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English native speaker from England in Lviv

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For Students: Music

Luke

Feb 28, 2018
4 min

For Students: Music

Do you sing in the shower..... strange question or not? I thought, like me, everyone sings in the shower. I thought it was as normal as pressing play, pause, rewind and fast-forward when listening to music, but it seems that most people here in Lviv, Ukraine, are split on this. I can't imagine a world without singing in the shower or music... Talking of music. Have you ever been to a gig? How close were you to the stage? Were you close enough to smell the sweat of the frontma

For Students: Food

Luke

Feb 20, 2018
4 min

For Students: Food

Food, food, food, we can't escape it, it's everywhere and with so many choices now we can have whatever tickles our fancy. Looking for something healthy? Have a salad. Special occasion? Try the new fancy restaurant in town. Do you have a craving for some junk food? Head to McDonald's. After all Ukraine does have the best tasting McDonald's in the world. Or maybe, you have a sweet tooth and you'd like to try some ice-cream, a nice piece of cake, or just something from Roshen.

Business English: Language for meetings

Luke

Jan 30, 2018
2 min

Business English: Language for meetings

You might work in a company where you have meetings each day about projects, changes, or teleconferences with your international colleagues or customers. I'm not sure if anyone actually likes these meetings, especially when they are in-house. You almost always get that one person asking questions that then delays the end of the meeting by at least 30 minutes(if you're lucky!) If you don't have a person in your meetings like that, it's you! But, on a serious note, there are a

For Students: Ways of saying I like, I don't like, and it's OK

Luke

Jan 23, 2018
2 min

For Students: Ways of saying I like, I don't like, and it's OK

I hope you like this post today as we look at other ways to say I like and I don't like, and it's OK. Students will often overly use the word like, but there are many other words and phrases we can replace like with to help us stop using it too much and help our English sound more varied. We also have more words and phrases to say we don't like something. Also, sometimes we just want to say something is OK without just saying OK. We have phrases for that too. I like.. I'm a f

For Students: Talking about the future

Luke

Jan 16, 2018
2 min

For Students: Talking about the future

Well, I'm back after a 5-week break. A 5 week period that saw me meet snow in Germany, +22 sunshine in Spain, and wind and rain in England. I hope you all had a good 2017 and a good New Year's Eve and didn't wake up in 2018 with too much of a hangover. It's quite difficult to get back into the swing of things when you've had such a lengthy time off, but I think a good way to kick off 2018 is to look at some phrases we can use to talk about our future plans for the head year a

For Students: A year of feelings (adjectives)

Luke

Nov 30, 2017
6 min

For Students: A year of feelings (adjectives)

This will be my second to last post of the year or penultimate post if you're looking for a new word. The last one will be the second to part of the most common mistakes, peculiarities, and translations made by Ukrainian and Russian speakers. I thought I'd end the year with 12 adjectives to describe a feeling I had during each month of the year when I was in a situation. It would be great to hear yours, so if you find the time, have a think about your year and share your year

For Students: Slang

Luke

Nov 21, 2017
3 min

For Students: Slang

Every country has its own slang. This is informal words and expressions that you will hear everyday on the streets of any country. You will no doubt come across it if you watch films, or TV shows about real life. You might even have your own favourite slang words and expressions, but you also might not be aware of them because you don't see them in the course book you're studying from. Today we are going to have a look at some common slang that is often used (in the UK) Words

For Students: Understanding Native Speakers

Luke

Nov 7, 2017
3 min

For Students: Understanding Native Speakers

You might think it is great and life is rosy to be a native speaker of English, but not all the time. Firstly, some people feel a little pressured and nervous when speaking to native speakers. The fear of making mistakes, and the fear of embarrassment of not understanding what they say is quite real. Many moons ago I once asked a receptionist where I was staying 'do you speak English' which she replied 'no, sorry' I then went to sit down across the room and watched as she wa

