doyou doyou ale duzje malo

Business English Sept. 30 class

2011-09-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

Today I showed them the PPP on verb tenses... They weren't really paying attention so I didn't finish the PPP. I showed them how to conjugate the verbs for the different tenses, then we talked about present simple. Did some present simple sentences. Then I gave them a job description sheet and we talked a little about what a job description is. I asked them to write three sentences describing the tasks that this person does. It was a network administrator and as these students are studying computer science, I thought they could relate to this job. They really didn't seem interested in this class at all. I'm thinking next week, we might continue with the job description "project".. put the students in groups and ask them to do a job description of a job. First have them tell me different jobs,and then have them, in groups do a job description of one job. Maybe next week do some present continuous tenses. I'll have to try to think of a way to present it that they can relate to it.

Classes sept 27th

2011-09-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

One of the methods of teaching a language is through translation. The students are given a text and asked to translate into the language to be learned. This has a few advantages in that students can learn sentence structure and patterns. However, there are a few problems with direct translation when there is no corresponding word or structure in the learned language. I gave the economics class a business article in Ukrainian and asked them to translate it into English. Obviously, there were problems with sentence structure, but also major problems with the usage and placement of the articles, and prepositions. I'll not go further here, until I finish categorizing my "test results". One problem I noticed in direct translation was an error in using "too". In Ukrainian a person uses "теж" meaning "too" for negative and positive sentences. Thus, I discovered them saying, "I don't want to be a teacher, too". So I decided a few lessons on "either, neither and too" were in order. I wrote up a sheet identifying some of the rules of either/ neither and then we did some examples of this with the students. For example... " I can take either bus number 16 or bus number 22" Or " I don't have a watch and neither does she". In the first class I had today we covered the rules, and a worksheet of sentences, matching verb tenses to the subject. We also looked at a sheet of pictures of 4 men and made sentences using "too", " neither /either".
The second class today we just covered the rules and worked on some examples that they could think of. We did not do any sentences we ran out of time. The second class was Julia's class - physics students. Next week I plan to continue to do more on either/neither/ too with them. The teacher said this class is not familiar with verb tenses. They are only learning them now.

Economics Class2

2011-09-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot to relate. I explained a little about my research project based on problems encountered by students who are studying Business English. I am still checking the first translations the students gave me, and still trying to calculate where the most problematic areas are. So far, I can easily see problems with, verb tenses, verb agreements, pronoun usage, conjunction usage, possessive pronoun misuse, preposition problems, article problems. So a lot of scope to work with. Today I asked them to do another small translation so I could have a little more data to work with. This took them quite a long time. Then I briefly introduced the verb tenses. Explained briefly how the verbs agree with the pronouns, then I gave them a few cartoons and we worked on making sentences - mostly present continuous with them. I told them we would work on verbs again next week. One other thing I noticed in this class today was the mix up of the words.. " study/ learn" and "tell/ talk"

Teaching for dummies!!

2011-09-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah! that's the heading , the dummy is me!!! Just thought I'd better record how today went and what we covered. Class no 1 was a group of 9 students studying handicrafts. Some of them want to be teachers, some don't. I thought I would introduce the determiners "either/or, neither/nor, too"because when I talked to the physics group the previous week, they told me " I don't want to be teacher too"... so my ear picked up right away, that there was a problem with the determiner and the article. I thought I would have this physics group today, but guess that will be next week.
Well, back to the first class today who are studying handcrafts. Their English level is on the low side. So first off, we just talked about what they were studying, and a little about themselves. By listening to them I picked up verb conjugation problems. Problems with the words " don't have, haven't and didn't". They sometimes said things like " I haven't go there", meaning " I didn't go there.". also the lack of using the infinitive verb. They would say " I want be teacher" or 'I like read books, I like play games, I like dance".
Pronunciation: we worked on the "th"sound, and a little on the ending sounds .."s" at the end of plurals, and " ed" at the end of verbs. Interesting group. They were receptive to corrections, and seemed eager to want to speak English.. some were a little more shy than others. I did a few sentences of verb agreement with them, but discovered it was too advanced for them, without first having gone over verb tenses with them. Then I showed them a picture of a woman with her leopard, which I took from a Reader's Digest article. I asked the students to tell me what they saw, and got them to make sentences that way, then we read a short story about her. Each student took turns reading parts of the story...we worked on pronunciation of problem words, like " thorny bush" and went over words they didn't know.

