Another Way to Study Questions and Negatives--Link to Older Post

Here's a unique way to learn how to make negative statements and questions--animations! Animations are cartoons, and last year I posted a link that can provide a unique review of what we did in class this week with negatives and questions.

My suggestion: Click on the link below to read the post and watch some of the animated grammar tutorials.

Animations--negative statements and questions in the past tense 

Prepositions Practice

Teacher Connie went over some rules about which prepositions of place to use in which cases. There are a lot of prepositions, and it takes time and practice (as well of lots of reading and listening to patterns of use) to become confident about using prepositions correctly.

Grammarbank.com is a website that has a lot of good lessons and quizzes on various English grammar topics. You just have to be careful what you click on. There are lots of ads hiding behind buttons that look like links to grammar lessons or exercises (if there is tiny print that says "Ad Choices" above the buttons, clicking on them will just take you to an advertisement). Scroll down past the big green "Download" button and the oval buttons under the tiny "Ad Choices" heading to find the actual lesson or exercise.

My suggestion: Click on the link below for more practice using the correct prepositions in sentences.

Prepositions practice at grammarbank.com

More Practice with Nouns, Articles, and There Is/There Are Statements

This week we did just a little review of using articles with nouns. Learning to use the correct article or quantity word such as some, fewer, a little, much, many, etc., with count or noncount nouns requires a lot of practice. The best practice is to write your own sentences and learn to spot mistakes and correct them. But until an evil teacher like me makes you do that in class, there are lots of exercises and games to help you learn.

My suggestion: Click on the link below to go to another post from last year with links to lots of practice with nouns, articles, adjectives with nouns, and statements that use There is or There are.

Review of Articles, Count/Noncount Nouns, and There Is/There Are Statements

Welcome back students and new link for Teacher Kathy's Study Stacks

Welcome to the Fall 2016 semester! I will try to update my blog regularly this semester. I hope that students who have to miss class can look on this blog to find out what we have been doing (but that's no substitute for coming to class).

I have changed my user name on Study Stack from kakcal to teacherkathy, so I updated the Study Stack link at right (under Favorite Links) to take you to my new user name on the Study Stack website. On my Study Stack page, you can find vocabulary lists from some of our class lessons to practice.

My suggestion: Click on the Teacher Kathy's Study Stacks link from the Favorite Links list on the right of this page to go directly to the teacherkathy page on studystack.com. If you want to get there the long way, follow these instructions:

1) Type www.studystack.com (or just studystack.com) into the address bar at the top left of your computer screen (NOT the search box lower on the page) and press ENTER on your keyboard. (NOTE: The address bar is the place that shows the address of the page you are currently on. The printing in it usually begins with https://www. or http://www., or simply www.//.) For some reason, if you type the studystack.com address into the search box of your search engine instead of the address bar, you may get a list of all sorts of crazy choices, and it may not even list the correct one.

You should now be on the home page of studystack.com. If you are on studystack.com but don't see the search box, click on the green and blue "Study Stack" label in the upper left corner--it will take you to the home page if you're not already on it (if you're already on it, nothing new will happen).

2) Next, type my username in the search box in the middle of the page: teacherkathy (do not use spaces or capital letters when you type, or the search will not find my study stack page). If you don't see the search box, click on the green and blue "Study Stack" label in the upper left corner--it will take you to the home page if you're not already on it (if you're already on it, nothing will happen), and you will see the search box in the middle of the page.

Once you are on the teacherkathy page, scroll down the list of stacks and find the one you're looking for. Recently, the ABE (level 5) class has been doing readings and learning vocabulary from Unit 1 of the Reading Explorer 2 book. You can find these vocabulary words by clicking on the links titled Olive Oil and Caribbean Food. Study the words with the flashcards or study table, or try some of the games and puzzles (links are toward the bottom of the page).

Improve Your Writing--Avoid Nominalizations

A good basic rule for beginning writers is: KEEP IT SIMPLE. Don't use a lot of words or complicated grammar structures, when a few strong words will get your point across.

One mistake even advanced writers make is using a lot of abstract nouns (nouns that name ideas) as subjects. Here are some abstract nouns: demonstration, analysis, collection. Each of the nouns hides an action: demonstrate, analyze, destroy. 

When a writer hides actions inside nominalized verbs (verbs made into abstract nouns), the only place to put the subject that performed the action is into a prepositional phrase, which requires more words. For example, here are two sentences that contain nominalized verbs, passive verbs, and wordy prepositional phrases:

The destruction of the city by the Romans was followed by the driving away of its citizens.
  
