Movie Show

Today we have a movie show at school , the first of many more to come .

I’ve been wanting to do them for some time but couldn’t afford the projector and didn’t have the space . Now that I have both ,it’s SHOWTIME  

The kids wanted something that had ” action” in it . I wanted somethng that would include a bit of history and geography . So we settled on ” Gladiator” with Russell Crowe .

 I give a little lecture with a a slide show on Romans blah blah blah …..before it begins and there will be a  quiz afterwards with the winners getting  little prizes i.e. chocolate chip cookies.

USL 

 

Hiya there everybody

Sorry that I haven’t been able to write for some time because I have been very busy. Well I was is YGN for 24 hours going through the hassle of  applying for a passport. Weather was very humid there  . Mandalay has not seen rain for some time now. Still hot . I’d say 35-39 C.

An American friend of mine from  Hawaii , Dean got married to a Burmese girl,Mie Mie at the KyanKin monastery ,traditional style. Very nice wedding and was very impressed with him ,wearing the traditional white Burmese jacket and longyi.

Lots of my students are off to Singapore this month for their studies. The world is certainly becoming a much smaller place.

And surprise !surprise ! we have had regular electricity for 3 days at my house( except for a-two-hour break ) although that doesn’t apply to all the neighborhoods in this town. 

My wife left me with the school and kids and went off for a week traisping around Thailand . She needed the break I guess. But has come back to nag me now

And I have made myself go to a gym.

Yes after eating all that barbeque and not realy avoiding beer I have put on some pounds . Now I will lose some for a change . My buddies say “fat chance of that happening”. 

Well ,for all you students, here’s  a good site   www.englishclub.com.   CHECK IT OUT ! 

And to all my students out here have fun ! and study hard !

USL 

  

 

Writing Skills

Hi there Everything you want to know about IELTS is here : http://www.ielts.org/default.aspx

But if you have any specific  questions I would be happy to answer them and  if I don’t know the answers to your questions I will ask some friebds of mine who are Professors of English at Universities in the US.

For summary writing : www.users.drew.edu/~sjamieso/Summary.html    

                                           www.depts.drew.edu/composition/Resources/summary.pdf

 And for writing in general :  www.owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab

 Cheers

USL

 

Reading Tips

1.  Don’t read every word. Just the important nouns and verbs.

2.  Try to guess the meaning of some words from the surrounding words , pictures  and graphs etc.

3.   Know that the main topic/points  of an article  are in the starting sentences and last      paragraphs. and mostly at the start of each paragraph.

4.  Read all kinds of writing as in last post.

5.  Try to think what you can  infer from the text and what the author implies . ( more abt that later. It’s also called reading between the lines.)

6.  Don’t translate every word

7.  Don’t believe in everything that is written /  published /in a book or newspaper.

    Think of the author’s purpose of writing that piece. Does she or he want you to believe in something that is against common sense ? or giving you true or verifiable facts or just opinions ? or stating half-truths or total lies?  or trying to manipulate you in any way  ?

Lots of stuff that is written ( and said ) looks good and logical on the first read but read it a few more times and  it can turn out to be a lot of rubbish. Don’t make me give examples !  LOL LOL LOL .

8. Think how you can use the information read and how it affects you, your family ,your  country and the world.

9.   Read silently not aloud 

10. Try to put what the author writes into your own words.

11. Start from a reading level of difficulty that you are comfortable with. Not something too difficult or too easy.

12. Read what you like ,what you are interested in.

 

Some Books For Students To Read

Here is a list of books to read and enjoy . You can either buy them or go borrow them from a library  .

The list is rather eclectic which means it includes a lot of genres ( types) of writing,literature and topics.

If the original book is a bit too difficult for you , try to read an abridged version first or even one rewritten as a graded reader ( Lots of those graded readers at the British Council  reading centre in Mandalay)

Even though I am a teacher, I sometimes enjoy graded readers too because I can find out about the plot ( storyline ) very quickly.

Enjoy !

1.  Little Men ( Louisa May Alcott )

 Review :www.buildingrainbows.com/bookreview/reviewid/18

2. Lost Horizon ( James Hilton)

Review : http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/hilton.html

3. All of the Harry Potter books

www.harrypotter.warnerbros.com

4. The Adventures of Tin Tin   comics  ( Herge )

5. The Horse Whisperer ( Nicholas Evans )

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horse_Whisperer

6. How to make friends and Influence people

( Dale Carnegie )

7. Brigdet Jones Diary   ( Helen Fielding )

8. The Da Vinci Code   ( Dan Brown )

9.  Anawrahta of Burma  ( Khin Myo Chit )

10. The Thirty Carat Diamond and other stories

    ( Khin Myo Chit )

11. Julius Caesar ( William Shakespeare)

12. Kim ( Rudyard Kipling )

13. The Jungle Book ( Rudyard Kipling)

Kipling also wrote the poem ” ( On the Road to) Mandalay”and made this city’s  name known all over the world as it has been taught in schools in many English speaking countries. .The words of the poem : http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mandalay.

