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🌳 Nature or nurture? 🏡

It sounds like the plot of Lord of the Flies, but in the mid-2000s, it was a very real, and very controversial, reality television experiment. Footage from the UK Channel 4 documentary "Boys and Girls Alone" is captivating audiences all over again, offering a fascinating—and chaotic—look at what happens when you remove parents from the equation.

The premise was simple but high-stakes: 20 children, aged 11 and 12, were split into two groups by gender. Ten boys and ten girls were placed in separate houses and told to live without adult supervision for five days.

While there were safety nets in place—a camera crew was present (though instructed not to intervene unless safety was at risk), and children could ring a bell to speak to a nurse or psychiatrist—the day-to-day living was entirely up to them. The houses were fully stocked with food, cleaning supplies, toys, and paints.

As the resurfaced footage shows, the results between the two houses could not have been more different.

In the boys' house, the unraveling was almost immediate. The newfound freedom triggered a rapid descent into high-energy chaos. They engaged in water pistol fights, threw cushions, and in one memorable instance, a boy named Michael covered the carpet in sticky popcorn kernels.

The destruction escalated to the walls, which the boys covered in writing, drawing, and paint. But the euphoria of freedom eventually crashed into the reality of consequences.

“We never expected to be like this, but I’m really upset that we trashed it so badly. We were trying to explore everything at once and got too carried away in ourselves,” one boy admitted in the footage.

Their attempts to clean up were frantic and largely ineffective, involving scraping paint and messily mopping floors. Nutrition also took a hit; despite having completed a cooking course, the boys survived mostly on cereal, sugar, and the occasional frozen pizza. By the end of the week, the house was trashed, the garden was littered with garbage, and the group had fractured into opposing factions.

The girls' house, however, looked like a different planet.

In stark contrast to the mayhem next door, the girls immediately established a functioning society. They organized a cooking roster, with a girl named Sherry preparing their first meal. They baked cakes, put on a fashion show, and drew up a scrupulous chores list to ensure the house stayed livable.

While their stay wasn't devoid of interpersonal drama, the experiment highlighted a fascinating divergence in socialization. Left to their own devices, the girls prioritized community and maintenance, while the boys tested the absolute limits of their environment until it broke.

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UK to rejoin EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme Exclusive: British students will be able to participate in EU-wide scheme from January 2027, sources say

Happy Belated Halloween! 🎃

🌹 Can you say this tongue twister in English: Irish wristwatch (/ˈaɪrɪʃ ˈrɪstwɒtʃ/)?

🐻 Russian - Можешь произнести этот скороговорку по-английски: Irish wristwatch (ирландские часы)?

🥖 French - Peux-tu dire ce virelangue en anglais : Irish wristwatch (montre irlandaise) ?

🏖️ Spanish - ¿Puedes decir este trabalenguas en inglés: Irish wristwatch (reloj irlandés)?

🗣️ How many languages do you speak and how did you learn them? Which languages would you like to learn or improve in the future?

🇬🇧 I’m a polyglot and English language teacher from London. English is my first language, but I also speak Russian, Spanish and French fluently, and Hebrew to an intermediate level. In the future I’d like to improve my Hebrew and study Arabic. 🕊️

💻 If you’re curious and would like to hear me talk in five languages about how I learned them, I invite you to watch a short video I’ve made on the topic. https://youtu.be/-QtOfuFUtpQ

🎵 I’ve just relaunched my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/ . My videos feature music and inspiring visuals and are designed to be educational, entertaining and fun.

🫶🏼 I’d appreciate your support and would be happy to receive feedback on my videos and any suggestions regarding videos I could make in the future for English language learners.

📷 The attached photo is from around 1998 when I studied Russian for a semester at Moscow State Linguistics University. 🕊️

🤬 💬 To swear or not to swear? 😶 And in which language? Research shows that it is more cathartic to swear in your first language than in any other language.

