Interactive Lesson - Advertising

Task 1

Which of these forms of advertising do you think has the strongest influence on you?

     flyers         TV ads         outdoor poster campaigns

     magazine/newspaper ads         sports sponsorship


What are the pros and cons of each of these forms of advertising in terms of their effectiveness?


Task 2

You are now going to watch a series of TV adverts that have been very popular in the UK. For each advert, carry out an analysis considering the following points:

1. What is being advertised?
2. How is it creative? (Imagine that the advert was your idea. Think about how you would defend your creative decisions.)
3. Is there a concept that the audience has to 'get'? (i.e. Is there a connection that you have to make to understand the advert properly?)
4. Why do you think this advert was particularly popular with British audiences?
5. Is there anything that could be changed to improve the advert?

     Video 1: Compare the what?
     Video 2: The Cog
     Video 3: The Surfer
     Video 4: The Drummer
     Video 5: Flash Mob

Now that you have seen and discussed all of the adverts, which is the most...?

     ...humorous?
     ...creative?
     ...innovative?
     ...confusing?
     ...appealing?


Task 3

Choose one of the following positions and think of how you can justify
and elaborate on it.

Student A / Group A
Advertising is a waste of money and is an eyesore. It turns us all into self-obsessed consumers, filling our lives with things we don't really need, making the rich richer, and disengaging us from society's real challenges.

Student B / Group B
Advertising provides an opportunity for creative people to show off their talent. The fact that the public is kept informed about and engaged with the latest products helps to drive innovation and improve our lives.

Debate your position with your partner or the other group.

100 Mistakes #6 - 'say' or 'tell'?

You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me

You gotta say me you´re coming back to me


When you want to show that speaker A is giving some information to listener B, we use 'tell'.
We don't quote directly with 'tell'.

[Speaker A] tells [listener B] [something]

Dorothy told me [something]
Dorothy told me that she was coming back to me.

Dorothy told me "I'm coming back to you!"  (direct quote - use ´say`)
Dorothy told that she was coming back to me. (add listener B or use ´say`)

When you think that the words are important, or that it´s obvious who the listener is, you need to use "say".

[Speaker A] says [something]

Dorothy said [something]
Dorothy said "I'm coming back to you!"
Dorothy said that she was coming back to me.

Dorothy said me "I'm coming back to you!" (remove listener B)
Dorothy said me that she was coming back to me.  (remove listener B or use ´tell`)

- - - - -

We also 'tell a story' and 'tell a lie', with or without mentioning listener B. In the same way that you 'sing a song' or 'make a promise', here we are not saying the actual words that they used, we`re just saying what they did.

He told me a story about his trip to Afghanistan.
He told a story about his trip to Afghanistan.
He said a story about his trip to Afghanistan.

He's been telling lies again.
He's been telling me lies again.
He's been saying lies again.

100 Mistakes #5 - I was born

I born in Andalusia.
I am born in Andalusia.

In English, dying is something you do but bearing children is something your mother does.

'Bear' means 'carry' or 'bring into the world'. (It also means 'big, hairy, dangerous animal'!)

Trees bear fruit. Mothers bear children.

          bear (v1)
          bore (v2)
          born (v3)

We never use the ACTIVE sentence:

    My mother bore me in Andalusia
    My mother bore me on 31st September

We use the PASSIVE sentence:

    I was born in Andalusia.
    I was born on 31st September.

If you're more interested in the mother than the child, you can use "give birth to":

    Julie gave birth to a lovely baby girl at 2am this morning.

Pronunciation 4: The R-vowels

So far we have 13 vowel sounds.
Firstly, the six 'short vowels' (a, e, i, o, ū, u)
Then five 'long vowels' (ae, ee, iy, oe, uu)
And in the previous post, the two 'cowboys' (ŏ, oy)

Four more to go, so let's look at three of them!

We are going to call these 3 sounds the “R-vowels” because the letter 'r' interacts with the letters a, e, i, o and u to make new vowel sounds. In British English, the 'r' doesn't make a consonant sound in these interactions.

