English Conversation Course

Each of us looks for interesting places for holidays every year. It is often the case that we see some photos on social media and decide to go on a trip there. What if you go to a place where no one was before? Or even nobody heard of it? Yes theory is a group of friends looking for interesting and unique challenges. One of them was to go on a trip to the least visited place on earth. I encourage you to watch a short film and after that please answer the following questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODuEl4oNae0 Before watching the movie - what country did you bet is the least visited in the world? Have you heard about the place mentioned in the movie? What would your dream vacations be? Would you look for comfort, adventure, a place full of people, or rather wilderness? We often say that "travel broadens the mind". Do you agree with this sentence?

When we hear the word poker, before our eyes appears Las Vegas, casinos and a group of people throwing chips. But how is it really and what is poker? I encourage you to read. Poker is a very popular card game that can be played at the casino, in the poker room, at home, everywhere. To play, you need (depending on varieties) one full deck of cards, and from 2 to 9 (sometimes 10) players. The game is for money and players have two options to win. The first is bluffing - cheating others that you have the best hand or second or second - having the best combination of cards. https://www.888poker.com/magazine/poker-world/how-wsop-works Great! So it's a game where you cheat, you play for money, you don't see what your opponents have - so it's gambling! Nothing could be more wrong! Poker is a zero-sum game. By this statement it should be understood that at the starting point, no one has an advantage over the other player. And yes, that is true only at the beginning after de...

Kimberly Noble is a neuroscientist, whose area of research is focused on how the income affect a child’s brain development. She noticed some disparities when it comes to brain development in children due to social and economic factors. The studies she conducted have shown a correlation between poverty and brain development. The children who come from such an environment have a tendency, for example, to perform worse at school, they are less likely to finish high school and continue their education unlike their peers better situated economically. In consequence, poor children have higher chances to be poor and underemployed as adults. Even more, Kimberly Noble discovered that growing up being poor can lead to significant differences in the size, shape and functioning of children’s brain. Noble’s research about the effect of poverty started more than 15 years ago. The question that needed to be answered was: “How do socioeconomic disparities relate to the brain function”?  To obtain...

I always believed that happiness is the easiest and at the same time, the most difficult thing to achieve; that happiness depends only on what I do about it. In this short, film presented below, Steve Cutts presents a rat race for happiness. I think one’s search for happiness may relate to the rat race for happiness shown in the video. The animation is from 2017 so maybe some of you may already know it. My questions for you: What do you think about the video? What does happiness mean to you? Can you honestly say that you are happy?

Hand writing vs. tapping If you had both the resources and the inclination, you might be able to get away with never hand-writing anything but your signature ever again. Most of us have smartphones, a computer, and other assorted digital programs and pieces of technology — plus virtual “assistants” like Alexa and Siri — to help us keep our lives in order. These gadgets can capture our to-do lists, schedules, important dates, and other snippets of thought we want to preserve. But just because it’s technically possible to permanently ditch the notebook for the Notes app doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Research shows that writing stuff down — physically writing, wrapping your hand around a pen and moving it across a piece of paper — is one of the best ways to keep your thoughts organized and your memory sharp. In one study published in the journal  Psychological Science,  for example, researchers found that people who take notes on their computer tend t...

Have you ever thought how many times do you lie each day? Or maybe you are one of those humans that no matter what, you’d rather tell the worst possible truth that is hard to digest than lie or white lie? Here’s Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting on the topic of “How to spot a liar?” https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar?referrer=playlist-the_most_popular_talks_of_all 1.        Has anyone lied to you? Was it because of avoiding hurting you or protecting you anyhow or maybe they were just natural liars? 2.        What is your view on lying? 3.        Do you lie or white lie from time to time or you’d rather tell the truth and never lied to anybody? 4.        Why do we lie?

We all have probably heard about Mr Beast, american YouTuber and philanthropist, known for giving away money in his videos. It may sound like an attention-grabbing stunts, which essentially it is, but if you look closer, you’ll notice that most of the times, especially lately, he’s giving away money for good causes: he donated to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, Veterans Army Wounded Warrior Program, homeless shelters, animal shelters and just a random people who struggle to make ends meet. So what could be the better way to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers on Mr Beast’s channel than make the biggest charity project in his whole career? That’s how Mr Beast and Mark Rober, another famous YouTuber, former NASA engineer, decided to plant 20 million trees. Pretty big, huh?  The history of Team Trees started on October 25, 2019, when Jimmy Donaldson (Mr Beast’s real name) uploaded a video on his chanel where he planted 300 trees together with his team and Mark...

