What kinds of produce does a farmer produce?
Does your Polish sausage taste like nail polish?

Learning to read in English is not a simple process for anyone - native and non-native speakers alike. The writing system used for English is <em>opaque</em> - the pronunciation of letters and combinations of letters is not always predictable. Furthermore, there are no patterns that help predict where the stress will fall in any given word. Ordinarily, a combination of phonics, whole word memorization (“sight words”), and word etymology is used to gain fluency in reading.

For this reason, exams such as the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) are wise to ask test takers to read a text out loud.  Examiners want to find out not only what they know, but what they can produce.  Evaluation scores are based upon the student's pronunciation and intonation.

To help students prepare for these types of challenges I have created a series called ‘Out Loud’ and covers 5 important vowel sounds in English. You can sample the materials with a bonus vowel sound at: 

http://www.enupgrade.com/out-loud-sample

I came across an article about the problem of cheating in schools in India:

http://www.enupgrade.com/cheating-on-tests/

When I was in school, classmates sometimes tried to secretly look at their notes during the test or to look at another classmate's test to see their answer.  If a student was caught cheating by the teacher, the consequences were fairly severe.  For example, one of my teachers would immediately take the student's exam paper and mark it with a '0'.  Then, the teacher would contact the student's parents and make the student explain why they received a '0' on their test.

At that time, technology was much more simple, so students could not use the cell phones or other devices that are available today.  

Is cheating on exams a big problem in your country?  Has cheating changed since you were young?  

I am an English teacher here on italki and I also teach classes face-to-face in my city.  However, I would like to expand the pool of resources I use in my lessons to include more material from other English speaking countries.  I am most familiar with resources from North America, but I have no clue (other than blind Google searching) where to find the most creative and appropriate resources from other regions.  

I would appreciate any recommendations.

A journalist named Jon Ronson describes looking through the DSM manual and thinking that his behavior sometimes matches the symptoms of several psychological disorders.  This began a project to find out how certain conditions are diagnosed and treated.

A video of his presentation and some questions to help you understand the topic are available on my blog:

http://www.enupgrade.com/listen-up/2014/8/16/jon-ronson-strange-answers-to-the-psychopath-test

What do you think: is it possible to diagnose yourself with the DSM manual or a psychiatric test?

This article is slightly dated, but it describes the controversy surrounding a painting called "On the Shore of the Seine" painted on a napkin by Renoir in 1879:

http://www.enupgrade.com/renoir/

How do you feel about owning art?  Also, how is the monetary value of a piece of art determined?

I receive many interesting links to articles around the Internet from my students.  After making discussion guides for them and finishing the lesson, I have a habit of forgetting about them.  So, I have started posting some of these materials on my blog:

http://www.enupgrade.com/look-up

I hope that these articles may be useful to students or English teachers preparing for lessons.

While phrasal verbs with the verb 'to fill' share the same essential meaning, they are used in different contexts.  I made a video explaining the four most common phrasal verbs with examples:

http://www.enupgrade.com/speak-up/2014/8/5/phrasal-verbs-fill

Are the meanings clear?  Would you like to try to make your own sentences with the phrasal verbs?  You can post your sentences here and I will check them out. :)