A selection of English ESL my favorite movie printables

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

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how to accuse somebody of something in English

how to apologize, say sorry, forgive and express regret in English

how to ask for information and make inquiries in English

how to ask for something, make requests in English

how to blame somebody for something in English

how to defend yourself from criticism in English

how to deny or admit something in English

how to describe things or people in English

how to emphasize important things in English

how to encourage or discourage people in English

how to evaluate people or progress in English

how to express agreement /disagreement in English

how to express approval and disapproval  in English

how to express cause and effect in English

how to express interest in something in English

how to express likelihood, probability in English

how to express likes and dislikes in English

how to express sequence and chronology in English

how to express shock and disbelief in English

how to express sympathy and condolences in English

how to give permission, authorization in English

how to inform somebody about some news in English

how to interpret what was said in English

how to keep a conversation going in English

how to make guesses about something in English

how to make, accept and refuse offers in English

how to order or make a booking in English

how to persuade, convince people in English

how to praise people and express appreciation in English

how to reassure somebody of something in English

how to refuse and object to something in English

how to remind people of something in English

how to rephrase, paraphrase what was said in English

how to say thank you, express gratitude in English

Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

Get here and you are ready to study in English at university

Ask the students to talk about the movies. You can start from "What do you think of...?" Usually my students get excited when talking about their favorite movies. You can also ask them which is their favorite and least favorite. 

Movies

Chart to describe the personality and physical appereance from a character of a movie or book

My favorite character.. 

This is a very communicative activity where learners share the type of TV programs they like.

My favorite TV program

This one of our original lessons on Fluentize.com, and personally, one of my favorites. It's designed for teachers with teenage or adult students at the B1 / Intermediate level, and makes for a perfect one-one private lesson topic, but it can also be used in a group. All of my students have enjoyed doing this one so much, and teachers have given lots of positive feedback on it. You can find a more comprehensive version, and unlock the full lesson material for it on Fluentize. It's downloadable for free, including the interactive lesson plan for online lessons, and the mini lesson.



In the lesson, students watch a video and do a listening exercise about a date Will Smith has with Sophia, the humanoid robot. It's a short, 3-4 minute and a lot of fun. The lesson includes discussion questions and conversation activities about artificial intelligence,  robots, & dating. Students also learn some important vocabulary terms, phrases, and expressions from the video. In the video, Will Smith tries to "make a move" on Sophia the robot, a phrase which is also taught in the lesson. The grammar exercise features the usage of the present perfect simple and continuous. There is a quiz and review section, as well as a bonus activity for students to write a letter or do a short role play 'from the future.'



Hope you enjoy this fun and engaging Fluentize lesson plan!



- Jake





Video-Based Lesson Plan: Will Smith Tries Online Dating With Sophia the Robot

This one of our original lessons on Fluentize.com, and personally, one of my favorites. It's designed for teachers with teenage or adult students at the B2 / Upper Intermediate level, and makes for a perfect one-one private lesson topic, but it can also be used in a group. All of my students have enjoyed doing this one so much, and teachers have given lots of positive feedback on it. You can find a more comprehensive version, and unlock the full lesson material for it on Fluentize. It's downloadable for free, including the interactive lesson plan for online lessons.



In the lesson, students watch a video and do a listening exercise about the Hyperloop, the humanoid robot. It's a short, 5 minute video with a lot of interesting information about what the Hyperloop is and how it works. The lesson includes discussion questions and conversation activities about travel and modern transportation. 



Students also learn some important vocabulary terms, phrases, and a few phrasal verbs from the video. In the video, experts discuss safety concerns, the speed of the Hyperloop, and what some of the challenges will be. Students get to learn other terms related to engineering and travel like "encounter resistance" and "draft up blueprints". The grammar exercise features the passive voice and includes activities on this grammar point. There is a quiz and review section, as well as a bonus activity which you will find when downloading the original lesson on the Fluentize page for this lesson.



Hope you enjoy this fun and engaging Fluentize lesson plan!



- Jake

The Hyperloop Experience: 700 MPH in a Tube

Hey teachers, I just posted a free lesson plan on Fluentize.com on the topic of Saint Patrick's Day.



As you can see, the lesson plan is comprehensive and covers some other topics on Irish culture, and at the end you can find a reading comprehension exercise about Saint Patrick, which is something special we don’t normally do with our standard Fluentize lessons.



