GRAMMAR: MAKING SUGGESTIONS with WHY DON’T, LET’S and HOW ABOUT Here are 3 different ways of making suggestions or invitations. The grammar is a little different in each one, so watch the verb! Why don’t we go to that new Italian restaurant for lunch today? Let’s go to that new Italian restaurant for lunch today....
Category: Learning English
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Lesson of the Month – June 2011: DOMAINS
VOCABULARY: BE THE MASTER OF YOUR DOMAIN! One of the most interesting ways to learn vocabulary is by DOMAIN- a group of different words that are associated with the same concept. The words last month were all in the WALK domain. This month, we have a few examples of the big SPEAK domain. See how...
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Lesson of the Month – May 2011: Useful Idiomatic Expressions
VOCABULARY: IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS This month we have five pairs of idiomatic expressions – and, to make it interesting, they are pairs of opposites: 1. MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT = Very often, frequently. My sister complains that her husband talks about sports morning, noon and night. 2. ONCE IN A BLUE MOON = Almost never, very...
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April 2011 – Lesson of the Month : What do apostrophes (‘) do?
GRAMMAR: What do apostrophes (‘) do? Apostrophes have two main jobs in English: They help nouns show possession or ownership, for example John’s car or my sister’s home. Apostrophes have been doing this job for more than 300 years and they do it very nicely and don’t usually cause anybody any trouble. They indicate that...
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March 2011 – Lesson of the Month : Food for Thought
1. VOCABULARY: FOOD FOR THOUGHT “Food for thought” is an expression that means something is very interesting. There are a lot of expressions using food words. Here are a few: like two peas in a pod = almost identical, the same not worth a hill of beans = worthless, no value use your noodle =...
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CISL LESSON OF THE MONTH: June 2010
GRAMMAR: POSSIBILITY AND SUGGESTIONS: MAY and SHOULD in Present and Past MAY is used to express POSSIBILITY; SHOULD is used for SUGGESTIONS and recommendations. Both can be used to refer to the present/future and to the past, although the form changes a little. • For Present and/or Future, the form is very easy – MAY...
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CISL LESSON OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2010
Astrology and Psychology “Scorpio: You shouldn’t waste your time worrying – today is a new day! Some new financial opportunities should come your way this week, so you must get organized. You ought not to make any big new purchases unless you have to. And you had better pay attention to a friend’s advice!” “Why...
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LESSON OF THE MONTH: MARCH 2010
PART ONE: GRAMMAR You probably remember that a gerund is a verb+ING. It’s usually used in the continuous tenses, such as: She is living in Detroit now. They were hiking when the storm hit. I’ve been working since 8:00 this morning. But there are other uses for gerunds: They can act like nouns, which means...
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CISL LESSON OF THE MONTH: February 2010
PART ONE: VOCABULARY MOVIE REVIEW: AVATAR Read this movie review – without using your dictionary – and see if you can match the underlined words with their synonyms that follow the review: Synopsis: Avatar is the story of an ex-Marine who finds himself thrust into hostilities on an alien planet filled with exotic life forms....
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Creative Writing Exercise: What our Dreams Tell Us About our Personalities
"It's a warm summer day. The bright sun flahsed through the tops of the trees. I'm walking on a path of pebbles. The birds are singing and a soft breeze blows on my face. I hear the soft sounds of a little stream. I pass over a little bridge: the stream is surrounded by thousands of beautiful little white flowers."