Jonathan Lewis

Obama's inauguration

2009-01-20T00:45:00.000-08:00

This picture of the world as Americans see it was sent to me by email. Click on it to see it bigger:

Will this change now?

Job Security

2009-01-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

The current economic crisis is especially worrying for those whose employers are themselves experiencing financial difficulties. I keep hearing on the radio reports about factories that are about to close in areas where the prospects of finding another job are very low, perhaps because the factory is the only major employer.

I try to imagine how I would feel in that situation, because I just realised that since I've lived in France, I've never known what it is like to have job security. Every week, every month, I am obliged to secure enough work to provide for myself and my family. One of my current employers was generous enough to offer me a permanent contract - but it's an 'intermittant' contract, meaning that they have no obligation to pay me when there is no work to give me.

I'm thoroughly used to this situation now - it's kind of normal for me after seven years - and in one way I kind of like the challenge of finding better opportunities. But how would it feel if I had been working for the same company for 25 years and suddenly my job didn't exist anymore? That would be really hard. I've learned to be adaptable, flexible; but if I'd done one job since school, what would chance would I have of finding another job at my age? My heart goes out to those people, and I wish them lots of luck - they're going to need it.

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Snow, cold, ice, fun!

2009-01-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

We've had lots of snow here in Aix-en-Provence, something that happens perhaps only once every twenty or thirty years. I'm not working today, which was fortunate, as most people weren't able to get out. Many of the main roads are closed because in this part of the world we aren't prepared for this kind of weather - it would be stupid to invest in snow-clearing equipment in our climate. I hope you enjoy the slideshow!

Expressions: Money Idioms

2009-01-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

Regardez les expressions suivantes. Ont-elles des équivalents en français?

Feel the pinch

Tighten your belt

Make ends meet

Money down the drain

On a shoestring

In the red

Select the correct idiom to complete the following sentences:

1.When you are unemployed, it’s difficult to ______________________ on such a low income.

2.Public spending is too high. The government will have to ______________________ if it wants to reduce its level of debt.

3.Compared to Hollywood blockbusters, this film was made ______________ , with budget of just 100, 000€.

4.Much of the billions spent on cold remedies each year is simply _____________________ . Doctors should prescribe more than medication for colds and viruses.

5.The company lost over a billion dollars last year, the second year running its figures were ___________________ .

6.When a recession strikes, it’s often small businesses that are first to ________________ .

answers: 1: to make ends meet 2: tighten its belt 3: on a shoestring 4: money down the drain 5: in the red 6: feel the pinch

Selon mes connaissances, 'tighten one's belt' est 'serrer la ceinture'; 'money down the drain' est 'jeter de l'argent par la fenêtre'; 'make ends meet' est 'joindre les deux bouts'; 'in the red' est 'dans le rouge', évidemment. Je ne sais pas si les expressions 'feel the pinch' et 'on a shoestring' existe en français. Si vous avez des suggestions, n'hésitez pas à me faire part en laissant un commentaire ici.

Si vous voulez une copie de cet exercice, vous pouvez télécharger une fiche PDF ici.

Guinness - a beer called stout

2008-11-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

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Ireland's most famous export, Guinness, is a type of beer called stout. Its dark brown, almost black colour
is due to the malt being roasted before brewing.

Guinness is not a light, refreshing drink to be enjoyed on a sunny afternoon. Rather, you could consider it to be more like liquid food to be consumed on a cold, rainy night, of which there are a lot in Ireland.

Other dark beers are known in the UK as ales. Light, 'blonde' beer is called 'lager'. In the past, the British would drink their pints at room temperature, something that other Europeans find disgusting. But today, even Guinness is available in pubs chilled, and the younger pub-goers now prefer foreign bottled beers from the chiller cabinet.

Give Guinness a try - a lot of people are reluctant to try, but find it good after tasting it. There's bound to be an Irish pub near you!

room temperature - temperature ambiente
pub-goers - les gens qui vont au pub
there's bound to be - il y a surement

vhs,cd, dvd, blu-ray - what's next?