Given that I’m a polite and respectable English teacher, I don’t swear much. 👩🏽‍🏫 However, I can speak several languages and a long time ago I noticed that swearing felt most powerful and offensive in English - my dominant language.

I recommend being very careful with swearing in a foreign language. We do not feel the weight and cultural nuances of swear words so much in a second language, so it can be easy to offend people and sound bad.

The linked article looks at the neurolinguistic and scientific aspects of swearing.

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✍🏽Topic vocabulary & vocabulary from the article:

🗣️ To swear (verb)
‘to use rude or offensive language, usually because you are angry
* She fell over and swore loudly.
* I don't like to hear children swearing.
* He heard her swear under her breath.
* She was shouting, swearing, and acting in an aggressive manner towards the staff
swear at somebody/something * Why did you let him swear at you like that?’

Obscene words

🖕Obscene - ‘connected with s*x in a way that most people find offensive
* obscene gestures/language/books’

🤬 Rude (adjective)
‘having or showing a lack of respect for other people and their feelings synonym impolite
* a rude comment/remark
* He started swearing and using rude words.
* There’s no need to be rude!
* I find her rude and arrogant.’

😡 Offensive (adjective)
‘rude in a way that causes somebody to feel upset or annoyed because it shows a lack of respect
* offensive remarks
* The programme contains language which some viewers may find offensive.
* racially offensive language/comments
* offensive to somebody His comments were deeply offensive to a large number of single mothers.’

😡 To offend someone (verb)

Taboo words

😳Taboo (adjective)
‘considered so offensive or embarrassing that people must not mention it
* in the days when s*x was a taboo subject
* Any talk of the divorce is strictly taboo.’

Language proficiency

💪🏽 Proficiency (noun)
‘the ability to do something well because of training and practice
to develop proficiency
* a certificate of language proficiency
* proficiency in something/in doing something a high level of oral proficiency in English’

🤹🏽‍♂️ To be proficient (adjective)
‘able to do something well because of training and practice
* I'm a reasonably proficient driver.
* With practice, you should become proficient within six months.
proficient in (doing) something She's proficient in several languages.
proficient at (doing) something He's proficient at his job.’

🤯Catharsis (noun) - ‘the process of releasing strong feelings, for example through plays or other artistic activities, as a way of providing relief from anger, mental pain, etc.’

🤯Cathartic (adjective)

☁️ Nuance (noun)
‘a very slight difference in meaning, sound, colour or somebody’s feelings that is not usually very obvious
* He watched her face intently to catch every nuance of expression.
* Her singing has both warmth of sound and delicacy of nuance.
* You need to be able to convey the subtle nuances of meaning of each word.’

🧠 Nervous system
‘the system of all the nerves in the body that carries messages between the brain and the rest of the body.’

💗 Autonomic nervous system
‘the part of your nervous system that controls processes that are unconscious, for example the process of your heart beating.’

💬 Neurolinguistics (noun)
‘the study of the way the human brain processes language’

💬 Neurolinguistic (adjective)

Definitions from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/







https://theconversation.com/amp/the-power-of-swearing-how-obscene-words-influence-your-mind-body-and-relationships-192104?fbclid=IwAR2aZq3D1qzuvok7Kr5gqb_ozD3Dbtwx4-L3yKwJScX1xPA4vSz_j_fG6CE

The power of swearing: how obscene words influence your mind, body and relationships Swearing can raise our pain threshold.

👩‍💻Lesson preparation can be very time consuming for teachers. It makes so much sense for colleagues to share teaching resources, and to create them together as a team.⌚

It is also excellent when the school, university or education department provides access to lesson materials that teachers can edit and adapt to meet the needs of their own students, if they wish. 📚

I’ve taught at places where there is this kind of collaboration and support with shared lesson materials, and those where there isn’t.

Access to good quality lesson resources makes a massive difference to a teacher’s workload and can potentially improve the standard of classes. Good teaching resources make lessons more interesting and support learning by holding students’ interest and helping them to understand and remember what they are learning.

