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Learn a New English Phrase Every Day

Discover a new phrase each day to use in your English! These are special phrases and sayings that English speakers use all the time, but you don't often see these phrases in English course books or other study material. Visit daily to learn some popular English phrases on a regular basis. I can’t (verb) to save my life We use this expression to say that we absolutely can't do something. SpokenWrittenFormalInformal Example 1 Do you like tennis? Example 2 This is delicious.

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How to Create a Jazz Chant by Carolyn Graham Last November, Carolyn Graham did a workshop at the JALT National Conference in Shizuoka, Japan, on how to make a Jazz Chant. I taped her workshop, and with her permission am sharing the part of it where she demonstrates her technique. One of the many things I love about Carolyn is that she spends most of her time giving away her secrets. In this short video, Carolyn shows teachers how easy it is for them to create their own chants to reinforce vocabulary or grammar. Knowing how to put together a quick chant can be a lifesaver—for the last five minutes of class, to calm an unruly group of kids, or to put the class reins into your students’ hands and have them create their own chants. The possibilities are endless, and I think this is one of the reasons Carolyn’s technique has survived all of the methodological twists and turns in our profession in the past 30 years.

Are you a Good Language Learner? In this post-method era, when so many approaches and methods to language teaching have come and gone, where reflective teachers are no longer thinking in terms of which ‘label’ to follow or which apostle to bow to, it has become more and more evident that TEFL needs to stop contemplating its own navel and turn to general education theories and principles of learning, to reflect on thinking skills, cognitive abilities and the learners’ emotional make up, to embrace technology as a tool and not as the panacea for all ills. In this context, good learner studies conducted in the late 70’s and 80’s have become much more relevant and worth revisiting. Many of the studies were conducted in Canada, with notable names and studies listed below in a sample bibliography. photo taken by Marisa Constantinides at CELT Athens

BusyTeacher.org It’s only natural. After all, they are trying to talk in a language they are still working on learning. Still, silence can be deadly in the ESL classroom for your students and you. When you want to get your students to speak up, try one of these fun and simple games to get them talking in class. 10 Illustrated English Idioms That Will Make Your Life Easier For many people learning English for the first time it can be daunting and complex language to master. Lots of silent letters, complex spellings and odd expressions which often go over the heads of most non-English speakers. To make learning English a little easier, Irish illustrator Roisin Hahessy has created some wonderfully simple yet funny pictures to help make things a little clearer. She's also a part-time English teacher in Brazil so she uses the series to aid her students as well. Now whenever you hear any of these English idioms, thanks to Hahessy at least now you'll have a better idea of where the conversation is heading!

The Spookiest Attic This Passage & Question Set and related Vocabulary materials align to the following Common Core Anchor Standards: Passage & Question SetCCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10 Vocabulary MaterialCCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.4CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6 Full Standards Descriptions CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CAE Speaking Phrases This post was nominated for a British Council blog award! Follow me on twitter Here’s a phrase list for the CAE speaking exam. There are also some speech bubble powerpoints to drill the language in class, click on each phrase to make it disappear. School Start 7-9 ⋆ WebEnglish.se Check also New Teacher Introductions in Teach by Calendar August 19th Warm-up Welcome to a New School Year (4:27) Video clip with powerful messages to live up toBack to School Expectations Vs. Reality!

5 of My Favorite English Games for ESL Students I saved the best for last. My students requested this game more often than any other game we ever played. It's based on the old drinking game "Ring of Fire," modified for the classroom. Materials needed:A standard deck of playing cards, a whiteboard, 20-30 small slips of blank paper, and a bowl. The setup:Almost none! Vocabulary placement test - intermediate students Have you tried our vocabulary placement test for elementary students, and it was too easy for you? Have you scored close to 2000? Then this is the vocabulary test you should take. Here we test the words which belong between 2,000 and 5,000 most frequent words in English. ADVERT: There are 60 questions and the score at the end tells you how many words from the 3,000 words you know.

5 ESL Emergency Lessons Picture this: It’s 8am Monday morning, you’re fast asleep, snuggled in your duvet, enjoying a rare day off. Life is wonderful! Suddenly you are jolted back into reality by a phone call…from work… asking you to sub a class in 30 minutes. I’m sure this has happened to everyone and I’m sure you remember the panic it causes trying to plan a lesson, brush your teeth and get dressed instantaneously. Well fear not, here are 5 ESL emergency lessons that don’t require any prep or photocopying, that you can use in just these instances. I adapted this idea from a seminar by Michael Swan and have used it many times in class successfully.

Giving directions A Go straight on. Then take the first left on to Green Street. Walk past the library and it’s the building next to the library on the left. B Go straight on.

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