2008-11-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

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When I was a child, I loved my portable cassette recorder. I would record people, make silly noises, and listen to my favourite songs. I could copy my brother's vinyl disks and listen to them as well. Those were the two formats: compact cassette and vinyl records.

Then came the CD. Since I bought my first CD over twenty years ago, I have never been able to replace all my vinyl records - through lack of money, time or interest.

Next came the CD-rom. But my old CD player wouldn't play them, so now I listen to music on my computer. My apartment has hundreds of disks knocking about in cupboards, boxes, by the side of my computer. The records and cassettes are down in the cellar, along with the VHS cassettes - my VCR broke a couple of years ago and it wasn't worth buying a new one - I had long switched to DVD.

Now DVD is being replaced by 'blu-ray' - a new type of disk that can hold even more information, thus providing even better picture quality.

My question is, though, when will it ever end? A blu-ray disk is 30% more expensive than a DVD, so if I change, I'll be worse off (as usual). How much better can a video image get? Will the human eye be able to notice the difference. The ironic thing is that for decaded, American television only had half the number of lines than the European standard - and no-one complained about that.

Are we being conned? For sure. We're all suckers for new things, and always will be.

Getting things done

2008-11-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

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Organising one's time effectively is a major concern of many of the people I teach. I'm not qualified to give advice on this subject, but I understand how difficult it can be to find time to do everything they are asked to do in an increasingly stressful work environment.

The traditional thinking on effective time management involves making lists of things to do in order of priority. In the world of business, tasks can defined as important, urgent, or both. However, if one's working day is scheduled around dealing with things that are urgent, other things that are more important may be neglected.

If a worker's day begins with making a to-do list, there will always be the added complication of unexpected interruptions - phone calls, colleagues with questions or problems to be solved, etc.

In his book, Getting things done, Dave Allen suggests an alternative to traditional time management ideas. His strategy is to choose a quiet time during the week to collect "stuff" , that is, everything that you have to do, papers in your in-tray, reports to be read - everything. Your "stuff" can then be sorted into four Ds :

1. do it (if it will take less than 2 minutes)
2. defer it (plan a time to do it)
3. delegate it
4. drop it

The final one is perhaps the most radical, and the most difficult to accept. It means that one has to realise that there are some things that one would like to do but in reality will probably never get around to doing. If you receive hundreds of emails per day, for example, it's unlikely that you'll ever reply to all of them. So instead of leaving them in your in-box making other, more important messages difficult to find, just delete them!

Ultimately, it's up to you what you do - whether you work to live or live to work - the choice is yours.

what's your learning style?

2008-10-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

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Everybody has their own style when it comes to learning. At the most basic level, there are three categories: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Here is a quick summary:

visual
Images are really important to the visual learner. These learners have trouble paying attention to someone talking - they would rather see a picture or a diagram. If this is you, invest in some coloured pens for note taking and devise a system that works for you. Perhaps negatives in red, questions in blue etc. Mind maps are the ideal way for you to record information.

auditory
Of course, your ears are the most important asset in language learning, and so everyone needs to cultivate their auditory learning capacities. If you prefer listening to reading, love music and are generally sensitive to the sounds around you, then you are an auditory learner. Get as much listening material as you can, radio, films, CD's etc. The internet is a good source of listening - just look for Radio stations in the language you are learning.

Kinesthetic

Are you a "touchy-feely" person? Do you like to touch people when you are talking to them? Do you fiddle with objects while talking or thinking, eg, pens, paper, twisting paper clips etc? Then you are probably a kinesthetic learner. Your world is more tactile than others, you like doing things more than talking about them. You would be advised to have some flashcards that you can handle while revising vocabulary, and playing board games in your target language would be useful.

