Here’s a video to help your students hit one out of the ball park. We have more of these in the works.
May 202015
Vicki
May 102015
Do we ‘miss’ or ‘lose’ a bus, and when do we use ‘missing’? All is explained here, with some help from Carter. This video is available at out website here.
Apr 302015
There are a few verbs which can be followed by either a gerund or infinitive but the meaning changes. One is the verb ‘try’. The meaning change here is pretty subtle – advanced level stuff – and its the subject of our latest video.
Another one is the verb ‘stop’ and there the meaning change is more pronounced. We made a video about that too a while back which you can find here:
Both videos are also available with clickable transcripts at our Simple English Videos website.
Apr 222015
Our latest video helps answer the question. It’s available on YouTube and with a clickable transcript at the Simple English Videos website.
Many thanks to Kathy Fagan for appearing in this video. Check out Kathy’s blog at: http://www.freerangekef.blogspot.com
Apr 152015
‘Suggest’ is a performative verbs, so one of those verbs like ‘declare’, ‘order’ and ‘quit’ where we perform an action by saying it.
It can be tricky for English learners in a couple of ways. One issue is structure. There are a number of forms that can follow ‘suggest’, but also some that can’t. So, for example, we can suggest something to someone but we can’t suggest someone something.
The other issue is appropriacy. ‘I suggest…’ is marked in native speaker (NS) speech. It’s generally used in contexts where there’s a need to be clear and explicit. NSs are more likely to use forms like ‘How about…?’ or ‘Why don’t we…?’ to make run of the mill suggestions. But I don’t think that’s the case for English learners. I hear ‘I suggest…’ used with higher frequency in class conversations and here’s my theory on that…
English is used increasingly as a lingua franca because it happens to be the language most people share. In contexts where English is a second or third language for many users, there is a greater need to be explicit and clear. (There’s a lot of ELF research to back that up.) Performative verbs have a special role to play in clarity because they are explicit. Add to this the fact that languages change as they come into contact and I think we can expect to see the frequency of verbs like ‘suggest’ (and other performatives) rising. It’s natural that English will be adapted to meet the needs of its new users so ‘suggest’ is going to be an interesting verb to track for language change.
But I digress. Let me get back to our video. It addresses the issue of sentence structure, and we’ve also tried to demonstrate how NSs might use ‘suggest’. Essentially we’re trying to teach the pragmatics of ‘suggest’ here – the hidden meanings that go along with the word.
We were very lucky to have an all star cast helping us make this video. You can check out some of their other work here:
Rachel’s English: https://www.youtube.com/user/rachelsenglish
Jennifer ESL: https://www.youtube.com/user/JenniferESL
Jason R Levine (aka Fluency MC): https://www.youtube.com/user/collolearn
Kathy Fagan’s blog: http://www.freerangekef.blogspot.com
Hope you like it!
Apr 082015
The adjectives ‘lucky’ and ‘happy’ are problematic for speakers of Germanic languages who just have one word that covers both concepts. Other students may struggle with the noun forms as they are both uncountable. We hope this video will help solve the problems and put a smile on your students’ faces.
It should also be handy if you’re teaching a lesson on the topic of superstitions. Click here to see it on YouTube or view it with a clickable transcript on our Simple English Videos website here.
Apr 022015
Because they taste funny!
‘Fun’ and ‘funny’ are often confused by English learners. Our latest video explores the different meanings of the words and looks at the two different meanings of ‘funny’.
It’s available on YouTube (click the link below) and also with a clickable transcript at the Simple English Videos website.
Mar 262015
Our latest video lesson. You can find it on YouTube (click the link below) or over at the Simple English Videos website where it comes with a clickable transcript:
Mar 182015
Business English students have notoriously diverse needs, but there’s one thing they generally have in common – lack of study time. Knowing how complicated their schedules can be, Carl Dowse and Justine Arena came up with course to accommodate the busy schedules of Justine’s Brazilian students. It has:
- traditional face-to-face classes
online study they can do whenever they have a free moment
live online lessons they can attend from wherever they are
The participants’ verdict? It’s clear from the feedback that they appreciated it. You can read more about the course in a post Carl made here. Could you see this working in your part of the world? Get in touch with Justine and Carl if you can, because they’re interested in working with partners in other regions.
Mar 182015
I’m very grateful to Anne Sinclair for suggesting this topic for a video. I think it’s very useful for business English students and I’ve just written a guest blog post about it over at the Gallery Languages website that you can read here. Hope you like it!
As always, it’s available on our Simple English Videos website, and also on our YouTube channel.