The second group is a group of Irena's students. There were 7 of them. They are studying physical education I think. They all said they want to be teachers. I also did the same lesson with them. They looked at the picture of the woman and her leopard made a description of what they saw. We, then, read the story together and worked on the "th" pronunciation. I also noticed the "v/ w" pronunciation problem as well, but we didn't work on that today. I didn't do any verb agreement sentences today with this group. With both groups I also noticed the article problem. Forgetting to use "a" or using "a" when "an" should have been used. well. guess that's for today.

phrasal verbs

2011-04-08T02:07:00.000-07:00

Verb tenses charts

View more presentations from Angelaparsons.

Worked on phrasal verbs again.. but first I thought I would a review of verb tenses... so worked on a power point presentation of the verb tenses.... This needs more work yet, but as very brief review it worked ok in yesterday's class.

Count Nouns

2011-03-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Count Nouns seem pretty easy to me, so how to teach them?

This video gives me a few good ideas....

Hallowed Halls

2011-02-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

well... back to the black board again... or in my case, ( no not those 6 Ukrainian cases), back to the computer! Today I had a different class again - 2nd year students. I taped an interview on JK Rowlings and played it for them, then they filled in the blanks. Listening to the tape and writing what they heard. They did real well with this. We then discussed the material in the interview and some interesting comments... like " why were you so dense?" and " hair-raising stories" ... " a chapter in her life".. and so on. Some they could figure out, some they couldn't. The teacher introduced himself to me - Volodimir, told me his class was pretty good in English and said they were studying "travel" so I could do something on that. I thought... Hmm I suppose I could work some travel thoughts into this... but he won't be there so it really doesn't matter!!! The students did enjoy talking about Harry Potter. There were only five there and I think they all read some or most of the books, and saw a movie on it too.One fellow, Sasha was real interested and answered a lot of questions... He was even reciting some of the things of Harry Potter. He even looked a bit like Harry Potter. Anyway, they listened to the interview answered the questions then I assigned them a task of making up an interview and presenting it... they were in groups of 2 and three. I gave them a slip of paper saying what their occupation was they would interview - teacher, fireman, writer, or their own occupation choice. So, they were into this when in comes Mr. Volodimir, and sits in the back of the class... and I thought " great" how will I fit "travel" into this??? Anyway, I just pretended he wasn't there and went on with what I was teaching... which really wasn't much of anything except giving them practice with speaking and writing English. I did want to cover some more on English article usage because they have a real problem with it, but have to go back to the basics again... and I didn't have a lesson prepared for that. They finished thier interviews and presented them and I listened and corrected any errors they made while speaking. Then I had about ten minutes left and I couldn't let the students out early with the teacher there so I pulled out a pamphlet I had helped a girl in Canada do for her school project. It was in French and was information about Ukraine. I briefly told the students what it said and then I talked a little about one section... clothing, appearance. One thing really outstanding here is the importance of shiny, clean boots. First I asked the students... if you were doing this brochure... what would you put in under the heading of clothing, appearance? They said," girls like to dress up and buy cheap clothes". So then I talked about the footwear thing and told them in America, shiny footwear is not that important... then the teacher speaks up... " yeah, I was there once, and they even wear sneakers... with a suit. I was amused... So I agreed, and said in America, Canada included, people are generally more concerned with comfort than looks. Told them a story about me one day wearing dirty shoes and a Ukrainian lady offering me a rag to clean them and telling me "If your shoes are dirty it's like going out with a dirty face".. The students found that amusing... class was done then. The teacher thanked me later for talking about the footwear difference. So that was the extent of "travel" discussion in that class...
incidentally, I asked them to give me their interviews.. I said I wanted to keep them for reference... it is interesting that they write and say " why did you choose the profession of teacher?" and " Do you like a children?" "Do you have a children?" There was another girl who did real well with the article, maybe, needed a little more work with prepositions and verb tenses... but not bad. I was impressed with the class.