Presentations: three golden rules

2008-10-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

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I'm often asked to help with preparing presentations that my learners have to give in English. No matter what your level is, you can give an effective presentation if you follow these simple rules (I'm not sure who wrote this first, but it remains valuable advice even in this PowerPoint era):

1. tell them what you're going to tell them
2. tell them
3. tell them what you've told them

In other words, you should have an introduction that explains why this presentation is being covered and the main points that will be discussed. Discuss those main points in the body of the presentation, then conclude by reviewing those points and stating what actions should be taken as a result.

Don't have too many key points, concentrate on two or three main ideas. It will be easier for your audience to go away remembering what the presentation was about, and what it means to them.

creativity: how many uses for a paperclip?

2008-10-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

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The pop psychologist Tony Buzan gives an exercise in creativity in all his books:

How many uses can you think of for a paperclip?

He claims that on average, one should be able to think of five things other than its intended use, for attaching paper. A creative genius, on the other hand, could come up with thirty to forty uses.

He gives the following examples:

a chocolate paperclip could be used as food
a giant paperclip could be used to dam a stream
a status-symbol if it were made of gold
a pet or imaginary friend

Another writer on the subject of creativity suggests that you can be creative by choosing a different way home from work or by wearing different coloured socks.

What does being creative mean to you? For me, creativity is not the ability to use your imagination to think of crazy, useless or unrealistic ideas. You don't need to be a talented writer, artist or musician to be creative either. Real creativity is the ability to create something of value: in the arts - to move other people, to find real solutions to real problems, to invent something that others will find beautiful, practical or useful.

mind-mapping - mind maps to improve your vocabulary

2008-10-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Mind-maps are the creation of Tony Buzan, the memory expert. The basic principle is that the mind dislikes traditional, linear note taking and thus anything we write should start in the centre of the page with related ideas branching out in all directions. This tool has been successfully used by managers to organise, brainstorm, and even to prepare notes for speeches. Do a search for mind-maps on the Internet and you will find plenty of good examples. I think that mind-maps can be an important and effective asset to anyone who wants to learn a language.

Why traditional note taking is ineffective

I observe my students in class writing down the new vocabulary that comes up in class. More often than not, a student will write down the new word with the translation in his own language next to it. Of course, writing things down is necessary if you want to review later. But at the end of one lesson, the student has a couple of pages of new words that are completely at random – apple, happy, gun, gloat, keyboard, violet, etc. Impossible to retain a list of words like this. Even if you tried to memorise them, the fact that they are irrelevant to each other makes it difficult to remember them.

Mind-maps – a better way

Use mind maps to make “vocabulary networks”. This involves writing a single word, your theme, in the centre of the page and linking words that go with it. Let’s take “theft” as an example. Draw a line from the word “theft” to a new bubble with a description in it - “Theft from a bank” –then write the word “robbery” next to it. Then the word for the person, “robber”, the verb, “to rob”. You can continue to fill the page with “shoplifting”, “mugging”, “pick pocketing”, burglary”, etc, noting all the related words you can think of. Use a dictionary to find the words in the language you are studying. Now you have a page of words that are relevant to each other, thus making them easier to recall when you are talking in your new language. Mind-maps are even more effective if you add little drawings and lots of colour – your brain likes to be entertained!

By the way, this exercise is great in your own language to improve your vocabulary. Use a good dictionary of synonyms (like Roget’s Thesaurus) to get a richer vocabulary.

Are sms messages corrupting the English language?

2008-10-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Many people are horrified by abbreviations used in text messages, such as 'U R L8', meaning 'you are late'. Is there any justification in the beliefs that our literary tradition is being corrupted and that young people are going to be disadvantaged by their ignorance of correct spelling?

While in no way advocating that this kind of writing should replace the system we have in place today, let me explain why I think that it is not reasonable to be overly-concerned by this phenomenon. There may even be some positive sides to it!

