American Idioms 3 with Dana

We’re well into the first week of Spring quarter, so let’s continue English learning with all five of your senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. You may use these five senses to understand the world, but you can also use them to communicate. In other words, speak with your senses! Many English idioms use the senses to express different ideas. That’s the topic of the third video lesson with Dana. Watch the video and the next time you have a conversation, use your senses in a creative way! Recommended for intermediate and advanced learners (Levels 400+).

You can also review Dana’s previous Idioms Lessons 1 (Body Parts) and 2 (Food)

Dana’s American Idioms, Lesson 3 – Senses

TOEFL Friday

This Friday, 4/29 is TOEFL testing day for our students! Get into top testing condition with 4Tests TOEFL. The link takes you to Practice Test A, and you can also try Practice Test B.

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You can also review more TOEFL resources from our previous TOEFL test prep posts. Browse the tags and categories for other resources.

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Imagine with Storynory!

Bring your imagination to life with Storynory! Here, you can read and listen to many interesting and creative works. This includes original stories, classic audio books, poems and music, fairy tales, educational stories, myths and world stories, and junior stories.

Storynory is a great way to have fun with English learning–let the words build an interesting, new world in your imagination! Recommended for beginner and intermediate learners (Levels 100-400).

The Hamburger Essay

Writers know that the basic model for an essay is introduction, body, and conclusion. Think of this model as a hamburger–the two bread buns are the beginning and end, and the meat patty is the body, where all the essential flavor of your essay is. But your flavor, your writing quality, may start off bland. You need to practice–do many writing exercises, read a lot (especially examples of good writing), and write as many drafts as you need to until your “flavor” is delicious.

Read the article How to Write an Essay and see how the author Kenneth Beare explains this hamburger essay model. Continue with his 30 minute writing exercise; watch the video and follow the steps and see how good of a “hamburger” you can make! Recommended for intermediate and advanced learners (Levels 400+).

How to Write an Essay article preview:

Browse the tags and categories for more resources.

Time to say HelloTalk!

At the start of this Spring quarter, now’s the time to meet new friends and reconnect with classmates and teachers from Winter quarter. Say hello, chat, study together, and hang out! Those kinds of language exchanges with other English speakers are great ways to have fun with English learning. Continue those fun language exchanges with the app HelloTalk. It’s a great way to continue practicing even when you’re studying by yourself.

With HelloTalk, you can choose to learn from over 100 languages. Native speakers from around the world are your teachers. Once you connect with people of other languages, you can begin message and chat exchanges to learn speaking while making new friends. There are many useful features like translation, grammar correction, free calls, voice-to-text or text-to-voice support.

The app is available on Android and iOS.

Welcome Back! Time to Ace Your Class

Welcome back to our students in this first week of Spring quarter! Let’s start this quarter right as a successful student. This means focusing and participating in class, studying after class, and completing homework. However, there’s more to being a successful student–you need good study skills and habits!

That’s why we’ve created our new page on Study Skills and Habits (click this link or go to the top menu). On this page, you can check your learning styles, improve your study skills, and build good habits for academic success.

Don’t wait until the end of the quarter to work on school–do it from the beginning and you’ll ace your class. Good luck this quarter!

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Let’s Talk English for Spring!

Hello! This blog is back, up and running for Spring quarter! We’ll continue to update twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays (and sometimes more).

Classes for our International Education Programs begin next week Monday, so it’s time to get back into top English condition. Especially, you will be talking a lot as you live in America: you’ll be traveling, going to restaurants and stores, reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, greeting your teachers, and discussing in class. During all these interactions, fluency is important to expressing yourself and communicating with others.

So let’s follow the useful tips from 7 expert teachers on achieving native fluency in the video below!

Browse the tags and categories for more resources.