 And please notice that Kipling is talking about Mawlamyaing ( Moulmein) not Mandalay . And the writer was a real to-the-core imperialist.The bugger probably never was in Mandalay.

14. The Old Man and the Sea ( Ernest Hemingway )

15. The Happy Prince  ( Oscar Wilde)

16. 20,000 leagues under the sea ( Jules Verne )

17. Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie )No abridged or graded reader version of this

18. The God of Small Things ( Arundhati Roy) 

19. The Lonely  Planet  Travel Guides

20.  Norwegian Woods ( Haruki Marukami )

21. Murder on the Nile ( Agatha Christie  ) Actually all the books are entertaining ! 

22. A Christmas Carol ( Charles Dickens )

23. The Burman ( Shway Yoe )

24.   She was a queen  ( Maurice Collis )

25.   7 Habits of highly effective people ( Steven Covey )

26.   7 Habits of highly effective teenagers ( Sean Covey )

27.    Reform and the Reformers / Herald of Freedom

          ( Henry David Thoreau)

28.   Empire of the Sun   ( J.G Ballard )

29.   Burmese Days ( George Orwell )

30.   Dracula         ( Bram Stoker )

31.   Original Short Stories   ( Guy de Maupassant )

32.   Memoirs of a Geisha     ( Arthur Golden  )

34.   Rendezvous with Rama  ( Arthur C Clarke )

Please write and tell us about any good books you’ve read lately.

But remember, you can also read anything and everything ,labels , signboards, menus, schedules, catalogues,brochures,magazines, manuals,newspapers,advertisements ,websites online  and even what’s written on T-shirts although most of it is meaningless ( I mean the stuff on T-shirts but you have to be careful about the rest too) 

Read in Burmese too. Buy books and have your own little library. Visit a bookshop buy the books first . Remember you don’t need to read them immediately. Read them when you’ve got the flu, plain bored,can’t go out for some reason. Books don’t need electricity to be read either. LOL LOL LOL.

These kind of books/topics  benefit everyone too .

(1)Management

(2) Psychology 

(3) History

(4) Travel

(5) General Knowledge

(6) Marketing

(7) Sociology.

( Biographies of famous people.

 (9) Collections of Detective / Mystery/ Horror stories

(10) Books and Articles About Myanmar ( Your own country ! ) 

(11)  Culture /Religion /Philosophy

OR ANYTHING THAT INTERESTS YOU !!!

Don’t buy textbooks that you will never read or more than one dictionary. If you need a dictionary, get one with a thesaurus (lots of similar meanings in it )

A language Activator like the one from Longman publishers is good too.   

 Make a list of all the things you want to read or find out about 

AND

if you can’t buy a book on a subject/topic that interests  that you , find that topic in Wikipedia ,print it out and read it later. Keep a file of everything too.

You know, I once read this somewhere :

” A person who doesn’t read is no better than a person who can’t read “

I think that is true

So,  if you are too LAZY to read anything else , you are always welcome to READ the posts in THIS BLOG regularly.

USL

 

                    

Why do students come to English Language classes ?

I think I can come up with lots of answers

1. To improve their English language skills ( That’s what they all say but …)

2. To please their parents

3. Because it’s the cool thing to do

4. Because their friends are attending

5. Because its  what everyone does

6. To  learn enough to  pass an exam or just get through  a personal interview for work etc.

7. To get be with or to get a   boy/girl friend

8. To get out of the house

9. To get to go on picnics

10. Because someone told them that they need to learn a bit if they go abroad to study or work

Probably there are lots more reasons .

But what I say is that : YOU ARE ALL WELCOME

Let’ s learn as much as possible while you’re at class.

 I’ll do my best to make classes interesting and useful for you too.

USL

( My next post will be on how coming to language classes can benefit you ,other than the points given above )

 

 

Become a confident speaker

How to improve your English speaking skills, so that you can communicate more easily and effectively.These tips will help you to become a more confident speaker. Practice where you can, when you can. Any practice is good - whether you speak to someone who is a native English speaker or not. It’s important to build your confidence. If possible, use simple sentence structure that you know is correct, so that you can concentrate on getting your message across. Try to experiment with the English you know. Apply words and phrases you know to new situations. Native English speakers are more likely to correct you if you use the wrong word than if you use the wrong grammar. Experimenting with vocabulary is a really good way of getting feedback. Try to respond to what people say to you. You can often get clues to what people think by looking at their body language. Respond to them in a natural way. Try not to translate into and from your own language. This takes too much time and will make you more hesitant. If you forget a word, do what native English speakers do all the time, and say things that ‘fill’ the conversation. This is better than remaining completely silent. Try using ‘um’, or ‘er’, if you forget the word. Don’t speak too fast! It’s important to use a natural rhythm in speaking English, but if you speak too fast it will be difficult for people to understand you. Try to relax when you speak, and you’ll find that your mouth does most of the pronunciation work for you. When you speak English at normal speed, you’ll discover that many of the pronunciation rules, such as word linking, happen automatically.