Firstly, the English language is a big mess when it comes to spelling. There are few rules, and even the ones that exist have too many exceptions. Teaching children to read using the phonics method can only help them to read a small number of words, the majority need to be learned by sight. The same for foreign learners of English. Few of my students, including those at intermediate and advanced level can pronounce properly the word 'women'.

Another good example would be words that contain the letters 'ough'- ought, though, through, rough, bough, and thorough are all pronounced differently.

The writer George Bernard Shaw wanted the English alphabet to be revised so that each sound had its own character. He famously argued that 'ghoti' could be pronounced 'fish' in current English, the 'gh' as in 'enough', the 'o' like 'women' and the 'ti' as in 'station'. Not surprisingly, however, his proposed 'Shavian' alphabet of some forty or more letters was never taken seriously.

Secondly, simplification of spelling has already begun in the United States, largely due to the work of their great lexicographer, Noah Webster. He argued that superfluous (that is, unpronounced) letters could be deleted, like the 'u' in 'colour', 'favour' and the 'ough' in 'through' which is now written 'thru'.

Thirdly, what is so scandalous about using symbols for words anyway? We gape in awe at the complex hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and languages like Chinese only have characters which represent words or ideas, not a phonetic alphabet like ours. Also, the idea of dropping vowels is not new. There are some languages that have an alphabet of only consonants, the reader knows how to pronounce the word from his oral learning of that word. Let's face it, the way I say certain vowels is very different to the way, for example, a New Zealander would say them, so why not drop them altogether?

If we were serious about preserving the written tradition of our language, rather than complaining about the pitiful state of teenagers' writing we should seriously consider revising the ridiculous way we spell our words so that spelling more accurately reflects pronunciation. By so doing, text language would remain in its place where it is useful, and not spill over into other areas of written language.

Insects of Provence

2008-10-27T13:43:00.001-07:00

The Brits just love Provence. For us, the climate, the scenery, the sea, the mountains, the vineyards, olive groves and lavendar fields are irrestible. But we don't expect our Provencal dream to be ruined by horrible creepy-crawlies!

Of course, that's being a little naive. The warmer the weather, the bigger and scarier the bugs. Most insects are harmless and absolutely necessary to the eco-system. They clear away cadavers, fertilise the soil, pollenate the flowers and perform lots of other essential tasks.

My daughter and I enjoy spotting and sometimes catching insects. You can see in the video above three of the insects that have lived with us over the last year - a preying mantis, a diablotin, and a rhinocerous beatle.

French: language of food and love

2008-10-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

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There are two groups of French words that have had a particularly strong influence on the English language, that of food and war.

French - the language of diplomacy.

Until the first world war - less than a hundred years ago,- French was the world's international language. Diplomats, aristocrats and businessmen from all over the world would communicate in French. If you couldn't speak French, you just couldn't cut it in high society - how could you possibly be chic without it?

The world of diplomacy, war and international intrigue still abounds with French words. James Bond would be out of a job if an entente cordiale put an end to espionnage, and military pilots wouldn't be able to fly reconnaissance missions. The world might be a more peaceful place without so many coups d'état but press attachés wouldn't have much to communicate to the world either. Indeed, without French, a chargé d'affaires would have nothing to put in his attaché case and he would be pretty lonely without any secret rendezvous to attend. We shouldn't meddle with all these French words, instead we should adopt a policy of laissez-faire.

Food - vive la cuisine française!

Our Gallic friends have a quite understandable condescending attitude to Anglo-Saxon food. After all, French cuisine is considered to be the best in the world and French chefs are highly sought after in the best hotels and restaurants.

We just love using French words when at the restaurant - if you don't want to eat a set-price meal, you can choose something from the menu something more à la carte. You can't say "enjoy your meal" without sounding like a crew member in McDonalds, so the French "bon appetit" has so much more panache.

And what would our cooking be like without crème fraîche, fromage frais, crème brûlée, hors-d'oeuvres, sautés, or soufflés?