The R-vowels are hard and long, and again, it's a good idea to think of some simple words that contain them, to use as a reference.

Car, 2 doors, surfboard

You probably know how to pronounce 'car', which gives us the sound ār

And a car has at least 2 doors and probably more, which gives us ōr
Fortunately, the combinations 'er', 'ir' and 'ur' all make the same sound, which is the ūr in 'surfboard'.

So because there are only 3 R-vowel sounds, we can get them all into one picture.




Let's look at some examples which contain these sounds. We'll look at ār and ūr first because ōr is a little bit more complicated.

ār                   How far is Margate?

                        So the sound ār appears twice in this sentence and is written 'ar'.
                        Notice that the word after 'far' begins with a vowel. Here we
                        pronounce the 'r' as a consonant sound before the 'is':
                        Hŏ fār riz mārgaet?

ūr                   Who's that person in the purple shirt?

Notice that “er”, “ir” and “ur” all make the same ūr sound.

There are words that make these sounds that are spelt differently but we can say that the standard spelling of the ār sound is 'ar', and the standard spellings of the ūr sound are 'er', 'ir' and 'ur'. 


Now let's look at ōr. Students make a lot of mistakes with this sound because they don't know the standard spellings. While 'or' is one way to spell this sound, there are several more: 'au', 'aw', 'ore', oar', 'or' and 'oor' all make the ōr sound. Seriously. And these are not exceptions!

ōr                   My daughter-in-law is never bored of playing board games,
                        inside or outdoors.

So let's hear what those sentences sound like:

- - - - -

Next: Vowel Sounds 5: The Lazy Vowel (the most common sound in English!)

Pronunciation 3: The Cowboys

We need a few more vowel sounds.
I've already introduced six 'short vowels' (a, e, i, o, u, u)
and five 'long vowels' (ae, ee, iy, oe, uu) - that's 11.
But we need more if we want to make the right sounds in English.

I think we need 6 more.

So let's go!

We are going to call the next two vowel sounds the “Cowboys”.
In English, both sounds are related to the letter 'o', so both of our symbols will also be related to the letter 'o'.

They are  ŏ and oy.



Cowboy #1: ŏ

ŏ is the vowel sound in cow. It even looks like a cow! (Kind of.)

There are two standard ways of spelling this sound: ´ou` and ´ow`. You can think of the ŏ as being an ´o` with a little ´u` or ´w` above it.

So the ŏ in ´cow` and ´vowel` is the same as the ŏ in ´loud` and ´sound`.

If you see a word you don`t know with ´ow` or ´ou` in it, think ŏ !

There are lots of words that don´t follow this rule - for example, ´know` (no) - we will call them ´non-standard` spelling. The system we're learning here tells us how to read and pronounce the regular or ´standard` spelling patterns. 

Note that in Romance languages (and in phonetics), the ŏ is related to the combination ´au`, which is responsible for lots of pronunciation mistakes in English.

Cowboy #2: oy

oy is the vowel sound in ´boy`  - boy

There are two standard ways of spelling this sound: ´oi` and ´oy`.

So the oy in ´boy` is the same sound as the oy in ´coin`.

- - - - -

Next: Vowel Sounds 4: The R-vowels

Pronunciation 2: Long Vowels

These are the sounds in words where the vowels interact with other letters. They sound like the names of the letters when you say the English alphabet:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

                                               

A = ae      E = ee      I = iy      O = oe      U = yuu

They are all long and soft.

The ae, ee and iy all end in a little y sound.

The oe and uu both end in a little w sound.

Notice that the letter in the alphabet, U is actually pronounced yuu, like the word, 'you'. The long sound in words is sometimes pronounced yuu and sometimes uu. For example, the word 'tune' is pronounced tyuun but the word 'flute' is pronounced fluut.

Anyway, here are some simple reference words that you can use to remember the sounds: "cake", "teeth", "kite", "boat", "tune" and "flute".

We could write the sound of these words as follows: caek, teeth, kiyt, boet, tyuun, fluut.