The speech from the narrator in the video is clear, slow, and easy to listen to, which is why I deemed it most suitable for a B1 intermediate student. There are some difficult vocabulary words for that level “revelers”, “aspiring”, etc., but the explanations for them shouldn’t be too difficult to grasp.



One of my favorite things about the lesson and the video is how it dives a bit into Guinness and the concept of “Irish pubs” and the branding around it. I thought that was an interesting component. The video itself also has some facts about the holiday and really does a great job of addressing the main topic - how it went global. 



I think the speaking activities in Preview (I) should drive some good discussion amongst students, especially given that the holiday has become more popular and widely celebrated throughout the years. The vocabulary is based on the video vocabulary as usual, and then the featured grammar point is focused on present participle clauses.



For teachers who have switched to online teaching during the current global situation, I recommend downloading and using the interactive lesson plan for the lesson, so that students can write in the interactive fields. Also Zoom is highly recommended and using their remote control feature when using the interactive lesson plans online.



We also released another free lesson plan for 24 hours on Fluentize on the topic of “happiness”, since “International Day of Happiness” falls on March 20th at the end of this week. Feel free to grab that one as well!



Hope you have great lesson!

Why Saint Patrick's Day Went Global

Hey Teachers,



As we all know, the most prominent global issue circling around our social media pages, TV, and conversations with family and friends is the coronavirus pandemic. In response to this, I spent the better part of my weekend digging around for and putting together a comprehensive lesson plan on the theme of the coronavirus, which you’ll find attached below in this post. In this lesson plan, I tried to focus more on the impacts of the virus rather than the nature of it, which was the focus of the lesson I posted here a few weeks ago.



The full lesson plan is free for the time being on Fluentize via the link below:



https://app.fluentize.com/lesson/coronavirus-impacts



In the worksheets I posted here, you get the first half of the lesson. You can find the video as well as all the post-viewing activities and awesomeness on the actual Fluentize page for the lesson. It’s still free to download there if you register, and you'll get the whole thing, including the teacher's guide.



The lesson plan is geared towards an upper intermediate (B2) student level. It's based on a news report from Al Jazeera focusing on concerns over the mental health impact / aspect of the coronavirus pandemic. While it was tough to choose a video as the base for the lesson plan, this one struck me because it features some of the bright sides of the humanity in response to the pandemic - acts of kindness and it shows scenes of people coming together in times of crisis. I also couldn’t imagine a better video on the topic in terms of relevant vocabulary.



However, as you'll see in the lesson, we take the topic much further than just mental health and tackle all angles of the current situation, including the impacts on…



- Public life

- Education

- Business

- Healthcare

- Entertainment



From the creator’s standpoint, my favorite part of the lesson is the last bonus activity where you can dive into real-life ethical dilemmas and issues that have arisen as a result of the pandemic. This activity is available when you download it directly from the Fluentize page.



These dilemmas detailed on the last page of the lesson provide your students a chance to express their opinions, challenge students' speaking skills, and will be sure to get a lot of conversation stirred up on important topics related to the situation:





- People not following social distancing orders

- Dilemmas with ventilator availability in hospitals

- Donald Trump’s choice of words in a press conference

- Spending and the economy

- Price gouging of products like toilet paper





My next favorite activity in the lesson is in post-viewing (I) - on the prefixes. Rarely do I find a video where I can focus on such great examples of prefixes! The nerdy side of my language enthusiast brain really lit up when I realized I could make a little section of this lesson focused on prefixes. The following activity on the usage and functions of present participles as different parts of speech I also felt was one my better ones.





Again, you can find these  activities on the ethical dilemmas, prefixes, and present participles when you download the lesson directly from the Fluentize page.





I also realize that many English language teachers have switched to online teaching. For those of you who have done this, I recommend trying out our interactive lesson plan, which contains interactive fields for your students to write answers within. 



Also, when you do a Fluentize lesson online, we highly recommend using the platform Zoom and their remote control feature. The remote control feature allows students to take control of your screen during the lesson. You can do this by having your student request remote control of your screen, or you could also give control to the student. The reason this is so great is because it enables students to type answers in the interactive fields (download the 'Interactive Lesson' on the lesson page) of the lesson while you watch and help them with spelling and punctuation.



I’m hoping to release the mini lesson on Fluentize within the next day or so (which I'll do here as well), as well as some more lesson plans this week focusing around the coronavirus situation. I have a couple more videos I’m toying with and hope to get more out soon, so stayed tuned.



