Category Archives: Blog

Principles for teaching reading

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In 1986 Ray Williams formulated 10 principles for teaching EFL reading. They included:

  1. In the absence of interesting texts, very little is possible.
  2. The primary activity of a reading lesson should be learners reading texts—not listening to the teacher, not reading comprehension questions, [etc.].

In 2002 Richard Day and Julian Bamford devised 10 principles for teaching extensive reading:

  1. The reading material is easy.
  2. A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available.
  3. Learners choose what they want to read.
  4. Learners read as much as possible.
  5. The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding.
  6. Reading is its own reward.
  7. Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower.
  8. Reading is individual and silent.
  9. Teachers orient and guide their students.
  10. The teacher is a role model of a reader.

These points are also discussed in Extensive reading in ELT: Why and how?

Sources

Day, R. and Bamford, J. (2002) ‘Top Ten Principles for Teaching Extensive Reading’, Reading in a Foreign Language, 14(2). http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2002/day/day.html

Watkins, P. (2018) Extensive reading in ELT: Why and how?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Papers in ELT. http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/images/Language_Research/CambridgePapers/CambridgePapersinELT_ExtensiveReading_2017_ONLINE.pdf

Williams, R. (1986) ‘”Top ten” principles for teaching reading’, ELT Journal, 40(1), pp. 42–45. https://doi-org.ueaezproxy.uea.ac.uk:2443/10.1093/elt/40.1.42

Cambridge Papers in ELT

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Cambridge University Press publishes Cambridge Papers in ELT, a series of research papers on various topics, including speaking and extensive reading.

At present there are 17 papers, which can be read and downloaded by everyone from the website, Language and Pedagogy Research for ELT.

  1. Blended language learning
  2. ELT trends: beyond technology
  3. Enhancing student interaction
  4. Extensive reading for primary in ELT
  5. Extensive reading: why and how?
  6. Giving feedback on speaking
  7. Immersive speaking tasks
  8. Learner-centred content
  9. Near peer role models
  10. Personalization in adaptive learning
  11. Personalization in mobile learning
  12. Safe speaking environments
  13. Successful learners and teachers
  14. The development of Oracy skills
  15. Time for speaking practice
  16. Using mobiles in the classroom
  17. Visual literacy in ELT

Extensive reading: how easy is easy?

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According to this slideshow (from a presentation at the 2015 IATEFL Conference), you need to know 95-98% of the words in a text to be able to read it easily.

At 90%, “For many of your students, this is where ‘fun’ starts to turn into ‘work’.”

The slideshow displays excerpts from a story in which 98% – then 95% – then 90% – then 80% of the text is in English, while the remaining words are gibberish.

Some people think 80% is enough. This is the 80% passage:

“Bingle for help!” you shout. “This loopity is dying!” You put your fingers on her neck. Nothing. Her flid is not weafling. You take out your joople and bingle 119, the emergency number in Japan. There’s no answer! Then you muchy that you have a new befourn assengle. It’s from your gutring, Evie. She hunwres at Tokyo University. You play the assengle. “…if you get this…” Evie says. “…I can’t vickarn now… the important passit is…” Suddenly, she looks around, dingle. “Oh no, they’re here! Cripett… the frib! Wasple them ON THE FRIB!…” BEEP! the assengle parantles. Then you gratoon something behind you…

The author cites two sources:

Hsueh-Chao, M. H. and Nation, P. (2000) ‘Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension‘, Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), pp. 403-30.

Schmitt, N., Jiang, X. and Grabe, W. (2011) ‘The percentage of words known in a text and reading comprehension‘, The Modern Language Journal, 95(1), pp. 26–43.

Noisy neighbours

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Can’t concentrate or sleep because your neighbours are talking too loudly? Read What’s the best way to block the sound of a voice? from the blog Making Noise & Hearing Things.

According to the author, there are three ways to block out sound waves:

  1. Isolation: e.g. earplugs, earbuds, headphones
  2. Damping: e.g. wall-hangings, rolled-up towels under doors, heavy curtains, rugs
  3. Masking: e.g. a fan, white noise or music, noise-cancelling headphones or earbuds.

The site myNoise has some suitable noise tracks for masking: for example, Irish Coast or White Noise.

