5 Useful Links for ESL Teachers

Here are some links that I have compiled recently that may be useful to ESL teachers:

1 A vocabulary profiler:

Dig out unusual words from a text

http://www4.caes.hku.hk/vocabulary/profile.htm

2 Tweet Speak

A site that has audio recordings of tweets so that students can hear 'real language':

http://tweet-speak.posterous.com/


3 This article argues against Chomsky's idea of a 'universal grammar' (which I also disagree with)

http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2011/05/more-evidence-against-grammatical-universals.html

4 A business English lesson on Brazil's economy (with video)

http://eltbakery.edublogs.org/2011/05/01/business-english-lesson-brazils-rising-star/

5 An English lesson based around Justin Bieber (if you happen to have teenage girls in your class!)

http://www.famouspeoplelessons.com/j/justin_bieber.html

Word List - Describing the Stock Market

Here is a short list of words I compiled from Google searches on describing the stock market.

http://www.roadtogrammar.com/wordlists/list2.html

Word List - Figurative Language

I'm going to start posting some word lists for ESL learners, beginning with this one:

http://www.roadtogrammar.com/wordlists/list1.html

This is a list of words and phrases connected to figurative language. I've always found that advanced learners have a lot of questions about these words. All definitions are from the open source dictionary (wiktionary.com). Please go ahead and use the list as you wish.

Grammar Nazi

An interesting new phrase that has appeared in the last couple of years is 'Grammar Nazi'.

A Grammar Nazi is a person who enjoys pointing out mistakes that other people make when writing messages on the Internet. Ironically, most 'grammar nazis' focus on spelling mistakes rather than grammar mistakes. For example, many people mistakenly spell 'grammar' with an 'e' (grammer).

When the phrase Grammar Nazi first appeared, it was always used as an insult - 'Don't be a grammar nazi!' However, more recently, people are proud to be grammar nazis. Just search for the hashtag #grammarnazi on Twitter (or click here) and you'll see what I mean.

Is RoadToGrammar run by a Grammar Nazi?

No, I'm happy to say. I have always maintained that good grammar is a tool for ESL learners. If your grammar isn't perfect, you should just do your best to communicate. I'm also not in favour of teachers who spend too much time teaching grammar. That's one reason why I made this site, so that learners can practise grammar outside the class and focus on conversation practice inside the class.

I do wish Americans had better spelling skills, though!

Linking Directly to a Quiz

Road To Grammar is a Flash-based website, meaning that to navigate you don't need to go from one webpage to another. You'll notice that the URL at the top of the page is www.roadtogrammar.com, no matter which quiz you are doing. Hopefully, this makes the site faster and easier to use.

Now, what about a situation where you want to ask your students to do Quiz #3, for example. You don't want to have to tell them to go to roadtogrammar.com and then click on quiz number 3. You want to give a direct link.

Simple. Just give them this link: www.roadtogrammar.com?3 to go directly to quiz 3. To go directly to any quiz, just add a question mark and the quiz number after the URL.

A really fast dictionary

I recently found this excellent site:

http://ninjawords.com/

Ninja Words claims to be 'A really fast dictionary... fast like a ninja.'

However, it's not the speed that is interesting, but the ability to generate word lists very quickly. Let's say that you want to get the definition of 'geography' but without using the search function, you can just type the following in the address bar:

http://ninjawords.com/geography

So far so good? Now to generate a list of definitions, we just need to add commas. Try this link:

http://ninjawords.com/geography,physics,algebra,anthropology,ethnology

So you could use this to generate a word list, copy, paste and print it out or pass the link on to students. Don't forget to use a service like http://bit.ly if you need to shorten it.

A great new quiz

Here's a quiz that will come in handy for advanced level ESL students or ESL students struggling to read novels because they don't understand the specific action verbs:

www.roadtogrammar.com/specificactionverbs

There are over 200 verbs to practise.

Upcoming stuff on R2G...

Just a quick note to say what's coming up on Road to Grammar.

1 An interactive exercise on specific action verbs (like 'shrug', 'stagger' or 'twitch')

2 A selection of Android Apps featuring some of the games and activities on Road to Grammar

Idioms Galore

A new activity is available on RoadToGrammar.com

This idiom quiz lets you practice 150 commonly used idioms. The questions come up at random and you get a running total of your score.

The URL is: www.roadtogrammar.com/idioms

What is an idiom?

An idiom is any phrase where the words themselves do not convey the actual meaning. For example, we can say that a job is a 'piece of cake'. We are not talking about dessert! 'Piece of cake' is an idiom for 'easy', so when we say a job is a piece of cake, we mean that it is an easy job.

