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Famous Women

There is so much inspiration to be gained from learning about Famous People of the past and present – what they achieved and how – particularly when you can put them into the context of their time. Here we take a look at famous women from all walks of life, cultures and careers, and learn about their remarkable achievements.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was a British mathematician who is credited with being the world… 

Agnes Baden-Powell

Agnes Baden-Powell was Robert Baden-Powell‘s sister. She… 

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) was an American pilot famous for becoming the first woman to… 

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) was a multi-award winning American singer, songwriter and… 

Bessie Coleman

Children can learn a little about Bessie Coleman, a remarkable and determined women born in the… 

Boudicca

Boudicca (c. 30 AD – c. 61 AD), also known as Boadicea, was a Celtic queen who showed… 

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Brontë, 1816 to 1855, was the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters and the author… 

Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII Philopator (69–30 BC) was a beautiful and ambitious Egyptian queen, famous… 

Emily Bronte

Learn a little about Emily Brontë here, and then enjoy our fun colouring pages and printables… 

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) was a leader of the British suffragette movement and an… 

Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton (1897 to 1968) wrote well over 500 children’s books in her long writing career,… 

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) was a famous nurse who spent her life improving the… 

George Eliot

George Eliot (1819–1880) was a famous English novelist living in Victorian times. Her real… 

Harriet Tubman

NEW! Children can learn a little about Harriet Tubman, remarkable “Moses” of the… 

Helen Keller

Helen Keller (1880–1968) was an American author, activist and lecturer admired worldwide… 

Isabella Bird

Isabella Bird (1831–1904) was an intrepid and adventurous travel writer and photographer… 

J K Rowling

Find out a little about the author of Harry Potter, JK Rowling, and use our printable activity… 

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775 to 1818) is one of the most widely read and loved authors of all time. Her… 

Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall, DBE, (1934–), is a British ethologist and conservationist, famous for her… 

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) is the patron saint of France and of soldiers. She is famous for… 

Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson (1948–) is an English writer, playwright and performer most famous for her… 

Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison (1956–) is an American doctor, teacher, businesswoman and former astronaut who… 

Maria Sibylla Merian

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) was a German naturalist and illustrator who dedicated her… 

Marie Curie

Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish scientist whose groundbreaking research on… 

Mary Anning

Mary Anning (1799–1847) was a famous English fossil hunter and collector. Despite her poor… 

Mary Berry

Mary Berry (1935–) is one of Britain’s best-loved cookery writers and television… 

Mary Seacole

Mary Seacole (1805–1881) was a Jamaican-born British business woman who showed great… 

Millicent Fawcett

Millicent Fawcett (1847–1929) was a leading campaigner for women’s rights in Britain… 

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (1910–1997) was a Roman Catholic nun and missionary who dedicated herself to… 

Rosa Parks

Lots NEW! Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was an African American civil rights activist, most… 

Serena Williams

Learn a little about this amazing tennis player, Serena Williams, who has been wowing us all… 

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift (1989–) is an award-winning American singer and songwriter who has captivated… 

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Learning tip: Read and relax!

If you have some free time over the holidays, reading stories is an excellent way to practice and improve your English. Stories aren’t just fun to read. They also contain a wide range of language, including words, structures, styles and meanings that you may not find in other reading texts.

Bellow you can find links with some stories that were written especially for learners at different levels. Here’s some advice:

  • Don’t choose a story that is too difficult. If it’s difficult, you’ll feel confused.
  • Don’t check the dictionary a lot. It slows down your reading and makes it hard to enjoy.
  • Choose a story with some words that are new for you but whose words you mostly understand. That will allow you to enjoy the story more and also improve your reading speed.

Enjoy your reading time!

