24 April 2012

St George's Day

It’s national England day!

St. George is the patron saint (important saint) of England. One of the best known stories about St. George is that he fought a dragon!

Legend has it that St. George rode into a village in Libya to find out that a Dragon was terrorising the villagers, who had given the dragon a young woman to calm it down.

St. George gallantly (bravely) took on the dragon and eventually bested (defeated) the dragon! Many people believe that St. George’s day should be a bank holiday, because it is such an important day for England, but it’s not. How strange!

Happy Birthday Shakespeare!

Also today: London celebrates Shakespeare’s 448th birthday this year! Over the next few months, from April until September, England will be Shakespeare mad!

To kick off (start) the celebrations: a perfor-mance of The Tempest in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace.

Look out for a special open air Shakespeare production in Regent’s Park in May.

Tips From the Teachers

Tony is one of Bloomsbury’s wel-fare officers and is also our assistant director of studies (or ADoS for short).

Tony says: "The key to learning English quickly is immersion."

"If you start to think in the lan-guage you want to learn, then you will learn it much quicker. To do this: speak, work and function in English."

Start by setting your phone to English, and then your computer. Spend as much time as you can with native English speakers!