Bem-vindos ao blog de LÍNGUA INGLESA da Unidade Regional de Ensino (URE) - Assis. Sob a supervisão da Equipe de Especialistas em Currículo (EEC), este blog busca auxiliar os docentes que lecionam Inglês nas escolas estaduais da região, com materiais da SEDUC-SP e demais recursos alinhados à BNCC e ao Currículo Paulista, além de diversas propostas de atividades e reflexões sobre o idioma de Shakespeare, com foco na aprendizagem dos estudantes e na formação continuada dos professores.
Você sabe o que significa “my boo”? Confira esse e outros termos utilizados como apelidos carinhosos em inglês em nossa lista!
Os apelidos carinhosos em inglês entre amigos ou um casal são comuns em diversos países, mas eles mudam conforme cada local. Isso pode ser chamado de “terms of endearment” (“termos carinhosos”) ou de “pet names”, e há uma lista de diferentes palavras usadas para isso – para homens, mulheres ou ambos. Selecionamos as principais delas para você aprender a escrever e pronunciar. Confira!
Level: Upper-Intermediate (B2-C1) Type of English: General English Tags: IELTS; Environment and Nature Be;liefs, Religion and Superstition; Describing Animals; Video Talk Publication date: 11/01/2021
In this video-based worksheet, students complete some notes about the natural history of wolves and then read a short article about rewilding in Scotland. In addition to giving practice in listening and reading skills, the lesson supports vocabulary development. There is a choice of final activity: a roleplay debate or discussion questions, either of which can be extended into an essay writing activity. The lesson also includes an optional extension activity related to wolves in fairy tales, which could also be extended into a writing activity. The lesson supports students preparing for the IELTS exam (by Stephanie Hirschman).
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio extracted from the video.
AUDIO/VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Wolves are steeped in legends throughout history. The predator’s powerful nature, piercing looks, and spine-tingling howls continue to inspire both adoration and controversy around the world. There are two major species of wolves. One species is the Ethiopian wolf or Canis simensis. Only about 500 of these wolves exist, and they inhabit the mountains of Ethiopia. The majority of the world’s wolves belong to the species called gray wolf or Canis lupus. Numbering up to around 250,000 and including up to about 40 subspecies, grey wolves are scattered across the northern hemisphere. Wolves vary greatly in size. The smaller wolf subspecies inhabit the desert regions of the Middle East. They stand at an average of about 26 inches (0.66 m) tall and weigh less than 45 pounds (20.4 kg). The larger wolf subspecies live in the northern regions of Asia and North America. The canines usually stand up to 36 inches (.91 m) tall at the shoulder and can weigh up to 175 pounds (79.4 kg), making them the largest wild members of the dog family. Wolf packs are ruled by an alpha male and an alpha female. Wolves are highly social creatures and operate as a group or pack. Often comprised of six to ten wolves, packs are cohesive units that hunt and live together. Within the packs, each wolf has a unique personality. To maintain order among them, a male and a female dominate the pack as alphas. They establish a strict hierarchy and are the only wolves in the pack to breed. Each wolf’s howl is unique. Much like fingerprints on humans, howls are distinct to each wolf. Characteristics like pitch and amplitude of these vocalizations help signify which wolves create certain howls. These vocalizations allow wolves to communicate with other wolves. They may howl to indicate their location to pack members and even show their affection. Wolves may also howl to nearby rivals to claim their territory. Wolves nearly became extinct in the continental United States. Throughout the early history of the US, waves of settlers traveled into the young country’s then undeveloped west. Rising human populations and settlements nearly wiped out deer, elk, and bison populations, prey normally hunted by wolves. Without their usual prey, wolves then resorted to hunting livestock, making the canines targets for hunters and trappers. By the mid-1930s, wolves were almost completely exterminated. The late 20th century began to bring about change for wolves. Conservation policies, efforts to educate the public, and programs that reintroduced wolves into the wild were enacted, aiding the comeback of these legendary creatures.
Tags: Challenges; Management; Money and Finance; Ethics and Conduct; Health and Well-being; Human Resources (HR); Psychology; Video Talk
Publication date: 03/01/2021
In this lesson, students watch a video giving three money-saving tips and answer related questions on vocabulary and comprehension. Students will also discuss which tips could benefit them personally and their business. While there is a slight business angle in this lesson, it could also be suitable for more mature General English classes (by Joe Wilson).
Note: this lesson can take 60-90 minutes.
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CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio extracted from the video.
