tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59432094580627503922011-12-07T14:55:16.838+01:00by NinaNinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-74532066816394270182011-12-07T14:48:00.000+01:002011-12-07T14:48:33.243+01:00

Dear blog followers, you will now find the blog AND my brand new website at EnglishBrno.cz. You can switch between Czech and English languages. Don´t forget to "Subscribe via email" under the blog post to be updated about new articles. Looking forward to seeing you there, Nina

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-65798648971397827802011-10-24T10:59:00.000+02:002011-10-24T10:59:29.091+02:00

This afternoon I am teaching a lesson in my new course "Anglicky bez učebnic" (English Without Books) and the topic is: Recommendations in a city. It is my own lesson which I´ve just put together and it´s based on English Out There´s<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-12286848778923929482011-10-18T21:43:00.011+02:002011-10-19T10:15:27.555+02:00

Share Tweet I have recently answered several interesting questions in my first online interview. However it´s in Czech so here is a little more about me, a few snapshots from my life, in English. I am hoping this will bring me closer to you.  Thanks for reading my blog, being a FB fan and a friend. I really appreciate everyone´s activity and reactions to my work. In a language school,

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-33160952915230379842011-09-10T16:43:00.008+02:002011-09-12T09:48:20.473+02:00

Share Tweet More and more foreigners come to study, work or just live in Brno so whenever you walk up the high street or go for a beer in one of the pubs/clubs downtown there’s no doubt you’ll encounter a foreigner.  I´m sure you can always run into one at Charlie´s or the Livingstone´s, the two popular hang out pubs/bars/discos where you can expect nice drinks, dance groove, great pub

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-84318823652561200812011-09-10T15:18:00.008+02:002011-09-11T00:01:39.286+02:00

Share Tweet Many people have started asking me about teaching online. From September on I have several openings for highly motivated individuals on intermediate + levels who cannot take offline lessons with me because they don’t live in Brno, CZ.  Should you be one of them, please, send me an email at nina.englishbrno@gmail.com and we’ll set up a free Skype lesson to see if we are the right

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-66762610368504685802011-08-31T11:44:00.003+02:002011-09-11T00:04:44.631+02:00

Share Tweet After managing my first “English Without Books” course from January - May, which was quite challenging and intensive for both the students and me, I decided to organize something more easy-going in the summer. Consider this a report on what we did and how the summer course went and feel free to comment on or ask about any of the lessons or management of the course.      The

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-37315611302024696512011-08-05T14:33:00.000+02:002011-08-05T14:33:11.662+02:00

Starting this month I am going to be sending out my own newsletter. Here is a copy of the first issue. Should you be interested in receiving my newsletter, please, email me at nina.englishbrno@gmail.com.  Hello and welcome to my first newsletter! You are receiving this newsletter because you are either a friend, a student or a colleague who I think might benefit from my English learning

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-37493812097805495632011-07-26T08:05:00.001+02:002011-07-26T08:09:18.471+02:00

Share Tweet Every learner and teacher of English knows that prepositional phrases can be very tricky.  Here are 10 of them which my students often make mistakes in, with simple example sentences. Feel free to add your own in the Comments below! TO GET MARRIED TO Tom had been going out with Jane for many years. Finally he got married to her last month.Why didn´t you get married to him, he was

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-63918672569552699862011-07-20T14:58:00.007+02:002011-07-21T22:29:25.328+02:00

Share  Tweet When I was 11, the Iron Wall came down and the Czechs could finally travel abroad. Well... to the West. I used to spend all my childhood vacations in Bulgaria so I couldn't have been more excited to cross the borders to the colourful world called Western Europe, 21 years ago.  But unlike most of my schoolmates' parents, mine didn't take me just across the borders, to Vienna. We

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-16565881414535741432011-06-20T15:37:00.007+02:002011-08-02T12:09:30.356+02:00

Share  Tweet Jean Kilbourne - Killing Us Softly  A while back one of the EnglishBrno FB page fans shared a very interesting documentary with us, called "Killing Us Softly". It is a 30-min talk on portrayal of women in advertising.  As I was watching I realized I wanted to plan my next lesson around this topic. So I did : Level : intermediate + Time needed : 2+ hrs  PRE-LESSON TASKOne

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-22354617658000034182011-06-15T12:11:00.003+02:002011-06-15T12:17:55.737+02:00

Share From 12 January till 25 May I led a course called "Kurz zážitkové angličtiny" which I translated as "English Without Books" since we didn´t use any books and most of the activities were conversational, real-life events where students got to interact with native and international speakers. Apart from in-class time the students followed a self-study programme consisting of English Out There (

