Four thoughts about homework:

1. Homework is important because it's like brushing your teeth or paying taxes. No one really likes doing these things. There may be times when we don't do them because we don't feel like doing them. All of these things, even if they're boring or repetitive, help you keep control of your situation.

2. Practise does not happen in a vacuum. You have many resources to help you. Doing exercises on paper is ONE way of improving your English, but it's not the only way. The limits to your resources are the limits to your interests: try to find something that you enjoy doing, then do that. Don't forget the paper exercises - but don't limit yourself to ONLY doing paper exercises.

3. Teachers can provide the resources to help you, but we cannot do the learning for you. If you don't do your homework, and if you don't do any practice at all outside of class, that tells me that you are not serious about improving your English. I can help you, but I can't do the learning for you.

4. Think about how much learning English - and being able to speak, listen, write and read well in English - means to you. If learning is not a priority for you right now, that's okay. But don't tell me that it's a priority and then do the things that will stop you from learning. I'm not giving you homework because I have nothing better to do than correct what you do. If I invest the time in creating exercises to help you, and you don't do those exercises, in my opinion, you don't deserve the right to complain that you're stuck.

You only get out of it what you put into it.

Writing isn't easy (but here's how to make it less difficult)

I'm going to start this post by admitting that I always enjoyed writing. I'm not a very verbal person - I listen much better than I talk - and I always find it easier to write my ideas and feelings, rather than talk about them.

Not everyone is this way, however. After fourteen years of teaching, I know that there are a lot of students who don't like writing for many reasons: 

• They don't trust a process that is not automatic. Speaking is easy (for some people!) - you open your mouth, you move your tongue, teeth and lips, and you have spoken.  Writing well means more preparation, more thinking about language thinking about the person who is going to receive what you're writing...and more steps can mean more possibilities for making mistakes.
• It's a lot of work. Even if the work helps students improve, that still doesn't mean that they like it. There are a lot of students who won't do work, whether they think it helps them - or not.
• They feel self-conscious about writing something down because they think the mistake will be there forever. In contrast, if you say something silly or ridiculous, it only exists as long as the other person hears or remembers the mistake. (And trust me, some people have VERY long memories of mistakes.)

Are you one of those students who doesn't like writing?  This video provides a quick review of the seven pieces of advice that I give my students so that they find writing less stressful.

The focus of the video is on things that you do in your own language, anyway - they're universal things  that you probably do in your own language, but which take a little longer when you're writing in English. Here are some other things to remember....

• Perfect doesn't exist. "I want to do it perfectly," a student says. There is no perfect. "Perfect" is an excuse that people use so that they don't have to do anything at all. Good enough is fine. Don't put yourself under pressure to create something that is impossible. 
• If you don't know what to write, write anything. Keep your pen or pencil moving. Keep typing. It is always easier to fix what you have, instead of trying to fix what doesn't exist. Even if you have to start a writing by writing this is crap, this is crap, this is crap, this is crap....
• Writing is a skill. Like any other skill, such as playing basketball, dancing Argentine tango or surfing, there is only one way to get better: practice more. It's work, not magic, that makes people get better.  

COMPLETE vs. REALIZE: What's the difference?

It's time for a new video on false friends! This is one that will be of interest to you who are doing the First Certificate, because this pair of easily confused words has appeared on the First in the past: it's the different between REALIZING something and COMPLETING something. 

A post about snow and adverbs

Like the song says, "Baby, it's COLD outside." Two students who are in London are reporting that there's quite a bit of snow in the south-east UK, and my friend Álvaro, who lives just north of Madrid, says that he's got about 10 cm of snow on his car.

Here's a photo of the thermometer on my balcony, taken today at 9:17 AM:

It seems like today is a good day to write about adjectives and adverbs: It's really cold out there today.

One of the jobs of adverbs is to give us more information about adjectives. We often do this with adverbs of degree:

• It's cold outside.
• It's really cold outside.
• It's surprisingly cold outside.
• It's shockingly cold outside.
• It's ridiculously cold outside.

English speakers often do this in order to give you a very specific idea of their opinion about something.  Why? Our ideas of cold are probably different - and, even then, we have so many degrees of cold that it helps me be specific about what kind of cold I mean.

This isn't really common in written Spanish, and almost no one uses it in normal, spoken Spanish. It's very common with English speakers, however, so if you're not sure about how to use adverbs to describe adjectives, be sure to ask your teacher.

Could I ask you for two minutes of your time?

I know, I hate it when people stop me and ask me to answers questions for a survey - so I hate asking you folks, too....however....

