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.

ESL Intermediate Conversation – Week 12

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It’s week 12 of the semester and time for my ESL students to learn more English speaking before the quiz, which is coming soon.

UNDERSTAND LIKE AND LOOK LIKE

LOOK LIKE and LIKE are easy to confuse. They are also useful when you want to express ideas in a conversation.

CHARACTER  What is your best friend like?

  1. She is kind and sociable.
  2. She is like a tiger, strong and aggressive.

APPEARANCE  What does your best friend look like?

  1. He is short and a little chubby.
  2. He looks like a happy person.

PREFERENCES  What does your best friend like?

  1. He likes to go hiking on weekends.
  2. She likes eating cheesecake and cooking pancakes for her family.

PROBABILITY  It looks like it is going to rain later today.

  1. It looks like he is going to be sick.
  2. She looks like she is going to fall down.

Practice 1: Like and Look Like

This is a pair work ESL speaking activity. Ask your partner the questions. S/he must answer with the correct form of like or look like. Be sure to ask at least 2 follow up questions. Click here if you want to print all of the questions on paper.

STUDENT A

Ask your partner these questions. Use a sentence block: ask at least two follow up questions.

  1. What do you like eating for breakfast?
  2. What is your home town like?
  3. What does your brother or sister look like?
  4. What is the climate in Korea like?
  5. Does your family like fast food?
  6. What is your best friend like?
  7. What does your house look like?
  8. Would you like to live in Australia?
  9. What is President Park like?
  10. Who do you look like?

STUDENT B

Ask your partner these questions. Use a sentence block: ask at least two follow up questions.

  1. Did you like going to elementary school?
  2. What are you like in the early morning?
  3. Is there someone in the class who looks like a famous person?
  4. Did you like vegetables when you were young?
  5. What is television like in Korea?
  6. What does the center of your town look like?
  7. What don’t you like about Chuseok?
  8. What were you like as a child?
  9. In your family, who looks like you the most?
  10. Do you like fish or meat more?

Practice 2: Like and Look Like

Look at the pictures (click here to look at the pictures). Talk with your partner and ask a few questions.

  1. Describe what you see.
  2. What do the people look like?
  3. What are the people like, do you think?
  4. Do you like this picture?
  5. Why might this picture be famous or interesting?

Practice 3: Looks Like

Look at the picture. Use LOOKS LIKE to describe the things that might happen. For example:

  • It looks like he might fall down.
  • She looks like she might have an accident.

Quiz Number 2 Review

  1. vocabulary list from the class pair work exercise
  2. items from the exercise 16 habits of the mind
  3. questions with too much and too many
  4. questions and vocabulary similar to the ones on this worksheet
  5. the two short stories in your text book (pages 59 and 61)
  6. pages 53 and 54 from the textbook.

 

ESL Writing Week 12

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In this lesson, the ESL students will learn how to combine two English sentences into one long sentence. Before starting, there are two grammar phrases you need to know for this lesson:

  • coordinating conjunctions
  • subordinate conjunctions

There are many ways to combine two sentences. In this lesson you will learn and practice two ways.

Sentence Combining 1: Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions are small words that join two sentences, clauses, word or phrases.

When joining sentences, we don’t need to change the sentences very much.

Read more

Student Writing Samples

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Here are some examples of ESL student writing as they learn to write English poems, particularly Japanese haiku.

 

Rain is falling down, still

Trees are suppressing and waiting

Under he trees, you are

 

Cherry blossoms bloom

A girl standing with a smile

Waiting for someone

 

the son of sun

hot today, hot tomorrow

maybe we died

 

the sound of silence

nobody can hear, but can feel

it’s in the darkness

 

children don’t know me

and they shouldn’t know know me wholly

I am the failure

 

 

ESL Intermediate Conversation – Week 11

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Last week was a short week for the ESL students because of two national holidays.

This week, we will be building English fluency skills with

  1. reading and summarizing exercises
  2. a new vocabulary game
  3. a logical thinking puzzle worksheet
  4. facts about reading

 

The Importance of Reading

Click to read a few facts about reading.