THE WORLD'S MOST USED 'EMOJIS'

 (6th Cultural Week-14: Writing in the 21st century)

Emoticons, 'emojis' or smileys are certainly the new way of communicating of the digital era. Emoticons have come a long way since the days of :-) and they are already 32 years old. 
Link:The emoticon celebrates its 30th birthday (Sept'12)

Thanks to "emojis" (from Japanese = "picture character") we can express complex emotions and ideas in a simple way when textmessaging,whatsapping or tweeting.

There are different rankings showing the most used emoticons throughout the world.

On this post we can see some ranking results, above and on the left. 

The latter was a survey carried out in 2014 by Matthew Rothenberg on Twitter in real time. The survey was made counting tweets in many languages from Arabic to Chinese, English... and the resulting TOP 100 is the one on the left. Hearts top the list by far and love is also prominent.

If we are to answer the previous question, these are the results from 2014:
- These are the leading countries of each emoticon family:
babies - Latin America
cats - Brazil
female themed icons - the UK
violence - Canada
holidays - Australia
parties/'fiestas' - Spain
sadness - USA Hispanics
hearts - France
happy faces - Turkey
romanticism - Russia
flowers - Arab countries
hand signs - Malaysia
- The French use the heart icon, in any of its versions, four times more than average. Russians use romantic icons (kisses, love-letters, kissing couples) three times more than average.
- USA is the worldwide leader in the use of the chicken thigh, the aubergine (this use considered obscene), the birthday cake and the money bag.
- French & Vietnamese are the ones who seldom use smileys related to homosexuality, such as the rainbow or same-sex couples holding hands.
- The smiling poo is mostly used in the USA, the UK and Brazil. It's considered a funny emoji, but Russians don't seem to like it much.

More and more people have fun using emoticons to write the names of songs, films, sentences, short stories.

Here are some funny ones we've found:
- Can you decode this message?

(Scroll to the end of the post for the translation*)

- A summary of "Les Miserables"

*Translation: "Writing in longhand takes too much time and space, so in the future this newspaper will be written entirely in emoticons and sent directly to your mobile phone."

TYPING: THE EVOLUTION IN WRITING

 (6th Cultural Week-13: Writing in the 21st century)

About to start next Monday our 6th Cultural Week devoted to THE HISTORY OF HANDWRITING, we're showing a funny video of how young kids react to what is now an "ancient" machine already: THE TYPEWRITER.  
The typewriter was the stage between handwriting and typing as we do now on computers or smartphones. Have a look at this video and see how something not so old for many of us is like a dinosaur for youngest ones.

Video Reacting to Old Typewriters:

CLINES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

What is a cline?
The British Council Teaching English website defines a cline as ‘a scale of language items that goes from one extreme to another, for example, from positive to negative, or from weak to strong’.Clines can be very effective in clarifying language, giving a very visual representation of meaning. They are very versatile and can be used for vocabulary or grammar.

The examples of clines you can see here were taken from the blog Recipes for the EFL classroom. Above this text: temperature vocabulary. Below: adverbs of frequency:

- Expressing likes and dislikes:

- Feelings: degrees of hunger.

EXAMPLES OF TEXT-MESSAGES, WHATSAPPS & TWEETS

(6th Cultural Week-12: Writing in the 21st century)

Here are some examples of text-messages/whatsapps and the first contibutions as tweets:

ARE YOU ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THESE MESSAGES? 

If you need help to decode them, remember to check HERE.

And here's an example of a Tweet handed in by one of our students:

CAN YOU PREPARE SOME MORE FOR THE EXHIBITION? 

HAND IN BEFORE WEDNESDAY, 22nd.

LUKE'S TALK AT "RAFAEL DIESTE"

This morning, we had the pleasure to receive Luke's visit to our school. He's an Englishman from Liverpool, who lives in A Coruña.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take photos of him talking, but during his talk he showed the cartoon picture of "Family Guy's" character Peter Griffin, telling us that his friends said he looked like him.

Luke gave a speech for 1stBAC students about British culture: 

- the British flag ("The Union Jack"), (Info about this is also in this blog: HERE1)

- the difference between Northern Ireland, part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, (Info about this is also in this blog:  HERE2).