Comparing British and American usage

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Google Ngram Viewer can compare the popularity of words and phrases over time. For example, typewriter and mobile phone:

It can also compare their popularity in British and American English. For example, mobile phone and cell phone:

As in the chart above, add :eng_gb_2012 (books published in Great Britain) and :eng_us_2012 (books published in the United States) to your word or phrase.

toPhonetics

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In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

ɪn ðə ruːm ðə ˈwɪmɪn kʌm ən gəʊ
ˈtɔːkɪŋ əv ˌmaɪkəˈlænʤələʊ.

toPhonetics converts English text to IPA phonetic transcription. Paste or type your text in the box, choose British or American pronunciation and decide whether to transcribe weak forms. For example (with British pronunciation and weak forms selected):

Learning resources from INTO University of East Anglia
ˈlɜːnɪŋ rɪˈzɔːsɪz frəm ˈɪntʊ ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːsɪti əv iːst ˈæŋglɪə

The transcription offers alternatives for resources and INTO. As INTO is a name, we use the strong form.

You can listen to the transcribed text.

toPhonetics is also available as an app for iOS and Android.

Gap fill makers

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Online tools for making gap fill exercises (cloze tests) usually have something wrong with them. This one, for example, looks nice and simple, but the “let me choose” option is buggy. More promising is the Gapfill Printable Exercise Generator (Version 2) at Random Idea English, which has been “Currently under testing” since 2012.

After pasting in your text, you choose one of four ways to make the gaps: Manual (put square brackets around the words to be gapped), Random (with options), Auto (list the words) and Gapmaker (just click on the words).

You can see the finished exercise in various formats. For example, this a document-friendly version, which you can copy and paste into Word:

coffee · cruellest · desire · dried · forgetful · lilacs · roots · stopped · sunlight · surprised · warm

  1. April is the ____________ month, breeding
  2. ____________ out of the dead land, mixing
  3. Memory and ____________, stirring
  4. Dull ____________ with spring rain.
  5. Winter kept us ____________, covering
  6. Earth in ____________ snow, feeding
  7. A little life with ____________ tubers.
  8. Summer ____________ us, coming over the Starnbergersee
  9. With a shower of rain; we ____________ in the colonnade,
  10. And went on in ____________, into the Hofgarten,
  11. And drank ____________, and talked for an hour.

LyricsTraining

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LyricsTraining is “the new way to learn English and other languages through music and the lyrics of your favourite songs”. You listen to songs and complete gaps in the lyrics.

For example, you might choose “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. Pick a level from Beginner to Expert. You then get a YouTube video of the song with subtitles, which are missing random words:

Is this the real life?
Is this **** fantasy?
****** in a landslide, ** escape from reality
Open **** ****
Look ** ** the skies and see

Type in the correct words and the song will continue.

It is probably fun for a while, but how much it improves students’ listening skills remains to be seen.

News in Levels

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News in Levels has very short news stories in three levels of English. Students can read and listen to the texts.

For example, Young Whale Helps Its Mum – level 1:

A whale goes into shallow waters. She is with her calf. She cannot move. This happens in Australia. The calf tries to help her. It pushes her. After 40 minutes, the whale is free. She swims away with her calf.

Difficult words: whale (a big animal which lives in the sea), shallow (not deep; there is not enough water for the whale), calf (the child of an animal such as a whale).

Compare with Young Whale Helps Its Mum – level 3:

A humpback whale with her calf was filmed east of Brisbane where the mother was stranded in shallow waters. The calf appeared to nudge its mother to help dislodge her to safety.

Fortunately, the whale became free after 40 minutes and could be seen swimming off with her calf.

Difficult words: calf (the baby of an animal such as a whale), stranded (unable to leave), nudge (push, bump against), dislodge (move).

A similar site is Breaking News English.

Digital Tools for Teachers

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Digital Tools for Teachers is an ebook by Nik Peachey. Aimed at English language teachers, it includes over 70 tools – divided into reading tools, writing tools, presentation tools, etc.

For example, under Reading Tools there is a review of Rewordify and under Listening Tools you can find LyricsTraining.

The book is in PDF format, I couldn’t get the internal links (to the various chapters) to work, but the links to the tools were fine.