funny translation

2010-12-14T08:10:00.001-08:00

Well had an interesting class today... as usual I had 'jelly knees" heading into the class... but needn't to have worried.... there were only five girls there today... Maria said many were away sick... We started the class of by playing "hangman". the girls hadn't played it before, so i told them the rules, did a few words with them, then let them all have a try. :) I made them sing the alphabet song too as they wrote out the alphabet in English for "hangman". It was great fun!! Then I showed them a news clip about a man falling in front of a train and someone saving him... discussed that for a bit...did a worksheet on storms in Europe, than asked them to write up a story based on one of the incidents mentioned in the worksheet. Some were very creative. Finished up by giving them a dialogue that my Ukrainian teacher had given me to translate into Ukrainian. It was such poor English that I wanted the students to see it and to translate it into better English. They laughed when they saw it and puzzled over it for awhile... but they finally figured it out.
Here is the dialogue... it is our dining room. She is opened at eight o'clock in the morning, and closes at eight o'clock in the evening. I breakfast I usually I at a home, and here to have dinner I I love in a dining room. I very like here. My friends have dinner here also. They also very like here. On dinner I take lettuce, soup, meat and juice or fruit compote. Near/beside there is a buffet. Here I take pastries, drink coffee, I buy apples or oranges. In a buffet always there are fruits. Sometimes I have a supper in a dining room. On a supper I like to eat a cheese with a sour cream and sparkles or to drink tea with pancakes. In a dining room I often I see John and Tom. They also have dinner and have a supper here. Now they in a buffet.
- Tome, that you will buy?

- I want to take milk and pastry and you?

_And I will take juice and potato.

- how many pastry costs?

It costs one hryvnya and twenty five copecks.

Take, please money. I thank.

Delicious.
Thought it might help the students understand the need to really understand English grammar... and they did appreciate it. Maria said it looked like a "google translator" job. I agreed!!!

level 2 uncountable/ countable nouns

2010-11-23T04:49:00.001-08:00

Lesson # 2 .. teaching uncountable/ countable nouns... I used these samples of rice, beans, kasha, and nuts. Threw them tot he students and asked them to tell me what it was and if it was countable or not. Then I threw them on the table or floor and made sentences to identify the verb tense with countable and uncountable nouns. We watched an 8 min video on count/unc. nouns... then two worksheets.. one worksheet was about a trip to the Korean market. Students filled in the blanks with "a" or "an" or "some". The second worksheet was on banana splits. Students identified what were countable and uncountable...nuts, cherries, ice cream, cream, bananas. Then they answered questions on it. We finished with a question, " do you think banana splits are healthy or unhealthy" I told them they all had to give me an answer and each answer had to be different... so the first to answer had the easiest opportunity, because the others had to think more. They did well coming up woth unique answers though. The class felt like a success and students were asking if I could teach them again.

2010-11-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

well... the inevitable happened!!! I finally had to enter the classroom and teach!!!! Still working on articles, even though RR says it's phrasal verbs... I just don't want to leave the old project!!!
Chose to start off with slang words... poor things. I don't know if they got much from the class but I tried to make it a little interesting for them. I did up some cards for them to match, they liked that and then finished the lesson off with a quick game. I YELLED out the English phrase and each team had to hold up the slang phrase that matched... they enjoyed that... helped to work out some frustrations also. We covered slang in a classroom environment. Here's a picture of the cards I used.... they had to match them for part of the class. I had intended to have them each read the dialogue first in regular English, then in slang, then in slang as it is spoken... but didn't have time for that... only time for a quick game of each team matching the slang to the English phrase.
( oh. I wore my heels.. the clicking on the floor as I walked around made me feel important!! Ha)

progress!