- why British drive on the left, which countries do so and the reason why. (Info about this is also in this blog:  HERE3).

- Scottish traditions (pagpipes, kilts, tartan...)

He was very amusing, making students participate and enjoy.

Thanks Luke and we hope to see you again (and take photos when you come!)

Luke is sponsored by Burlington Books.

TEMPLATES FOR YOUR TEXT-MESSAGES, WHATSAPPS & TWEETS

 (6th Cultural Week-11: Writing in the 21st century)

If you're taking part in the activities writing mobile phone text-messages, whatsapps or tweets in English, here are some templates you can download and print to use them or ask your teacher. Remember to use the usual English textmessage acronyms-abbreviations.

HANDWRITTEN QUOTES

 (6th Cultural Week-10: Writing in the 21st century)

One of the activities for this year's cultural week was HANDWRITTEN QUOTES IN ENGLISH. Here are some of the best we've found:

CAN YOU FIND SOME MORE...? HAND IN BEFORE WEDNESDAY, 22nd.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WRITING ON VIDEO

 (6th Cultural Week-9: Writing in the 21st century)

Getting ready for this year's Cultural Week, here's a video in English with a brief history of writing from the British Museum.

Video:

SEE vs LOOK vs WATCH

Check the difference between these three verbs with a similar meaning SEE, LOOK & WATCH.

CONFUSING 'LIKE" (VERB vs PREPOSITION) & AS

Here's a chart and an explanation of the confusing uses of LIKE, as a verb or a prepostion. Study the examples.

Would like vs. (Do) like

What kind of food do you like? (Facts, personal preferences)

I  like your new car.

I like ice cream, bananas. 

I like Chinese food.

What kind of food would you like? (If you could choose)

I would like Italian food.

I' d like another glass of wine, please.

---

Be like vs. Look like

What does John like? (What are his personal preferences?)

He likes horror movies, basketball, chocolate ice cream...

What does John look like? (Physical description)

He is tall, dark and handsome.
He has black hair and wears glasses.

What is John like? (Description of personality)

He is a nice guy. He is very kind and friendly.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Confusing Like vs. As

The World is Your Oyster
As and Like in this post. Let’s take a look at these at times confusing words.

 LIKE = similar to, the same as. You cannot use as in this way

• You have a huge house! It’s like a palace (not as a palace)
• You love romantic films, like me (not as me)
• I love eating in the garden. It’s like being on holiday. (not as being)
• It’s raining again! I hate weather like this (not as this)

In these sentences, like is a preposition, so it is followed by a noun ( like a palace), a pronoun (like me/this) or -ing ( like being)

Sometimes we can use like = for example

• Some people, like my dentist, run half marathons once a week.

Note: We can also use such as = for example

• Some people, such as my dentist, run half marathons once a week

AS = in the same way as, or in the same condition as. We use as before the subject + verb

• As I said at the meeting last week, I think we should revise our sales forecasts.
• If you had done as I said, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Note: we can use Like in the above examples in informal spoken English, NOT written English.

• Like I said at the meeting last week, I think we should revise our sales forecasts.

Compare as and like in these sentences:

• You should have done it as I showed you (or like I showed you – spoken)
• You should have done it like this. (not as this)

As can also be a preposition, but the meaning is different to like. Let’s take a look:

• As an English Language Trainer, I have many lessons to prepare. (As a trainer =in my position as a trainer)
• Like my teaching colleagues, I have many lessons to prepare. ( Like my teaching colleagues = the same as my colleagues)

As (preposition) = in the position of, in the form of

• A few years ago I worked as a financial adviser.
• We haven’t got a separate office, so we use the fourth bedroom as an office.
• London is wonderful as a city to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

LINK TO EXERCISE: AS OR LIKE?

SPEAK vs TALK

Another post to see the difference between two confusing verbs: SPEAK & TALK, see the chart above.

SAY vs TELL

The always confusing uses of SAY and TELL, check the difference with these two charts.

More info @ Cambridge University Press: SAY vs TELLMore detailed information in this link from EnglishWithATwist: WHEN TO USE SAY OR TELL? 
Below some typical collocations with these verbs and others like ASK, SPEAK & TALK: