ESL Blogs

In this blog, I just want to share with you some of more familiar and often used expressions. 

Did You Know?

1. October baby

When a person is said to be an October baby, it means that she/he was born prematurely; to be exact, she/he was born on her/his eight month. The origin of this expression was based on the meaning of October. October is the 'eight month' in the Ancient Roman calender. In the Ancient Roman, March; or it is called Martius back then, is the beginning of the year. Therefore, Octob

Hi everyone! This month I am going to ask a big favour of all of you! In a few weeks, I am going to be doing a presentation about EnglishClub's Listen To News resource. I am going to show teachers how their learners can use this resource to practise listening, reading, writing, and speaking. During my presentation, I will show some examples of how MyEC members use this resource. We have some very creative learners and teachers, and I can't wait to show off your work! Teachers from around the wor

Do you like reading news or making audio recordings for MyEC? Why don't you join our latest video challenge?

For our new activity, I would like to invite you to make a video of yourself reading one of the news from MyEC feed. The news are recorded by our admin, Tara Benwell. You can listen in the way she pronounced and narrated the news. This would help you to be familiar with tone and inflection.

Practicing reading in front of the camera would help us gain self-confidence and improve our speaking

Dear EC Members,

Though Noora is no longer a member of MyEC, I am sure many of you still remember her and her blogs. A little update I received today from her sister; 23 September 2013, Noora will be undergoing a lung transplant. I don't know the details and where she's going to have the transplant in Indonesia or Singapore. Her sister asked that all of you to pray for her. Therefore, just keep your prayers for our little sister Noora, and may she stay strong.

Thank you.

Noas (23.09.2013 - 17:23 Ma

This is the continuance of my previous blog, A Malay Wedding - Part I : The Engagement. In this blog, I will share with you the wedding ceremony.

Part Two : The Wedding

Nowadays, the wedding food preparation mostly being prepared by a catering services. But in the villages, the food were still being prepared by the people of the community. Due to the fact that my niece's wedding was to be held on the third day of Eid, our second day of Eid was busy preparing last minutes preparations. In the early

On the third day of last Eid Mubarak, my niece got married. In this blog, I want to share with you the typical Malay wedding reception. This blog will be in two parts; Part One : The Engagement and Part Two : The Wedding

Part One : The Engagement

Before I tell you about the wedding itself, let me tell about the engagement ceremony. For a Malay lady, the engagement ceremony is elaborate and still as traditional as it was years ago. When a Malay man wants to ask a hand of marriage for a particular l

This is a the continuance of my previous blog about the Legend of The Princess of Ledang Mountain.

Continuance from Part I

With a heavy heart, Hang Tuah agreed to wait at the foot of the mountain. Tun Mamat and the rest of the warrior then proceed to hike the mountain. After a few more days, Tun Mamat noticed the surrounding of the mountain had changed. The weather was getting cooler and they can smell sweet smell of flowers all around. He then realised that they were no longer in the wild mounta

MyEC is getting close to 100,000 members. How should we celebrate this milestone? How many of you were here when we celebrated our 20,000th member? Some of us waited up through the night to find out who it would be! 

If you have any ideas for celebrating our 100,000th member, please leave a comment! We will need some members to help organize and plan the celebration! When do you think it will happen? Take a guess in the comments below, and share your ideas.

This blog is an answer to Junco's Photo Challenge; September # 2 - Must Eat Dishes. Malaysians' favourite past time is eating, thus we have so many 'must eat dishes'. In addition, Malaysia is a melting pots of so many races and cultures and it reflects in our food. 

The 'must eat dishes' in Malaysia are:-

1. Satay

Satay is a skewered meats grilled on an open fire. The meats can be chicken, beef or other types of meats, but chicken satay and beef satay are still the most popular satay. Satay is serv

Hello everyone! I want to share some strategies I use when learn English especially speaking. There are more strategies in another English skills like in Listening, Reading and Writing. For now let me write about speaking first. I wish you like it, enjoy ….

