Quick Writing Ideas

October 8, 2011

ESL students and teachers sometimes need a quick, simple idea to start a writing project. Not a big essay. But a small prompt to get writing into action. Here are three great ideas. I found them on a website. Here is the link. The site has lots of good writing [...]

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ESL Video Lesson: Blind

October 7, 2011

Here’s an exceptional video from a terrific video producer. The short video lesson is called Blind. The producer is Yukihiro Shoda. blind from YUKIHIRO SHODA on Vimeo. ESL Video Lesson Activities 1.  Vocabulary commute gas mask radiation Filter PE petition

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ESL Writing Quiz

May 26, 2011

Are writing tests hard for ESL students? Test your writing skills with this quiz. Here is a quiz which my English students completed in our university ESL writing class. The writing quiz has three types of questions to test their knowledge of the material we studied during the lessons and [...]

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ESL Writing – Breakfast List

May 19, 2011

Here is a quick writing assignment. The purpose of this 5 minute lesson is to active your memory of common words, review countable and non-countable nouns and stimulate creative thinking. Oh, one more thing. Let’s have some fun by watching a really interesting short video. The Writing Lesson Watch the [...]

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ESL Vocabulary – Symmetry

May 1, 2011

Need a lesson to build up your vocabulary quickly? Try this video lesson. In English, there are groups of words that have a natural partner. We use these groups of words in literal situations. We also use these words as idioms. In linguistics, I think these kinds of natural groupings of words are called collocations. [...]

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Power of Words

April 14, 2011

Are words powerful? Of course they are but I wonder if my students know that. I encourage my ESL students to improve and expand their vocabulary.  That’s why I prepare vocabulary worksheets and puzzles, like this one. Knowing more words can help their writing and speaking skills. That is obvious. [...]

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Learn Writing Style

March 25, 2011

How can ESL students learn to write with style? A great question for teachers. But, what is style? In this English writing lesson, ESL students can learn one way to write better paragraphs. It’s not about grammar rules. Style is about writing a paragraph that looks good. When you learn [...]

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Failure Breeds Success

March 2, 2011

A post about failure. Where I work, students are taught mistakes should be avoided. Mistakes are bad. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Korean students fear errors. They learn it’s better to not try than to try and fail. That’s a terrible attitude, especially when learning English as a foreign language.

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