Bringing the World of English to You!
Grammar Girl is back with more confusing words.
What is the difference between ‘among’ and ‘between?’
‘Between’ has a few meanings but, in brief, ‘between’ is in or through the position or interval separating, such as ‘between the trees; between 11 o’clock and 12 o’clock.’
‘Among’ is in the midst of; surrounded by, such as ‘a pine tree among cedars.’
Listen to the Banana Game in this link to find out more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1723_gramchallenge46/
I was reading through the some of the replies to my blog the other day. Some people directly responded to the blog. Most people wrote ‘I wanna learn’ and left it at that, which is a little frustrating. The point of the blog is for readers to learn and what they were saying what ‘I’m not learning. I wanna learn.’
I was on http://www.google.co.uk at the time when I angrily typed in ‘lazy student.’ That’s when I discovered http://www.lazystudent.co.uk/.
It’s divided into 48 categories, each of which has done of listings and links to websites that open in new windows. In ‘Hot Listings,’ you’ll find the most popular links. In ‘Editor’s Pick’ you’ll find lots of interesting things to read about.
Their mission statement is “to make it easy for students and educators to integrate the Internet into the classroom. The need for a complete online educational guide is evident. Lazy student is designed to be that resource for students and educators.” Despite its name the site does just that. I highly recommend it.
See you next week,
Grammar Girl
Are you interested in journalism? Would you like the chance to ask a BBC journalist from the UK questions about his job? What is it like to travel around the world and write exciting stories?
Come and join us at 7:30pm UK time (11:30am PDT) at the Theatre in English City.
It will be a fun evening and a chance to practice your English with other students and teachers.
See you there,
Jessie Teacher !
This Tuesday at 5pm PDT (1am UK time) Shiv Rajendran our co-founder at Languagelab will be presenting to an audience of educators at ISTE Island.
ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and is a collaboration of educators from all over the world interested in advancing
the use of technology in education.
This presentation is to give an insight on what works and what doesn´t when thinking about virtual worlds and education. The presentation will focus on what Languagelab has learned in 4 years of teaching in Second Life.
The presentation will be at http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/204/46/23.
Enjoy the presentation!
There are two indefinite articles in English: ‘a’ and ‘an’. They are used before a singular noun that has a plural form. ‘A’ is used before a consonant sound and ‘an’ is used before a vowel sound. The sound is more important than the spelling; we say ‘an hour’ and ‘a bag’ because the sounds of the first letter are different.
Here are the answers to the exercise I gave you in my last post.
1) Lucy has — dog.
Answer: a
2) Let’s sing — song.
Answer: a
3) Emily needs — new desk in her room.
Answer: a
4) I need — blue pen.
Answer: a
5) Ben has — old bike.
Answer: an
6) Peter has — aunt in Berlin.
Answer: an
7) We listen to — English CD.
Answer: an
8) She has — exercise book in her school bag.
Answer: an
9) The speed of this car was 160 miles — hour.
Answer: an
10) They finished — unit.
Answer: a
‘A’ and ‘the’ are included in the 200 key words in the English language. The question is why are they so important? Please post a comment to this blog with the answer.
We’ve been looking at the definite article over the last few weeks. The indefinite article is just as important, however, and has different rules.
For an overview go to the World Atlas of Structures online at http://wals.info/feature/description/38.
The interesting thing about the indefinite article is that it changes, depending on the pronunciation of the noun. It could be ‘a’ or an.’
Try this exercise and decide whether it should be ‘a’ or an.’
1) Lucy has — dog.
2) Let’s sing — song.
3) Emily needs — new desk in her room.
4) I need — blue pen.
5) Ben has — old bike.
6) Peter has — aunt in Berlin.
7) We listen to — English CD.
8) She has — exercise book in her school bag.
9) The speed of this car was 160 miles — hour.
10) They finished — unit.
I’ll give you the answers next week and also give you a chance to explore the rules in more detail.
See you next week and don’t forget to check the schedule for my Grammarathon!
Have you ever wondered if learning on-line is good for you?