I'm trying to get more information about how people feel about taking English classes over the Internet, so I've created that asks people what they think about English classes over Skype. The survey is totally anonymous - I won't ask you for your name, e-mail address or anything like that - and there is no obligation to buy anything after you take the survey (since I won't know who you are.)

Thanks in advance for your help!! The survey is located at the very bottom of this web page - scroll all the way down to the end and you'll see it there.

Where's the mistake?

I just saw a couple of mistakes in a banner ad on a famous website....can you see what the problems are?

The keys to understanding Key Sentence Transformation

...or something like that. I wasn't going to do this until the weekend, but two people just cancelled class, so I did the audio (and re-did and re-did and re-did the audio, several times) to the latest video.

If you're having problems with Key Sentence Transformation, and you're not exactly sure why, here's a video explaining what NOT to do on that part of that Cambridge exam.  

Important for FCE: What's the difference between ESTIMATED and DEAR?

It's funny....sometimes, I can go months or years without hearing a problem. Then, all of a sudden, that mistake comes up two or three times in a day. This happened yesterday during a couple of First Certificate preparation classes - two different students had problems with how to start formal letters for the compulsory task of the Writing Paper.

If you've ever had any doubts about whether it's okay to start a letter with "Estimated (name)" or "Dear (name)," this video will explain the difference between the two.

AGREE or CONFORM - What's the difference?

Today's video will be useful for those of you who are studying business English: it describes the difference between AGREE and CONFORM, two verbs that people sometimes get mixed up when they're talking about legal documents.

TEACHERS!!! Would you like to spend a year working in the States or Canada?

Thanks to Quique Rodríguez over at Expansion.com for this link - apparently the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport is offering the chance for 236 teachers from Spain to travel to the US and Canada for a year to work as teachers.

I know nothing about this beyond what is on the website, but I'll get in touch with some ex-students I have at the Ministry and see if anybody knows anything.

Another vocabulary video

Good morning, everyone...

Sorry to post and run, but I'm off to a seminar this morning. Before I leave, however, here's another video for you: this one explains the difference between a CHAPTER and an EPISODE.

Enjoy!

ATTEND or ASSIST? The video explanation is here!

Well, it's been a grey, rainy day here in Ottawa: 8ºC, just like in Madrid, and our snow is almost all gone. I wasn't in the mood to get outside and do much today, so I've started work on a new series of videos.

Today's installment describes the difference between ASSIST and ATTEND. Be careful with this pair - this is the kind of question that Cambridge LOVES to put on exams like the First and the Proficiency.

New vocabulary? Try photos!

As I've mentioned before in class, not everybody works well with "The List". You know what I'm talking about...that very long list of words, expressions, collocations and phrasal verbs that you write down in every class, highlight, maybe translate...and never look at again...so that when you need the vocabulary, you've got to go through the entire process again so that you remember why the words on "The List" were important!

If you're like me, and you DO find that a picture IS worth a thousand words (or that it's a better option than "The List"), try this. I did this with Penultimate for iPad, but it's just as useful with a pen and a picture from a magazine:

When you learn English, it pays to be practical....

Most times, when I ask people why they want to learn English, they say, "I need English for my job." When I ask them a few more questions, it turns out that they never really use English at work and probably won't in the near future.

However, some people really do need English for their work - or perceive that they might. As the Associated Press reports, an organization in Brazil is offering free English classes to prostitutes, to help them prepare for, er, increased customer demand during the next World Cup of football.

FREE English course for medical people!

No, not me, unfortunately. I can't afford to give my stuff away for free (yet.)

It's from someone who's a lot better at teaching medical English than I am: the University of Pittsburgh, through Coursera.org, is offering a six-week course for medical people who want to learn more about English and medical-clinical terminology. It's free (though there are limits to the number of people who can take part), and there's no start date for the next session.

For those of you who are looking to practice abroad, however, this might be an excellent place to start fine-tuning your medical English.

Past Simple really IS ... SIMPLE!

One of the questions that every student asks, sooner or later is, "Can you explain some rules about using verb tenses in English?"

Well, a blog really isn't the place to get into the little, minute details. That's better explained in class. However, I did prepare this video which explains the three biggest reasons why the past simple tense is, really, quite simple. 

Learning English doesn't solve everything

Just a quick observation about learning languages:

Learning English might help you reach goals and enjoy learn opportunities, but it won't change who you fundamentally are. If you're shy, English will not turn you into a social animal. If you find human behaviour confusing and you don't understand what people are doing, English will not make you wise and make you understand the motivations why people do everything.

