Irina Lutsenko

Is it easy for you to say "no"? Would you say "yes" to being the head of the parenting committee of your child's kindergarten group? I know I wouldn't. But Irina Krug did and shares her experience in this amusing but true-to-life and relatable post written in my " Write for Real: Blogging in English " course.  ✽✽✽ As an elderly Russian woman, I’m proud to have acquired a number of useful skills over my 38 years - ranging from making 3-ingredient sugar-free cookies to managing 50 teens at a Cambridge mock exam. One skill that I’m still working on though is saying “no”. When I agreed to become the head of the parenting committee in my daughter’s kindergarten group, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I thought I had grown enough thick skin throughout my teaching career not to be bothered by occasional rants and heated arguments, but - alas! - it was more than that. Parents’ chats on social media are a zoo of their own: some crocodiles lurk...

Have you ever done a full body detox to cleanse it of toxins? Do you think it's a must or a scam?  Irina Tikhonova shares her experience in this awesome post written in my " Write for Real: Blogging in English " course.  ✽✽✽  Whether it’s a piece of lemon splashing into water or a model holding a bowl of veggies, it’s tough not to take the bait of the detox industry. You drink some juice, you take some pills, you stick some pads to the bottoms of your feet and that - oh, miracle – sucks all the evil right out of you. By “evil” I mean “toxins” that the modern era is spewing and that need to be flushed out of our bodies. Who doesn’t fantasize about it? I do. Or rather I did. Until one day, I heard Konstantin Prokhorov, a lead scientist in the local university, say: “Detox is utter bullshit. The real thing it cleanses is the money right out of your wallet.” I did the full detox: not of the body, but of the shelf. Cleansing the space, I was wondering how come an educated per...

In the world where Outcomes is all the rage, there’s at least one person who can't see what all this ballyhoo is about. This person is my student Vera , the author of the post below. ✽✽✽ 2 March, 2020 - I remember that day quite vividly. I couldn’t believe my eyes while I was holding it in my hands. It was 660 grams of sheer joy and happiness. It was Outcomes Advanced . Two years have passed since then and now I’m not jumping for joy having this book. After all, there’s only one step between love and hate, isn’t there? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate it - I just don't like it either. Even though I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that puts me off it, I’d like to share a couple of thoughts as to why this book is not my cup of tea. 1. Walk on by if your memory is like a sieve Vocabulary is something lots of people lavish praise on this coursebook for. All those beautiful chunks and collocations, which are real, which are natural, which are extremely useful - and which are imp...