Please note: the symbols I'm using for the sounds are not the International Phonetic alphabet. Instead, I'm using a system called SPELL (a Semi-Phonetic system for English Language Learners.) The idea is to represent English sounds in a way that reinforces English spelling and avoids contradicting it.


Students often confuse the sounds ae, ee and iy, so a good trick is to learn the letters and their pronunciation together as a string: A-E-I-O-U = ae, ee, iy, oe, yuu

The best way to do this, as any good English teacher will tell you, is to listen to the 1983 hit by Freeez, "I. O. U. [I owe you]"

The lyrics are "A... E... A, E, I, O, U... U, I sometimes cry."

Listen to it until you can't get it out of your head or until you start crying.


The vowels make these sounds when they interact with other vowels. The sound doesn't come from one letter; it comes from the combination.

Here are some more examples:

A      E      I         O          U
ae     ee     iy      oe      uu   yuu
date  beat  wine  coat   juice
tail    seed  lie     smoke      cute

Notice that, in the words 'date', 'wine', 'smoke' and 'cute', it is the final magic e which interacts to produce the longer vowel sound.

Next: Vowel Sounds 3: The Cowboys

Pronunciation 1: Short Vowels

These are the sounds in simple words where vowels do not interact with each other. Choose a simple reference word that you know well to remember each sound. For example: "cat", "red", "big", "dog", "bus", "push" . They are short and hard.

                       

            i

            e

a                                 

                                    o         

                                                u

                                                            u

Say a, e, i , and you can feel your tongue moving up in your mouth. (Try it!)

Say a  with a wide mouth, tongue at the bottom.

i  is very short, made in the throat, with the tongue high in the mouth

e  is in between the two.

Say o  with a round mouth.

Short u  actually has two sounds in English, u (high) and  u (low):

• the u  in “cup” (like a relaxed a , deeper than “cap”)

• and the u  in “pull” (deeper than “cup” - push your lips out -

but not as deep or long as the uu  in “pool”)

Some more examples:

a          e            i            o            u            u

bat       bet         bit         bot         but

pat       pet         pit         pot                       put

Note that the letters written in blue italics represent the sound, and not necessarily the letter used. For example, let's compare the words, 'men' and 'women':

      men            men
      women       wimin


'Men' does as you would expect: the letter 'e' makes an e sound. I call words like this 'standard' spelling. The word is perfectly predictable.

But 'women' doesn't make a predictable sound. Both of the vowels are pronounced i , which is not the way English usually works. I call words like this 'non-standard' spelling.


Next: Vowel Sounds 2: Long Vowels

...Vowels Sounds: Introduction

English vowel sounds can be difficult. The problem is that we have five letters which represent lots of sounds. How many? Well, it depends on how you count them.

You may or may not be familiar with the "Phonemic Chart" and the "International Phonetic Alphabet", which some people like - hooray, there's a logical way of describing sound! - and some people hate - not another bloody alphabet!

I've been in both camps but since teaching in France and Spain, I've decided not to use this system. Why?

Let's take, as an example, the English word 'automatic'. In Spanish, it's 'automático' / 'automática'.

     In phonetic script, the English is:              ɔːtəmætɪk

                                 and the Spanish is:      aʊtɒmætɪkɒ / aʊtɒmætɪkæ

Now, apart from hurting your eyes, you'll notice that the phonetic aʊ looks like 'au'. So that's fine if you want to pronounce it in Spanish, but not so great when you want to pronounce it in English.

When Spanish students see 'automatic' they say aʊtɒmætɪk
It doesn't matter how often you tell them that, in English, 'au' should be ɔː ; their eyes are telling them aʊ.

Instead, we need a system that connects the English letters to the English sounds, and that's what I will be introducing gradually over the 'Vowel Sounds' series of posts. I'm using a system called SPELL (a Semi-Phonetic system for English Language Learners.) The idea is to represent English sounds in a way that reinforces English spelling and avoids contradicting it. It mainly concerns the vowels, but I'll go on to talk about consonants afterwards.

I should also point out that I'm from the south of England, so if it's American English you want, look away now!