Happy New Year! Welcome to 2004. We hope that you are all well, healthy and happy and looking forward to a great year ahead. We look forward to continuing to provide you with new and exciting English language resources.

HOT TOPIC: Colds & Flu.

A couple of the English-To-Go.com team have been a bit under the weather: A new flu (Cold and Flu - Intermediate Instant Lesson) is out and about, and this outbreak could be worse than in the year 2000 (Influenza 2000 - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson).

SARS is also back, but at least we are ready (Plan To Fight Future SARS - Intermediate Instant Lesson) (SARS Vaccine - Pre-Intermediate Instant Lesson).

As far as treatment goes, herbal medicines are still controversial in pill form ('Drink of the Gods' - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson) (Value-Added Vitamins - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson) and although there are a lot of germs in your home (Germs Everywhere - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson), anti-bacterial soaps may be doing more harm than good (Antibacterial? - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson).

Of course, health could be improved by doctors writing more clearly (A Clear Prescription - Intermediate Instant Lesson), getting enough sleep (Wake Up, Doc! - Intermediate Instant Lesson), and learning not to hate their job - nearly 20% don't like what they do (What's Up, Doc? - Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson). Never mind, Robot nurses are on their way! (Robots - Pre-Intermediate Instant Lesson Instant Lesson).

Click here to search the English To Go library for more lessons on health.

Featured Lessons - The weather
The new featured lessons look at the weather. Whether (pun intended) you are in the wintery northern hemisphere or in the sultry southern hemisphere there will be a lesson here for you!
Visit the featured lessons page here.

Teacher Tip: New Teacher?
Are you a new teacher? Do you spend lots of time preparing? Use these tips to save time!

• Use set texts until you get more confident, don’t try to re-invent the wheel.
• Get stronger students to do research / presentation activities. This provides more language exposure and relieves pressure on you.
• Vary your week with visits, guest speakers, competitions, ‘spot’ quizzes.

Here are this week's new resources:

Intermediate Instant Workbook - Shhh! Workers Sleeping!
Don't lose the snooze at work, Portugal nap activists say.
Skills: Matching sentence beginnings and grammar - prepositions.

Elementary Instant Lesson - I'm Too Busy!
A woman who won a free shopping spree said she didn't want the prize. She said she was too busy. (Shopping sprees, competitions, matching words and pictures, regular and irregular verbs and past simple, listening for understanding, comprehension check, reading cloze, choose the best answer, sequencing, finding errors, Shopping spree Game.)

Advanced Instant Lesson - Last of LOTR
Peter Jackson, director of "The Lord Of The Rings" said he was sad but also relieved that the mammoth project he has worked on for seven years was over. Jackson made movie history by filming all three parts of the "Rings" trilogy simultaneously. ("The Lord Of The Rings", Gollum, computer animation, acting, the Oscars, expressing an opinion, reading and note-taking, preparing questions, interviewing, role-playing, complete the sentences game - movies, idioms, adjectives - expressing emotions.)

Anna Grammar - Structure Drills and Pattern Drills
Dear Anna, Please tell us more about the usefulness of Pattern Drills.

Weekly Warmer - Catch Phrases - Match The Words With The Phrases 2
Another warmer about catch phrases, it encourages discussion, and should also be a lot of fun!

Click here to access this week's new resources.

Quote of the week:
"If you're a Boy Scout on Mars with a compass, you're lost." - Jack Connerney.

Have a great week teaching!
The English-To-Go Team.
www.english-to-go.com
E-mail: sales@english-to-go.com