EcoWeek at Priestlands Secondary School!

Dear Readers,

I am pleased to announce that EcoWeek has finally arrived at my school!

At my school, in Lymington, at the end of every school year we have an activities week, based on a theme. Last year we had FreedomWeek, celebrating 250 years since the abolition of slavery. This year,however, we have EcoWeek.

EcoWeek is based on the issue of the effect global warming an how we can help stop it. Each class will be doing different activities to do with the enviroment, such as making rugs(small carpets) from old clothes and scraps of materials. I will be doing abstract landscapes, making pictures of landscapes (fields, valleys etc..) from recycled materials.

Have a good summer!


NADIA...x

Lymington - Number One UK Coastal Town

Hello out there!

We were very happy to read an article in The Daily Telegraph ( For coastal living, wish you were here - Friday 6th June 2008) describing Lyminton as" Britain's most desirable coastal town."

We are sure that past students will remember strolling around Lymington, wandering down the cobbled high street to the quay, watching the boats in the harbour and then walking back up for a nice cup of tea!

However did you know that......

• Lymington was called Limen tun in Anglo-Saxon times. Tun means a farm or a hamlet.
• Lymington was well known in the 18th century for smuggling!
• The cobbled High Street we walk up and down is one of the steepest in England!
  
• Lymington is the home to world/Olympic class sailors Ben Ainslie and Nick Rogers.
• The population of Lymington is 14,500.
  
• Johnny Depp is said to have a house in Lymington.
• And last but not least, Lymington is proud to be the home of Heritage English!!

To read the article on Lymington go to www.telegraph.co.uk/news.

Let us know what you liked about Lymington.........

We'd like to hear from you!

Celia and Gail

"A nice age" (An Ice Age)

Sometimes we have to laugh at our language.

During a recent immersion course with a French executive client, we were amused by a typical misunderstanding. Over lunch, we were discussing the ideal age of potential customers at a hotel health club where Josie is working.

When Josie commented on clients "in their thirties" being a nice age we were puzzled. Why on earth was she talking about an "Ice Age" in this context? What did ice ages have to with client ages? Suddenly the "penny dropped" (an idiom meaning we understood).

Even native speakers get confused with identifying where one word finishes and the next word begins.... how much harder it can it be for speakers of English as a second language?

With this in mind, we decided to offer a few examples to help you.

Mister Knight can sound exactly like "missed a night"
Ice cream can sound just like "I scream"
No news is good news can sound like "known uses good news"
Thanked him sounds just like "thank Tim"

Confusing? It certainly is and it's easy to see how misunderstandings occur.

In our English language immersion lessons, we spend 10 minutes focusing on this kind of problem. Just looking at examples, learning to look for meaning and repeating the phrases can help language students to recognise words in conversation.