a Taipei cafe for Barbie lovers. "Every little girl has a Barbie..." said Henry Chiu. Fans like the cafe. "I feel like a Barbie doll in a fairy tale world. I feel like a princess," said Shiao Yu, a 30-year-old housewife. (Barbie dolls, yes/no questions, have got for possession, yes, he is/no, he isn't.)
Elementary
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Beauty Treatments?
Hollywood stars wanting to look their best for Tinseltown's biggest night of the year are being offered beauty treatments ranging from the lavish to plain loony such as $250,000 black diamond nail varnish and bird excrement facials. (Beauty treatments and products, influence of consumers on manufacturers, zero conditionals.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Diamond Gifts
A piece of Antarctica named after her, a baby llama, tea from Sri Lanka and her own set of Olympic medals were just some of the gifts Britain's Queen Elizabeth received during her 2012 diamond jubilee year. Foreign leaders,... luxury goods businesses and members of the public gave the British queen a treasure trove of gifts. (Gift giving, jubilees, superlative adjectives.)
Pre-Intermediate
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When I'm Old .....
Liu Qianping was visiting his 24-year-old granddaughter in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou when he saw the women's clothes [that his] granddaughter was packing into boxes. His visit came as the model that Lu Ting and four friends had booked for a photo shoot suddenly canceled. (Fashion, old age, retirement, first and second conditional, poem, "shall".)
Pre-Intermediate
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Giving Kids
Not long after the megastorm Sandy hit the northeast United States, Maryum Goodwin and her little girl Ryleigh, 6, saw a disturbing picture of the New Jersey shore devastation. "That's somebody's house?" Ryleigh asked. "It used to be," said Maryum. That moment got Ryleigh thinking about how she could help. (Teaching children about giving, charities, disasters, past perfect)
Intermediate
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Asia's Nobel Winners
A Taiwanese vegetable seller is one of six winners of Asia's Ramon Magsaysay Award this year. Chen has been selling vegetables in Taiwan's Taitung central market since 1963. She has used the money she gets from selling vegetables to help build a library and feed and shelter children-and families displaced by disasters.
Pre-Intermediate
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Annoying Noises
Which noise is more distracting - a child whining or a table saw? Making a noise while unwrapping a lolly at the movies can't be helped! (Whining and children, scientific research, unwrapping candies in theaters, referencing, adverbs)
Upper-Intermediate
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