You can read more about the book. It costs $4.99, but there is a code you can use to download it for free.

ConceptNet

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ConceptNet is “a freely-available semantic network, designed to help computers understand the meanings of words that people use.”

Enter the word dog, for example, and the results include:

  • Related terms (e.g. pet, animal, chinese zodiac)
  • dog is capable of… (e.g. bark, guide a blind person, corner a cat)
  • Types of dog (e.g. poodle, corgi, puppy)
  • Location of dog (e.g. a kennel, a park)
  • dog has… (e.g. four legs, fleas, paws)
  • dog doesn’t want… (e.g. a bath, go to the vet, be left home alone).

For more information on ConceptNet, read the FAQ.

Spot the mistake

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“Labour is likely to table a vote of no confidence in the government, though it is unclear whether it would do so immediately – and even less unclear whether it could win it.”

less unclear should be less clear or more unclear – an example of what Language Log calls misnegation

Yes, even the political editor of The Guardian makes mistakes in English!

Source: The Guardian via Language Log

Write & Improve

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Write & Improve is a free tool from Cambridge English that marks your writing and assesses your English level.

You can either do the set tasks or create your own task and paste in some text.

It thought my moon essay was quite good (4/5) and my English was native-speaker level. However, it did mark some words and sentences as wrong when they weren’t.

Journal of International Students

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The Journal of International Students is published 4 times a year and can be read by everyone for free online.

The most recent issue (October 2018) includes these articles:

  • Stress-driven spending: correlates of international students’ adjustment strains and compulsive online buying
  • “They make no contribution!” versus “We should make friends with them!”—American domestic students’ perception of Chinese international students’ reticence and face
  • Influential factors in the college decision-making process for Chinese students studying in the U.S.
  • Hindsight is 20/20 vision: what international students wished they had known before coming to live and learn in Ireland.

 

Free IELTS course

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The British Council has a six-week course at FutureLearn called Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests. You can start it right now or when it runs again on 4th February.

According to the British Council, by the end of the course you will:

  • be familiar with all parts of the IELTS test
  • have some useful tips to help you achieve your IELTS goals
  • understand how the IELTS test is assessed
  • have an opportunity to have your written and spoken English assessed by other learners [emphasis added]

This doesn’t sound very useful, to be honest. On the other hand, it is free.

Nap stations

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A recent article advocates “nap stations” in university libraries:

Since college students frequently are observed asleep wherever they are throughout the day, research indicates universities should consider the advantages to students of providing an area where they can nap safely and comfortably. The library seems to be ideally situated for this, since students are in the library studying when they may need to take a break, and it is usually open many hours. (Wise, 2018)

It mentions a pioneer – the University of East Anglia, no less – that has a Nap Nook in its student union. Other universities have library “nap pods”.

INTO UEA Resource Centre originally had some beanbags, but they attracted noisy students, rather than sleepy ones, not to mention an English teacher with a tendency to snore. (He subsequently took to the sofa, as pictured.)

Wise, M. J. (2018) ‘Naps and sleep deprivation: why academic libraries should consider adding nap stations to their services for students’, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 24(2), pp. 192-210. doi: 10.1080/13614533.2018.1431948.

Merry Christmas

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‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’

T. S. Eliot, ‘Journey of the Magi‘ (1936)

Picture: Abandoned house of small farmer, Southwest Oklahoma, by Dorothea Lange (1937). The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

ELT journals

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A number of academic journals on English-language teaching are available through BrowZine, under Social Science and Behavioral Science » Linguistics » Language Learning and Acquisition. For example:

There are also related journals, such as Language Testing and Journal of Second Language Writing.

Happy Christmas reading!

Bloomberg Businessweek

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Bloomberg Businessweek is – astonishingly – a weekly magazine about business. You can read 10 articles online without paying, while UEA Library provides full access.

The main page for UEA access is here. You can search the magazine and browse issues. There may be a delay of a few days before the latest issue is available.

The current issue, for example, has several articles on Bitcoin:

  • A Year After the Crypto Bubble Burst, Will Bitcoin Ever Recover?
  • Bitcoin ATMs May Be Used to Launder Money
  • Mike Novogratz Explains Why He’s Still All-In on Crypto
  • China’s Plan to Sideline Bitcoin
  • etc.