In speaking

Cognitive strategies

1.    I  use rhymes to remember new English words

2.    I try to remember new English words by pronouncing them

3.    I speak a word or sentence several times to remember it

4.    I try to learn a new pattern by mak

In this blog, I want to share with you another famous Malay legend/myth. It is called 'Puteri Gunung Ledang' which literally can be translated as The Princess of Ledang Mountain. 

Princess of Ledang Mountain : Part I

Ledang Mountain is located between two states in Malaysia, Johor and Melaka. Legend has it that until to date, this mountain is being guarded by the legendary Princess who is a fairy.

According to the legend, Sultan Mahmud Syah, the eight King of Melaka was in a deep mourning due to th

Hey all, I have decided to bring back the Did You Know? series when every time I read something interesting, I kept on saying to myself, 'This is nice to be shared as Did You Know? series'. This was also because of my small chat with a respectable chatter, Asif Ali, Zindani.

Did you know that there are many idioms or expression based from myth or legend. Here I want to share some of them with you.

Thank you rysperski and Asif Ali, Zindani.for sharing some other expressions/idioms that are based fr

My good friend Shelly Terrell shared this useful Infographic today. A lot of these points are useful for MyEC members. Is there anything you disagree with? What did you learn from this infographic? Are you a good digital citizen?

Knowthenet presents Manners Matter the online Netiquette Do's and Don'ts infographic.

 When I was a child, I intended to be a pilot of  modern airplanes. Let me explain: I have always liked the exciting world of aviation: modern aircrafts, great airlines and respectful aeronautical industries like Airbus or Boeing, by the way, keep on being them, the most preferred factories  by me,  when it comes to the production of airplanes. I even started a collection of airplane magazines called "Flap Magazine" in my young ages, that today, unfortunately, is finished up.

  Nowadays, my plans

You may have noticed the Tags when you were publishing a blog post. Tags are just some of the key words from your blogs. Some members may add “correction” or “corrections” to the tags, which means they will appreciate corrections made by other members (usually, English teachers, native English speakers or advanced learners).

Some members, however,  may find it embarrassing to be corrected that way (in public) - they may send their blogs to a teacher for correction (in private). 

I just tried to ma

I have a Dream

When I was a child, my dream kept on changing. One day, I wanted to be a policewoman, another day a soldier, and yet another day, I wanted to be a doctor. Living in a village with a few modern facilities such as electricity and television (at that time only a few houses had a television), my exposure to the world was through books and teachers. To be a policewoman or a soldier was such an honoured profession in my parents' eyes that I wanted to be one. Then, through the classes, I

This post had been edited to include several expressions/idioms given by Gil Gaudia, Ph.D. Tara Benwell and Gabriel Sowrian. 

Isn't it interesting that the name 'John' is so generic that two well-known phrases use it?  I wonder if there are other names that are used generically?. Thank you Gil Gaudia, Ph.D.  for the corrections. 

Did You Know?

1. Dear John Letter

Did you know that a 'Dear John letter' means the end of a relationship. Basically it's a letter from a woman to her boyfriend or husband t

This week marked the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. MLK delivered his speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC 50 years ago. 

I visited the exact location where MLK delivered his famous speech just a few weeks ago with my family. Taking the kids to the site where MLK delivered his speech was a very memorable experience for me. I took short video clips of my children telling me their own dreams for the future. Thanks to people like MLK who

This is such a heartwarming and feel good story. Peggy Shafer and Muriel Cowley, both seventy nine years old, had been writing to each other since they were both ten years old young girls. They had been writing to each other telling stories about their lives, school, siblings, hobbies and such since the World War II. Please click here to read their full and amazing story.

Soon both Peggy and Muriel found out that they had many things in common, thus formed a strong and long lasting friendship thr

British MP George Galloway eloquently describes the hypocrisy of the UK and US regimes:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35970.htm