Tuesday, May 29, 2007

speaking practice & 2 quizzes

SoZiety - practice your English with others worldwide via Sk
SoZiety is an interesting new company in Europe that takes full advantage of Skype for language learning. It's a simple concept, but very effective. SoZiety keeps a database of users.


Financial Terminology Quiz
This 30 question quiz tests a wide variety of financial terms used when talking about finances, wealth and business in general. Improve your industry specific vocabulary...

Quiz - Differences between British and American English
This quiz on differences between British and American English compares spelling, vocabulary and grammar differences. Each question is repeated twice somewhere in the quiz so that each version is tested.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

The word UP

 
        Lovers of the English language might enjoy
        this......How do non-natives ever learn all
        the nuances of English???

        There is a two-letter word that perhaps
        has more meanings than any other two-letter
        word, and that word is "UP."

        It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward
        the sky or at the t op of the list, but when we
        awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

        At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
        Why do we speak UP and why are the officers
        UP for election and why is it UP to the
        secretary to write  UP a report?

        We call UP our friends and we use it to
        brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we
        warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the
        kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys
        fix UP the old car.

        At other times the little word has real
        special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line
        UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think
        UP excuses.

        To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed
        UP is special.

        And this UP is confusing:

        A drain must be opened UP because it is
        stopped UP.

        We open UP a store in the morning but we
        close it UP at night.  We seem to be pretty
        mixed UP about UP !

        To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of
        UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.   In a
        desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4
        of the page and can add UP to about thirty
        definitions

        If you are UP to it, you might try building UP
        a list of the many ways UP is used.   It will
        take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't
        give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or
        more.

        When it threatens to rain, we say it is
        clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say
        it is clearing UP.  When it rains, it wets UP
        the earth.

        When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry
        UP.

        One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for
        now my time is UP, so ....

        Time to shut UP .....!

        Oh...one more thing:!
        What is the first thing you do in the morning
        & the last thing you do at night?

        U     P

        Don't screw up.  Send this on to everyone you
        look up in your address book.

 

Thursday, May 03, 2007

What shall we talk about?

How is conversation like pulling teeth?
Does this sound familiar? Student: I don't speak English very well. My grammar is good, but my speaking is poor. Teacher: OK. Let's start with movies. Which movie do you like? Student: ummm... The Queen.

And that's it. No opinions, no comments, just two words.

What to talk about? Or discuss here on the blog... Take this survey and let us know the results.

Debates
These debate lesson plans come complete with 'for / against' statements to get students going, as well as useful phrases for expressing opinions.

Parts of Speech

Words are used to form patterns of English grammar and syntax. Each word falls into one of eight categories referred to as parts of speech.

Think of parts of speech (& parts of the sentence) as your "toolkit" & "building blocks" for conversation and discussion.

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