Archive for February, 2013
TOFEL and IELTS: What do I need to know? Posted by Gabriele on Feb 28, 2013
As an ESL students, who is beginning to advance into more advanced classes you may begin to here these acronyms TOFEL and IELTS used more and more. At first these may have sounded like very strange English words to you, but hopefully you realized they are acronyms. In fact, they are acronyms for two important…
Practice English and learn song lyrics! Posted by Gabriele on Feb 26, 2013
I have found a great new online tool (well, a game really) for practicing English and I want to share it with you all! The tool, is a website I think you should check out, called Lyrics Training. This website allows you to watch a music video, while listening to the song, and seeing the…
How to say “a” and “the” – even if you think you already know Posted by Gabriele on Feb 21, 2013
The letter ‘a’ is so many things, it is the first letter of the alphabet, a vowel, an indefinite article, and one of the shortest words in English! Today I wanted to talk a little about how to say ‘a’ when it is used as an indefinite article and also how to say ‘the’ the…
Personal space: An American perspective Posted by Gabriele on Feb 19, 2013
Personal space is the area around a person that one thinks of as their area or space, and that they don’t want other people to come into or enter as they meet or talk. The amount of space people want or need around them, in order to feel comfortable, depends on a lot of factors…
A penny saved is a penny earned – not any more. Posted by Gabriele on Feb 15, 2013
“A penny saved is a penny earned” is an English idiom that means: money that you save is more valuable than money that you spend right away. This idiom comes from the idea that every little bit of money helps, but a lot of people don’t think a penny is really worth saving because it is…
Who and whom: How are they the same and how are they different? Posted by Gabriele on Feb 12, 2013
‘Who’ and ‘whom’ are both question words that are used when asking about a person (not a place or a thing). These words are also both pronouns, which can refer to a person being discussed, without referring to that person by name. In these ways, the two words are alike and used similarly. However, ‘who’…
Is e-mail killing the post office? Posted by Gabriele on Feb 11, 2013
The United States Postal Service (the national mail delivery system in America) announced last week that stating in August 2013 they will no longer deliver mail to people’s houses on Saturday. They will continue to deliver mail to homes and businesses Mondays—Fridays, just not on Saturdays. This is a big change in the United States. …