I wish all you good health and hope you have a meaningful lesson exploring this situation in detail with your students. 



Happy Fluentizing!



- Jake from Fluentize

Lesson Plan: Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Hey ESL Teachers!



Business English lesson materials are always high in demand, so I decided to publish a free lesson on Fluentize based on a short video about the basics of business etiquette.



I would say this lesson plan is probably most suitable for intermediate (B1) level students who are on the edge of upper intermediate (B2).



In order to view the video, please visit the lesson page on Fluentize via the link below.



https://app.fluentize.com/lesson/business-etiquette-basics



The lesson materials attached in this post include the first half of the lesson — the preview discussion material, the sections for pre-teaching the vocabulary in the video, and a listening comprehension exercise that goes along with the featured video.



You can access all the post-viewing sections when downloading it from Fluentize — including activities on vocabulary context usage, prefixes / parts of speech, rewriting sentences, follow-up conversational material, the quiz & review section, and the teacher's guide.



As you'll see in the lesson plan, the lesson starts off by discussing proper business etiquette. Students then do a short activity in which they transform some words into their correct parts of speech using the prefix. The examples featured in this lesson plan are...



understand ---> misunderstanding

respect ---> disrespected

cooperate ---> uncooperative



After watching the video and completing the first post-viewing section, there is a second post-viewing part that focuses on some grammar using the conjunction although based on the following quote from the video:



"Although workplace culture and expectations can vary between companies, the basics of business etiquette can be used in almost any kind of workplace."



You can follow everything up with additional discussion material based on the following topics...



- Impact of COVID-19 on business etiquette

- Business etiquette in different countries

- Socializing with colleagues

- Social media and colleagues

- Business lunch etiquette

- Video calling etiquette for business



From the creator’s standpoint, my favorite part of the lesson is the section focusing on the parts of speech and prefixes. I find these types of activities for parts of speech and prefixes in the context of word transformation to be so practical for students and really helps them develop their vocabulary skills.



I also realize that many English language teachers are now teaching in an online environment. For those of you who are, I recommend trying out our interactive lesson plan for it (which is the one attached in this post). The interactive lesson is basically a digital version of the lesson materials that comes equipped with interactive fields for your students to write answers within.



I hope you have a great lesson exploring the basics of business etiquette with your students.



Thanks!



-Jake from Fluentize

Business Basics Etiquette - ESL Lesson Plan

Hey Teachers!



June is Pride Month for the LGBTQ community. In response to this, I put together this video-based lesson plan on the topic of LGBTQ and human rights. 



The full lesson plan is free to download on Fluentize via the link below:



https://app.fluentize.com/lesson/lgbtq-pride-month



In the worksheets I posted here, you get the first half of the lesson. You can find the video as well as all the post-viewing activities on the actual Fluentize page for the lesson. It’s free to download during the whole month of June 2020, and when you register, you'll get the whole thing for free - including the sections on prefixes, key word transformations, additional conversational material, the quiz & review, and the teacher's guide.



The lesson plan is geared towards upper intermediate (B2) to advanced (C1) level students. It's based on a short informational video from ShareAmerica focusing on how Pride Month came to be, as well as why and how it's celebrated. One of the new things we did with this lesson that you can't find in other Fluentize lessons is the extensive section focusing only on post-viewing conversational material. This section is a great way to CCQ some of the featured vocabulary terms studied in the lesson, and makes it easy for you to generate rich discussion revolving around LGBTQ equal rights, including topics such as:



- Uprisings / Protests

- Intolerance

- Struggles for other minority groups

- Advocating for the LGBTQ community

- Milestones



From the creator’s standpoint, my favorite part of the lesson is the Key Word Transformations. This was the first lesson where I tried out Key Word Transformations in a lesson plan. I think this should be another great way for students to practice some of the vocabulary terms they heard for learned in the video. This activity is available when you download it directly from the Fluentize page.



Again, you can find these post-viewing activities for prefixes, key word transformation, conversation, and quiz / review activities when you download the lesson directly from the Fluentize page.



I also realize that many English language teachers have switched to online teaching. For those of you who have done this, I recommend trying out our interactive lesson plan, which contains interactive fields for your students to write answers within.



Also, when you do a Fluentize lesson online, we highly recommend using the platform Zoom and their remote control feature. The remote control feature allows students to take control of your screen during the lesson. You can do this by having your student request remote control of your screen, or you could also give control to the student. The reason this is so great is because it enables students to type answers in the interactive fields (download the 'Interactive Lesson' on the lesson page) of the lesson while you watch and help them with spelling and punctuation.