2010-06-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

check out these charts!! I'm happy to see Trude's hard work is paying off!! Don't know if the students are improving in the spoken language, but they are more aware of it when they do the test!! check out the results below!!Progress IM43B Group5014

Third person simple present and present continuous

2010-05-29T04:03:00.000-07:00

First and second years
The last two lessons of the year this week of teaching...I decided to go for the absolute basics, because that's where the trouble is.
To start out I drew a butterfly on the board and asked the ss "what is this", there reply: "butterfly", I scolded them roundly for not answering in a complete sentence, and managed to get them to come up with, "that is a butterfly" after a bit of mumbled discussion among the desks. Then I asked, "what does a butterfly do?", fully expecting, "he fly", or "butterfly fly", but they were right on and gave me, "a butterfly flies".
I had them come up to the board as well and they all drew a picture and we practiced this language.
The second years watched the Matty Goldberg video afterwards and we discussed that and I tried to get them to use present continuous, but it seemed a bit forced.
The first years watched part of Watership DownsWatch Watership Down , Full Film (youtube) on Fanpop
I also used exercises from Raymond Murphy Chapter 1 and 2 to fill in the extra time...Goodbye welcome good ol' summer time!

2010-05-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

My last class with this group of first year students, so we watched this little video about count and uncount nouns, and did this as a fill in worksheet where students had to put in the proper article. I think they are actually learning something!

More about Rosa

2010-05-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

I want to use the video from here to discuss online dating with my group next week.
This page has good material on this subject as well.
http://www.eslpartyland.com/students/nov/dating.htm
Well, today we did a lesson about dating, I had the students learn the same expressions about expressing opinions as we did here. Then we went over some of the discussion questions from Conversation Inspirations, a great book and good for getting students talking.
I had forgotten to bring the Rosa video, but we'll use it another time!

Definite Language in Mind

2010-05-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

My last several lessons have been rather sloppy without a real goal of what language I'm trying to teach the students. With that in mind I'm going to use the mobile phone etiquette lesson again but try to teach this language as well. I may make some cards with the phrases on them and have the students use their phrases as they answer the questions in practice speaking.

Also for more activity this as a fill-in is also on hand.

Catching up post

2010-05-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

The end of the year is upon us, and I've got some blogging to do...why do I do this to myself?
On May 17th, while Norwegians were celebrating independence day, I saw my 4th year students for perhaps the last time. I gave them the info for taking the quiz on line. The results of this quiz will show their progress and if they've learned anything about articles.

Zipcar lesson

2010-05-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Group IM43 and I went over our quiz today, just the part about zipcar, we saw this video after going over the fill in the blanks from the USA TODAY article.
The exercise was to practice the English article.

Friday the 14th

2010-05-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today with my first group: IM 21, second year students, we talked about cell phone manners, I found a nice questionnaire for discussion which my group seemed to enjoy. Then I wanted to play a video, but my browser downloaded the wrong one which was absolutely inappropriate for my group, so we ended up doing a worksheet on non count nouns instead. Glad for backup material in case plan A doesn't work!

talking about mothers and daughters

2010-05-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

This video
was a good jumping off point for a discussion about the internet and relationships. I also wrote out the script without articles to give them as homework.
This lesson worked well with the Wednesday the 5th group as well as on the 7th with my Friday 2nd year students

MPORA Action Sports >>

more teaching

2010-04-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Well another interesting day... made it to the university to Vitaly's class today. I was supposed to meet him at 12:35... made it in time, but no Vitaly. When I called he said he was tied up at the Dean's office... anyway, class got under way around 1pm. 4th year students... very nice class... they seem to have a good rapport with each other and their teacher. The topic today was Narrative writing. I returned their tests to them and told them we would do more tests with them...Vitaly told me I could come in next week again... I told him I would like to come one more time in May.