Elon Musk’s creations were always interesting for people, was it spaceships, electric Tesla cars or Hyperloop from New York City to Washington D.C. Some say, this guy is from the future. I’d say he’s a good entrepreneur with great marketing team. I think most of you has already seen new Tesla Cybetruck presentation (or at least memes about it). Most of the Internet users seems to ignore the affordable price and good performance of the futuristic truck, but a lot of them were happy to mock the design of the truck... and a little fail with the not-as-strong-as-anticipated windows :) I appreciate your time, so I'll leave two versions below: full and 14 minutes long one, you can decide which one you want to watch. Have you enjoyed the presentation? What do you think about design of Cybertruck? Would you buy it? (optional) Share the best Cybertruck meme you've seen so far ;) Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://www.tesla.com/en_eu/cybertruck...

There is a lot of talks about leadership and personal qualities. An international study in which more than 500 business leaders participated showed that employee skills are important only for 39% of managers, while personal qualities matter for 78% of leaders. In his book "Emotional Intelligence" written by Daniel Goleman where he suggested that EQ is more important than IQ.  So let's start by defining two terms to understand what they mean and how they differ. The difference between IQ and EQ IQ is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence. An IQ tells you what your score is on a particular intelligence test, often compared to your age-group. The test has a mean score of 100 points and a standard deviation of 15 points. The standard deviation means that 68% of the population scores an IQ within the interval 85-115 and 95% within the interval 70-130. This term was coined by the psychologist Willian Stern for the Germ...

I remember a time when meditation was an alien phenomenon for people, something new, unusual and inaccessible. There were many people who wanted to try just to say that they practice meditation, but in fact, many of them didn't know why they do that and how to do it.  It's easy to say "concentrate on your breath" and just breath, but it's not so easy to do so. The most common Beginner's Guide. So let's see how meditation works and how it affects our brain. 1. Did you ever try meditation? Why? 2. Did you know about the facts mentioned in the video?

Cats are great predators. However, they spend most of their lives washing oneself. They use quite a specific tongue for this. But why do cat’s tongues feel like sandpaper? Why do cats spend so much time grooming? Why do cats drink with their tongues? The video below will answer these questions. Questions Did you know Deep Look before? What do you think about it? What do you think about cats? Do you like them? Did you know before why cats have to drink water in such a complicated way?

What is yoga? Most people know yoga as a kind of exercise which aims at developing strength and flexibility. To practice yoga, you learn a series of ‘postures’, where you put your body into different positions. The correct breathing is also important. However, yoga is really about more than just exercise. In 2014, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, asked the United Nations to create an International Day of Yoga, saying that yoga ‘is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature’. He felt that yoga could not just help people to be healthier but also help connect people to each other and to nature. The United Nations agreed, and International Yoga Day is now celebrated on 21 June. Where did yoga come from? The history of yoga goes back at least 5,000 years, and some people claim it is nearer 10,000 years ago. It was first developed in Northern India and at this stage was a spiritual as well as a physical form of exerc...

The history of sports betting They say gambling is the easiest way to get rich quickly if you are lucky. However, there is no need to remind how easy it is to go bankrupt. Sports betting is one of the gambling forms and has been around for a long time. It started in Ancient Greece with Olympic Games, which were the biggest sporting event in the calendar. If watching chariot racing was not enough to feel the thrill, people could bet on a winner and use one of the slaves as a stake. For centuries in the birthplace of modern bookmaking, United Kingdom, horse racing was considered  a favourite sport and racecourses became the heart of gambling venues. During one of such races one English man, Harry Ogden, announced that he was taking every bet no matter the horse and is now recognised as first professional bookie due to the situation.  All events that took place have resulted in further development of bookmaking in the 19th century and made it become more popular w...

Public shaming We live in amazing times mostly because of the internet. It’s great that we can communicate easily, learn almost everything for free, but now let’s talk about disadvantages. Judging others is easy, we all know it’s wrong but also all of us do it. It’s getting even easier when somebody encourages you and what about judging someone with the rest of the internet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIYsdulTgU 1. What’s your opinion on humiliation as punishment? 2. Do you agree people have less empathy nowadays? If the answer is yes, do you think it is a disadvantage of  the internet? 3. Do you know any examples of public shaming in the internet that ruined somebody’s life?