I wish all you good health and hope you have a meaningful lesson exploring Pride Month in detail with your students.



Happy Fluentizing!



- Jake from Fluentize

LGBTQ | Pride Month Lesson Plan

English idioms are an attractive, entertaining part of the language, but sometimes beginners pay too much attention. From this article written by essay-company writers (https://essaycompany.org/), you will learn what idioms are and whether they are worth remembering. The difference between an idiom and a proverb where butterflies in the stomach come from, and what it is that spoon that sucks with fear.



What are idioms?



Idioms or phraseological expressions are stable turns of speech, indecomposable combinations of words, understood, as a rule, in symbolic meaning. The meaning of its constituent words does not determine the importance of the whole expression. Often the sense of an idiom is difficult to guess, to understand from its constituent words if you are not familiar with it.



For example: to be in the same boat. It means "to be in the same situation, to experience the same difficulties.



"I understand your problem. We are in the same boat."



Idioms are called stable, indecomposable combinations because they are used in a fixed form. For example, no one says to sit together in the same boat or be in the same vessel. An idiom is used as a ready-made figurative pattern for some typical situations.



The meaning of the expression about the boat can probably be guessed, primarily when heard in context, but there are idioms whose purpose is impossible to imagine.



"I want to buy a Saturday night special, but I'm scared to own it."



Idioms are called stable, indecomposable combinations because they are used in a fixed form. For example, no one says to sit together in the same boat or be in the same vessel. An idiom is used as a ready-made figurative pattern for some typical situations.



"A rolling stone gathers no moss."



The meaning is a person who often changes his place of residence, occupation, never settles down, does not settle down. Accordingly, the equivalent would be: "he who does not sit still will not make a good living."



How many idioms are there in the English language?



There are thousands of idioms in English, but it is impossible to tell the exact number, just as it is impossible to say the precise number of words in the language. For example, the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (M. McCarthy, 1998) has 5782 dictionary entries, but that number doesn't say much.



English idioms are as much living units of speech as words, and their numbers are constantly changing. Some idioms live for centuries, while others quickly go out of use.



English idioms, proverbs, colloquial formulas, phrasal verbs, and other similar units of speech



Idioms can easily be confused with proverbs, various speech patterns, phrasal verbs. Even scientists sometimes find it difficult to distinguish them.



Idioms are a type of formulaiс language - stable, indecomposable expressions that should be understood and taught as a single unit of speech, rather than a group of words.



These patterns include:



1. Greetings and good wishes



How are you? 

Have a good day!



2. Prepositional groups or prepositional phrases



In a minute 

Once in a while



3. Proverbs, sayings, proverbs, quotations.



Bad news travels fast 

Buy the best, and you only cry once 



4. Phrasal verbs.



To look for

To sign in



5. To look for, to look for, sign in, and register. 5.



Blond hair 

Deeply disappointed



6. Conversational speech formulas



You have to be kidding!

Do you see what I'm saying?



7. Idioms



A penny for your thought

To give the green light



As you can see, the line between idioms and similar expressions is sometimes tough to draw. For example, the phrasal verb to look for cannot be called an idiom - there is nothing conversational about it, that is, any symbolic meaning. But the phrasal verb to sail through can easily be confused with an idiom because it has a symbolic meaning.



В idioms, and even more so in various collections of phrases on the Internet, are often found not only in dictionaries but in everything that remotely resembles them. It has at least a hint of idiom, including individual words with symbolic meanings.



How much knowledge of English idioms is necessary?



Sometimes I think that English idioms are almost the first necessity because they are ubiquitous in English.



Honestly, not that often.



It is beneficial and exciting to know idioms, but there is no point in learning them on purpose. Let's consider two cases: knowing idioms for their use in speech and understanding speech or text.



1. Use of idioms in speech



Many idioms have a stylistic coloring, are used in informal speech, are characteristic of some social or age groups. 



2. Understanding idioms



In my experience, I can say that when speaking to native speakers, idioms are rare. Often there are:



colloquial clichés,

phrasal verbs,

sentence groups.



But idioms, that is, turnips with symbolic meaning, like it rains cats and dogs when pigs fly, are rare. Your interlocutors understand that English is not your native language and try to speak without much difficulty.



