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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Importance of Proofreading

January 9, 2011

Proofreading. It’s an important skill for student writers. Well, for everyone who writes, actually. Many students don’t like proofreading. They believe you write an essay or story once. And that’s it. No changes, edits, or proofreading. Maybe that idea is okay for a math test, but not for writing. So, [...]

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Writing Hypothesis Sentences

January 7, 2011

200 Countries and 200 Years in 4 Minutes Here’s an interesting video that shows the evolution of world history. It shows changes for 200 countries over 200 years. Technically, it’s quite interesting. But, for student writers there is another use. We can use this video and data to learn how [...]

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Helen Keller Video

January 4, 2011

Helen Keller is quite famous here in Korea. I often wonder why. Perhaps they admire her spirit. Here is a video with that famous woman and her companion, Anne Sullivan. A rare treat. I included this video, in part, as an inspiration to all of my students. Helen Keller had [...]

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4 More Great ESL Sites

January 4, 2011

I had a good response from a list of websites for ESL students. You can see that list here. So, I put together another list of 4 websites with lesson ideas that can help English students improve their writing, listening and reading skills. I hope you find this list of [...]

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