The collection of samples by the scientists was achieved gradually, over a period of ten years.  

Writing is clearer when you use strong verbs, rather than abstract nouns that hide the action of a verb. Here are the same two sentences, rewritten with personal subjects and active verbs:

The Romans completely destroyed the city and then drove away its citizens.

The scientists collected samples for ten years.

Here is another pair of sentences. The first sentence uses abstract nouns (demonstration, transformation) that hide the action and thus need to use more words to name the subject. The second uses specific subjects and active verbs and doesn't overuse prepositional phrases:

1) The demonstration of a new invention, the light bulb, by Thomas Edison was followed by a transformation of the way most homes were lit.

 2) After Thomas Edison demonstrated his new light bulb, this invention soon revolutionized the way most people lit their homes.

My suggestion: Click on the first link to read about how to avoid overusing abstract nouns in your writing. Click on the second link to read more about writing clear sentences.Then try quiz 1 and quiz 2 by clicking on the Student Activity links at the bottom of the page.

Changing Nominalized Verbs into Clear Actions

Sentence Clarity and Quizzes on Nominalizations and Subject Position 

Object Pronoun Practice

My Suggestion: Read the lesson on object pronouns by clicking on the first link. Then practice using object pronouns at the second link:

LINK: Object Pronouns Lesson

LINK: Object Pronouns Quiz

Work on Academic Vocabulary Over the Summer

This academic word list is a list of the most common words found in English academic (college-level) textbooks. They are also words commonly found in newspapers, magazines, novels, television, and everyday conversation. The list was compiled by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand (this information is from the list link at http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/academic-word-list/index.html).

The list is divided into 10 groups of 60 words each. Learn the 60 words in Sublist 1 over the summer (try learning 8 to 10 words per week). If you learn this list, you will know the 60 most common academic words in the English language by the time school begins again in August.

My suggestion: Click on the "ACADEMIC WORD LIST" link below. Find Sublist 1 and select five words to study. You could simply pick the first five words in the sublist, but here's an annoying thing about the exercises for each sublist. The exercises are divided into Group 1 words, Group 2 words, etc. Each group consists of 10 words from the sublist, but THERE'S NOTHING TO TELL YOU WHICH 10 WORDS ARE IN EACH GROUP! The only way to find out is to click on exercise 1a for Group 1, then click on the answer choices box for question 1. The answer box will list the 10 words in Group 1, which you then have to copy down. After you study these 10 words from the sublist (try them in two groups of five), you can go ahead and try the five exercises for Group 1. Then study the words for Group 2 (after using the same method as before to find out which 10 words are in this group--click on exercise 1a for Group 2 and writedown the words in the answer box). If you just study the words in their order on the 60-word sublist, you can't really use the exercises until you've studied all 60 words! Crazy, huh?

Study the words in whatever way you have learned new words in the past, or you can use the method found below the link. One other note about Sublist 1. Two of these words have different spellings in American and British English. The list gives the American spelling for analyze (The British spelling is analyse), but it gives the British spelling for labour (the American spelling is labor). Again--crazy, huh?

ACADEMIC WORD LIST

1. Click on the first word to see its definition and examples of how to use it in a sentence. Write the word and its definition on your own paper (you should keep your own vocabulary list or journal of new words). If the word has more than one definition, use the first one listed for now, since it is usually the most common meaning of the word.

2. Write down the word again five times, then try to restate the meaning in your own words. For example, the definition given for approach is "to move towards or nearer to someone or something." Your definition in your own words might be "to come near."

3. Now try to think of a synonym (word with the same or almost the same meaning) and an antonym (word with the opposite meaning) for the word, and write them down (you may not have one for every word). For the word approach, you might write come near as a synonym and depart from or leave as an antonym.If you need help with synonyms or antonyms, check a thesaurus such as the online one at this link: http://www.thesaurus.com.

4. Next, write down one of the sample sentences you found when you clicked on the word. Try writing your own sentence using the word. If you are not sure you have used the word correctly, ask an advanced English student or native English speaker to review your work. If you need more examples of how to use the word, click on the link below to go to Oxford Learners' Dictionaries, type in the word, and hit enter. When the word definition page appears, scroll down and click on the heading for "Extra Examples."

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com

5. When you have studied all 10 words in a group from the sublist, try the exercises for that sublist. Some of the exercises require you to change the form of the word to fit the grammar and meaning of the sentence. For example, the word legal might need to be changed to legalize or even illegal to correctly complete a fill-in-the-blank question.