Last weekend, I was lucky enough to run a two-day teacher development course in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. One evening, a few of us went out for dinner and while we were chatting, one of the organisers of the event started telling…
Word of the day: kinky
To use one of those understatements that we're apparently so well known for, the English are not exactly famous for being very direct – and this is particularly true when it comes to expressing our more intimate feelings. The stereotype…
Word of the day: hangover
Now I know what you're probably thinking: this is bound to be a post about the kind of hangover you wake up with the morning after the night before; what you get if you had a bit too much to…
Word of the day: off grid
Like many people, I find it difficult to turn off and may even suffer from a mild version of what has been called nomophobia - the fear of being without a mobile device or out of mobile contact. What with…
Word of the day: atrocity
Like many of you, I suppose, I woke yesterday morning to the appalling news coming out of Manchester. American pop singer Ariana Grande, who's very popular with teenagers and young people here, had been performing at the Manchester Arena. The…
Word of the day: ransom
Over the last few days, the news here in the UK has been dominated by the hackers currently holding the country to ransom! It all began last Friday afternoon, when computers in several hospitals around the country suddenly stopped working…
Word of the day: landslide
As you've probably noticed, France has elected a new president. From a British point of view, the French system is quite peculiar in that not only do the people directly elect the President, but there are also are two rounds…
Word of the day: professional
When I was in Norilsk, in the far north of Russia earlier this year, I was lucky enough to have a free day at the end of the teacher development course I'd been running there. We decided we were going…
Word of the day: pimp
A few weeks ago, I ran a teacher development course in Norilsk, Siberia. In one session, we were talking about how to give better examples of new language and I was trying to get teachers to think more about not…
Word of the day: snap
For many years, Britain had a reputation around the world for stability. Rightly or wrongly, it was widely believed that things here happened as they should and there were no sudden or harmful changes. Over the last couple of years,…