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Some time ago I went to Edinburgh to do a course for teachers. I spent about a fortnight enjoying the city and struggling to understand Scottish people.
I remember that on my last day there was a girl on Princess Street, which is Edinburgh’s main street, trying to sell flowers. She was shouting, like mad, two or three words. I stopped and decided not to move ‘till I could grasp what she was saying. It was
important for me at that time. I can’t tell you, without running the risk of lying, the time I spent staring at her mouth trying to see what my ears couldn’t hear but in the end, I convinced myself that she was saying something on the line of “three for a bunch” , but to be completely honest, I think I tricked myself into believing I could finally understand the Scottish accent!
Why is it so difficult to understand Scottish Pronunciation? To start with, English has 5 more vowels sounds. Scottish people don’t pronounce the schwa as English people do, for example, the pronunciation of the vowel in “the” is the same as the one in “sit”; they don’t make long /o/, for them, “cot” and “caught” are both pronounced with short /o/. What is more, the diphthong in “coat” is also pronounced as /kot/ and the vowel in “heard” is the same as the vowel in “bet”. There is no /æ/-/ɑː/ distinction so bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel
And finally /ɪ/ may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like [ɛ] Other speakers may pronounce it as [ɪ], just like in many other accents, or with a schwa ([ə]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as [ʌ] in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/. ( from Wikipedia)
And now, after this boring explanation, watch this hilarious clip in which two Scottish guys get stuck in a lift which uses voice recognition for selecting the floor.
Should you have problems understanding the accent, read the transcript below.
The number of educators using the Ipad in their classes is growing . But do we know how to get the best out of it? To be honest, I don’t. I mainly use it to read , surf the Internet, listen to music and a bunch of other trivial things .That’s why I have thought to bring your attention to this new blog that, though written in Spanish ,I’m sure it’s worth having a look at. It is written by a friend of mine who , apart from teaching English ,is a computer geek . His blog is only two months old but he has already written 17 very interesting chapters.I highly recommend it ! Give it a go here http://blog.educastur.es/nachovilas/
I’ve been away for a short school trip and that’s the reason why I haven’t been posting for a week.
Though in my forties, this one has been my first school trip,ever. My father was not a big fan of school trips and me and my sisters were never allowed to go; we were sent to Great Britain or France instead, to study the language under the wings of some religious institution or other. What he didn’t know is that, even under their watchful eyes, I had my fair share of unpleasant and pleasant (if you know what I mean) experiences.
And, in this school trip, and as a teacher, my role was 
trying that my students didn’t experience any unpleasant things, which they might think were pleasant enough to try. But, unfortunately, I caught two students red-handed trying to smuggle alcohol into their bedrooms. Pity, they were kept in detention and couldn’t enjoy the disco!
In English as in any other language there are countless alternatives to the traditional to get drunk
So, let’s imagine that you and your friends decide to go out on a bender/binge or maybe go pub crawling or bar hopping to get drunk and after two or three beers you are a bit tipsy (slightly drunk) because you challenged one of your friends you could drink him under the table (drink more than him without getting drunk)and then you realized you could not hold your drink (drink without getting drunk) and that he drinks like a fish. So, you decide to go home but your friends decide to go on drinking and after two hours they are loaded /wasted/gone/slushed/hammered/legless/plastered or pissed and one of them starts to puke/spew/gag/chunder/barf, which is quite disgusting.
You phone your friend in the morning and find out he can’t even talk to you because he’s got the worst hangover and needs to take an alka-setzer and get some more sleep.
Do you know any other expressions ?
Has your teacher asked you to write a story ? or Have you asked your students to tell you a story? No matter whether you are a student or a teacher reading this, storybird is a very creative innovative tool which will turn writing tasks into a funny game.
How does it work?
♥Click on “Sign up” in the top right corner to register for an account and you’ll be sent an email to confirm your registration.
♥Pick up artwork and start writing your story.
♥The story can be printed out, shared or read directly from the computer. It can of course be projected on a screen, which is a very nice to share what you’ve done.
And this is my storybird! I’m afraid I didn’t have much time to do it either better or longer !