Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Our New Government
Today, in the Queen's speech, she announced the ambitious legislative programme put forward by the new coalition government which they hope to achieve over the next 18 months. These are the keys points, obviously the main priority is to reduce the deficit (which Cameron points out is bigger than Greece's). They also aim to promote energy efficiency, give more power to local councils and open more schools. Additionally, they'll introduce a referendum to change to the alternative vote for the whole of the UK and parliamentary reform, introducing fixed term elections every 5 years. And just to add insult to injury the unpopular ID cards that Gordon Brown's Labour government hoped to introduce, have been scrapped.
This is a new and potentially difficult period for British Politics with Harriet Harman (the Caretaker Labour leader) watching and waiting for the 'happy couple' to make their first mistake...I, for one, will be watching this space with interest!
Glossary
to to and fro Continuous movement from place to place
doomed to failure Sure to fail
as different as chalk and cheese Complete opposites
a referendum People vote to make a decision about subject
the alternative vote a ranking system of voting
add insult to injury to make something that is already bad, worse
to scrap to get rid of something
caretaker Labour leader a temporary leader until another one is chosen
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Passive Verb Forms
Students at LSE often ask us to help them understand passive verb forms. Many learners get frustrated by passives in English. Some students don't even believe they are used by English people! Of course, they are very common, and very useful. This blog post should help you to understand how and why passive verb forms are used. There is a task at the end of the blog post, which will be answered in my next blog post. If you have questions about passive forms, please leave a comment below!
Why is the passive difficult to understand and use?
In my opinion, there are a few difficult things for students to deal with when studying the passive:
1) The complicated form – it is hard to manipulate sentences using the passive in different tenses and after modal verbs. This is because of all the different auxiliary verbs and past participles used to make passive structures.
2) Understanding how and why the passive is used. Many students say they know how to construct passive sentences, but don’t know when they should use them.
3) The pronunciation of passive forms – it can be difficult to hear all the little words used when native speakers use passive forms. Also, it’s difficult to pronounce them correctly if you’re not a native speaker.
What's the difference between active and passive forms?
To understand passive forms, we need to compare them to active forms.
Active sentences are in this structure:
SUBJECT/AGENT – VERB – OBJECT
E.g. Michael Jackson – wrote – this song
The subject is the agent (the thing that ‘does’ the verb)
The agent is included because it is important, or is the topic of the sentence (e.g. if the question is “who wrote this song?” it is important to say “Michael Jackson wrote it”)
But sometimes it is better to order the sentence in a different way. Like this passive sentence:
SUBJECT – VERB - (PREPOSITION + OBJECT/AGENT)
E.g. The song – was written – (by Michael Jackson)
What is the form of passive structures?
The basic form is: be + past participle
The auxiliary verb be can come in many forms, eg. being, been, was, were, am, are, is
Past participles are the 3rd form of a verb. E.g. eat - ate - eaten. Past participles are sometimes difficult to remember.
The agent (the one who 'does' the action of the verb) is often not included.
If the agent is included, you have to use a preposition (by).
Why is the passive used?
They are used a lot, and they are useful. But, why? and how?
Here’s a list of reasons why the passive is used:
- The agent is unknown (The diamond was stolen at midnight last night - at the moment, we don't know who the thief is)
- The agent is not important (The diamond had been valued at over £1o million it's not important who valued the diamond, we can assume it was an expert)
- The agent is obvious (“The thief was arrested” -obviously it was the police because they usually do that)
- The action (the verb) is more important than the agent (the one who did it) “The door had been smashed, the cabinet was broken into and a guard was killed”
- The diamond is the topic of the sentence or story, so it is put at the beginning of the sentence.
Real Examples: BBC News Report
Read the following news story about Michael Jackson’s death (adapted from a BBC News story, linked here)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8119993.stm.
Find examples of the passive in the text. There should be 10. Think about these things:
1. Which tenses and verb forms are used? (e.g. present simple passive, past simple passive, passive infinitive)
2. Why has the passive been used in each case?
I will give you the answers to this task in my next blog post.
Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50.
Paramedics were called to the singer’s Beverly Hills home at about midday on Thursday after he stopped breathing.
He was pronounced dead two hours later at the UCLA medical centre.
Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to perform a series of comeback concerts in the UK, beginning on 13 July. He is believed to have suffered a cardiac arrest.