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-41125523715224648872011-05-02T17:57:00.010+02:002011-06-15T12:22:14.346+02:00

Share In the past year I have become a big fan of making educational videos. Here are the most recent ones I´ve recorded, edited and published online.  GRAMMAR VIDEOS  When to use Present Perfect tense: MY COURSES Our singing lesson with Chris Barickman, which was part of the course "English Without Books": MY COLLEAGUESInterview with my friend and teacher colleague, Louel Ross

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-91735671356486009202011-04-14T22:34:00.015+02:002011-04-15T00:10:05.560+02:00

Share This is great news. It is now possible to share all English Central videos on your websites, blogs or social media platforms. I see this as a perfect opportunity for blogging teachers who can build lessons around these videos. They are all subtitled and you can record your voice reading them out loud. If you´ve never heard of English Central, I bet you 1000 USD that you´ll love it. Watch

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-7126436691404807042011-04-13T08:43:00.003+02:002011-08-02T12:09:30.356+02:00

Share A few days after each session of the "English Without Books" course I send the students a revision email, with a summary of what we did in the session, links used in the lesson and the activities we did.  Here´s the email I am sending them this week.  Dear Lenka, Tina, Zdeněk, Zuzka and Léňa, In our previous session we worked with the pilot (= first episode) of the popular British sitcom IT

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-36740226971517238272011-04-10T13:59:00.013+02:002011-04-10T17:03:38.073+02:00

Share Tweet If you are an English teacher, you are a BUSY TEACHER.  Here is my personal pick of the top 10 websites which I find extremely useful in my teaching. Please, feel free to add your favourite websites for teachers in the Comments. They might be completely different! Best resource websites - lesson plans/ideas for busy teachers If you don´t know Onestopenglish.com, you are most

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-320493574560259362011-03-06T21:18:00.017+01:002011-08-02T12:09:30.357+02:00

Share What´s the second best activity to learning English through conversation with others? Watching movies! Why? Because they depict real life, therefore they provide perfect material for your self-study. And the amount of phrases, idioms and common expressions is massive! Click here to download tons of movie guides or here to accompany your movies with trivia quizes. I love teaching with

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-70288034490881381952011-02-20T21:55:00.013+01:002011-03-17T22:32:32.618+01:00

Share Our second native speaker event of our English Without Books  course took place in my kitchen as it was time to COOK IN ENGLISH!  My dear friend and teacher colleague Matt Bleson, who is a wonderful cook, originally from India, agreed to carry out a cooking lesson with my students. And it went very well... Watch the video: If you want to prepare the meal yourself, here is how (the

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-64877780283047450612011-02-07T11:11:00.012+01:002011-03-17T22:29:59.885+01:00

Share The 4th session of our course English Without Books was a soft-skills lesson on effective learning, with focus on Reading.  Apart from addressing a few students´self-study issues  and hanging up their written out goals around the classroom, we all shared tips on time management and effective learning strategies. INDULGE IN LEARNINGI believe in learning a foreign language by fully

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-58943703305591911212011-01-30T19:25:00.011+01:002011-03-17T22:42:01.674+01:00

Share The "Pub Discussion" session had to come early in our English Without Books course, since Czechs love going to pubs and so do native speakers living in Brno.  So we agreed to meet at the Sherlock Holmes pub, at 5:30pm  as usual, and talked and laughed and drank/ate and discussed the English language. A few even partied till the wee hours (or so I heard :).  I want to thank Glenn, Matt

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-64453285535873153342011-01-22T00:35:00.017+01:002011-03-17T22:35:27.422+01:00

Share After our first meeting last Wednesday I was extremely excited about conducting our second session and looking forward to seeing my new students again! We were in touch via Skype, Facebook and email but to meet them all in person, as a group, easily became the highlight of my working week. I have never met such motivated learners, full of dreams about their English! From left to

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-67126461668685441322011-01-16T23:14:00.012+01:002011-03-17T22:36:34.872+01:00

Share As an English teacher, I have always leaned towards non-traditional, conversational, playful way of learning. I used to organize movie nights, lessons in pubs and city trips, but I still taught from books when in the classroom. Then, when my daughter was born, I had time to reconsider my somewhat traditional approach in class and decided to quit. I am a freelancer, my own boss, I can

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-37630237131562146512011-01-09T23:25:00.037+01:002011-04-10T16:17:51.674+02:00