AUDIO/VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
We all know that saving is important and is something that we should be doing. And yet, overall, we’re doing less and less of it. We know what we need to do. The question is: How do we do it? And that’s what I’m here to teach you. Your savings behavior isn’t a question of how smart you are or how much willpower you have. The amount we save depends on the environmental cues around us. Let me give you an example. We ran a study in which, in one group, we showed people their income on a monthly basis. In another group, we showed people their income on a weekly basis. And what we found was that people who saw their income on a weekly basis were able to budget better throughout the month. Now, it’s important to know that we didn’t change how much money people were receiving, we just changed the environment in which they understood their income. And environmental cues like this have an impact. So, I’m not going to share tricks with you that you already know. I’m not going to tell you how to open up a savings account or how to start saving for your retirement. What I am going to share with you is how to bridge this gap from your intentions to save and your actions. Are you ready? Here’s number one: harness the power of pre-commitment. Fundamentally, we think about ourselves in two different ways: our present self and our future self. In the future, we’re perfect. In the future, we’re going to save for retirement, we’re going to lose weight, we’re going to call our parents more. But we oftentimes forget that our future self is exactly the same person as our present self. We know that one of the best times to save is when you get your tax return. So, we tried an A/B test. In the first group, we texted people in early February, hopefully before they even filed for their taxes. And we asked them, “If you get a tax refund, what percentage would you like to save?” Now this is a really hard question. They didn’t know if they would receive a tax refund or how much. But we asked the question anyway. In the second group, we asked people right after they received their refund, “What percentage would you like to save?” Now, here’s what happened. In that second condition, when people just received their tax refund, they wanted to save about 17 percent of their tax refund. But in the condition when we asked people before they even filed their taxes, savings rates increased from 17 percent to 27 percent when we asked in February. Why? Because you’re committing for your future self, and of course, your future self can save 27 percent. These large changes in savings behavior came from the fact that we changed the decision-making environment. We want you to be able to harness that same power. So, take a moment and think about the ways in which you can sign up your future self for something that you know today will be a little bit hard. Sign up for an app that lets you make savings decisions in advance. The trick is, you have to have that binding contract. Number two: use transition moments to your advantage. We did an experiment with a website that helps older adults share their housing. We ran two ads on social media targeted to the same population of 64-year-olds. In one group, we said, “Hey, you’re getting older. Are you ready for retirement? House sharing can help.” In the second group, we got a little bit more specific and said, “You’re 64 turning 65. Are you ready for retirement? House sharing can help.” What we’re doing in that second group is highlighting that a transition is happening. All of a sudden, we saw click-through rates, and ultimately sign-up rates, increase when we highlight that. In psychology, we call this the “fresh start effect.” Whether it’s the start of a new year or even a new season, your motivation to act increases. So right now, put a meeting request on your calendar for the day before your next birthday. Identify the one financial thing you most want to do. And commit yourself to it. The third and final trick: get a handle on small, frequent purchases. We’ve run a few different studies and found that the number one purchase people say they regret, after bank fees, is eating out. It’s a frequent purchase we make almost every day, and it’s death by a thousand cuts. A coffee here, a burrito there... It adds up and decreases our ability to save. Back when I lived in New York City, I looked at my expenses and saw that I spent over 2,000 dollars on ride-sharing apps. It was more than my New York City rent. I vowed to make a change. And the next month, I spent 2,000 dollars again – no change, because the information alone didn’t change my behavior. I didn’t change my environment. So now that I was 4,000 dollars in the hole, I did two things. The first is that I unlinked my credit card from my car-sharing apps. Instead, I linked a debit card that only had 300 dollars a month. If I needed more, I had to go through the whole process of adding a new card, and we know that every click, every barrier, changes our behavior. We aren’t machines. We don’t carry around an abacus every day, adding up what we’re spending in comparison to what we wanted. But what our brains are very good at is counting up the number of times we’ve done something. So, I gave myself a limit. I can only use ride-sharing apps three times a week. It forced me to ration my travels. I got a handle on my car-sharing expenses to the benefit of my husband because of the environmental changes that I did. So, get a handle on whatever that purchase is for you, and change your environment to make it harder to do so. Those are my tips for you. But I want you to remember one thing. As human beings, we can be irrational when it comes to saving and spending and budgeting. But luckily, we know this about ourselves, and we can predict how we’ll act under certain environments. Let’s do that with saving. Let’s change our environment to help our future selves.