Speaking on behalf of the Jackson family, Michael’s brother Jermaine said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success.
Jackson’s body was flown from UCLA to the LA County Coroner’s office, where a post-mortem was carried out. The results have not yet been published.
Concerns over Michael’s health were raised last month when four of Jackson’s planned comeback concerts were postponed, but organisers insisted the dates had been moved due to the difficulty of organising the show.
Some words and expressions in the story are defined below.
Paramedics – Doctors who drive ambulances
Beverly Hills – An area in California where lots of famous people live
Suffer a cardiac arrest – to have a heart attack
To be due to do something – to be arranged to happen. It is going to happen because it is planned
To resuscitate someone – to bring someone to life – using electricity, or breathing or pumping the chest
A post-mortem – a medical examination of a body after it has died
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Bye Bye Baku
The past four weeks have taught me a lot about learning, teaching, culture and myself. I hope too that my students have learnt enough about IELTS to get them through their exam on Saturday. It hasn’t all been smiles, as you can see in my previous post, but I would say that overall I’ve had a lot of fun, met some really interesting people and made some good friends.
A lot of people here have asked me what I will miss about Baku and Azerbaijan, so here is my top five:
1. The people – very friendly, hospitable and inquisitive.
2. The city at night – all the old buildings are illuminated, making Baku one of the most beautiful places you could ever visit in the evenings.
3. Icherisheher – a fascinating glimpse into the past. You can see photos here.
4. The service in restaurants – efficient but unobtrusive.
5. The tea – the Azerbaijani people drink much more tea than us Brits, and the accompanying sweets are delicious.
So, if you ever get the chance to visit Azerbaijan and you would like some advice, let me know and I can give you a few pointers. In the meantime, I look forward to blogging again when I’m back in London. Thanks for reading.
time up to have run out of time
to play up phrasal verb meaning to cause problems
to get through to be able to complete something difficult
to not be all smiles an expression used to describe an experience which was not always positive
inquisitive showing curiosity
illuminated provided with artificial light
glimpse an indication of what something is/was like
unobtrusive not noticeable, in a positive way
pointers pieces of advice or tips, informal
in the meantime during the intervening time, or the time between two events
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Election Special: What is a Hung Parliament?
How can we stop a hung parliament?
Firstly, Labour will stay in power if they don’t lose any of their seats however; if they lose 24 seats they’ll lose their absolute majority. If the Conservative Party get an extra 116 seats, they’ll gain a majority; but the Liberal Democrats need a further 264 seats for an absolute majority. Everything else would lead to a hung parliament.
What would a hung parliament mean to Britain?
This is an interesting question and we may well find out very soon!! If the election results in a hung parliament then Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister unless he decides to step down (unlikely). He may then decide to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrat party (lead by Nick Clegg) if their joint number of seats reaches a majority, if not they can invite other smaller parties to join them until they have 326 seats or more. The main concern with a hung parliament seems to be that it can be very difficult to pass laws because they aren’t supported by enough MPs; however this could be unfounded because many countries seem to successfully run a coalition style government such as Germany and New Zealand. The last British hung parliament was in 1974. Edward Heath (Conservative PM) called a hasty election after finally bringing the minors strike to an end. He looked certain to win but on polling day, the Liberal vote surged. The final result was Labour 301, Conservative 297 and Liberals 14. Heath tried to form an alliance with Jeremy Thorpe the Liberal Leader but failed so he resigned and Harold Wilson of the Labour Party became PM. Between March and October 1974 only 27 laws were passed and these weren’t contentious relating to roads and railways. In my humble opinion, a hung parliament could be just what this country needs. To keep up-to-date with the election go to the BBC election website.
Glossary
Poll (n) - the process of finding out what people think, survey
Close race - the two main parties may be quite equal in the end
Seat (n) - a position as an elected member of a government
Absolute majority - when a party wins more than half the total votes in an election
Coalition (n) - a union of two or more political parties to form a government
Unfounded (adj) - something that is wrong because it's not based on fact or evidence
Hasty (adj) - done in a hurry, often with negative results
Strike (n) - a period of time when a group of workers deliberately stop work
Polling day - the day when the public votes in an election
Surge (v) - to suddenly move quickly in a particular direction
Resign (v) - to officially announce that you have decided to leave your job
Contentious (adj) - causing a lot of argument and disagreement between people
Humble (adj) - not considering your ideas to be as important as other people's