Advertising Anchovies (Part 2)
Now that we’ve gotten some help from Rory Sutherland, for this week, tell me your idea for an advertising campaign to sell more anchovies – here in the Basque country, to people in the USA, wherever you want. It can be a TV commercial, a social media campaign, a song, celebrity endorsement, a logo, or anything you […]
Advertising Anchovies (Part 1)
For next week, you’re going to create an advertising campaign to sell more anchovies in the Basque Country. But first, let’s get some ideas. Here’s a TED talk from Rory Sutherland, who works for Ogilvy & Mather, one of the world’s most successful advertising agencies. He’s talking about intangible value (also called “badge value” or “perceived value.” 1:02 What is […]
Week of May 1st: Taking a Trip
Pack your bags! You’re going on vacation! But first…you have to survive the airport. That’s what we’re going to practice this week in class. To get ready, we can see this video about the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA), who protects America’s airports. Their primary weapon in the fight against terrorism is yelling at people to […]
Week of April 25th: Is Txting Killing the English Language?
People often complain that texting, SMS, and Watsapps are bad for language. Do you agree? How do you write text messages? In this TED Talk John McWhorter gives a different perspective on the argument: 0:56 When we “pull the camera back” to think differently about language, what do we see? 1:11 The majority of the history […]
Week of April 17th: How to Spot a Fad Diet
Next week, we’ll be doing part two of the listening challenge (finally!), so here’s something to listen to in the meantime. As always watch without subtitles first, try to answer the questions, then use the subtitles to check your answers. (0:35) What is a fad diet? Give an example. What is the video’s opinion of fad diets? (0:52) […]
The Justin Bieber Challenge! (Week of April 11th)
Last week, I got a phone call from my good friend Justin Bieber. He is thrilled (very happy) that his song Love Yourself is popular on the radio here in Gipuzkoa. But he’s worried that we don’t really understand it. I told him not to worry: we here at English Alive understand Justin perfectly well. So […]
A Bit of Comedy (Week of April 4th)
Here you have an episode with one of my favorite podcasts, This American Life. Listen to Acts Two and Three: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/464/invisible-made-visible 7:28 Does a Bear Hit in the Woods? 7:51 What was Ryan’s challenge? (couldn’t wait – 1. no veía la hora, 2. no podía esperar) 8:40 What happened with the foam soccer ball? 9:43 […]
Logos
Here’s a short video about logos from Vox to get you thinking: (0:28) What are the 3 specific types of logos? (1:27) How was the Nike logo born? (2:07) What is the fourth type of logo? What are some examples? (3:56) What does he mean by “they think they’re judging a diving competition, but actually all […]
Eating Out! (Week of 7-11 March)
Next week, we’ll roleplay some practical situations that could happen in a restaurant. To practice some useful vocabulary, here’s a video on the very American practice of tipping: (0:31) What is the main idea of the video?(0:44) Why do you have to tip?(0:57) What are the effects of tipping?(1:06) What is Adam’s first argument against […]
Giving Presentations with Dave
This month, everyone’s going to give a short (5-10 minutes) presentation. The topic could be anything – your last vacation, something related to your job, how English Alive changed your life, etc. For next week, think of an idea – what can you talk about? Here is some advice to give better presentations: (0:27) What 3 […]