This evening I was alone for our English study... it was interesting... A real work out as there was no translation into Ukrainian or Russian. They all worked hard to help me though, it was interesting. They were in no hurry to leave ...later, we had cake and tea.

Slang

2010-04-28T00:09:00.000-07:00

Street Talk is a great book and I use it a lot when I'm uninspired, I always get a great lesson out of it! I used it today with a new group I hadn't seen before.

Three little words

2010-04-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

No not the three little pigs!!!! Our presentation went well on Sat. Trude impressed them greatly and I stood by grinning and showing a chart or two!!! The teachers seem very interested in how to teach the article.. many asked for a copy of the presentation when we were done... I was impressed with a few of the charts... here's a picture of how our test was broken down. Article Breakdown Article Charts

a site for videos

2010-04-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

click here for http://dotsub.com/

Tefl Conference today

2010-04-17T03:20:00.000-07:00

We survived the conference today! It was brooding over me like an evil meanie, but we got through it.
I signed up for a 20 minute short talk, which was the minimum you could do, but they gave me a 45 minute slot! As I protested that one of the teachers told me, 'it's ok, you only have 4 people coming". That was a great relief. But I think we had more like 20 present...anyway, with Angela's great graphics we sailed through it. I was only missing an appropriate Dilbert comic strip (since we leaned so heavily on charts and statistics!)

A new group of Students...

2010-03-31T06:00:00.001-07:00

Warmer:

have students brainstorm how many types of sports they can think of and write them on the board.

Presentation:

video WeeWiiMee, or a Wii review

Controlled practice:

give students an article the paper to fill in the blanks where articles are left out.

Free practice:

Students work in small groups discussing questions about sports from Conversation Inspirations by Zelman

Feedback: go over the handout correcting errors and go over speech errors.

Dog Squats - Watch more Funny Videos

practice with first year students

2010-03-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

I'm having the first year students today since Easter holidays will unofficially start on Friday afternoon :-/

We'll do my restaurant power-point where we go over first mention, and count nouns, hope to be able to drag this out for the full class time....

Teen sleep again

2010-03-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

I did this same lesson with the first year students, saves me time prepping.
I showed this group the video twice, and we talked about it some, which helped them to understand it better the second time.
This group seemed to relate well to the video I showed them.
Setting up the game went well as I remembered to bring dice and game men.

sleeping teenagers

2010-03-24T03:25:00.000-07:00

warm up: Try reviewing words from last week using 'crosswords' from 5 Minute Activities by Penny Ur.
Presentation: a short video
Controlled practice: Fill in the blank worksheet to supply missing articles.
Free practice: Students play a game based on Jim Scrivener's Resource 6 from Learning Teaching.
Feedback: Go over the worksheet, touch on errors made during free practice.

the article and the Proper Noun

2010-03-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

I have a request to do this for next week, anybody have any good ideas? I need your comments before March 26th, 2010... helloooooooo?

Carlos and the bandits

2010-03-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Today I worked with 1st year students. I introduced 911, and we discussed emergencies. I showed them a news clip about Carlos, divided them into two groups and handed out a news writeup on the story and had the students list the nouns and determiners. This took them about 10 minutes. They wrote the nouns on the board each from their own group, then a member from the opposite group filled in the determiner for each noun. Then I gave them a fill in the blank sheet, which they did perfectly because they copied from their notes :-/
We went over the sheet in class, then watched a different Carlos newsclip.
Students then wrote 5 questions and in 2 co centric rings asked each other questions.

Inspired by St. Patrick

2010-03-18T01:31:00.000-07:00

I must have been inspired by St. Patrick!!! My first time to sit in on a class and observe the teacher's teaching technique. He was quite nice about it... a little nervous at first...and so was I!!! There were 13 students there and the topic was: Past perfect tenses. It was the first year students. I could tell some weren't very clear on the subject... so when I was invited to share with them a little about myself, I tried to use some past perfect examples. I was also asked to correct them when they made errors and suggest better ways of expressing themselves. There were a few errors using the article "the" especially when years were talked about. However, my ear needs to be trained to understand their accent because i did miss a lot!!! I like the kids... said I'd sit in again on their class. The teacher has offered an opportunity for me to sit in on a 4th year class, so may do that soon too... if I can fit it in with my lesson schedule!!!! One question stumped me... Does anyone know what you call a person who falls in and out of love easily????