Unolingo

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Unolingo, from Smithsonian.com, is a crossword puzzle in which you complete the words using each letter of the alphabet only once. There are no clues.

For example, if you decide the top word is STALKING, you use the letters A, L and G, which are then unavailable to complete any other words.

Puzzles with one star, like the one shown, are the easiest. The hardest have four stars.

Smithsonian.com

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The Smithsonian Institution is a group of museums in the United States. Its online magazine, Smithsonian.com, covers history, science, technology, the arts, etc.

Some examples of articles:

There are also videos and games.

Sounds Familiar?

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Sounds Familiar? [requires Flash] from the British Library examines accents and dialects in Britain.

You can listen to recordings of people talking: for example, Pam from Norwich. There is an analysis of her accent and use of that as a subject pronoun (instead of it).

A few maps show where people use “non-standard” forms such as I were and you was.

The Norfolk dialect

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During the Christmas holidays you might talk to local people in and around Norwich. As you will have noticed, the local accent is a bit different from the “standard” English of the BBC or most of your teachers.

For example:

  • The word here sounds like hair; beer sounds like bear; really sounds like rarely.
  • The -y- sound before the vowel in words like music is omitted, so Hugh sounds like who; feud sounds like food. (This is called yod-dropping.)
  • Older people may pronounce words like home, stone, boat with the same vowel sound as foot or put.

There are also some differences in grammar and vocabulary.

Read more about East Anglian English here. UEA has its own Notes on the Norfolk Dialect.

You can listen to some examples of the Norfolk dialect in the Survey of English Dialects (under View by – County – M-O – Norfolk).

From perfect to abysmal

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There are lots of words that mean good or bad. The opinion polling company YouGov asked people to score adjectives according to how positive or negative they were. The score was between 0 and 10, with 0 being the most negative and 10 the most positive.

The chart shows the results. The most negative word was abysmal followed by appalling, awful, dreadful and terrible. In the middle was average, bordered by mediocre and not bad. The most positive word was perfect, followed by outstanding, excellent, incredible, brilliant, superb and fantastic.

So there you are. Isn’t that, er, great?

Daily chart advent calendar

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The 2018 Daily chart advent calendar is a selection of The Economist‘s charts. Every day from December 1st to 25th a chart from 2018 is featured.

For example, today’s chart shows the average cost of a normal birth in private hospitals in various countries.

All of the magazine’s charts can be seen in the section, Graphic detail.

Graphic thesaurus

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TheFreeDictionary includes a thesaurus with word diagrams. For example, the word influence:



Graphic Thesaurus for "influence" provided by FreeThesaurus.com

(The diagram may or may not appear above this line.)

A similar tool is Visuwords.

-ful

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The suffix -ful can mean as much as something will hold. For example, a spoonful of sugar is as much sugar as a spoon will hold. (It is the title of a famous song in the film Mary Poppins.)

The suffix is common with containers:

  • a bagful of cash
  • a sackful of presents
  • a basketful of eggs
  • a barrelful of monkeys
  • a plateful of food
  • a bowlful of jelly
  • a hatful of goals

It is also used with parts of the body:

  • a handful of dust
  • an armful of flowers
  • a fistful of dollars
  • a bellyful of fighting
  • an earful of complaints
  • an eyeful of beauty

and transport, buildings, etc.:

  • a planeful of passengers
  • a houseful of guests
  • a roomful of strangers
  • a streetful of people

besides many other words. In fact, you can even add it to (usually short) nouns to make new words:

  • a blogful of bigotry
  • a laptopful of viruses
  • a phoneshopful of INTO students.

Rankings from The Economist

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Do you know which country’s citizens go to the cinema most often? It’s Iceland, followed by South Korea and Singapore.

The Economist‘s World in Figures site has a Rankings tool. It ranks countries according to various criteria, such as:

Penny Ur’s 100 Teaching Tips

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This book is aimed at English language teachers. Tip number 1 is “Start with a smile” and number 100 is “Do your own thing.” Here are some of the others:

  • Don’t give homework at the end
  • Use the coursebook – selectively
  • Do correct mistakes
  • Use mother tongue to explain
  • Avoid grammatical terms
  • Limit tasks by time, not amount
  • Don’t worry about the topic
  • Don’t always pre-teach vocabulary
  • Don’t make students read aloud
  • Talk a lot
  • Teach a lot of vocabulary
  • Teach spelling rules

The Resource Centre has a copy, which you can borrow.