If you buy a better hammer, that doesn't make you a better craftsman. If you buy a really expensive pair of trainers, it won't guarantee that you will finish a marathon in under three hours.

English can do a lot of things, but it won't make you radically different from the person you are today.

ECONOMIC or ECONOMICAL - What's the difference?

I've just posted another vocabulary video: today's topic is the difference between ECONOMIC and ECONOMICAL.

Both of them are adjectives that talk about money, but we use them in different contexts.

Writing for Exams: Three things NOT to do

Starting from this month, I'm going to be contributing blog posts to the ClubMBA website (and if I haven't said it before, I'm saying it now - those of you who are doing the TOEFL exam should definitely check out their TOEFL forum - not because I'm contributing to it, but because there are a number of good testimonials from people who have done the exam and what their experiences were like.)

Anyway, one of the topics that I wanted to write about for that blog was how NOT to do the writing part of an exam. I get a lot of students asking for help with writing (especially for TOEFL and FCE), and there are three common mistakes that many students make when doing this part of the exams. Here are the three most common:

a) You don't answer the question that you're asked on the exam. It seems crazy, but, yes, apparently there are still some students who try to memorize an answer and write it down on the exam. This only works if the question they ask you is exactly the same as the question you memorized. (Don't laugh - I've had students who have tried this. The results are exactly as you would expect.)

b) You don't organize your ideas inside your writing exercise. When we talk, we're thinking and producing language in the moment. Since we have direct contact with the person we're speaking to, we can fix and adjust the language we use, and the way we present ideas. However, when we write, we don't have that luxury. We have to remember that we can't clarify AFTER ideas are on the page (or on the computer screen). Therefore, it's important to make sure that your ideas and arguments are easy to understand - because if they aren't, that makes it harder for the person marking your exam to understand what you're talking about. An essay that is hard to understand is an essay that won't get a good mark - it's the marker's job to figure out what you're trying to say.

c) You use a lot of the same tired, uninteresting words to express ideas. As I explain in this video about verbs, using "boring" verbs like say, tell, do and get are fine when you first start learning English. As your English gets better, however, your vocabulary should expand so that you're using more precise verbs (and more precise adjectives, adverbs that modify adjectives, etc.).  Obviously, you shouldn't use complicated words if you can't use them properly, or you don't know what they mean. You should also aim for maximum clarity in your writing. Your writing needs to have a certain amount of sophistication; if you're doing the TOEFL, you cannot get a good mark if you sound like you have the vocabulary of a ten-year-old child.

If you'd like more information on writing classes and coaching to improve your writing, click here.

Today's Grammar/Vocabulary Video: LIKE versus AS

You know, it's funny -- of all the things that people ask about in class, I think that the difference between LIKE and AS is the easiest to explain -- but no one seems to do it! So here's a Doceri video explaining the difference between the two words.

If you're a current STOP SPANGLISH student, send me an e-mail and I'll send you an exercise to help you practice this.

Memories of Madrid: Please don't eat my doggie

You know how New Year's is...you want to do stuff that brings you into the future, but sometimes you get things that remind you of the past...

About ten years ago, I wrote a story for a website called Tales from a Small Planet, and I described a situation where an exercise from a textbook took an unexpected turn. Thanks to Stefan C. for rescuing it because it's not on the website any more.

=======================

The ESL textbook we use in class is called “Cutting Edge” but the material is purely traditional: Talk about yourself. Tell us a story about... What would you do if...

It’s the second class after the Cynical Weasel and the Class Meanie drop out, leaving Icíar, Gaspar, Remedios and Santiago, four Spanish civil servants, none of whom are particularly adept at English. The classes are arguably mandatory, even though none of these four will ever use English in their jobs. Television in Spain, even here in Madrid, is never in English. They don’t listen to songs with English lyrics and their exposure to English speakers has been limited to their English teachers, who they see twice a week. 

They’re all interested, but gun-shy. Why even try to learn English any more, especially after twenty years of failure?

Because Human Resources and the Spanish government have decreed, using European Union funds for language learning, that these four must gain some kind of competence in spoken and written English. That’s why. So I am trying to teach them, to be cutting edge. Or at least different and vaguely interesting, so that they damn well learn something by the end of the year.
Today’s section seems straightforward: Write about your first... DVD. Boyfriend/girlfriend. Day at college or work. Outfit you bought for yourself. Pet. Time you travelled abroad or by yourself. It seems straightforward enough when they all decide to write about first pets.
Paper out, pens ready, heads down, they crouch over their nut-u-BOOK-es, absorbed in storytelling, which they’re very gradually getting better at. Ten minutes of scribbling, erasing. (“¡Down! How say cachorro en ingliss?” “¿Y mancha? What is mancha in ingliss?")