St Patrick's day

2010-03-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

the 4th year students learned about St. Patrick's day today.
I used this 13 page handout as a guide for the lesson. It seemed to go ok, nothing here about the article however. Students seemed to enjoy the last part where they interviewed each other. I had them stand in rotating co centric rings for the interviews. I was able to listen in and correct some errors in article use.

cancelled due to illness

2010-03-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

didn't see my 4th year Ss today as Helen phoned me to say she was ill. Natalia was to have both groups together and show them a film.

second mention

2010-03-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

4th year students
I made a restaurant power point production using a picture from The Oxford Picture Dictionary to talk about the restaurant.
I also made activity cards with pictures and phrases where the article was left as a blank for students to fill in and use for telling a story.
Class did an exercise from Azar's Fundamentals of English Grammar to review second mention.

International Woman's day

2010-03-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

Is the 8th of March. Seems that students start celebrating it today. My class was nowhere to be seen when I showed up for our 16:45 lesson...

non count nouns

2010-03-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

4th year students
We went over exercised from Fundamentals of English Grammar by Betty Azar. We did this with lots of drills. I also showed a power point presentation to review count and non count nouns

canceled due to testing

2010-02-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

My 1st year students had a test to take, so I did not work with them today, unfortunately I arrived late, otherwise perhaps it would have different.

non count nouns

2010-02-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

first year students
We went over exercised from Fundamentals of English Grammar by Betty Azar. We did this with lots of drills. I also showed a power point presentation to review count and non count nouns.

bubble testing

2010-02-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

1st year students take my bubble test. We spend days categorizing the errors, there has to be a better way...

From lurkingplaces

Slang

2010-02-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

did more Slang with the 1st year students, chapter 3 of Street Talk by David Burke

the o.v.i.r.

2010-02-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

Is where we go to register so we can stay here and finish our project...

Slang

2010-02-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

first year students love slang!
I did the first chapter of Street Talk with them.
This is the control group, I won't be teaching them about articles.

catagorizing errors...

2010-02-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

We worked all day on correcting tests and categorizing the errors, hope to automate this process...

From lurkingplaces

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com

2009-12-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

My lesson for today will be about this interesting post.
The students will watch the video, then I will give them the transcript to fill in the blanks for the missing articles. Afterwards there should be time to watch the video again and go over the transcript.

an uncertain History of the English article

2009-11-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

In Old English there were many different kinds of articles, these could be definate or indefinate, but they also declined. In Old English if you wanted to say ‘the’ there was only one kind of ‘the’, which however depended on where it was. You could also say ‘the’ by saying ‘a’, although this also declined. This is called the definate article. ‘The’ is called the indefinate article.

The form of the article depended on where they were. If they came before something else they were definate, and if they came after it they were called either definate or indefinate. It was also a matter of sex. If the article came before something of the female gender then it would have different forms dependant on wether the female was an object. The same happened with male genders and neuters like ships. Ships were neutered in Anglo-Saxon. Gloves were invariantly feminine. Bishops could be anything. This is called infection.

Many articles could mean at least two things, and there was also a great deal of ambaguity in the system. For example if you wanted to refer to a female object, such as a glove, you said ‘tha’, and if you wanted to refer to two male objects you also said ‘tha’. This meant that the Anglo-Saxons didn’t know whether someone was male or female (with the exception of ships, that were always neutered). However this ambaguity was eventually unhelpful.

Unfortunately scholars do not actually know where the indefinate article ‘the’ actually came from. Some people think is came from the masculine ‘se’, because ‘the’ was easier to say. But some people think that it was imported into England, maybe in the saddle-bags of a monk. Some people also think that the indefinate article was actually borrowed from the Norse.

