Expressions and Idioms

Opponents of the recent austerity measures introduced by the British government were described by one politician as 'living on a different planet', meaning that they were either out of touch with reality or had ideas that were neither reasonable nor practical. Perhaps such people were asking for the moon (wanting something that is impossible to get or achieve) or living in cloud-cuckod land (believing naively that there was no problem).

Of course, the sky is the limit for some people (meaning that there is no limit to what they can do or achieve), although others may simply have stars in their eyes (be hopeful and enthusiastic about what may happen to them in the future, even though this is not a practical or sensible way to behave).

If they do succeed in achieving their aims they will probably be over the moon about it (extremely happy). Their fate may be written in the stars, in other words certain to happen, as in 'It was written in the stars that we would never see each other again'.

One thing that is certain is that sooner or later they will depart for that great … in the sky, an adaptable euphemism as the chosen noun can reflect a particular idiosyncratic aspect of the life of the person you are talking about, as in 'I'm afraid Patrick has gone to that great pub in the sky'. He's dead, of course, but he obviously enjoyed a drink or two while he was alive.

Match the insults!

I’ve met pencils sharper than you

It’s about as interesting as watching grass grow

I’ve had more fun at a funeral

You’re about as tactful as a fart in church

You’re as inconspicuous as a penguin at a polar bears only golf club

The light’s are on but nobody’s home

You’re about as useful as an elephant in politics

You’re about as useful as a chocolate teapot

You’re about as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican

I’ve met dead people with more optimism/personality/charm than you

You couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery

You’re not the brightest star in the sky, are you?

S/he’s a couple of cans short of a six pack
You’re about as interesting as watching paint dry

I’ve heard dying cats with better voices than you

You’re about as interesting as watching water boil

Kori's class Writing Skills Complaining

Pebbles class Singing Bad Bad Leroy Brown

Delia's class Business English 0205 2013

Kori's IELTS class 0105 2013

Look at the school board from the virtual world

Today in the Kori’s class we used the online presentation about Earthquakes through the very interesting service which provides prezi.com.

I wasn’t familiar with vocabulary about Earthquakes but I could keep the presentation on the prezi.com and repead it later.

After this class I checked some features “Present online” with two computers. These are what I noticed:

1.) The 1st computer (presenter) could run (manage) the presentation.

The 2nd (participator) followed. Participator was able to change slides separately but when presenter changed slide, this slide appeared on the 2nd PC.

2.) Presenter can give a permission to run the presentation clicking for the avatar of participator and choosing the option for it. Only this participator can return the permission.

My opinion about using Prezi:

The benefits for teachers: possibilities to prepare class, keeping early created material etc.

The benefits for students: this is next step for integration online technologies to the real life. We used to see what the teacher says on the board (in the real classroom) and now this option is available in virtual classroom.

In addition:

1.) We can see video from Youtube together exactly in the same time (it means that teacher can stop video for every students, explain last episode and continue revie).

2.) We can find on prezi.com thousands of the pesentations and use them without breaking copyrights (we can copy them if autor gave us the permission for copying).

Thank you Kori for that great class. You can see the presentation here http://prezi.com/telxglozxypv/earthquake-survivor/ . You can also watch video there clicking on picture of the video inside slide “Seismic Energy”  there.

Anatoly