News sources online

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If you want to read the day’s news in English, here are some sources:

In addition, Nexis provides access to hundreds of news sources in various languages.

Opinion polls

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Sometimes you need data about people’s opinions to include in an assignment. For example, a recent opinion poll asked who should be the next British monarch after Queen Elizabeth II.

These polling companies publish some of their results online:

YouGov and Ipsos MORI have partner sites in other countries. Some examples of their polls:

You can also find polling data on the statistics site, Statista.

RSA videos

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The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, more usually known as the Royal Society of Arts or the RSA, was founded in 1754. Even the internet didn’t exist then! Now that it does, the RSA has taken advantage of the fact by publishing videos of talks, some with animations.

For example, you can listen to South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang on Economics is for Everyone:

You can watch the videos on the society’s own website or on YouTube.

Drama Online

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Drama Online has over 2,200 plays which you can read online. You can browse them by title, playwright, period or genre (for example, Theatre of the Absurd, Asian drama, Children’s theatre, Feminist theatre, Musical theatre, Street theatre).

From The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde:

Lady Bracknell: Are your parents living?
Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: Both? To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune — to lose both seems like carelessness.

From Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett:

Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estragon: You want me to pull off my trousers?
Vladimir: Pull ON your trousers.
Estragon: (Realizing his trousers are down.) True. (He pulls up his trousers.)
Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go.
They do not move.

Brexit collocations

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Have something to say about Brexit? You’ll need the right vocabulary! According to the iWeb Corpus, these words are often found near the word Brexit on web pages:

affect, aftermath, ahead, amid, backed, border, campaign, campaigners, challenges, concerns, consequences, deal, debate, economic, economy, election, exit, fallout, favour, fears, hard, immigration, impact, implications, independence, looming, mandate, minister, negotiate, negotiations, outcome, parliament, pound, presidential, prime, prospect, referendum, result, risks, scenario, secretary, shadow, shock, so-called, soft, softer, stance, sterling, supporters, surrounding, talks, threat, trigger, uncertainty, union, upcoming, vote, voters, wake, warned

Some examples:

  • Despite the uncertainty sparked by the Brexit vote, London has remained attractive to global tech firms…
  • Analysts put the probability of no deal or a chaotic Brexit at 30%. # A hard Brexit will also affect the EU.
  • The Lib Dems pledge to hold a referendum on the final Brexit deal following two years of negotiations between London and Brussels.
  • In the wake of the recent Brexit referendum, this is especially important.
  • And while Spain would prefer a soft to a hard Brexit, the matter of migration between Spain and the UK lingers in the air.
  • The aftermath of the UKs Brexit vote last month sees much uncertainty within the investment community.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang

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Green’s Dictionary of Slang is completely free to everybody from today, Guy Fawkes Night.

Mr Green explains why here. Previously the definitions were available to all, but the examples required a subscription. Now you can see the examples too.

For example, a Norfolk breakfast is no breakfast at all:

1939 Beds Times 25 Aug. 6/2: In the eastern Counties they galk [talk?] about giving the pigs a ‘Norfolk breakfast’ on Sunday mornings — which means they get no breakfast.

Many of the terms are, of course, unsuitable for polite company.

The three volumes of the 2010 print edition can be consulted in UEA Library.

Correct

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A man using this Chinese ATM pressed the Correct button three times and the machine swallowed his card.

He thought Correct was being used as an adjective, but it was a verb!

  • correct (adjective) = right; OK; with no mistakes
  • correct (verb) = remove mistakes; revise; change something which is wrong, to make it right

Source: Language Log

Daily Mail Historical Archive

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UEA Library now has access to the Daily Mail Historical Archive, which covers 1896 to 2004.

Daily Mail (1989) ‘Scientists dig in to save the rabbits’, 29 November, p.37. Daily Mail Historical Archive.

