English

Rob Whyte ESL speaking and writing class lessons, activities and worksheets for English students who want to learn and improve their English communication skills.

Write a Summary

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Summarize a Story

Here is a lesson that teaches students how to write a one paragraph summary. In a previous lesson (click here), I showed you how to write a summary with a template called FACT.

In this lesson, use the same style to write a summary about the story in another video.

FACT Summary Writing

In this lesson, you will write a one paragraph summary with the FACT structure.

  • Focus on the main idea.
  • Analyze by describing the main pieces of the story.
  • Conclude means tell us the ending.
  • Tighten your writing by editing grammar errors, deleting extra words and creating paragraph unity.

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Learn About The Brain

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Do you know how the brain works?

Do you know what a brain looks like? Here is an English video lesson which provides a fascinating look at the brain and how it works.

This video lesson answers these questions … with a twist.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke. In this 20-minute presentation, we get the insider’s perspective on how the brain works and what happens when the brain shuts down.  Her description of right brain-left brain functions is useful for teachers, as is her presentation of a real human brain.  I didn’t know it looked like that.

Sit back and enjoy because her presentation is remarkable.

Informative. Wonderful.  Inspirational.

 

Language and Logic

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This is a short course that helps ESL students learn the way the English language can be manipulated to persuade people.  In this class you will learn just a few sentence patterns. But, they are important because they contain power.

The power is this: they create the illusion that an argument is correct and therefore you should believe the speaker.

Seeing and understanding these sentence patterns is part of critical thinking. These sentences are a kind of tool to help you think for yourself.

I hope you enjoy this class.

Critical Thinking Lessons

  • 1: Arguments
  • 2: Fallacies of Relevance
  • 3: Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
  • 4: Analogies and Review
  • 5: Case Study
  • 6: Critical Thinking Test

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ESL Writing Class Week 14

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It’s the end of the semester and time for the students to review what they have learned in the English writing class this semester.

Writing Exercise 1: Edit

Find the errors. Rewrite the paragraph. When is the last time you had a Coca-Cola. did you know that John Pemberton, a pharmacist in atlanta, Georgia inventd Coca-Cola as a medicine he named the syrup he invented for two of it’s ingredients the coca leaf and kola nuts Coca-cola soon become a popular soft drink. On 1891 Pemberton sold his invention to Asa Candler for $2,300. Candler open bottling plants around the U.S. In 1919, Candler sold the business for $25,000,000!

Writing Exercise 2: Email message lesson

Write an email to the Sheraton hotel. Ask three questions. Use standard email writing message format.

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