The definate article ‘a’ is easier to say therefore it was more widespread. It also had a varient form, which was borrowed from the Norse. This is ‘an’. You used the ‘an’ type before words not beginning with a sharp sound, and you used ‘a’ in front of words beginning with a soft sound or a glottal stop. However the variant form ‘an’ became ‘a’, because if there were two sharp nasals in a row you only could say one of them. An example of this is the word ‘an Norse’. This eventually became ‘a horse’, because there were two sharp nasals there in the beginning. This development logically gave rise to further ambaguity, because the Vikings were not actually horses. Therefore ‘the’ was preferred by many speakers., because it was less meaningful and it was also easier to say. This is called the Easy Articulation Argument.

Some people think that the word ‘ye’ was also an indefinate article. This is actually untrue, despite the existance of words like ‘Ye Olde Cocke Inne’. But ‘ye’ is in fact definately a definate pronoun, and it was only used by printers who were trying to justify their pages. Because it only has two letters ‘ye’ was also easy to say, and it saved space when you were trying to justify things. Nevertheless it was never a widespread article, and in fact later it became a pronoun in its own rite. Although it is still used in hymms like ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. Here, ‘ye’ can mean either ‘you’ or ‘the’, which is indefinate and ambiguious.

By 1126 the system of articles had matured and there was only the distinction between the indefinate form ‘the’, whose underlying article was ‘an’, and the definate form, whose underlyer was ‘the’ or ‘an’. These forms had nothing to do with sex anymore, but they were highly responsive to phonologists, since these kept interfering.

Posted this without permission, but I'm not claiming any credit for this erudite piece...

Snap!

2009-10-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

Today we are playing snap!, rules are here.
The game is here.
I chose the most frequently missed questions from the article test I gave them at first lesson we had.

The article test

2009-10-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have half the tests graded now, and am in the middle of going through the data, trying to categorize the results to see what there is to be learned from them.
I found a fairly good game for practicing articles here.

Yes, I met students again

2009-09-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

In fact the same students...I meet my real students at 1545 tomorrow...it's only a day away.

From Teaching in Rivne

They look like nice kids don't they, too bad they're not my students...

Yes, I met students

2009-09-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

But not MY students! It's only the 3rd time I've gone to the university thinking it's time to get into my job, and here it's the wrong group they had me lined up for...oh well I sat in on the lesson and talked to them a bit, listened to them talk and so on. My real class is tomorrow...1535

Meeting my students

2009-09-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

Today I'm invited to new students in a situation where I'm to monitor a class where they're being taught by their regular teacher. As I think about that I like this shared by Jim Scrivener:

I remember the first time I worked as a teacher in Ukraine; I'd had no training and I wanted them all to be my friends. I tried to be scintillating and fun, but I never felt like my efforts were repaid by genuine friendliness. I'm more realistic about that now, but still it's always exciting and interesting to meet a group of students for the first time...

from Pat

2009-09-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AfJcji740qJ5ZGNrbm05Y2tfOWdwcXBzcmZk&hl=en

An interesting video

2009-09-19T05:45:00.000-07:00

English in Romania

link

How to teach article tips

2009-09-19T05:06:00.000-07:00

http://bogglesworldesl.com/indefinitearticles.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4883905_teach-definite-indefinite-articles-english.html
http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
article game
more games
tips

Ukrainian Grammer chart

2009-09-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

This is off the topic of this blog, but nevertheless very useful if you are interested in the Ukrainian language: a nice chart to consult when learning to speak Ukrainian
This is still incomplete. Let me know about changes and errors.

one stop english

2009-09-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58134&docid=145089

Sites I found dealing with the English article

2009-09-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

stuff on the web on the article
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/articlestext.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
http://usefulenglish.ru/grammar/part-3-specific-use-of-the
http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/esl.html http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ei008/esl-test.php
English Grammar Tests - Learn English Online at English-Test.net
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/allexercises/Grammar/Grammar-articles.asp
http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/english-grammar-noun-article-agreement/
http://www.english-zone.com/index.php?ID=1
http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/articles.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/grammar/Articles/Exercises/

