READING FOR WORDS AND CULTURE

Languages are treasure chests of cultures and people world outlook. Look at any specific language and you will find that  words are used in a different way and what is regular for your mother language fails to work for a foreign one.
 
Read the abstract from the book THE COLOURS by Rose Tremain. Find the expression which describes what you can see in the picture:

 

 

Reading is a magic tool for enriching our stock of word collocations!!

#esl#teaching#eslteaching#languageteaching#teachinglanguages#foreignlanguages#teachingenglish#english#englishteacher#reading#englishreading#englishliterature

READING FOR WORDS AND CULTURE

Languages are treasure chests of cultures and people world outlook. Look at any specific language and you will find that  words are used in a different way and what is regular for your mother language fails to work for a foreign one. One of the examples of this is the use of verbs to name actions of people, animals and objects.

Read the abstract from the book THE COLOURS by Rose Tremain. Find the verbs which are used to describe the typical actions of:

- the spinning top
- the acrobat
- the tiger

What does a spinning top do?
What does an acrobat do?
What does a tiger do?

 

Word collocations is a usual problem. We know which word collocates with which is our mother language and transfer it, translating directly into a foreign language we speak. Can words and cultures be transferred so artificially onto another language?:) The answer is a definite NO!!!
Reading is a magic tool for enriching our stock of word collocations!!
#esl#teaching#eslteaching#languageteaching#teachinglanguages#foreignlanguages#teachingenglish#english#englishteacher#reading#englishreading#englishliterature

About Languages.

Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He’s the Only One

INTUTO, Peru — Amadeo García García rushed upriver in his canoe, slipping into the hidden, booby-trapped camp where his brother Juan lay dying.

Juan writhed in pain and shook uncontrollably as his fever rose, battling malaria. As Amadeo consoled him, the sick man muttered back in words that no one else on Earth still understood.

Je’intavea’, he said that sweltering day in 1999. I am so ill.

The words were Taushiro. A mystery to linguists and anthropologists alike, the language was spoken by a tribe that vanished into the jungles of the Amazon basin in Peru generations ago, hoping to save itself from the invaders whose weapons and diseases had brought it to the brink of extinction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/world/americas/peru-amazon-the-end.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

Why not read this useful article?!

What's the best way to teach languages?

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/may/14/best-way-teach-language-schools

Week-end ESL activities

Let's train the Past Simple and the Past Continuous in a real-life situation. Fill in the gaps in the dialogue. There is an icon in the picture that will help you.

 Friend: Where were you?
Lena: (see the picture for an answer)........

Friend: What were you doing there?
Lena: (see the picture for an answer)........

Friend: Were you there alone?
Lena: (see the picture for an answer)........

So, can you say where Lena was and what she was doing? :):)

#esl#english#eslteaching#teachingenglish#englishteacher#languages#foreignlanguages#creativetasks#reallifesituations#eslactivities

IATEFL Webinar - 'What is the future of Business English training?'

Louise Goodman - 'What is the future of Business English training?'

1 July 2018

The webinar came up to my expectations! The host was great and very knowlegeable. The speaker managed her time perfectly, and the good thing was that she dwelled on the issues for about 35 minutes and the rest of the time (25 min) was devoted to discussion during which very many useful ideas were shared. That is a really worthy format because discussion IS important.
I teach BE to MA students majoring in English as a part of their academic English program, and I have not worked with businesses I mean courses for corporate clients, etc however, all said by the speaker can be used by the ESL teacher both for teaching BE in the university and business environments. The speaker delineated which topics clients tend to find most useful for them in their BE course, pointed out the peculiarities of some approaches of teaching BE and the general idea was that a BE teacher now is not a trainer but rather a coacher, this was discussed, and my recent participatin in the Coaching and Emotional Intelligence webinar from British Council happened to be quite helpful. So, participating in chains of webinars seems to be very useful as some problems are related to others and provide better understanding of one another....