English with Kate: Bądź sobą po angielsku

17/11/2022

🎥MONTAGE🎥 That’s the word of the day today to round off our week of film terms. Montage is a film technique that is used usually to describe a sequence using rapid cuts “to create a kind of kaleidoscopic effect and to telescope or shorten the passage of an extensive period of time.” (Brooklyn College Film Glossary) Can you think of any memorable film or TV montages? Film and television provides such great content and ideas to discuss during a conversational English lesson. Let's chat!

Image: The Breakfast Club (still) (1985)

16/11/2022

Today’s word of the day is another cinema-related term: continuity. Continuity is the unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over time. In film, if a character gets wet in a scene, in order to keep continuity in that scene, the costume department needs to provide multiples of the same costume so that in each take the character starts out with dry clothes! Do you ever notice continuity issues in a film? Maintaining continuity is a challenging and detailed-oriented process in filmmaking!

Image: Opening credits of 'S*x and the City' (still) (1998)

15/11/2022

Word of the day! This week we’re focusing on one new word in each post. Choosing a word of the day (or the week, if that works better for you) is a great step-by-step way to broaden your vocabulary. I’ts also handy to keep the words within a theme, so you’re able to build on one idea. The week’s theme is cinema and TV. Our word today is: Genre.

Genre is a style or category of art, music, film or literature. Movie and TV genres include action, horror, drama, comedy, western, thriller, science fiction, romance and of course many more. What are your favourite genres of film? Try using the word 'genre' once or twice today!

11/11/2022

Do you ever think about quark the cheese and quark the atomic particle? Yeah, me too. And as far as etymology, the root meaning of words, goes, we're not wrong. The word 'quark' is a German word taken from the Old Slavic for 'twaróg', meaning curd cheese. It's from this word that quark was then used by physicist Murray Gell-Mann to denote the teensy weensy particle. Links between languages and language groups are endlessly fascinating! Let's talk about it!

11/11/2022

You've heard these before - words that sound the same in your language and in English. They're called 'cognates'. Cognates can be very useful! Especially once you understand the way an accent functions in a language because just by altering said accent, you've got access to hundreds of new words. A true gift! Sometimes students and I study cognates during lessons and, let me tell you, it feels like more of a pleasure than a task

13/10/2022

Fancy a walk? This study "reports that working out during a language class amplifies people’s ability to memorize, retain and understand new vocabulary. The findings provide more evidence that to engage our minds, we should move our bodies." Many of my online students take themselves on walks during our lessons and it often allows them to speak more fluently - something about the physical movement helps the free flow of language. If you're local to the Tricity areas, I offer face to face English conversational lessons in Gdynia and Sopot.

See the full NY Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/well/move/how-exercise-could-help-you-learn-a-new-language.html

12/10/2022

Maija Kozlowa writes for Cambridge English about why language immersion is the best way to learn. ‘If you want to learn a language, you have to surround yourself with it and use it,’ I’d often say. ‘Speak, listen, respond – communicate!’ While moving to a new country to learn the language is probably ideal, for many of us that's not necessarily an option (or might be something we're working towards) and conversational language lessons are the next best option. A great way to grow or refresh your language skills through targeted immersion learning!

See the full article here: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/blog/the-benefit-of-immersive-language-learning-experiences-and-how-to-create-them/

11/10/2022

🇬🇧Check out the live stream recording of this BBC English video on vocabulary to talk about food. It's both very detailed and very approachable. Highly recommend, especially as I know a few of you are foodies!

🇵🇱Obejrzyj livestream tego filmu BBC English na temat słownictwa, aby porozmawiać o jedzeniu. Jest zarówno bardzo szczegółowy, jak i bardzo przystępny. Gorąco polecam, zwłaszcza, że ​​wiem, że kilku z Was to smakosze!

Improve your vocabulary with teacher Phil in Vocabulary Live! Learn real English words and phrases and practise using them in English sentences. 👨🏻‍🏫 📚 W...

11/10/2022

🇬🇧 Are you a kinesthetic learner? Kinesthetic learners need to move while they're studying. If you had trouble sitting still in a classroom, prefer having background distractions while you study or learn best through experience, you're probably a kinesthetic learner.

Immersion is the ultimate learning style for kinesthetic learners - conversational lessons with a native speaker are one of the best ways to achieve this. It can also be beneficial to walk while learning, so during lessons try taking yourself (and your phone!) out for a jaunt or join me for a walk along the Gdynia seafront.

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🇵🇱 Czy jesteś uczniem kinestetycznym? Uczniowie kinestetyczni muszą się poruszać podczas nauki. Jeśli miałaś/eś problem z siedzeniem nieruchomo w klasie, wolisz rozpraszać się w tle podczas nauki lub uczyć się najlepiej poprzez doświadczenie, prawdopodobnie jesteś uczniem kinestetycznym.

Immersja to najlepszy styl uczenia się dla uczniów kinestetycznych – lekcje konwersacyjne z native speakerem to jeden z najlepszych sposobów, aby to osiągnąć. Warto też spacerować w trakcie nauki, więc na lekcjach spróbuj zabrać siebie (i telefon!) na wycieczkę lub wybierz się na spacer brzegiem Gdyni.

06/10/2022

How do conversations affect your wellbeing? This article by Medical News Today goes a little deeper into why and how talking to others makes us feel, well, better. And that there's a difference between the positive impact of small talk and in-depth conversations. Interestingly, small talk is defined as "... a conversation where the two conversation partners walk away still knowing equally as much — or little — about each other and nothing else,” by Prof. Matthias Mehl.

See the link for more: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322367

05/10/2022

Tips for visual learners! Middlesex University in the UK has put together a list of study recommendations for visual learners, including:

- Doodle while you study! One of my students doodles throughout most of our discussions. It helps him remember what we've discussed throughout the lesson.

- Find a quiet place to study. (This one seems to be relatively consistent 😉)

- If you take notes, colour code them! A lot of my students write down key words in their own notes and it's ideal to review them within 24 hours after the lesson.

Are there any challenges you visual learners find during conversational lessons? How do you overcome them?

See the link for the full list: https://makeyourmark.mdx.ac.uk/your-studies/tips-for-visual-learners

04/10/2022

What kind of learner are you? The Visual English School created this superb graphic to identify the characteristics of a visual learner. Some of these are:

- Enjoying pictures and videos (Well, don't we all, but VLs really respond to them in terms of committing them to memory)

- May think in pictures. Now this is an interesting one. Do you guys think in images?

- Remembers faces better than names.

There are certain ways visual learners learn best - check back tomorrow for a list of tips.

Conversational lessons are always face to face, and may be a great way to learn for visual learners. Contact EwK through Facebook if you have any questions about lessons.