Are you taking a test?
Do you want to increase your vocabulary? How many words? Which words?
Do you want to talk to Native Speakers? Who do you want to talk to? What do you want to talk about?
How are you going to practice and how often?
Personally, in Italian, I want to be fluent in verbs: to be, to have, to do, to take, and the regular "ere", "are" and "ire" verbs. I also want to tell stories in the past about where I went on vacation. I want to be able to recommend or warn against an experience.
I'm going to take a class at my community center and I'm going to practice with my Italian group. I'm also going to start to order my coffee once a month at the Italian cafe near my house to increase my confidence with native speakers. I'm going to study verbs using DuoLingo and use a teacher to practice speaking about my vacation. I'm going to take 1 hour class, twice a month.
In January students are very motivated to study English! Their <em>brains are like sponges, ready to soak up new words and phrases</em>. They buy new notebooks, and pens. They make an "English room" in their house. They type, "English" into the search bar on Facebook and "follow" all the groups. Students are highly motivated. They say: This year I will be fluent in English!
By May, however, <em>the novelty wears off</em> for many students. They have spent months learning new words, understanding pieces of grammar, and copying pharses into notebooks. Some are <em>feeling worn out</em> and can't understand why they are not yet fluent.
Why is that? If you are studying English for an exam it's very easy to see where you improve. That is, you have a "mark" telling you. If you're not studying for an exam, it's more difficult.
For example: Your goal is to be fluent by learning new words. You have 100 new words in your notebook, you are using these words in your conversations with your teacher. How do you know when you have "become fluent"?
Setting goals is a very important task in learning English. If you don't set SMART goals you will <em>feel like</em> <em>you are spinning your wheels</em>. What is a SMART goal?
Specific: I want to learn 50 new words.
Measurable: How do you know when you have "done it"? When you are using these words in conversation?
Attainable: 50 new words is attainable. "All the words in the dictionary" is not.
Relevent: Will I use these 50 new words in my everyday life?
Time-Bound: I want to learn these words in 30 days.
What are your SMART English goals for summer?
Expressions and vocabulary:
1. brains are like sponges, ready to soak up new words and phrases - This is a similie, which is when you compare two things that are very different from each other using "like" or "as". We are comparing a sponge (which you use to soak up water, they are very absobant) to a brain which is also absorbant.
2. soak up - "to take in". She soaked up the words. Sheryl Crow soaked up the sun.
3. the novelty wears off - when the excitement of something new (novelty) goes away. Children are excited to open their presents at Christmas, but they forget about them when the novelty wears off. (They are not excited about them anymore).
4. feeling worn out - feeling tired emotionally because of an event. She was worn out after the fight with her boyfriend.
5. feel like you are spinning your wheels - this is another similie using "like". We are comparing your feeling of being "stuck" like a car which the wheels are going but they car is not going anywhere.
Hi guys,
Recently I've been getting in touch with people who are starting to learn English. What are some tips that you can give beginners? What has worked for you? Not worked?
Someone told me that they tried to print out lists of vocabulary but that didn't work.
Have you ever tired DuoLingo? It's a great site for beginners, and it's free!
https://www.duolingo.com
Hi all,
I am collecting short stories for an international book that I am publishing in December. I am looking for students who want to write and be published in English. We will edit your work so there will be no mistakes. You can submit your story as a named contributer or anonymously.
The book is a collection of personal stories about inspiration, courage, love, and positive vibes. You will be asked to choose a reflection based on one of 10 questions we ask. You choose which question to respond to.
If you are interested, please comment in this thread and we can talk about it. It's a great opportunity for all of you to get your work published and make an impact in the world by sharing your story! <3
Hi everyone,
One of the most common questions that I get from students is about phrasal verbs. Namely, "How can I learn the most common phrasal verbs the fastest?"
It's easy to get hung up on these words. Some people see them as a fast track to success. It's quite difficult to teach the "common" ones because the context changes depending on the speaker and where they come from. Every speaker has his own collection of personal phrasals "go to" words they like to use.
From my experience, the best way to do this is to "collect" them, like one might collect spoons or stuffed animals. When you learn a new phrasal verb write it down with several example sentences (context is key!). Cut it up into small pieces of paper. Put it in a jar. Every Sunday, take 5 pieces of paper out of the jar and make it your goal to use them that week. At the end of the week, put them back in the jar and take 5 more out. Sure, you might repeat some phrasals, but that's a good thing! It will cut back on your boredom and make using them manageable.
You can also play this really cool phrasal verb game: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/phrasalVerbsOne/
What are your favourite phrasal verbs?
How do you study them?
<em></em>(To get hung up on = to get stuck, not able to overcome some challenge)
*I'm hung up on him, I just can't stop thinking about him.
*It looks like you're hung up on that problem. Maybe you should leave it for a while and come back to it later.
Too often we get sidetracked by things that we struggle with. We talk about how we wish we could learn more vocabulary or watch movies. We wonder about the Present Perfect and why we haven't figured it out yet (it's been years!) We get discouraged...
Learning another language is hard. This doesn't mean we can't add some joy to the process! Tell me - what is your FAVOURITE part of English?
Is it learning interesting expressions?
Is it watching music videos?
Is it being able to talk for more than 2 minutes at a time (about something other than the weather)?
Hi everyone,
I'm curious to know - what are your English goals? Do you have general goals like "I want to be fluent" or specific, measurable goals like "I want to be able to read a menu in a restaurant"?
Did you know that setting specific, measurable goals will help improve much faster? Maybe you don't know which goals to set! Let's talk about it.
Hi everyone,
I've recently moved back to Canada and have been re-introduced to several expressions that I had forgotten about! I want to share them with you, explain how to use them, and hear about your favourite expressions.
What is an expression? It's a series of unlikely words put together to make a metaphor for a situation. Simply, it's secret code to add more emphasis to a situation.
Let's look at one of my favourite expressions:
It's raining cats and dogs.
This expression means that it's raining a lot. It's raining so much that an umbrella may be rendered useless. That's a lot of rain!
But what do cats and dogs have to do with rain? No one is really sure (though there are several books on the history of expressions).
The more expressions you feel comfortable using, the more you will sound like a native speaker.
Expression Meaning
I paid through the nose for those glasses. -- I paid a lot of money for those glasses.
He pushed me under the bus. -- He said something was my fault when it wasn't.
Holy smokes! We're shocked about the weather.-- Holy smokes is a childs way of swearing.
If you want to be rich, you need to work your ass off.
--To work your ass off means to work really hard. Normally the word "ass" is a swear word, but this expression is an exception. I've seen this expression used in magazine articles before.
So let's talk about it! What are your favourite expressions? Are you comfortable using them?
