Real English® Blog Feed

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Andrew and Andy - Rolls off the Tongue



Rolls off the Tongue

Thanks to The English Blog, I discovered an excellent site which deserves additional observations.

The idea is simple and inspired. Look at a cartoon, and then try to figure out which idiom is illustrated by it.

Instead of looking for existing pictures to illustrate meaning like I am constantly doing, the site is made by 2 artists who make original drawings, which are a lot of fun in themselves.

This is not only for students of English. On the contrary, it's made for anyone interested in idioms and a quiz to go along with it. It's over the heads of most English learners, but that's not the point. The ones who are really good at quizzes will find the idiom! Everyone else will simply click on the answer button, or on the button giving more complete information, such as this for the cartoon above:

Idiom: ON A ROLL
Meaning: To be very successful over a period of time
Usage:  Informal, spoken general English
Origin:  Gambling – rolling dice as in craps.  When you continually roll winning combinations.  Also based on the idea that an object in motion  continues in motion.
Sample Sentence:  The hot dog couldn’t shut up; he was really on a roll!


The mind blowing aspect for me was to see that both the literal and figurative meanings were illustrated, and that a multiple choice quiz is even provided. This would help teachers in classes where everyone is stumped.

There's also a Hint button for generating more classroom activity.

Hats off to Andrew and Andy.

No comments:

Post a Comment