Level: Upper-Intermediate (B2-C1) Type of English: Business English Tags: Money and Finance; Relationships; Accounting; Human Resources (HR); Video Talk Publication date: 05/24/2021
This worksheet uses a video talk and texts discussing financial issues within couples and how to handle them as a basis for the lesson. Students will complete exercises on related vocabulary, reading skills, rephrasing, and comprehension (by Joe Wilson).
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CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio extracted from the video.
AUDIO/VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
You know how your partner likes their coffee, what love language they speak, and even their medical history. But how much do you know about their finances? Chances are, you and your better half are among the 78% of people who would rather share their full dating history and all of that drama and all of that baggage that comes along with it, rather than to disclose your full financial history. And yet research shows that your significant other has a large influence on a whole host of your behaviors. Understanding how they handle money is a great way to prevent strife and misunderstandings. In fact, financial disagreements rank as the strongest predictor of divorce. So, my tip here is that if you want to strengthen your relationship, it’s time to talk about the money. You might be thinking, “My partner and I don’t need to talk; my partner takes care of the money”, or vice versa. But a 2018 study of heterosexual couples show that, in these situations, the partner who takes on all of the responsibility, the one who manages all of the financial tasks, they become more and more proficient in financial management over time. But the other person, the person who has given up all of their financial responsibilities, their financial management capabilities decline over time. And what if something happens? Maybe you break up? Maybe it doesn’t work out or, God forbid, maybe your spouse dies too early? If the person who wasn’t responsible for the money management ends up on their own, that person oftentimes struggles to regain their financial skills, making it more and more difficult for them to navigate the world alone. And 75% of the time, it’s the women who outlive the men. For the partner who hasn’t taken on the money management role, it’s like forgetting a foreign language. When you stop using it, you lose some of your ability to understand and communicate in it. But if you keep that financial immersion going, so does your fluency. Being open about your finances can be very scary. But it can also be very rewarding. Experiments have shown that shared vulnerability establishes a greater sense of trust, cooperation, and intimacy in relationships. So, to get you started, I, along with a couple of colleagues, developed a list of ten conversation starters. Here are just three. Number 1: What are your long-term financial goals? What do you want to accomplish together? Number 2: How do you measure your financial success? Is it a house with a white picket fence? Or is it having the ability to live anywhere around the globe? Number 3: What’s the one thing you wish your parents would have done differently financially? As a university study found, it’s important to answer these questions together. Because joint decision-making, making decisions as a couple, oftentimes results in taking fewer risks that in turn can lead to higher savings. Now, I’m sure you intuitively understand that open, honest conversations with your better half are beneficial, and I understand that it’s difficult to get started, especially when talking about money. But a great first step is just to put some time on the calendar. So that you two can have a nice financial chat. Take out your phone right now; send the calendar invite. Your future self will thank you.
Level: Elementary (A1-A2) Type of English: General English Tags: Homes and Buildings; In The Home; Prepositions; There Is/There Are; Vocabulary and Grammar Publication date: 01/25/2021
Students identify furniture and rooms and listen to a house tour. They are then introduced to there is/are and prepositional phrases that describe location and practice describing rooms to each other in a pairwork drawing dictation. The lesson also includes a short, optional extension activity related to the linking of final consonant and initial vowel sounds in sentences; for example, there's a table (by Stephanie Hirschman).
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in American English.
CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in British English.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
Hello, I’m Andy, and I’d like to show you my house. Please come in! Let’s start in the living room. There are two armchairs in this room. I always sit in this one, and my wife sits in that one. There is also a lamp next to my chair because I like to read in the evenings. This is the kitchen, and we also use it as a dining room. There is a big table here in front of the window. There are two chairs as well. Now let’s go to the office. My wife is a lawyer, and she works from home. There is a big desk for her computer, and behind the desk, there are shelves where she keeps her books and papers. Finally, I’ll show you our bedroom. Next to the bed, there is a mirror, and on the right there is space for our clothes in a big wardrobe.
Level: Intermediate (B1-B2) Type of English: Business English Tags: Society and Change; Money and Finance; Psychology; Relationships; Behavior, Feelings and Emotions; Business People; Challenges; Ethics and Conduct; 16-18 Years Old; 18+ Years Old; Article Based Publication date: 03/30/2022
In this lesson, students will listen to an interview discussing the trend of "boomerang kids" – young adults moving back home with their parents – and read an article about the situation. Exercises focus on reading and listening skills and related vocabulary, and students will have an opportunity to discuss the issues relating to the topic (by Joe Wilson).