Rothermere, Viscount (1934) ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’, Daily Mail, 15 January, p. 10. Daily Mail Historical Archive.

Synonyms for “unkempt”

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Two days ago we quoted a letter to The Times from 1968, which described some UEA students as “childishly noisy”, “completely lacking in manners” and “unkempt”.

The Oxford English Dictionary has various defintions of unkempt. The one intended by the letter-writer would seem to be:

Of a person’s or (occasionally) an animal’s appearance, condition, etc.: characterized by uncombed or untidy hair; (more generally) scruffy, dishevelled.

The OED’s Historical Thesaurus lists this meaning under: the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > dirtiness >  [adjective] > dirty and mean. Words in this category (with the earliest year in which they were recorded) are:

  • ungoderly c1400
  • sluttish 1549
  • squalid 1596
  • scrubbing 1603
  • sordid 1611
  • snotty 1681
  • frowzy 1710
  • grub 1719
  • seedy 1725
  • unkempt 1838
  • grubby 1844
  • crumby 1859
  • ratty 1867
  • scruffy 1871
  • scrutty 1914
  • scummy 1932
  • ribby 1936
  • raunchy 1937
  • sleazy 1941
  • scroungy 1948
  • manky 1958
  • grungy 1965
  • scungy 1966
  • scuzzy 1969
  • scrungy 1974

Words with similar meanings include grimy, tatty, shabby, dowdy and mangy.

You may have noticed how most of these words have two syllables and end in y. About half of them begin with s. This may be an example of sound symbolism or iconicity.

Old HK newspapers

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Hong Kong Public Libraries have an online collection of old newspapers, both Chinese and English, from 1853 to 1991.

Hong Kong was then a British colony and the English-language newspapers reflect the preoccupations and views of the expatriate population. Nevertheless, they are an interesting historical source.

To see the newspapers, click on Explore, then (under Collections) Old HK Newspapers. Reading them requires a web browser with Flash.

Old newspapers online

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If you want to know how past events were reported at the time, you should consult old newspapers. Some are available online. UEA Library provides access to these collections:

Collection Years Region
Burney Collection 1600-1799 Mainly Britain and its colonies
British Library 1800-1900 Britain
Google Newspaper Archive 1750s-2009 United States, Canada and others
The Guardian and The Observer 1791-2003 Britain
The New York Times 1851-2014 United States
The Times 1785-2012 Britain
Nexis 1980s-present International
Nikkei Telecom 1975-present Japan*
Independent Voices 1950s-present Mainly United States (alternative press)
Daily Mail 1896-2004 Britain

Wikipedia has a more comprehensive List of online newspaper archives. Some are free to access; others are behind a paywall.

*For an English menu expand the item: スペシャルコンテンツ.

The gerbil who won a UEA election

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From The Associated Press, February 13, 1988

Ken The Gerbil Wins Student Election At University

DATELINE: NORWICH, England

A gerbil named Ken, campaigning on a platform of free beer and soft toilet paper, beat five other candidates to become president of the Student Union at the University of East Anglia. Ken’s owner, chemistry student Julian Campbell, 21, said he entered his pet as a joke and was amazed that the mouselike rodent won the job, which pays $94.50 a week.

The university is in Norwich in northeast England. Ken polled well over a third of the 1,500 votes, beating his nearest competitor by 194 votes. He celebrated his victory Friday night with sunflower seeds and a sip of vodka from a water bottle.

“I think he’ll make a great president. And he definitely won’t be making any boring speeches,” Campbell was quoted as telling The Star.

But outgoing Student Union president Rob Davies, 23, was not amused.

“The students have not taken the vote seriously,” Davies was quoted as telling the Daily Mirror. “I don’t think many know how much hard work goes into the job.”

Ken was named after Education Secretary Kenneth Baker, whose education reform bill is currently being considered by Parliament. But it turns out the name is somewhat of a misnomer.

Campbell found out during the campaign that Ken is actually a female and is pregnant.

Source: Nexis

The election was overturned and a fresh election held, in which Ken’s owner, Julian Campbell, was elected.

Film words

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In its latest update the Oxford English Dictionary has added over 100 words and phrases connected to film.

20 adjectives relating to specific directors have been included, such as:

Some horror film terms have been added. For example:

For more, see this article.