Share How do you learn English in your free time? Do you attend a language course, do you meet internationals in cafés, do you use books, the Internet?  Whatever your method may be, when it comes to learning English, many people have realized they are not going to acquire the language just by sitting in classrooms.  We are in English learning heaven these days as thousands of

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-16324417888933070452010-12-28T22:10:00.007+01:002011-01-09T13:01:22.263+01:00

I have decided to write down my dreams for 2011, hoping to encourage and inspire you to do the same. Yes, it is quite a private matter, I realize that. However I am not ashamed of my dreams and neither should you be.  The year 2010 has been a true roller-coaster and thanks to my daughter and the boom of social media, a true life-changer. I hope 2011 will be spectacular! PHYSICAL I want to

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-31235098911452947582010-12-12T17:41:00.013+01:002011-02-23T16:00:34.692+01:00

Share On 12 January, 2011 I am starting a new course for people from my hometown of Brno. So I was wondering, whether you would be interested in hearing about the course on this blog as it develops? In the new year, I can post videos and photos and talk about the progress the students are making and the activities they are following.  The course goals Have fun while learning/teaching -

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-79067664007019824112010-11-26T00:28:00.140+01:002011-11-02T11:59:59.985+01:00

Share Are you bored learning English from textbooks? Do you feel like you´ll never learn to speak English? Do you or your students need more practice with real people? I might have a solution for you...   There is a new programme on the Internet called English Out There. It was put together by an English teacher and online professional Jason West from London. Jason owns a language school and

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-47185309574330304892010-11-16T00:37:00.010+01:002010-12-28T22:12:15.040+01:00

Hello everyone - it´s Christmas soon!  My good friend Doris, who you may remember as last week´s manager of EnglishBrno Facebook fanpage, reminded me of this cute cartoon character Charlie Brown today. Watch his little Christmas story (3:25min): Did you like it? If yes, tell me on Facebook. The Christmas competition Let´s play a game. I want you to imagine that you live around the corner

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-58709425718217799362010-09-08T22:27:00.015+02:002010-12-28T22:15:37.057+01:00

Why oh why haven´t I done this earlier? What made me forget about the fact that I have a blog where I can publish the winning stories of the August competition on EnglishBrno´s fanpage? Maybe it´s the month of August - the most inactive month of the year (at least in Brno it is!), or the fact that my baby had her 1st birthday and I temporarily lost the ability to multitask? Who knows, the most

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-83267293671712626082010-07-31T00:37:00.022+02:002010-12-28T22:16:02.247+01:00

HOW TO WIN: Write 10 to 1000 words about the most interesting friend you have found or made on Facebook. For example something like this: "Since singing up on Facebook, I have reunited with many old friends, both from my hometown and abroad, whose lives I keep up with thanks to our status updates, photos and videos. Without Facebook it wouldn´t have been so easy to see them get married, have

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-58547018557322918132010-07-21T14:24:00.011+02:002010-12-28T22:16:35.329+01:00

YOU´RE WELCOME TO GIVE FEEDBACK! There are 448 fans on EnglishBrno´s fanpage right now and every day around 30 - 40 of them click on the links posted on the EnglishBrno´s wall. I am happy to see some action and looking forward to more followers and more feedback! Please, don´t be shy, do write, ask, share! Only by being active will you do something for your English. THE MOST POPULAR UPDATES

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-1234737726363595732010-07-11T08:44:00.030+02:002010-12-28T22:16:59.023+01:00

I have decided to post up something on the EnglishBrno FB page every day. Let´s call it a summer project :). It´s basically e-learning for free! If you are serious about your English, you will follow me and improve your English! (Because no one else can do this for you) I´m going to update the EnglishBrno status with links for online exercises, videos, songs and discussion questions every single

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-26195406909091684452010-06-24T20:27:00.014+02:002010-12-28T22:17:21.768+01:00

My friend Louel, a Filipino living in the Czech Republic and teaching English here, is an incredibly intelligent and witty polyglot. Among other languages he has fully embraced Czech, in just two years. He recently went home for vacation and posted this on his Facebook profile: "I'm starting to get tired of always having to explain these things: The Czech Republic isn't part of the USSR! Neither

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5943209458062750392.post-26864135188725213002010-05-02T23:13:00.001+02:002010-12-28T22:18:35.570+01:00

Hello everyone, welcome to my first blog ever :) I am not an impressive writer but I am an ENGLISH TEACHER so I will primarily use this space to publish some interesting exercises for my students to improve their English. And possibly I will have the guts to start writing one day. Looking forward to this new experience. In the meantime, why don´t you post up your questions about English? I

Ninahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17661821475369843476noreply@blogger.com1