(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 →

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

Rudy and three of his friends were trying to decide where they should go for their next vacation together, but they couldn’t agree. The other three had suggested either California, New York, or Colorado, but Rudy recommended Florida. For several days, they talked about the cost of traveling to these places, the price of hotels and things to do. Rudy wasn’t having any luck convincing them to choose Florida, but then he remembered an interesting story about a restaurant menu. This story gave him an idea about how to convince the others to agree with him.

In Beijing, China, managers of group of restaurants asked researchers to help them increase the sales of certain dishes on their menus. They didn’t want the increase in sales to cost them more money. For example, they didn’t want to lower the price, or use more expensive ingredients or hire new experienced chefs. They just wanted to change the label next to the dishes on the menu. They tried labels like “Restaurant Specialty” and “Chef’s Recommendation, but sales of those dishes didn’t increase. Then they used “Most Popular.” This was immediately … (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 eighth 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 →