More rankings than you can shake a stick at

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IREG Observatory lists university rankings.

At present count there are 17 global rankings, plus various regional and specialized rankings (e.g. best fashion schools). Of the national rankings, Britain has three.

For a somewhat cynical view of rankings and related matters, see University Ranking Watch.

For the origin of shake a stick at, see this article.

Irregular verb forms

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Can you give the correct forms for the verbs in square brackets?

  1. They fell asleep soon after they had [lie] down.
  2. Once again the dog had [lay] its head on her lap.
  3. He remembered he had [drink] the cocktail before.
  4. I got up immediately after I had [wake] up.
  5. Their efforts failed, though everyone had [strive] for success.

For the answers read This is highly irregular in the Macmillan Dictionary Blog.

Bare plurals

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A plural noun is “bare” if it does not have a determiner, such as the, two, many, all or my. Consider these three examples of the bare plural, rabbits:

  1. Rabbits are mammals.
  2. Rabbits eat lettuce.
  3. Rabbits ate my lettuce yesterday.

The meaning of rabbits is different in each case:

  1. All rabbits are mammals.
  2. Most rabbits eat lettuce.
  3. Some rabbits ate my lettuce yesterday.

The problem with the bare plural is the ambiguity of certain statements. For example:

  • Mosquitoes transmit malaria.

In fact, only female mosquitoes from a minority of species of the Anopheles genus can transmit malaria. Most mosquitoes can’t transmit malaria.

Bare plurals are often used by newspapers to over-generalize, especially in headlines. For example:

  • Women really do prefer rich men (The Times, 5 January 2018)
  • UK men prefer personality over appearance in partners (The Daily Telegraph, 30 November 2017)
  • Minorities distrust companies (USA Today, 14 January 2004)
  • Muslims back faith killings (Sunday Express, 27 July 2008)

The article under the last headline says, “The YouGov survey questioned 600 Muslims in 12 universities across the country and found 32 per cent said resorting to extremist action to honour their beliefs was right.” So Muslims in the headline means only some Muslims – about one third of the students in the survey. The casual reader may assume it means most or all Muslims.

The lesson is: be careful of bare plurals when reading newspapers and writing assignments!

Not One-Off Britishisms

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British people have been complaining about Americanisms – words or phrases from the United States that have become common in Britain – since the eighteenth century.

For example, nowadays you often hear train station instead of railway station, fries instead of chips and movie instead of film.

Ben Yagoda’s blog Not One-Off Britishisms is about movement in the other direction:

Over the last decade or so, an alarming number of traditionally British expressions have found their way into the American vocabulary.

Some Britishisms are advert, DIY, ginger (a person with red hair), gobsmacked, Hoover (verb), kerfuffle, mobile (i.e. a mobile phone), on holiday, queue, sell-by date, short-listed, snog, straight away, take a decision, twee.

The latest blog post is on cheesed off.

different + from/than/to?

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A clear victory for from:

From Google Ngram Viewer.

Top journals according to Google

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A list of the top 100 publications in various languages is produced by Google Scholar. The journals are ranked by their h-index and h-median metrics. You can read an explanation here.

The current top 10 English-language publications are:

  1. Nature
  2. The New England Journal of Medicine
  3. Science
  4. The Lancet
  5. Chemical Society reviews
  6. Cell
  7. Nature Communications
  8. Chemical Reviews
  9. Journal of the American Chemical Society
  10. Advanced Materials

You can also see the top journals in particular fields – for example, Business, Economics & Management.

Gutted

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  • World Cup 2018: ‘Gutted’ Harry Kane says England gave it their all as millions of Three Lions fans suffer World Cup heartbreak once more (The Sun)
  • Holly Willoughby and Kate Hudson lead an army of ‘gutted‘ stars on social media after England’s crushing World Cup semi-final loss to Croatia (Daily Mail)
  • ‘I’m absolutely gutted’: disappointed England fans speak of World Cup hurt from Russia (iNews)
  • Your Favourite Musicians Are Gutted About The England Result (Clash Magazine)
  1. A gutted fish is a fish whose guts – internal organs – have been removed, so that it can be cooked.
  2. A gutted house is a house whose interior has been emptied or destroyed, usually by fire.
  3. If a person is gutted, they are bitterly disappointed. This is British slang. The adjective is normally used in the predicative position (after a verb like be, become, grow, look or seem). However, the first two newspaper headlines are using it attributively (before the noun).

 

Sketch Engine

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Sketch Engine is an online tool for analysing text corpora in various languages. You can use it to find collocations, compare words, generate word lists, etc.

For example, you can find objects of the verb undergo:

  • surgery
  • transformation
  • treatment
  • renovation
  • change
  • training
  • testing
  • procedure
  • chemotherapy
  • examination
  • transition
  • therapy

British universities have free access only until the effective date of Brexit, i.e. 29 March 2019.

IELTS test taker performance

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The results for 2017 are summarized here.

For example, the average bands in the Academic test for speakers of these first languages:

First language Listening Reading Writing Speaking Overall
Arabic 5.63 5.37 5.06 5.88 5.55
Chinese 5.97 6.15 5.41 5.46 5.81
Indonesian 6.54 6.67 5.78 6.26 6.37
Japanese 5.90 6.09 5.41 5.59 5.81
Kazakh 6.06 6.04 5.51 5.81 5.92
Korean 6.20 6.21 5.46 5.79 5.98
Malay 7.03 6.86 6.07 6.54 6.69
Punjabi 5.92 5.47 5.56 5.67 5.72
Russian 6.74 6.71 5.89 6.52 6.53
Spanish 6.65 6.89 5.93 6.62 6.59
Thai 6.24 6.03 5.46 5.90 5.97
Turkish 6.42 6.42 5.70 6.22 6.25
Vietnamese 5.97 6.17 5.59 5.71 5.93

Credo Reference

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Credo Reference is a collection of online reference books. It can be browsed and searched like an encyclopedia.

For example, if you search for global warming, you are shown the topic page on climate change (“the now commonly used term, having replaced “global warming”), extracts from many books, a list of related topics (Climate change, Greenhouse gas, Kyoto Protocol, etc.), images, and a mind map.

It might be a good place to start research for your long essay or project.

Nexis

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Nexis is a database of newspapers and other news sources. It contains full-text articles.

For example, you can search for UEA in the headlines of UK national newspapers:

  • UEA criticised by notable alumni for ‘thuggish’ development plans (The Guardian, September 7, 2016)
  • UEA academics from different subject areas unite in disappointment at Brexit result (The Independent, June 24, 2016)
  • UEA fighter jet ‘missing’ during Yemen combat mission (mirror.co.uk, March 14, 2016)

I bet you never knew this university had its own fighter jet.

Statista

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Statista provides statistics, reports and infographics on a range of subjects: for example, social media, e-commerce, smartphones, China, the United States, the food industry, cosmetics, gaming.

  • Did you know that 78% of people in Thailand were interested in football, but in China and the US it’s only 32%?
  • In 2007 there were 59 million vehicles in China; in 2016 there were 194 million.
  • Last year McDonald’s was the most valuable fast food brand in the world with an estimated value of 98 billion US dollars, while the brand value of Starbucks was 44 billion dollars.

 

The Vogue Archive

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UEA has online access to every issue of the American Vogue, from 17 December 1892 to the present day. You can read the magazine exactly as it was printed, including the pictures and advertisements.

To leaf through the magazine, choose an issue and click on any item on the contents page. Then click on Browse this issue at the top of the page:

A Vision of Britain through Time

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A Vision of Britain through Time combines maps and population census data from 1801 to 2011. You can look up statistics for particular areas of the country. For example, here are some of the key findings about Norwich:

  • The population grew from 31,770 in 1801 to 132,512 in 2011.
  • The highest infant mortality rate recorded was 229.72 infant deaths per thousand live births in 1861, and the lowest was 3.94 in 2001.
  • In 1841, 50.16 per cent of all workers worked in manufacturing, but in 2011 this had fallen to 6.52 per cent.
  • The highest male unemployment rate recorded by the census was 14.95 per cent in 1991, and the lowest was 1.94 in 1951.
  • In 1911, 12.89 per cent of people were living in households with over 1.5 persons per room, but in 2011 this had fallen to .53 per cent.