January 10th, 2009
Happy New Year! I’m slow to post again. Sorry! I have an important project that I have to finish, so I can’t spend enough time here. Anyway, I hope you had a good new year and will have a good 2009. Today let me tell you a little about Lang-8. It’s a language exchange website. [...]
March 25th, 2008
Do you often use contractions when you speak? Contractions are words like it’s, I’m, they’re, we’ll, couldn’t, etc. (standing for the phrases it is, I am, they are, we will, could not, etc.). You probably quickly learned to use contractions in spoken English. You may have been told that contractions are slang or informal language. [...]
October 21st, 2007
Remember the previous entry about PostCrossing? Well, how about sending more than just a postcard? That’s the idea behind Gimme Your Stuff. You put together a small package of interesting things from where you live, and trade it by mail with someone in a faraway country. For example, I might send a small box of [...]
October 17th, 2007
People who teach English writing have learned that it is important for writers to have an audience. In other words, if you just write an essay and give it to your teacher, it’s not too interesting for you. You’re probably going to have more fun and learn more if you know several people will read [...]
August 4th, 2007
Today I found a good article about how to do research for university-level papers. Most undergraduates and nearly all graduate students in American universities will write several long “research papers” before they graduate. These papers are big projects, with two important parts: the research and the writing. Most students are so worried about the writing [...]
June 30th, 2007
Here’s a photo of a spinner rack of postcards in Berlin, taken by Shawndra and Simon. I think I like picking out postcards more than I like writing them! I have a bad habit of buying postcards and then forgetting to mail them. If you’re interested in writing a postcard through PostCrossing, you might want [...]
June 24th, 2007
Postcrossing is a free system for helping strangers exchange postcards. You register with the site. Then you request an address to send a postcard to. The site gives you an address and an ID number. You write and mail the postcard, with the ID on it. The person who receives the card enters your ID [...]
June 3rd, 2007
I enjoy reading travel guides, newspaper articles, and blogs about places I would like to visit and places I have visited or lived in myself. I like reading other people’s points of view about where I live. Sometimes they mention things that I didn’t notice. Other times I totally disagree with them. Sometimes I disagree [...]
March 31st, 2007
Here are three web-based comic strip makers: StripGenerator has cool black and white graphics ToonDoo is very cartoony Comeeko lets you use your own photos All three are free, though you need to register. You don’t have to draw anything, just click and drag! StripGenerator and ToonDoo let you choose from their graphics to tell [...]
March 22nd, 2007
I am at the annual conference for TESOL. TESOL is an international organization for teachers who teach ESL/EFL. Many of the teachers and those who are giving presentations are also non-native speakers. It’s a really fun, informative, international event. Today I heard about an ESL class who wrote restaurant reviews and put them on the [...]
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