Good morning and welcome to this week's slightly late Penguinet. Yesterday I was so caught up in pine branches and candles etc that I completely forgot I should be writing to you here.

So maybe this is a chance to consider different ways of apologizing:

http://esl.about.com/od/smalltalk/a/Apologizing-In-English.htm

http://www.engvid.com/ways-to-apologize-sorry/

http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ii064/esl-test.php


Now that I hope you have forgiven me, let's continue.

Today is St Andrew's Day, St A being the Patron saint of Scotland.

To whet your appetite about the country:


http://www.visitscotland.com/

More about St Andrew:
http://www.scotland.org/features/the-history-of-saint-andrew-of-scotland/


Braveheart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIpwE8_-tWs

And the lovely Amy MacDonald and the People of Glasgow at the opening of the Commonwealth Games (look out for old Rocker Rod Stewart at the end!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyrcQCYcn08

And our very own Pipes and Drums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5q6odMvtJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5q6odMvtJU

Happy Advent!

Good morning and welcome to our Thanksgiving Special.

The last Thursday in November is Thanksgiving in the USA. We've talked about this often in our lessons, but here's some extra info:

History of Thanksgiving Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsdzjdT_LkY


Here's a tiny online quiz - choose the correct words:
http://a4esl.org/q/j/vm/m-thanksgiving.html

And a longer quiz involving (among other things) prepositions. Yaaaay!
http://www.manythings.org/voa/011119tia2.htm

And we can always count on National Geographic, this time from National Geographic Kids:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/history/first-thanksgiving/


Last but not least, let's watch what Charlie Brown has to say about it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ961y0VKEk

How the world can change in a few seconds...

We are all thinking about France this weekend, so let's take the opportunity to look at French words in English:
http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/frenchinenglish_2.htm


It all started with the Normans of course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7SX3ulV_tk
(This is part one, other parts are available on YouTube)


A Battle of Hastings Game:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/normans/launch_gms_battle_hastings.shtml

And everything in England changed for ever:
http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/

Things went from bad to worse between our two countries:

All about Agincourt:
http://www.agincourt600.com/
and
The Battle of Trafalgar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxsFSRQgbg

But sooner or later along came the the 'Entente cordiale'
http://www.guizot.com/en/politics/entente-cordiale/


Well, it's a blustery day here in Ahsen-Oetzen, so I will leave you with a weather vocabulary game:
http://www.eslgamesplus.com/weather-vocabulary-esl-interactive-board-game/

Oh my goodness, what an exciting 48 hours.

When I got back from work on Thursday, there was an email from the BBC.

The BBC!!!!

A Journalist had read something I had written about the refugee situation here, and wanted to talk to me.

Now, when the BBC calls I answer so I replied immediately and within five minutes Journalist Charlie and I were chatting away.

He said that Mark Mardell, a very famous BBC Journalist, wanted to visit rural Germany and see how the refugee situation was working out. (Last week he was in Strassburg talking to politicians.)

By 5.30pm Thursday evening we knew that Mark and his Editor, another Mark, would be arriving in Bremen on Friday morning. We arranged for Horst to pick them up and bring them to downtown Morsum.

I then phoned and emailed local people and students who I thought had connections with or opinions about the situation. And they came, along with some refugees.

On Saturday I escorted Mark through the market in Achim, for 'local colour' and more interviews.

It was all so interesting and both Marks were so interesting and interested.

I'm still pinching myself that this really happened.

But it did, and you can  hear the result here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnz4

Good morning again from Penguin HQ. Hope you all had a happy Halloween!

After a great few days in beautiful Stolberg it was back to work this week and of course back to the Rugby World Cup.

Here's the best of all hakas:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/10/30/haka-all-blacks-new-zealand_n_8429158.html

And here's an online preposition quiz  on the topic of Rugby:
http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-2/exercise-english-43382.php

Rugby is actually a town in England, here's a short clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Er3LQFbro
And the town Website:
http://www.enjoyrugby.co.uk/enjoyrugby/site/index.php

And the All Blacks, World Champions,  Website
http://www.allblacks.com/

One challenge many students face is hearing the difference between words like 'walk' and 'work' and pronouncing the difference between 'cherry' and 'sherry'. Here's an interesting online Audio concentration activity:
http://www.manythings.org/ac/ac.html

Enjoy!