Into it, over it, with it, done with it

It’s not the long words in English that are confusing, it’s the short ones:

Example 1:

Jack: What kind of stuff are you into?

Jill: I’m really into kickboxing.

(If you’re into it, it means you enjoy it as a kind of hobby.)

Example 2:

Jack: Are you still upset about me breaking your mug?

Jill: No, I’m over it.

(If you’re over it, it means you have stopped being upset about it. Sometimes we say, ‘gotten over it’)

Example 3:

Jack: Fred told me he didn’t know what an MP3 was!

Jill: He’s not really with it, is he?

(If you’re not with it, it means you are not very clever or up-to-date. This phrase is most often used in the negative.)

Example 4:

Jack: Can I borrow your iPad?

Jill: Sure. I’m done with it for today.

(If you’re done with it, it means you are finished with it. We sometimes say, ‘through with it’ as an alternative.)

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Suppose and Supposed to

Here's an odd phrase: 'supposed to'

Have you ever wondered what it means?

When we use the word 'suppose', it means 'think':

I suppose so = I think so (but I'm not sure)

However, when we use it in the phrase 'supposed to', the meaning changes and, in fact, there is more than one meaning.

1 A rule which is often broken

Example: We are not supposed to bring our cellphones to class.

This means the rule is often broken - student often disregard the rule and bring their cellphones to class

2 Reputation

Example: He is supposed to be the best runner on the team.

People say that he is the best runner on the team

3 A rule, commitment or appointment that has been broken

Example: He is supposed to be here. Where is he? (He didn't show up)

Student Questions: Pronunciation or Pronounciation?

One of my students asked which is correct: pronunciation or pronounciation?

The answer is 'pronunciation'. And it is pronounced the way it is spelled.

Did you know that 'misspelling' is one of the most misspelled words?
And mispronunciation is one of the most mispronounced words!

Meaning of AT LARGE

I found this on Yahoo Answers and wanted to share it:

Q: Where does the expression 'at large' originate, when referring to escaped criminals?

A: The original meaning of the word "large" included, "abundant, copious, plentiful, liberal" (from the Latin largus), so that "at large" meant "liberated, free". Today, "large" simply means "big" and all the variants of "big", but not "free". But the old idiom "at large" meaning "free" survives on.


Interesting!








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Frosty

Feeling in the Christmas spirit?

Why not learn the lyrics to a Christmas song? It's fun and it'll help you improve your English.

Where is the word OK from?

(From Yahoo Answers)

1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c.1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (cf. K.G. for "no go," as if spelled "know go"); in this case, "oll korrect." Further popularized by use as an election slogan by the O.K. Club, New York boosters of Democratic president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid, in allusion to his nickname Old Kinderhook, from his birth in the N.Y. village of Kinderhook. Van Buren lost, the word stuck, in part because it filled a need for a quick way to write an approval on a document, bill, etc. The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888. Spelled out as okeh, 1919, by Woodrow Wilson, on assumption that it represented Choctaw okeh "it is so" (a theory which lacks historical documentation); this was ousted quickly by okay after the appearance of that form in 1929. Okey-doke is student slang first attested 1932. Greek immigrants to America who returned home early 20c. having picked up U.S. speech mannerisms were known in Greece as okay-boys, among other things.

H.L. Mencken once described "O.K." as "the most successful of Americanisms," an estimation verified by U.S. troops during the Second World War, who reported encountering the phrase all over the world. Of all the scores of theories (and sub-theories) as to the origin of "O.K.," the most widely heard traces "O.K." to the "O.K. Club," a political committee supporting Martin Van Buren's unsuccessful bid for the Presidency in 1840. The "O.K.," it is said, was short for "Old Kinderhook," Van Buren's nickname.

It appears that this theory is not so much wrong (the "O.K. Club" certainly existed) as it is incomplete. Chances are good the Van Buren's partisans would never have named their club "O.K." had the phrase not already been widely known as an abbreviation of "oll korrect," a humorous misspelling of "all correct." American speech in the early 1800s was awash in similar abbreviations, two of which, "N.G." ("no good") and "P.D.Q." ("Pretty Damn Quick"), are still heard today.

Ironically, while "O.K." didn't save Van Buren's campaign, the campaign gave "O.K." a new lease on life -- until then, it had never been as popular as a competing phrase, "O.W." (for "oll wright"). (By the way, before we start feeling too superior to the cornball 1800s, is "oll wright" really any worse than the "excuuuse me!" or "not!" fads of a few years ago?).

OK is without doubt the best-known and widest-travelled Americanism, used and recognised even by people who hardly know another word of English. Running in parallel with its popularity have been many attempts to explain where it came from — amateur etymologists have been obsessed with OK and theories have bred unchecked for the past 150 years.