Sometimes, the thing which seems easy on first appearance can be quite difficult to use or master. It takes practice and a lot of patience. Originally, this website was going to be launched in June 2020, but was eventually launched in July. However, I wanted to try to master all the functions required for setting it up myself. I have learnt that sometimes it is OK to ask for help.
English speakers often use the weather as a topic of discussion. There are many idioms that are weather connected. We often use the term ‘under the weather’ to express if we feel unwell or perhaps if we don’t feel our normal healthy happy selves.
To ‘have a sunny outlook’ means to be optimistic or happy about something.
My native language is English, but I understand how challenging it can be for learners to absorb all the strange rules for grammar and pronunciation. I usually say ‘guidelines’ instead of rules as there are many exceptions and they sometimes change as language evolves.
Many native speakers will readily admit that they aren’t always familiar with the rules of their language. I may teach my students a specific aspect of the language, but when they leave the classroom they often hear the grammar rules they have just learnt being broken by a native speaker.
‘It’s late, it’s time we caught our train’.
‘It’s time I had my hair cut’.
‘It’s time I went home’
‘It’s time they learnt the difference between definite and indefinite articles’
The general rule here is the expression ‘It’s time’ + personal pronoun+past simple of the verb.
After many years experimenting with blogs, starting them, deleting them, starting them and then posting every day and then not posting for months and in some cases years, I thought I’d start again.
I’ve been working in EFL for nearly 20 years teaching teenagers and adults in monolingual and multilingual classes. I’ve taught all the main Cambridge suite of exams and IELTS. I’ve taught group and 1-1 classes. I’ve also taught business and ESP.
One of my specialisations is in teacher training. That is training Japanese people who want to teach Japanese to non-Japanese speakers and those who want to teach English to young Japanese learners of English in Japan. It’s what is known as TEYL (Teaching English to Young Learners).
This year, English lessons will become compulsory in Japanese primary schools. Therefore, many Japanese primary school teachers would like to improve their English language skills. Also many Japanese people see teaching young learners as an extra skill set they could have.
There’s more information on this link https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2018/03/486b6a277aad-feature-native-speakers-in-demand-as-japanese-schools-step-up-english-lessons.html from the Kyodo News website.
Working with Japanese students, I have picked up a few Japanese phrases. One of the first things I taught myself was to count to ten in Japanese. I think it’s quite easy and once you have mastered this, the numbers from 11-99 are quite easy too.
While looking for ‘phonics’ songs on YouTube, I found this song. It has the same melody as ‘The Phonics Song’ in English, but is in Japanese and teaches numbers.
https://youtu.be/zqNotzty3kE
Browsing through ‘Writing Successful Textbooks’ by Anthony Haynes (A and C Black, 2001, London), the writer advises potential authors to ‘free write’. That is, to write for a set period each day (15/30 minutes perhaps) and to just write without thinking about punctuation, structure etc during that time. Just write. The fine tuning can be addressed after the exercise.
I thought I’d try this (in an adapted version) with my Japanese students and asked them to write a paragraph in English about any subject without worrying about vocabulary, grammar etc.
They quite enjoyed it and it produced work with very few errors. When the errors were brought to their attention, they all managed to self-correct. I also invited them to show their work to the others in the class, so they could see the different writing styles. I’d forgotten about this activity until I reread this post.
When learning another language, there are many ways of recording vocabulary. Depending on your style of learning, you may have a specific way of memorising new words.
Many years ago, one of my Turkish students brought in a list of English words he wanted to learn. He just wanted me to read the words in English, he would then say the Turkish equivalent. Our utterances were recorded on cassette tape, so that he could listen to the vocabulary while he was walking around. The next day, he had another list with more vocabulary (that he wanted me to record for his colleague). I’m not sure if this is the best way of learning vocabulary. Although, I remember when I was learning a language, I listened to the tapes on my Walkman. However, the language involved conversations rather than just random vocabulary.
If you are a language learner attending daily lessons, you will be taught a lot of vocabulary throughout the week. Don’t worry, you don’t have to remember it all. Remember and learn the words or phrases that you consider are important to you. Most adults can remember between 5-7 new words each day.
When recording new vocabulary in your notebook (paper or electronic), here are a few tips to help you.
I find the app Quizlet very useful for learning new vocabulary https://quizlet.com/en-gb
Some literature reports that English language learners can tell the difference between idioms and proverbs. The approximate meaning of a proverb can be worked out from the words in the sentence. However, the meaning of idioms cannot always be defined by the learner’s knowledge of the words in the phrase, even if they know every single word.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Have a look at the following. What do you think?
‘Has the cat got your tongue?’ means ‘Why are you keeping quiet about something?’
‘You look like the cat that got the cream’ means ‘You look very happy or satisfied about something’.
‘To let the cat out of the bag’ means ‘To accidentally disclose a secret’.