🐨The linked article states that in Australia many teachers are spending an unnecessarily large amount of time creating lesson materials separately, rather than collaboratively. As a result, there is a new proposal to create a shared bank of lesson materials for teachers in Australia to access. 🇦🇺

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✍🏽Topic vocabulary & vocabulary from the article:

Lesson materials/ teaching materials/ instructional materials = the content or information in a course.

🌐 Teaching and learning resources = any resource which supports teaching and learning. For example: lesson presentations, lesson activities and homework tasks. Teaching and learning resources can also be original or adapted text books, novels, films, cartoons, multimedia or educational software. 🖥️

🧑🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏾To collaborate (verb) = to work together in order to acheive something

Collaboratively (adverb) - e.g.: 'they work collaboratively'

Collaboration (abstract noun)

To state (verb, formal) = to say/ write something

🏁 To start something from scratch = to start something from the beginning

⬆️To boost results = to improve results

👨‍🏫 An educator (noun, person) = a teacher, a person who educates others

To educate someone (verb) = to teach someone

💭 Education (abstract noun)

🤔 A think-tank (noun)💡- ‘a group of experts who are gathered together by an organization, especially by a government, to consider various problems and try and work out ways to solve them.’ collinsdictionary.com

The national curriculum - the course of study that most school students are meant to follow in a particular country.

A lottery 💵 - ‘a way of raising money for a government, charity, etc. by selling tickets that have different numbers on them that people have chosen. Numbers are then chosen by chance and the people who have those numbers on their tickets win prizes.’ Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries

It’s like a lottery = it’s a question/ matter of luck or chance

Schools need shared lesson plans for teachers to stop learning ‘lottery’ All schools should have access to a bank of lesson plans under a proposal to reduce teacher workload and stop educators having to plan classes from scratch.

🗻New Zealand is famous for its spectacular landscapes and geographical isolation. 🌅 What it is less known, is that it can also be a very socially isolating place for some people. 👩🏽

🌍I've lived in lots of countries and travelled extensively, and to be honest, I have never lived anywhere where I have found it as hard to make friends or feel connected to others, as in New Zealand. 🌏

🏡I think one of the many reasons for this is the design of the country’s new suburbs, and the country’s car culture, which make bumping into people in the street harder. 🚙

The author of the linked article gives his opinion on the topic of socialising in New Zealand. (By the way, people's circumstances and experiences vary, and I suspect some New Zealanders might be offended by this article.)

👫How open people are to making new connections is something that we are especially sensitive to if we are living in a foreign country, where we don’t have an existing network of old friends and acquaintances. 👫

How easy or difficult is it to meet new people and make friends where you live? Where have you been in the world where you have found people friendly, open and genuine? Have you been to New Zealand? If so, how did you find it connecting with others there? 🐦

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📒Topic vocabulary:

🙋‍♀️A Kiwi (noun, informal): a New Zealander, a person from New Zealand

A kiwi (noun): a flightless bird native to New Zealand, a hairy fruit 🥝

🧏A foreigner (noun): a person from another country

Foreign (adjective): in or from another country

🙋🏿‍♂️An acquaintance (noun): someone who you know who is not a close friend

Opinion: Why is it so hard for Kiwis to make new friends? Lee Suckling asks why Kiwis in their 30s struggle so much to form new friendships.

💃The fairytale dresses of French designer Sylvie Facon remind me of my love of books, libraries and learning. As much as I appreciate the wonders of digital media and the internet, the dresses and the old books that inspired them make me feel nostalgic. 📖

✒️ What do you think of Sylvie Facon's creations? Do you think they show a respect for books, or the opposite, since old books are ‘damaged’ and recycled to make the dresses? 📚

Note: the linked website is in French, one of my favourite languages! 🇫🇷

Sylvie Facon - Robe livre, entre élégance et légèreté Sylvie Facon réalise des robes hors du commun sur des sujets propres aux personnalités de ses clients, la robe livre en est l'exemple parfait.