The English Blog

BBC Learning English Christmas 2008

To help you get in the festive mood, BBC Learning English has compiled a selection of Christmassy features published on their site in previous years. These include a crossword, a pantomime, quizzes and podcasts.

The English Blog Christmas Crossword

Here's a Christmas Crossword I produced using Eclipse Crossword, which you can download for free. 

Just click on the crossword to begin. You might like visit these sites before you start to brush up your Christmas vocabulary:

• BBC Learning English
• Christmas Picture Vocabulary
• English Club Christmas Vocabulary
• ELCivics Christmas Vocabulary PowerPoint  

Just Crosswords

Just Crosswords is a site of 15x15 crossword puzzles that you solve right in your Web browser. Click on the clues or the spaces in the puzzle, and then simply type to fill in the blanks. Standard puzzles use symmetric grids with lots of standard crossword words and a few words that fit the theme. Crozzle puzzles use only words that fit the theme. Choose from one of the more than 300 puzzles or make your own and link to it or put it on your own site. All for free!

Here's one on marketing vocabulary I made earlier:

BBC Election Crossword

To finish off this election week, why not test your knowledge of election-related vocabulary with this election crossword from BBC Learning English?

Halloween Crosswords

Here's a Halloween crossword from BBC Learning English. 

And here's another one.

Learning Vocabulary Fun

Vocabulary is Fun is a vocabulary website with the Flash online word games. The vocabulary games include an online word search, an online crossword puzzle, and hangman online (called HangMouse).  Users choose the vocabulary list that the word game will use. The games can be used on smart boards for to build vocabulary skills in the classroom.

Verdict: An impressive suite of games. I particulary liked the crossword puzzles. The Flash effects are really neat.

Postscript Magazine from Linguarama

Postscript is Linguarama's self-study magazine for learners of English. Each issue has a theme on which many of the exercises are based, for example Sales, Personnel or Banking. There are exercises on reading, writing, grammar, pronunciation, style, vocabulary and usage and each exercise has an answer key so that you can correct your work yourself online. For recreation, check out the crosswords.

Verdict: Postscript is one of the very best resources for learners of Business English. The cherry on the cake is that you can download the whole site to your own computer!

The Guardian Quick Crossword Online

The only newspaper I regularly buy here in France is The Guardian as there's an international edition which is available on the day (other British papers are a day old, if not more). I'm not a crossword fanatic but I do enjoy doing the Guardian Quick crossword as I'm usually able to complete it in around 20 minutes - any longer would seem like a waste of time. For those of you who want to try your hand at a 'real' crossword (as opposed to an EFL one), you can find the Guardian Quick crossword online. The online version is easier as you can check your answers or cheat. Click here for more crossword links.