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One of the things I noticed while marking students’ work is that students with a higher level of English can write longer sentences without getting the grammar all messed up.

With this in mind, Grammar Girl would like to remind you about conjuctions and give you some brief examples.

A conjunction is a word that joins two words, phrases or sentences. Some very basic conjuctions include FOR, YET, BUT, SO, NOR, OR, AND. Here are some examples of pairs of words, phrases or sentences that have been made longer by these conjunctions:

‘I like tea AND coffee.’
‘Lazy students may want to improve their English but don’t read enough.’
‘Jessie went out last night, so she was late for work this morning.’

Next week, we’ll look at other types of conjunctions.

See you next week!

Grammar Girl

IELTS stands for ‘International English Language Testing System’, is an international standardised test of English language proficiency. It is jointly managed by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations, the British Council and IDP Education Australia, and was established in 1989.

IELTS is accepted by most Australian, British, Canadian, Irish, New Zealand and South African academic institutions, over 2,000 academic institutions in the United States, and various professional organisations. It is also a requirement for immigration to Australia and Canada.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (or TOEFL, pronounced “toe-full”) evaluates the potential success of an individual to use and understand academic English at a college level. It is required for non-native applicants at many English-speaking colleges and universities. Additionally, institutions such as government agencies, businesses, or scholarship programmes may require this test. A TOEFL score is valid for two years and then is deleted from the official database. Colleges and universities usually consider only the most recent TOEFL score.

They may sound very similar but the tests themselves are very different.  I have, personally, found IELTS to be a more
valid test than TOEFL but if you are not sure which exam to sit, ask the University or institution which they prefer.

The last time I counted, the word ‘break’ had over one hundred meanings.  That’s 100!!  The meaning that I want to focus on today is to stop an action temporarily.  We would have a break at lunch time, or stop for a break.

The reason why I am mentioning this word is that having an exciting variety of break time activities can increase your activity and improve your self esteem, a new study has shown.

This means that you should not study continuously.  You should take lots of breaks.  And when you take a break, make sure that you don’t just sit around.  Have fun.  Take a walk.  Enjoy the weather.

EFL stands for ‘English as a Foreign Language’ and it refers to how you learn and are taught English when it is not your mother tongue.

If you want to learn English and don’t know where to start, you can order a book by going to http://www.eflbooks.co.uk/.  Most of these books have been designed for teachers.  They give guidance to teachers and give them material with which they can teach you.

This is not always helpful for a student. If you are a student, then you should look for a book with a CD-ROM for listening practice, an answer key and a work book for extra practice.  Visit this site, where the books have been categorised, depending on what you want them for, whether it is for exam practice or for improving your vocabulary.

My favourite, all round book is ‘Cutting Edge’ but if you are a student who wants to improve your grammar then go to ‘Inside Out.’

If you are not sure what level to choose then always go for ‘pre-intermediate’ because that usually covers important, easy-to-understand areas.

Happy reading and to practice what you have learned in these coursebooks come and visit Languagelab.

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

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!

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 !