ESL Lesson Plan

February 07, 2010

Got A Story to Tell? Here's a writing Contest

It doesn't take long, in a foreign country, for a traveler to encounter (or create) ridiculous, impossible and even life changing events.
Don't forget them - share them!

Yes, share these experiences with friends and family, but don't forget to share your experiences with the world...

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February 04, 2010

Language Lovers and Word Nerds

If you are intrigued by word histories and the sometimes contradictory usage of common words, do I have a treat for you.

Check out A Way With Words. You can find them at...

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January 30, 2010

English Vagueness

Every language has its trips and traps. English, for a variety of reasons, seems to have more than its share. Consider, for example, some extremely common words, phrases and areas of miscommunication. When you are at a meal, for example and you say that something is "hot" do you mean hot as in spicy or hot as in...

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January 24, 2010

Anguish Languish - English language

Yes, I love the English language. This language is like a persistent linguistic weed - it seem to flourish the more you mangle and mess with it. Thanks to the sheer number of words in the language, we can take words far beyond their intended meanings. In fact we can distort perfectly good words and yank them from their contexts to make entirely new stories, songs and...

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January 18, 2010

Words of the Decade

One of my favorite characteristics of the English language is how we create, mangle, adapt, distort and just plain make up words. Many of these come from popular movies, celebrities, political figures or economic or cultural changes. "Truthiness" for example, was a word that had to happen. It originally came from...

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January 13, 2010

Fictional Languages - Avatar Style

If you think learning a standard language is difficult, try a fictional language. JRR Tolkien created several in his Lord of the Rings series, we heard Klingon in the Star Trek TV and film series, and now there's Avatar...

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January 09, 2010

Are 90% of Languages Doomed to Die?

The English language (American-style) is my native tongue and I am thankful for many reasons to be born into what has become the world language across businesses, cultures and ethnicities. But sometimes I worry about the damage done to the isolated language groups. Perhaps, just perhaps, we have some nuances of meaning and depth which might be lost forever as the English language barges across the linguistic landscape. As always, John McWhorter has something to say....

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January 03, 2010

Do One Thing Different.

Many people start a new year off with grand promises to themselves to change, grow, quit, save money, feel better, learn something new, or somehow...

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December 23, 2009

Happy New Year - And A New Decade

You might remember how this decade began - it was the Y2K scare. There were all kinds of rumors about computers around the world crashing which would take down the economy, shut off electricity and strand us all. There were frantic people stocking up on food, water and a few other essentials. As I mentioned, that was how this decade began.

Of course, it only got more...

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