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
Interviewer:And now we take a look at “boomerang kids”, the trend that has been building for some time. Here to tell us more about the situationis Professor Hopeworth. Professor, thank you for joining us! Professor Hopeworth: Thanks for having me on. Interviewer:So tell us, Professor, what does “boomerang kids” mean? Professor Hopeworth:It’s to describe the situation where we are seeing increasing numbers of young adults choosing to return to live with their parents after they have already moved out. They leave and then they come back, similar to the famous tool used by Aboriginal Australians. The pandemic increased the number of people doing this, but the percentage was increasing long before the world knew about Covid-19, and it is forecasted to continue. Interviewer:And what has created this situation? Professor Hopeworth:There are several reasons. First of all, the cost of living has increased, making it hard for a lot of young people to make the income they need to pay the bills, particularly if they are studying full-time, or starting their own business, or just not able to find work. It can also be a strategy for saving money if you need to pay back student loans after university or you need to save money. Short-term pain for long-term gain, some would say (laughs). Interviewer:Is it all positive? Professor Hopeworth: Well, no. There can be challenges for both the child and the parents when boomerang kids move back in. It can require a negotiation over what the rules will be: will the child be paying rent? Will they be buying their own food? Parents who are retired, for example, may not have enough money to fund their adult child’s life without some help. But then again, that adult child can make a big difference to the cost of running their home in a positive way. It depends on what you agree to. I’m not saying you need to sign a contract, but you should certainly have an agreement that is understood by both parents and children. Interviewer:Where are we mostly seeing this trend? Professor Hopeworth: We are, of course, mainly talking about Western societies here. In Asian cultures, there’s not as much importance placed on the idea of a child moving out around the age of 18. In the US and the UK, there is very much the idea that becoming an adult is strongly connected to moving out of your parents’ house. So, we see some boomerang kids struggling with the situation as they feel as though they have somehow failed. However, we will see less of this as the situation becomes more common. There are a lot of benefits emotionally to spending more time with your parents too. It can help you reconnect as adults and learn to do things together that are different from when you were growing up. Interviewer: Yes, very interesting. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for now. Thank you for talking to us.
O professor ADIR FERREIRA explica, no vídeo abaixo, as origens e alguns significados do APRIL FOOLS’ DAY, o famoso 1º de abril, ou DIA DA MENTIRA. Confira!
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Every year on April 1, April Fool’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. In France, it’s called Poisson d’Avril or “Fish of April”. In Scotland, the holiday is often called “Gowkie Day”. In Iraq the holiday is called Kithbet Neesan or “April Lie”.
History experts say people have celebrated April Fool’s Day for a long time. Some believe the tradition comes from the ancient romans more than 2,000 years ago. It was a day of playing games and pretending to be someone else.
Others say the day for fooling began in France in 1564, when King Charles changed the yearly calendar. He moved New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1. Many people did not know about the change because of communication problems back then. Some people continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on April 1. Other people called them April Fools and played jokes on them.
In the United States, April Fool’s Day is just a day of joking and playing tricks on friends. These kinds of jokes are also called pranks. These jokes typically end in the prankster shouting “April Fools!”
Simple pranks, like telling a friend a funny lie or making prank phone calls, are still common. But, major companies also get in on April Fool’s Day in a much bigger way. A few years ago, on April 1, Starbucks announced it was introducing new coffee cup sizes – Plenta and Micra. The very large cups, bigger than a human head, remained useful for customers even after finishing all that coffee. According to Starbucks, the cups could be used as a rain hat, a pot for plants, or a lampshade.
It did not take long for customers to catch on to the prank!
More and more, people use social media or smartphone apps to play pranks on their friends on April Fool’s Day. One very annoying smartphone app, Cat Facts, sends funny facts about cats to your friends’ phones every day.
And sometimes, simple, more traditional April Fool’s pranks go viral on social media. Last year, a class of college students in the U.S state of Michigan played a prank on their professor. The professor had a classroom rule that, if a student’s phone rings during class, the student must answer it using the speakerphone. This means the whole class gets to listen to the conversation.
One student decided to teach the professor that his rule could be dangerous. She planned for a friend to call her, pretending to be someone from the Pregnancy Resource Center. On speakerphone for the whole class to hear, the friend announced the news that the student’s recent pregnancy test was positive. The professor quickly got embarrassed and told the student she should turn off the speakerphone.
The student responded, “That’s okay. I’ve been expecting this. I already know what I’m going to name the baby. The first name will be April, and the middle name will be Fools!”
The professor, of course, quickly caught on to the joke, and was quickly relieved!
The social media-savvy students posted a video of the classroom prank on YouTube. One year later the video has more than 38 million views.
