(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

The video shows a leopard chasing and then catching a gazelle. The leopard then starts to drag the body next to a small pond. Just as it starts to eat, it hears a man’s soft voice talking about a book he had just read. The leopard stops eating, looks to the area that the voice came from for a moment, then jumps up and runs away, leaving its dinner behind.

The man’s voice was a recording playing from a speaker set up near the pond. Researchers had put the device there as part of their study to learn how scary human sounds were to wild animals compared to other sounds. (See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the eleventh article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →

(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

I was totally confused. I saw 18-year-old Ronny walking outside his house carrying a guitar case, but I knew he didn’t play the guitar. I asked him if he was starting to take lessons. He said, “No, but I’m planning to find a date for a party. And I just learned three tricks to do that, and one of them uses a guitar case.” Then he told me about the three interesting experiments.

Researchers sent a very handsome guy to a shopping mall in France to ask women for their phone numbers so that he could call them for a date. He stood in front of different types of stores (for example, a bakery, a shoe store, a café) and as women walked by, he approached them. However, he wasn’t very successful. Only 13% of the women gave him their numbers when he stood in front of those shops. Surprisingly, however, he was twice as successful (26% of the time) in front of one particular shop: a flower shop.

The researchers have a theory about these results. (See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the 10th article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →

(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

People think close family members smell worse compared to the smell of strangers, according to recent research. And there is an interesting reason for this.

Most studies about recognizing human smells (odors) looked at mothers and their newborn babies. The studies found that they recognized each other’s odors soon after birth. However, a team of researchers wanted to know how well other family members could recognize the smell of each other.

Twenty-five families with at least two children between 6 and 15 years old volunteered for the study. The participants were given special T-shirts and soap that had no odors. They slept in the T-shirts for three nights. Each morning, they put the T-shirts in special bags and then washed themselves with only the special odorless soap (in other words, soap that has no smell).

Next, researchers asked everyone to sniff with their nose two T-shirts. One of the shirts was worn by a family member and the other by someone they didn’t know and was not a relative. The researchers asked mothers and fathers if they could identify which shirt was their children’s, and asked children if they could tell which was their parents’ or siblings’. In addition, they asked which odor they preferred.

Here are the results: (See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the 9th article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →