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Showing posts from July, 2014

When educating... when to go beyond denotation of a word?

the denotation of a word is the actual meaning of it. As an example, take the word tree and define it: "a  tree  is a  perennial   plant  with an elongated stem,  or  trunk , supporting branches and leaves in most species." Taken from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree This does not end here. The word "tree" can be used in many ways. Just be aware of what we call a "family tree".  It is not a tree that belongs to a family, and I am not talking about a family whose last name is Tree; instead of this I am approaching to a "genealogical tree"; a chart showing the descent and relationship o all members of a family or genealogical group.  In those two cases, the word "tree" changed. It was not a plant anymore. It was something different.  Should english language learners be familiar with the variety of changes that a word may take? The answer, walking around my mind, is: YES! Of course everystudent should know all

Let´s go to adverbs as quickly as possible.

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Ok, so we have talked about the adjectives and how to teach the adjectives , next what I want to do is to take a look into adverbs which can give us a really hard time when dealing with them. I am taking a writing course at canvas.net and it was really helpful to learn so much things about how to use adverbs; therefore, I totally recommend this kind of free online courses. Anyhow, Adverbs are different from adjectives because the first ones modify verbs instead of nouns. let´s check it: Are these in-red words modifying a noun or a verb? 1. I read a book quickly 2. I read a big book 3. She runs slowly 4. She is a slow runner The verbs from the sentences one and three are been modified by the words "quickly" and "slowly"; then, they are adverbs. the words "slow" and "big" are qualifying the book and the girl; therefore, they are adjectives. There are adverbs of manner which tell us how something is/will be/was done. oftenly

Ideas to teach adjectives!

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First, go to check what I posted about adjectives when referring to grammar on  how are you? a post about adjectives Ideas for teaching or using adjectives in an EFL classroom Our students should be able to describe or give information about things. Adjectives allow them to do so and even to say what they think about anything. We must remember that adjectives are not only for describing things we can see. Love, peace or air, are nouns we can describe easily because we know what they are and what they are related to. When teaching adjectives we cannot lose track of our class context. Will I teach to teenagers who are labeled as advanced students or will I teach to a group of adults whose main motivation to study English is to pass the MET with a B1 level of proficiency? Having this clear you might create your lesson plan and here is where ideas show up.  I will show you some ideas for basic, intermediate and advanced students you can use. This ideas will also help you to

How are you? A post about adjectives

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have you noticed something. When you are in a classroom with EFL students and you say "hello class, How are you today?" their answer is " FINE , thank you. And you?" that really creeps me out. That makes me get sad . That is so annoying .  Why is it that they are always fine ?   Why don´t they use some other adjectives   ?   can´t they get bored ? can´t they get amazing every since in a while? I was checking on how to use adjectives in English and I found a lot interesting things. Here I go. Adjectives  modify  and / or  describe  the subjects of the sentences. Modifying:   such as: A large tree Describing:   such as: The tree is large The main characteristic of the adjective is that its main intention is to give more information about an object.  Order of adjectives: Even though this is not a mandatory rule. It is good to know that adjectives are usually used in a certain order.  A lovely small new thin brown Colombian