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/story-zone/a2-b1-

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/story-zone/b2-c1-stories

Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/story-zone?utm_campaign=english-all-learnenglish-global-newsletters&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=66874876&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8ej0mVCw1DFzWnvq2a0ANLaTk6fQ8kjssH8b1ykyQyCn_WtiB5ReX5kAZD0HqvK5cnesSaXjKkckCtwKEpikT7nno5hQ&utm_content=66874876&utm_source=hs_email

Halloween Tradition

October 31 is Halloween and is now celebrated in many countries around the world, but do you know anything about the origins of this scary special day? Read the article and find out.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.

The origins of Halloween

If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of fancy dress and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates Halloween, you probably think of the United States first. Americans and Canadians have adopted Halloween in a big way, but Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-century Ireland, Scotland and England.

The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was the Celtic New Year and they celebrated it on 1 November because that was the end of summer and harvest time (life) and the beginning of winter (death). It was also the time for ghosts to return to earth for a day. People lit a big fire, wore special clothes made of animal skin and hoped to be safe from the ghosts and the winter. In AD 609, the Catholic Church put the Christian celebration of All Saints Day on 1 November. In AD 1000, the church added All Souls Day on 2 November, and All Hallows Eve – or Halloween – moved to the night of the 31st.

Pumpkins

The Celts carved faces into vegetables like turnips, potatoes and squash (a pumpkin is a kind of squash) to scare the ghosts and other spirits and make them go away. It was sometimes called a jack-o’-lantern because of an Irish story about a man, Jack. He played a trick on the devil and then had to walk the earth for all time as a punishment. Irish people who came to live in the United States in the 1800s found pumpkins much easier to carve, and the tradition became the one we see today.   

Fancy dress

The Celts were afraid of the ghosts that came on Samhain. If they went outside after dark, they covered their faces with masks. They hoped any ghosts they met would think they were ghosts too and would leave them alone. In early America, the Native Americans and the first Europeans celebrated the end of the harvest, but not Halloween. When Irish people arrived, the harvest festival started to look more like Halloween and it became popular across the country. In the late 19th century, people tried to make Halloween less about ghosts and religion and more about celebrating the season with a party for neighbours and family. That’s why Americans today wear all kinds of Halloween costumes and not just scary things like witches and ghosts like in other countries.

Trick or treat

This is another tradition that began in Europe, this time in England. When the church introduced All Souls Day, rich people gave poor people ‘soul cakes’, a small cake made with spices and raisins. It replaced the Celtic tradition of leaving food outside houses for the ghosts. ‘Going a-souling’ was popular in England for hundreds of years until about the 1930s. The Americans kept the tradition, but today children knock on people’s doors and ask for sweets. Going trick or treating is so popular that a quarter of the sweets for the year in the United States are sold for this one day.

The rest of the world

Halloween has become the United States’ second-biggest commercial festival after Christmas. Halloween is also celebrated in other countries, but it’s not as big as in the United States, even in the countries where the traditions began. Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead from 31 October to 2 November and some of its traditions, like giving gifts of sugar skulls, are starting to mix with Halloween. In this way, the celebration of Halloween continues to change as new traditions join the oldest of the Celtic ones.

Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/magazine-zone/halloween?utm_campaign=English%20-%20All%20-%20Learn%20English%20-%20Global%20-%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=65028413&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_1pI0V4YEwbZiG_SjXU9O3K3V7pGUKVr6_gN2xOx-iZ7YHWdzZtU_fbDzslzNBVvU1rHv1zEqXPZuyrRYCrCu4NG6NJw&utm_content=65028413&utm_source=hs_email

Common beliefs about dyslexia

Dyslexia is primarily a language-based reading disability, not a visual-based disability.

Research has shown that people with dyslexia are more likely to have children with dyslexia. A child with one parent with dyslexia is about 40% to 60% likely to have dyslexia themselves.

In dyslexia identification there are clear and well-defined cut-off points. An individual either has dyslexia or not.

Because the core difficulties associated with dyslexia are related to how the individual sounds of language are processed in the brain, and not visual perception, coloured overlays do not improve reading accuracy or comprehension for dyslexic students. Research evidence shows no significant benefit in terms of objectively measurable reading gains when using colored overlays despite the fact that many dyslexic students report that they find them useful.

People with dyslexia have difficulties with processing and manipulating the smallest sounds of language, called phonemes. Research shows that, in students with dyslexia, the part of the brain that processes those sounds and connects those sounds to letters is under-activated as compared with typically developing readers. People with dyslexia also perform more poorly on tasks that require analyzing, synthesizing, and manipulating phonemes.

There is no scientific evidence that seeing letters and words backwards is a characteristic of dyslexia.

There is a significant and pronounced difference between males and females when it comes to ‘identified’ dyslexia and reading difficulties. There are a number of reasons for this, one of them is that females and males use different behavioural and emotional compensation techniques and react differently when faced with these challenges. Therefore boys are more easily identified as dyslexic in school settings. When researchers identify dyslexia in the general population, there is less pronounced difference between males and females in the prevalence of dyslexia. Researchers examined gender differences based on the variation in reading abilities among males and females. They found that males show more variability and depending on the cut-off point for identifying dyslexia, indeed there might be more male than female dyslexics (Hawke, J. L., Olson, R. K., Willcut, E. G., Wadsworth, S. J., & DeFries, J. C. (2009). Gender ratios for reading difficulties. Dyslexia, 15(3), 239-242.)

This statement might be true although research evidence is often contradictory on this question.

Research suggests that there are significantly more dyslexic individuals among art students than non-dyslexic ones (Wolff, U., & Lundberg, I. (2002). The prevalence of dyslexia among art students. Dyslexia, 8(1), 34-42). There is also neuroimaging evidence that shows that lower reading skill is associated with a visuospatial processing advantage (Diehl, J. J., Frost, S. J., Sherman, G., Mencl, W. E., Kurian, A., Molfese, P., … & Pugh, K. R. (2014). Neural correlates of language and non-language visuospatial processing in adolescents with reading disability. NeuroImage, 101, 653-666). However, some studies have found that the visuospatial superiority is more apparent in dyslexic men than women (Brunswick, N., Martin, G. N., & Marzano, L. (2010). Visuospatial superiority in developmental dyslexia: Myth or reality?. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(5), 421-426.)

Because dyslexia is caused by difficulties with processing individual sounds of language in the brain, researchers know that effective instruction includes explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness (practice manipulating the individual sounds in our language) and phonics (practice connecting those individual sounds, or phonemes, to letters). There are no scientifically proven benefits of eye-tracking exercises.

Source: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/dyslexia/8/steps/1399907

What happens when we open a book? 📚

I Opened A Book
by Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

“Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” Roald Dahl

“There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books.” E. Nesbit

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers”. Charles W. Eliot

Source: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/

Using Idioms Like a Native

Idioms are commonly used in spoken and written English. They add colour and interest to what we are saying. But how often do we actually find idioms in their original and full form? In today’s blog, we are going to be showing you how to use idioms like a Native English speaker!

1. Shorten the Idiom

Native English speakers are usually confident that their readers or listeners will recognise the idiom, so well-known phrases rarely need to be given in full. You may hear someone being warned not to count their chickens (don’t count your chickens before they are hatched) when they assume a future plan will be successful, or a friend may hint that her colleagues took advantage of the boss’s absence with when the cat’s away! (when the cat’s away, the mice will play).

Some idioms can be shortened in other ways such as long story short (to cut a long story short).

“Anyway, long story short, it turns out Drake isn’t really his father.”

Sometimes only a fragment of the original idiom remains. It is common to see restaurants offering early bird menus or prices (the early bird catches the worm). Someone may describe a terrible idea as a lead balloon (go down like a lead balloon). I recently heard someone talking about a baby and bathwater situation (don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater) when the whole of a plan was rejected because of a problem with only part of it.