Final tips…

- Try to become less hesitant and more confident. - Don’t be shy to speak - the more you do it, the more confident you’ll become. - Remember to be polite - use “please” and “thank you” if you ask someone to do something for you.

 

Improve Your English Speaking and English Pronunciation Skills

The first rule of speaking English is to speak clearly, concisely and use simple vocabulary. KISS - keep it short and simple.

Remember you probably won’t just speak to native speakers. There are roughly 380 million native speakers, but as many as a billion people speak it as a second language. So it’s a good idea to avoid idioms and slang (I always say learn it, but don’t use it). It might sound clever to say “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” but if you misuse it or if the other person doesn’t understand you, you’ll only look silly when you try to explain what you meant to say, or what it actually means.

There’s also a saying in English “Have you swallowed a dictionary?” It is applicable to anyone who uses long, complicated words when a shorter word will do. Short sentences are just as good (if not better) than long explanations. The value in what you have to say is what you say, not how clever you look or sound when you say it.

Pronunciation skills

Accents don’t matter, but pronunciation is important

 

Here are some more things you can do guys. 

• Join an English course (and attend regularly).
• Do your homework.
• Read a book a month.
• Learn a new word every day.
• Visit an English speaking forum every day.
• Read a news article on the net every day.
• Do 10 minutes listening practice  every day. (from a coursebook  or listen to the VOA and BBC english for learners programs )
• Watch an English film at least once a month.
• Follow a soap, comedy or radio or TV drama.

 

Improving your English outside of class

 

Well , as the title says I’m going to suggest how to make your English better.

Okie dokie, here we go !

1.       Read this blog regularly ! And look for spelling mistakes in it !

2.       Join a library ( The BC or British Council centre at the SY buildings btw:           30th x  31st,   77th x 78th is a good place to borrow books, listen to tapes    and        stuff,   use their internet for free, read 2-3 day old newspapers and  watch movies.

The guy/librarians  at the desk are two of the most handsome guys in MDY , tell them you know me USL . ( and they might throw you out …….. just kidding )

The airconditioning is nice and cold too, so it’s  a great place to pop into when the sun is too bright and you have an hour or two free.

The students there are encouraged to speak English , so start conversations with other guys there . Don’t be too Burmese ! Introduce yourself to a total stranger there ( your own age and sex  is better but …… just joking). Talk to anyone .

 Ask them if they know USL from BEST. Then start criticizing me if it will start a conversation. Or the etenally fresh intro line ” Have I seen you somewhere before  ? You look very familar ! …” and  so on and so forth.

Or just ” Hi , I’m _____. You come here often ?”

3.   Talk to anyone who speaks English in ” English “. Ask them lots of questions .( Memorize at least 20 questions/ tell me about ….. type starters to use )  

I’ll give you a list too , but make your own first.

4.   Try to THINK in the language

5.   Try to get as much general knowledge as possible  and keep up with the current news or you   won’t have anything to say or discuss when you do meet people .

Find out /learn about Myanmar in English , so you can explain, give advice , lie about  your beloved country etc   to the foreigners you happen to meet.

6.    Attend as many seminars and presentations given in English as you can.Especially the the ones recruiting students, Ask a lot of questions at their Q & A sessions.

7.   Watch movies with English subtitles, then watch them again with the words plastered over.

8. Take the TOEFL or the IELTS tests just for fun to see how good or how …. you are.

9. Don’t blame yourself or your genes if you are a slow learner   or are unusually shy.USL is also a shy person too.. LOL LOL

So try not to be shy. Bite your lip before you talk to someone , pinch your self , pretend that the person you are talking to is a baby or a poodle .

10. Smile and try to be friendly. It’s sometimes not an English /language  problem you know. Also always try to make friends with smiling ,friendly people.

11. Don’t ever ever be worried about making mistakes. And don’t care about what people think of you or your English. Be a GODZILLA. Have no fear of the puny earthlings !

12. Join an English language chat room and practice there. There’s one for students in the links .  Go to the English language practice websites on the links page and start practising listen ,grammer etc.

Don’t just chat in Burglish ( Burmese written in the roman alphabet) in those  MIRC chat rooms . Or do both at the same time !

13.  Learn as many songs as you can in English and sing them from memory.

14. Read every packet /packaging/ pamplet in English that you can get your hands on .Read all the signs, signboards written in English and try to figure out their meanings. ( But not while you are riding your motorcycle or bicycle )

15. Guess the meaning of all those words in English that you see , read and hear. It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong , it’s not a final test or anything. You can always check in a dictionary or ask someone later. 

16. Write down a list of your own opinions about everything that comes to mind in English.  And tell people your opinions/ what you think in English . Being direct in English is OK most of the time.

16. Keep it in mind ( remember ) or keep saying to yourself ” Learning a lanuage is not as difficult as nuclear quantum chaotic biomolecular astrophysics ”.

17. Have faith in yourself . I have faith in you , OK !

COME EVERYONE !  I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT ! 

More to come …..