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.