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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

From Kenneth Beare, your Guide to ESL


Using the Whole Brain
There are many ways to learn a language as there many types of understanding. You can understand something musically, visually or intellectually, as well as emotionally or even through smell. Right Left Brain
This Mind Map reading comprehension lesson provides a number of exercise to help students use this visual technique for longer reads.
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Describing a Scene
The cowboy is riding into the sunset. He fought crime and caught bandits, as well as found love. He's going to become the sheriff in Dodge...
Cowboy into the Sunset
The description above takes the final scene of a movie as the point of departure to write a description using a wide variety of tenses. Use this final scene lesson plan to help students develop stories based on sketches they make of movies they love. Other options include creating soap operas in class, or writing and acting out a script from a favorite movie.
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Three Uses of "What are you doing?"
The present continuous tense - for example, I am writing a blog post. - is used in three situations. The first is to express what is happening at the moment of speaking:
Present Continuous - Now
The second to express what is happening around the time of speaking. In other words, the present continuous can express current projects.
Present Continuous - Currently
Finally, the present continuous may also express a future scheduled event such as a meeting.
Present Continuous - Future Schedule
Learn more about tenses uses the visual guide to tenses.
Check Your Writing Online
Finally! After many, many years there's an online service which checks English writing especially designed for English learners. I don't know how many times I've received an email asking for a recommendation for proofreading software especially designed for learners. 1Checker provides this help. Here's a correction for the following conjugation error in a sentence:
... you intends to say
Subject-Verb Agreement

Explanation
The subject and the verb have to agree in number and person. Singular nouns in the subject require the singular form of the verb (either in the first or the third person), whereas plural nouns require the plural form of the verb.

Examples
Wrong: He walk alone.
Right: He walks alone.
1Checker is free at the moment for the online version. I highly recommend you give it a try!

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