April Fool's Day

http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/english-skills-practice/life-uk/april-fools-day

Is there a special day for jokes and tricks in your country? Do you like playing tricks on people? If you're ever in the UK on April 1st, you'd better watch out!

When and what is April Fool’s Day?

April Fool’s Day is on April 1st. It‘s the custom in the UK to play a trick or a joke on someone on this day. If the person falls for the joke then they are called an ‘April Fool’. In fact it’s only half a day because April Fool’s Day finishes at midday. No more jokes after lunchtime, please!

What kind of tricks do people play?

Here are some April Fool’s tricks from around the world:

• In the 90s Burger King published an advert in the magazine USA Today offering new ‘Left-handed Whoppas’ for the 32 million left-handed Americans! Thousands of customers ordered the new burger in the restaurants!
• A zoo in Japan said that they had a giant penguin that was 165cm tall and weighed 80 kilograms! In fact it was a man dressed up in a penguin suit.
• Last year in the UK a children’s news programme said that scientists had invented a ‘Brain Band’. It was a coloured head band that you put on your head and it helped to make you more intelligent! In an on-line poll, 47% of the children who heard the news wanted to buy a ‘brain band’!
• In 1949 a radio presenter in New Zealand told listeners that there were millions of wasps coming to invade. He told viewers to wear their socks over their trousers and to put honey on their doors. Millions of listeners believed him!
• In 1976 a very famous British astronomer told radio listeners that at 9.47am the earth was going to experience a feeling of less gravity. He said that Jupiter and Pluto would cross and if listeners jumped in the air at exactly 9.47am they would feel the sensation of having no gravity! Hundreds of listeners phoned the radio to say they had jumped and floated in the air!
• Ikea announced that the shop had launched a dog highchair (highchairs are usually for babies!) named 'HUNDSTOL' (Swedish for dog chair). Google 'IKEA dog high chair' for more details.
• The free London newspaper, The Metro, came up with a novel idea to deal with the problem of litter on the underground (unfortunately it was only a joke). They said that the newspaper was now edible – ‘the only paper that you can eat after reading’.
• A British newspaper announced that Portugal had 'sold' Cristiano Ronaldo, the footballer, to Spain for €160million. Why? To try to clear its national debt. It was a joke of course.

Do people actually like April Fool’s Day?

We asked some Brits this question. This is what they said:

I love April Fool’s Day. It can be really good fun. I love playing tricks on people and I don’t mind if people play tricks on me. It’s one day of the year you can be really silly and have a laugh and it’s okay. You have to be quite sensible for the other 364 days of the year, so I look forward to April 1st.
Malisa

I don’t like April Fool’s Day. It makes me a bit nervous. I keep thinking someone is about to play a trick on me. When twelve o’clock passes I feel quite relieved that it’s finished for another year!
Johnny

When I was at school April Fool’s Day was always good fun. We played tricks on each other and sometimes on the teacher. In fact, one year one of the boys at school put a bucket of water on top of the door and when the chemistry teacher came in he got very wet! It was funny, but the boy got in big trouble!
Phil

April Fool’s Day is a great idea. It’s easy to forget the actual date and I always believe everything I read in the newspapers or watch on the TV news. I usually believe the big national hoaxes and it always makes me laugh afterwards. It’s good to remind us that maybe we shouldn’t always believe everything we hear in the news.
Louise

April Fool’s Day is fun when you’re young. I remember putting a plastic fried egg on my dad’s plate for breakfast as a trick. He decided to cut it up and pretend to eat it! Now I think some of the tricks are a bit silly and people can be a bit cruel playing tricks on their ‘friends’!
Clare

I hate April Fool’s Day. Last year people at work changed the sugar for salt so we all put salt in our coffee! Then some joker in the office decided he wanted a day off and he did something to the computers so they wouldn’t work. It just wasn’t funny! I had lots to do and we all had to stop working and solve the problem.
Mark

So watch out this year on April 1st!

How are Easter eggs made?

http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/english-skills-practice/life-uk/easter

Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter. Sometimes they are made out of chocolate. Have you ever eaten an Easter egg? Watch this video to find out how they are made.

Transcript: 

Presenter: Over the Easter period Irish people will tuck into millions of these, but have you ever wondered how an Easter egg is made? Let’s find out …
Natasha, thanks a million for having us.
Natasha: You’re more than welcome. Thank you very much for coming.
Presenter: And can you tell us a little bit about the factory?
Natasha: Sure, the Chocolate Warehouse is part of Caffrey’s. We opened in 1948. My grandfather opened up Caffrey’s. Umm, it’s now a third generation-run family business and the Chocolate Warehouse was opened eleven years ago.
Presenter: And is Easter a particularly busy time of the year?
Natasha: It’s our busiest time of the year - it’s Christmas, New Year, everything all rolled into one.
Presenter: So, where does chocolate come from?
Natasha: It comes from a tree called the cocoa tree, and the very first thing that starts to grow on a cocoa tree is a very beautiful pod, called the cocoa pod. Now, inside these pods are little brown beans called cocoa beans, and then we heat these, we crush them down, and we make them into different types of chocolate, for example, milk, dark and white chocolate. There’s a different process for each. Then we pour them into different types of moulds. We have rabbit moulds, Easter egg moulds, handmade chocolate moulds. There’s many different types of moulds, and this is how we make Easter eggs and different types of chocolate bunnies. So, you put the mould into the chocolate, to fill it. You put the lid back over. Then we put on something called a spinning machine, where the mould spins around, and this is where you make hollow or moulded products. We’re open till five o’clock on Saturday for the Easter bunny, and then from the 23rd of April right through the whole summer we have chocolate workshops, great for birthday parties or school tours. You can just come up for two hours to make your own chocolates and it’s great fun.
Presenter: Well, thanks very much for having us.
Natasha: Happy Easter! Thanks.

adverbs of frequency

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV80xYzFXc4