According to some recent research I read, the number of divorces in the UK last year was highest among men and women aged 40 to 44. I mention this because this afternoon, I had one of those depressing kinds of…
Chunk of the day: dark horse
A week or so ago, I gave a talk at a conference for English language teachers in Liestal, in the north of Switzerland. While I was there, I bumped into an old friend of mine that I hadn't seen each…
Chunk of the day: the last-chance saloon
As part of our Lexical Lab summer school, we offer a full and varied social and cultural programme, but most Sundays, students are free to go off wherever they please. Last weekend, a couple of people went on a day-trip…
Chunk of the day: baptism of fire
If you've been following the series of blog posts I did about the World Cup, you'll know that I love football. Now that the World Cup has finished, I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms. Like a lot of other fellow sufferers, I'm…
Chunk of the day: high drama
And then there were four! So we've now had the quarter-finals of this year's World Cup, and we know who the semi-finalists are: France, Belgium, England and Croatia. Incredibly, this is now the first World Cup ever in which not…
Chunk of the day: a spate of
In our most-viewed post of recent weeks, we reported on the fact that there had been a spate of incidents involving people dressed as ‘killer clowns’ and that people dressed as scary clowns had been terrorising innocent members of the…
Chunk of the day: heavy workload
If you have a heavy workload, it means you have a lot of work to do and you probably work very long hours. Recently, a report revealed that, on average, teachers in the UK work 40-58 hours a week and…
Chunk of the day: get sidetracked
Last year we wrote a book called Perspectives. It's aimed at secondary school students and is loosely based around TED talks – and part of what you have to do for any book you write, but especially for one like…
Chunk of the day: adverse weather conditions
Over recent days, the news has been full of dire warnings. We've been urged to batten down the hatches and prepare to be hit hard by what's being called the Beast from the East! Quite what the former heavyweight boxing…
Chunk of the day: mass brawl
Twice in two days now, I've seen the words mass brawl appear in news headlines. First there was a story about up to a hundred schoolchildren, many still wearing their school uniforms, being involved in a mass brawl - a…