For Students: Top 20 common mistakes, translations, and peculiarities made by Ukrainian / Russian sp

Luke

Oct 2, 2017
4 min

For Students: Top 20 common mistakes, translations, and peculiarities made by Ukrainian / Russian sp

I started my teaching career after I finished my CELTA course back in 2010. The first job I got was in Moscow, Russia. I was only there for around 7 months before I was offered a job in St. Petersburg, where I stayed for 3 academic years. St. Petersburg will always hold a special place for me. Not only was the city, people, colleagues, and students all great there, it was the place where I grew as a teacher. I was at an extremely modern school with lots of technology that all

For Students: Asking questions

Luke

Sep 21, 2017
5 min

For Students: Asking questions

For the last 9 days I have attended a few English-speaking meetings. They are events where people meet up and practise their English in more than one way. Usually random conversations or more structured ones depending on the meeting. You get to meet lots of random people, who sometimes don't become random at the end of the event. Everyone there has the same goal. To use, and improve their English. It is not uncommon to find native speakers at these events and other foreigners

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Luke

Sep 20, 2017
4 min

For Teachers: Fashion Project Lesson

As many of you who worked at language schools during the summer with teenagers, you might have done a few project lessons. The type of lessons where students work together to produce some kind of work that can then be presented and then displayed on the wall for all the students to admire. At my school, Monday was project lesson day, and one Monday we were given the topic of fashion – a topic I quite enjoy. I had a mixture of teens from Italy, France, Russia, and Spain. With

For Students: Travel and transport

Luke

Sep 13, 2017
3 min

For Students: Travel and transport

I thought I'd write a post looking at words, mainly phrasal verbs, connected with travel and transport and tell you about my journey to Lviv, Ukraine. There will probably be a number of words you might be unsure of, but I have listed them all at the bottom of the text with simplified meanings. Hopefully you should be able to get the meaning from context. Note: The difference between trip and journey is a journey is from A to B and a trip is A to B and back to A. When often sa

British or American English?

Luke

Sep 6, 2017
3 min

British or American English?

American or British English? Which do you reckon you use most of? Let's see. What do you call those sugary things kids love so much ? What do you take to get to the 10th floor of a building? What do you call that part of the road where people walk? If you said sweets, lift, and pavement to the above questions then you, like me, use British English. Of course, it doesn't matter which you use, but for me, a man from England, it feels weird to use certain, if not all, American

For Students: Asking about films

Luke

Aug 31, 2017
2 min

For Students: Asking about films

Are you a film buff like me? - a person who is very interested in and knowledgeable about films. When was the last time you went to the cinema? I went just the other day and saw Dunkirk. It was pretty good. I got to see my friend who was an extra – a person in the background - in the film Note: When Russian/Ukrainian speakers talk about films, a common mistake that they sometimes make is the use of the verb play. They might say a sentence like this '̶B̶r̶a̶d̶ ̶P̶i̶t̶t̶ ̶p̶l̶a

For Students: Talking about days off and weekend plans.

Luke

Aug 25, 2017
2 min

For Students: Talking about days off and weekend plans.

It's the weekend tomorrow – Saturday and Sunday. Note: Some Russian/Ukrainian speaking students often refer to this as a holiday. It shouldn't be referred to as a holiday, just the weekend. And remember, it always includes Saturday and Sunday and it always refers to both days. When we are away from work we can use the word holiday. This usually means we have at least a week or two away from work and doing our jobs. If we do have one day free or two, we simply call this a day(

For Students: Giving Advice

Luke

Aug 18, 2017
2 min

For Students: Giving Advice

When someone has a problem or is unsure about something, they usually ask someone for some advice – ideas, and actions which they think are a good idea to help them. We use certain phrases and expressions to help us do this. Let's imagine we have a friend who wants to go on holiday, but they are unsure where to go, and they ask us for some advice. A conversation might go something like this. John: I'm not sure where to go on holiday Bob: If I were you, I'd go to Spain. The we