I bring out the squishy miniature football we use to control speaking in English. Ah, what the hell. If they mess this up like they mess up some of the other writing assignments, there’s only another, what, five weeks of classes?

I toss the football to Remedios. She’s the stereotypical middle- aged Spanish woman given to fighting the aging process with every fibre of her being (and every Euro in her wallet). Her cachorro was called Morito (which translates as “Little Moor” but is closer in intention to “Black Boy” or “Sambo”.)

“How say? POA-pee?”

No. PUH-pee. Sounds like “cup”.  The inappropriately-named POA-pee was a Spaniel who lived to the ripe old age of sixteen.

Then, over to Icíar, a Basque head banger with a passion for purple blouses and an infectious giggle. Another puppy: Pulgas (“Fleas”, or “Fleabag”) was a Golden Lab with a fear of staircases. Lived to seventeen. Then the ball goes over to Gaspar.

Gaspar, pobre Gaspar. He’s the class’s hanging chad, the Great White Hope. Taciturn, self-conscious, he left school at twelve to become a botones, an errand boy for the Post Office, to support his family. At fifty-three, he’s the head stationery guy. He’s got a thirteen-year-old son he doesn’t understand, a marvellous memory for individual words in English and a hangdog look that intensifies every time he has to say something in English. 

Gaspar stares down at his paper and starts to speak in a voice so soft that even Remedios, who’s sitting right beside him, has to tell him to speak up. POA-pee? No. It was a rabbit given to him on his birthday, June 15th. Many Spaniards don’t pronounce the “s” sound of plural nouns: it takes a bit before the class realizes that this wasn’t a one- time rabbit, but a series of them. Some were soft and cuddly, one had sharp teeth and an attitude problem, but all of them were fluffy and cute and, with alarming regularity, would appear in the paella Gaspar’s father cooked to celebrate the holiday for the Assumption of the Virgin on August 15th.

How many rabbits, Gaspar?

He starts counting on his fingers: Seven. Seven revoked rabbits, seven double-duty rabbits: birthday present AND celebratory meal. Given that Spain’s food industry was literally blown to bits by the Civil War, a rabbit was a valuable commodity in a protein-poor nation.

Gaspar smiles wanly and hands the ball to Santiago.


A chicken.


A what?


Santiago looks at me like I’m daft and tucks his hands into his armpits. “You know! Brak-brak-brak-brak-brak!!!!”

Icíar looks at Santiago. “But where you lived? You in a flat lived, ¿no?”

“Yeah. We call her Manchita. Like on your clothes, you know?” Little Stain. He points to his eye. “White here but everywhere else black.”

Remedios: “But was how big the flat?”

Santiago does some quick mental math: “Forty square metres, I think? Two bedrooms.” 

Santiago is the middle child of five.

“How say cariñoso in English? Affectionate, yeah. Was very affectionate and loved when people visited.” Hands out of his armpits, arms outstretched, he stands up and lumbers towards Remedios. “New person visits, Manchita running!”

The others can ́t hide the guilty grins on their faces: Traditional Valencian paellas use chicken as well as rabbit meat.

“How old when died?”

Santiago shrugs. “Dunno. She broke leg behind sofa once so she couldn’t walk. We taught how to fly.”

You what, Santi?

“Yeah! Here, me, this side of sofa, my brother Alvaro there.” He takes the ball and lobs it underhand to Gaspar. “Whoop! Whoop! Back and fort, back and fort and after two hours, Manchita flies! My mudder was cabreá (pissed off)! Feathers everywhere! But Manchita flies.”

“How long did you have Manchita in your house?”

“One year. Too big from eating the garbage, so we gave her to my uncle.”

“She finished [ended up] in paella?”

Remedios laughs so hard that rivulets of eye shadow and mascara run down her cheeks, jagging every so often when she hiccups. Icíar gives herself hiccups, too. Gaspar tries to stifle his laughter and goes red with the effort. Santiago just grins and shrugs.

“Next time, it’s boyfriends or girlfriends! No more pets.”

We now have four classes left. The thought has crossed my mind that we should go for paella for the last class. Seafood paella. Squid, mussels and shrimp make pretty lamentable pets. 

SAY and TELL - What's the difference?

The latest Doceri video is up - What's the difference between SAY and TELL?

I should mention that this video covers the basic, general differences. I'll make a more detailed video to go with the First Certificate/Escuela Oficial class work.