The Ball Exercise Was Highly Irregular!

We used at least four irregular verbs today in class during our silly "before and after" exercise with the two red balls. I didn't plan to have a lesson on irregular verbs, but by chance I gave directions to throw a ball, shake your head, bend your knees, and stand on one leg. Each of the verbs in bold type has an irregular past tense form: threw, shook, bent, stood. Of course, I also used regular verbs that form the past tense by adding -ed or just -d: jump-jumped, wave-waved, pat-patted (notice the final t of pat is doubled before adding -ed--do you know why?).

My Suggestions: A few weeks ago we studied rules for spelling changes when adding -ed to make the base form of regular verbs past tense. Click on the link to review a nice summary of these rules (but I wish I could remove the annoying advertisements).

 Spelling Rules for Adding -ed to Regular Verbs

Then click on the link below to go to "12 Lists to Help You Learn Common Irregular Verbs." These lists group irregular verbs that follow similar patterns when they change from present to past tense (for example, throw-threw, grow-grew, know-knew). Find each irregular verb we used in class today (those in bold type above) on one of the lists. Try to memorize all the verbs on at least one of the 12 lists this week. Can you memorize a list every week? You might as well memorize all three forms of the verbs, even though we have not studied the third part (past participle) yet.

12 Lists to Help You Learn Irregular Verbs

Have an Idiom with Your Breakfast

"English in a Minute" videos on the VOA Learning English website are a fun way to learn American idioms. An idiom is an expression whose meaning is different than the meaning of the individual words. For example, to "get a grip" means to get control of your emotions when you're anxious or upset. It can also mean to understand something. Each video lasts one minute. You will hear an explanation of the idiom, then watch and listen to people use it in everyday conversation.

My Suggestion: Click on the English in a Minute link every morning for a one-minute idiom lesson. The link is below, but I have also put it in the "Favorite Links" list in the right-hand column of this blog to make it easier to find each day.

LINK: English in a Minute (Idiom of the Day)

Too Tired to Study? Refresh Your Brain with an Easy Game!

Have you had a frustrating day? Do you feel you aren't learning fast enough, but you are too tired to study? Relax! You don't always have to push yourself to learn new or difficult things.

My Suggestion: Boost your confidence by playing an easy game for beginners. It will remind you of how much you already know!

Easy Things for Beginners (games, puzzles)

Practice Listening to Conversational English

Today in class we went to websites that allow you to listen to English sentences or news items. On one website, a speaker reads an English sentence and repeats it. Try to write down what you hear as the speaker repeats the sentence. When the written sentence appears on the video, check to see if you wrote the sentence correctly.
Listening Practice--Common Daily Expressions

Here is a link to a video where you can see and listen to 1000 common English phrases. You can practice saying the phrases yourself (pause the video if you need more time to practice saying a phrase).
Listening Practice--1000 Common English Phrases

My Suggestions: Once each day, visit the Daily Page for ESL Students at manythings.org. This page has links to a daily quiz, daily listening and pronunciation practices, and dictionaries in other languages.

Daily Page for ESL at manythings.org 

On the Daily Page, you will find a link for listening to daily Voice of America (VOA) newscast items. The text of each newscast is printed so that you can read along as you listen. You can click on any word and immediately see its definition. If you go to the top of the news page and click on Level One, the person reading the news speaks more slowly than in Level Two or Three. You can also click on the link below to go directly to the VOA website:

Voice of America--Listen to English newscasts and follow printed version

Another link on the Daily Page takes you to the "Listen and Repeat Machine." Click on the link below, then click on the "play" button. A voice reads English sentences several times. It pauses in between so that you can repeat the sentence yourself.  Click on the number button to change the number of times you hear the sentence from 0 to 4. Slide the control buttons to control the volume or to make the pauses in between readings longer, to give you more time to repeat the sentence yourself. 

Daily Pronunciation Practice 
 
You can also go directly to manythings.org for links to other listen and repeat or listen and read along videos. There are also links for listening to vocabulary, slang, and bilingual sentence pairs. Check it out by clicking the link below:

Interesting Listening Practice for ESL Students at manythings.org