By the way, many have noticed that when you talk to a foreigner in the company, you understand him well, but when they talk to each other, nothing is understandable. People talk to each other in their everyday language without making allowance for the "foreignness" of the interlocutor, so their speech can be dotted with slang and incomprehensible jokes.



Do I need to learn idioms?



If you have recently started studying English, you still have a small vocabulary, and reading a page of English text gives you a headache. You do not need to learn, memorize English idioms by heart actively. Idioms are quite an advanced part of the language, not a priority initially. If you discover a list of 100 or 200 idioms, in practical terms, it will give you very little because they are not so common, but your head will be scored thoroughly.



But idioms are perceived by many as an attractive, curious part of language, something like amazing facts or "did you know that...?" In that case, idioms can just be read at your leisure as something entertaining.



But if you're actively reading and listening in English, you'll sometimes encounter idioms. I think you should memorize them at a comprehension level, but there is no point in learning them so solidly that you can use them freely in speech - they are not such ordinary and necessary expressions.



Fortunately, memorizing idioms at the comprehension level is relatively easy, thanks to their vividness, imagery, and sometimes an entertaining origin story. The unusual and vivid things are best imprinted on the memory.



Popular English idioms with translation - a selection from personal experience



In conclusion, here is a selection of idioms that I have encountered in practice: I have not read them out of a textbook, but heard them from someone, met them while reading, and for some reason, they stuck in my memory. Here is my list of popular idioms.



Piece of cake - easy as pie, like a piece of cake.



It's an expression I learned as a kid. In Terminator 2, John Connor, the future savior of humanity, hacks into an ATM with some electronic device and steals money from it. "Piece of cake," John says and runs away.



To ring a bell - to remind you of something, to ring a bell.



The idiom has been seen several times in movies and detectives and is remembered because of the imagery. The ringing of a bell symbolizes a sudden thought.



Rule of thumb - A simple rule of thumb, an approximate way of judging letters.



The rule of thumb is a simple, practical method of not measuring something accurately. Linguist Paul Nation likes to use the expression in scientific papers and lectures.



The origin of the idiom is not precisely established. One version says that the "rule of thumb" came from the old carpenters' way of measuring - with a finger, not a measuring instrument. Everyone's fingers, of course, are different, so such a "tape measure" was not distinguished by accuracy but was easy to use. According to another version, the expression came from an alleged law in England, according to which the husband was allowed to beat his spouse with a stick, but not thicker than his thumb.



To have a crush on someone.



The expression is often found in youth comedies, teen literature, and sitcoms such as "The Friends" or "How I Met Your Mother.



Different ball game 



It's an expression I've only heard from one person, but many times. Do you know how some people have favorite words and phrases? Just such a case in point. An acquaintance of mine in America, a kindly elderly uncle who loved to spout wisdom and talk about the old days, used to say things like.



Jumpscare, in horror movies: a sudden frightening of the viewer, literally: a jump scare.



One of the essential and most effective scare tools in the horror movie and game makers' arsenal, which is why I don't like the genre. In its most primitive form, it looks like this.



The hero sneaks down the dark hallway of a vampire castle with a flashlight, the music building up a tense atmosphere. He approaches a large mirror on the wall, and then there is a rustle, and a shadow flashes behind him. The hero sharply turns around and sees that it is just a mouse. He exhales and says, "It's just a damn mouse!" and turns to the mirror, AND THERE!!! Plus a robust and squealing sound effect. Such scares make the viewer jump on the spot (apparently, hence the name).



The device is hackneyed among genre fans who have resorted to it in a cheap horror movie. In good horror, scare in much more subtle, profound ways, forcing not just the occasional jumping out, dropping popcorn, and the entire film to sit in suspense, and by the end just burning your nervous system to the ground.



I was introduced to this cinematic term when I watched the walkthrough of the super scary game PT on YouTube. Someone wrote in the comments that the frequent use of jump scare frustrated him - such a good game and such a cheap trick.



The bottom line is the gist, summary, lit.: bottom line, bottom line, bottom line.



This idiom means approximately the same: inference, conclusion. For example, a long article may end with a paragraph called "Conclusion" or "The Bottom Line. 



Street smart 



I heard the expression in a conversation with an American journalist, John Alpert. He said he had never been super bright, except for being street smart.



Street smart is a smartness acquired not at school and over books, but on the street, in life, in everyday life. It is also understood in a narrower sense: the ability to survive on the street.

10 My favorite movie English ESL worksheets pdf & doc