2. Reverse the idiom

Another common way of changing an idiom is to reverse its meaning. For example, if you don’t want to deal with a problem straight away, you may put it on the back burner, but if something needs immediate attention, you can put it on the front burner. In your home village, you might be a big fish in a small pond but if you move to a large city you could end up a small fish in a very big pond.

Many idioms are very versatile and can be changed in a variety of ways. A carrot and stickapproach involves offering rewards and making threats to persuade someone to do something. However, you may come across examples like the following:

“Why use a stick when a carrot will work better?”

“Their approach is all stick and no carrot.”

“They are using every carrot and stick at their disposal.”

3. Adapt the idiom

One of the most attractive aspects of idioms is their adaptability. It is often possible to substitute one or more of the words in them to adapt to a particular situation. When two people have opposite tastes, you can say one man’s meat is another man’s poison. But how about one man’s junk is another man’s treasure or one man’s madness is another man’s genius? The possibilities are endless.

Substitutions can also be used to alter the meaning of an idiom. For example, a plain-talking person will call a spade a spade, but someone who is more frank than necessary may call a spade a shovel. On the other hand, someone who is reluctant to speak plainly may call a spade a gardening implement.

So, why not have a go at adapting some idioms yourself? After all, when in Rome…

Source : https://learningenglishwithoxford.com/2022/01/07/using-idioms-like-a-native/?dm_i=1MVU,7P23N,9YU4NM,VD5PV,1

New Year’s celebration around the world

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/magazine-zone/new-year-celebrations?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=english-adults-leweb-global-global-2022-01-le-newsletter

New year, old celebrations

There have been celebrations to mark the beginning of a new year for thousands of years. Sometimes these were simply an opportunity for people to eat, drink and have fun, but in some places the festivities were connected to the land or astronomical events. For example, in Egypt the beginning of the year coincided with when the River Nile flooded, and this normally happened when the star Sirius rose. The Persians and Phoenicians started their new year at the spring equinox (this is around 20 March when the Sun shines more or less directly on the equator and the length of the night and the day are almost the same).

The oldest celebration

The city of Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia was where the first New Year’s celebrations were recorded about 4,000 years ago. The Babylonians held their celebrations on the first new moon after the spring equinox and called this festival Akitu (which comes from the word the Sumerians used for barley). Barley was cut in Mesopotamia in the spring, and during Akitu there was a different ritual on each of the 11 days that the celebration lasted. Statues of the gods were carried through the streets of the city, and in this way the Babylonians believed that their world had been cleaned to prepare for the new year and a new spring.

Modern celebrations

In many cities all over the world, spectacular fireworks displays take place as soon as the clock passes midnight on 31 December. In recent years, Sydney in Australia has been the host to one of the first of these celebrations as New Year arrives there before most other major international cities. The display takes place in Sydney Harbour, with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge making it a stunning setting. Fireworks light up the skies in hundreds of cities as 12 midnight strikes around the globe.

Traditions that live on

There are a number of strange and interesting New Year’s traditions around the world. In Scotland, New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay and ‘first footing’ remains a popular custom with people visiting friends’ and neighbours’ houses just after midnight. The first person who visits your house should bring a gift as this will mean good luck. In Spain, it is the custom to eat 12 grapes as the bells sound for midnight on 31 December. One grape is eaten at each sound of the bell and each grape is supposed to bring good luck for each month of the year ahead. In Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and some other Central and South American countries, people wear special underwear of different colours on New Year’s Eve. Red is supposed to be good for bringing love in the new year, while yellow is supposed to bring money.

Out with the old, in with the new

The new year is a perfect time to make a change for the better. The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions is more common in the western hemisphere but also exists in the eastern hemisphere. This tradition involves a person making a commitment to change an unwanted habit or behaviour or setting a personal objective. Typical New Year’s resolutions might be to give up smoking, eat healthier food, do more exercise, become more organised or laugh more – but really, a New Year’s resolution can be almost anything. However, research suggests that many New Year’s resolutions fail. Being realistic about the objectives you set and not making too many New Year’s resolutions might help you to achieve success