The plan:

2009-08-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

Researching methods of correcting typical errors made by Ukrainian students who study English as a foreign language.
These errors are typically use of the article and preposition, also pronunciation and collocation errors which have created a specific “Ukrainian English”.
This course will focus on these types of errors, by alerting students to the error, correcting the error, and with various types of practice hopefully eliminate the error before it becomes fossilized in the students' speech.
The university has agreed for me to work with the fourth year psychology students who are studying English as their only foreign language. The class is split into 2 subgroups, group A and group B. I will work with one subgroup, the other group is the control group.
At the beginning of the course both groups will take the same test. I will work with group A once a week; group B will not participate in my course.
My work with group A will consist of fill in the blank exercises, drills, communicative games, role play and other types of activities to teach and reinforce the correct forms in the students' minds. My weekly lessons will follow the set curriculum of the group's normal English classes.
After working with the fourth year students for one year I will administer a test again to both groups to check if there is any improvement in group A in comparison to group B. If students do well on this test I would recommend giving them enough points to raise their mark one point at the end of the spring term.
If possible I would like to repeat this experiment again the next year with the next group of fourth year students.

Materials used will include:

news articles from the internet
various textbooks including:

English Prepositions for Ukrainians by A.D. Sherick
Speak Authentic English by D. Puffalt and V. Starko
English Prepositions for Ukrainians by A. D. Sherick and V. F. Starko
Use of the Article in English compiled by A.D. Sherick
Practical English Usage by Michael Swan
The English Article in communicative patterns by H.I. Stoudenets, Kyiv - 2006

Advice from a seasoned teacher

2009-08-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

I was telling a friend of mine about my assignment, here are her suggestions-

Methods of correcting errors made by students learning English:

Carry a yard stick during the lesson, when the student makes a language error hit him with the stick.
When the student makes a mistake go off into gales of laughter, encourage his fellow students to do likewise.
While the student is reciting make a list of his incorrect utterances, after he is finished read off all his errors to the class, slowly and painstakingly explaining each one.

This being all in fun of course. (read: "The fun of the course".) Another fun thing is I get a week extra of summer time as my boss is in Moscow til next week some time!

The Assignment

2009-08-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

My job for the next few months is to research a method to help Ukrainian speakers of English overcome the most frequent errors they make in English. These are mostly errors of article and preposition usage.
Why blog about it? People blog about lots of stuff and find an audience. Maybe the blog will serve to inspire me in this seemingly dull and monotonous task. Also I hope it will help me to be organised in my approach as I prepare to publish my weekly lesson plan here. Perhaps I will find others who are interested in the same subject. This would make it all very interesting if we could then corraborate.
Let the fun begin!

doyou doyou ale duzje malo

Business English Sept. 30 class

Classes sept 27th

Economics Class2

Teaching for dummies!!

phrasal verbs

Count Nouns

Hallowed Halls

funny translation

more on articles

level 2 uncountable/ countable nouns

progress!

Third person simple present and present continuous

More about Rosa

Definite Language in Mind

Catching up post

Zipcar lesson

Friday the 14th

talking about mothers and daughters

more teaching

Slang

Three little words

a site for videos

Tefl Conference today

A new group of Students...

practice with first year students

Teen sleep again

sleeping teenagers

the article and the Proper Noun

Carlos and the bandits

Inspired by St. Patrick

St Patrick's day

cancelled due to illness

second mention

International Woman's day

non count nouns

canceled due to testing

non count nouns

bubble testing

Slang

the o.v.i.r.

Slang

catagorizing errors...

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com

an uncertain History of the English article

Snap!

The article test

Yes, I met students again

Yes, I met students

Meeting my students

from Pat

An interesting video

How to teach article tips

Ukrainian Grammer chart

one stop english

Sites I found dealing with the English article

The plan:

Advice from a seasoned teacher

The Assignment