Do you think that learning on-line is as good as or better than learning in a classroom?
What about ‘blended learning’ where you learn on-line and face to face?
A recent 12 year study by the Department of Education in the USA has shown that learning on-line is not only effective but also better than traditional face to face teaching.
Barbara Means, the study’s lead author says:
“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that on-line learning today is not just better than nothing- it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction”
The study showed that only learning on-line only was better than only having face to face classes , but the best way to learn was a combination of face to face and on-line, a blended learning approach.
There were some very interesting key points like:
· Students who took all or part of their class on-line performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.
· Instruction combining on-line and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely on-line instruction.
· On-line learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.
· Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for on-line learning
Click here to read the full report.
In other words if a student is studying at a local ESL school and comes to practice in English City every week they will perform better than students who online learn online or only learn face to face.
I’m still looking at the two hundred key words in English, but, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there’s still quite a bit more to say about the first word: ‘the.’ I wanted to close my discussion of ‘the’ with the answers to last week’s exercise and one final thought.
In my blog on geography and the zero article I gave you the following exercise:
Read this letter. Look at the ‘x’ and decide whether to use the definite article ‘the’ or not.
Hi Grammar Girl,
I arrived in x USA last Monday. We left x Rome, flew over x Alps and made a quick stop in x London. There we went shopping in x Harrods, visited x Tower of London and enjoyed a sunny afternoon in x Hyde Park.
On the following day we left for x New York. x time on board wasn’t boring as there were two films to watch on x monitor. x people on plane were all Italian. Before we landed at x JFK airport, we saw x Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Empire State Building. hotel I stayed in was on x corner of x 42nd Street and x 5th Avenue.
I don’t like hotels very much, but I didn’t have time to rent an apartment. Please say hello to Jessie and Chris.
Yours,
Shiv
Here are the answers:
I arrived in the USA last Monday. We left Rome, flew over the Alps and made a quick stop in London.
There we went shopping in Harrods, visited the Tower of London and enjoyed a sunny afternoon in Hyde Park. On the following day we left for New York. The time on board wasn’t boring as there were two films to watch on the monitor. The people on plane were all Italian.
Before we landed at JFK airport, we saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Empire State Building. The hotel I stayed in was on the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. I don’t like hotels very much, but I didn’t have time to rent an apartment. Please say hello to Jessie and Chris. And my final thought on ‘the’ and the zero article is about how you learn it. The rules may seem vast and complex but you could try reading and observing its use in every day English.
Two weeks ago, I discussed the meaning of ‘the.’ For this week, I wanted to show you an excellent exercise I’d found on http://www.usingenglish.com.
Please do the exercise on http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/84.html because it highlights the fact that geographical nouns may use ‘the,’ depending on what they are.
After you’ve done that try the following:
Read this letter. Look at the ‘x’ and decide whether to use the definte article ‘the’ or not.
Hi Grammar Girl,
I arrived in x USA last Monday. We left x Rome, flew over x Alps and made a quick stop in x London. There we went shopping in x Harrods, visited x Tower of London and enjoyed a sunny afternoon in x Hyde Park. On the following day we left for x New York. x time on board wasn’t boring as there were two films to watch on x monitor. x people on plane were all Italian. Before we landed at x JFK airport, we saw x Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Empire State Building. hotel I stayed in was on x corner of x 42nd Street and x 5th Avenue. I don’t like hotels very much, but I didn’t have time to rent an apartment. Please say hello to Jessie and Chris.
Yours,
Shiv.
Answers will be next week.
See you soon,
Grammar Girl !
What do you think of art and techology? Do you think that it will change art forever?
I have found a great video from TED and it shows you how art can be be physically created by your body and displayed using technology.
The shapes the people create in the video are great fun. The voice recoginition is very accurate and fascinating and makes me think of what we will be able to do in Virtual Worlds in the future. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to speak in a virtual world and the text just appear like a subtitle underneath your avatar !
Well I hope you enjoy the video and it inspires you to make some art of your own !