My father and his wife are doing some traveling this month. Their cruise ship made a stop in Belgium this week, and my stepmom shared an excerpt from her travel diary that I thought you might be interested in. The poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae is one that most Canadian children learn in school, and it is interesting to learn more of the history behind it. My stepmom gave me permission to share her excerpt with you. I hope you find this post as interesting as I did. Maybe it will inspi
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Let me share with you some facts about Malaysia. Some facts that are not well known, quirky and sometimes, totally obscure. (I have added and made some amendments from the original blog)
Only In Malaysia:-
Independence Day
Malaysia celebrates its Independence Day twice in a year. Once every August 31 which we called "Hari Kemerdekaan - Independence Day", and the other one is every September 16 of which we called "Hari Malaysia - Malaysia Day".
Malaya; this is the former name of Malaysia got its ind
It's a rare chance for me to meet with people who want to learn my national language, Bahasa Indonesia. The language is less popular than English or Spanish. So, I won't expect to see many people want to learn it. But, I accidentally found people from various countries who are learning my national language.
They are learning to improve their writing in Bahasa. And we, Indonesians change our roles there. We become the native speakers that could correct their writing in exchange for correction on o
Maybe you have felt or even said,
"No one visits my page or leaves comments for me"
Is this you?
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Don't be sad, be active on MyEC. If you become very active and treat your friends the way you want to be treated, you will be popular and also begin to improve as a person and hopefully as an English student.
We sometimes get a message from a friend on MyEC complaining that their friends don't comment or say hello. PLEASE DON'T MESSAGE US ABOUT HOW NO ON
A little note from me. Someone pointed out to me that it was not supposed to be Rin Tin Tin - for the comic. It was supposed to be called Tin Tin. Forgive me if I gave the wrong impression. I was talking about the Belgian Comic Book. Some people may call it Tin Tin. But for me, it was always Rin Tin Tin. Anyway, whether it was Tin Tin or Rin Tin Tin, I will be forever grateful for my English Hero.
I love reading. As far as I could remember, I would always have a book, magazine or even a comic in
"This short story is dedicated to Tara Benwell who showed me that I can write something totally alien to me. To Mickey for always come up with many interesting stories. To my dearest friends, Grape and Eric who first motivated me to write. To all my EC friends, thank you for the friendship."
"Knock, knock". Just looking at that simple words, suddenly my dreadful day seems to be of the past.
"Where have you been?" I asked.
"I haven't seen you in a few days."
"Are you okay?" I know I was bombarding h
Hi guys :) After a long time of silence I am coming back with new blog. This is about Practicing/ Teaching Online!!
Here are few things You can do - read blogs like this, listen to songs in English, talk with other people online!
Reading blogs
Here we can find many useful blogs. All we need to do is to find blog according to our likes! It's better to read about things we really like.
Listen to songs
Find songs with lyrics and sing along :) That was how I learned pronunciation.
Talking to others o
My older brother built a stage in our basement for my kids last week! We painted the wall behind the stage with chalkboard paint. This way, the kids and their friends can draw whatever scene or message they want for their plays and performances.
The chalkboard paint has a special warning on it:
Wait three days before drawing on chalkboard surface.
You can imagine how hard it is for my kids to wait! They are eager to draw their first scene and perform their first show. In the meantime, I can't hel
First of all, I would like to extend my gratitude for all great persons who manage and administrate this great site .. really I have learned a lot of English stuff here and my English gets better and better only thorough EC than any other English site .. and i am very happy with this blog posted by TARA because it is good opportunity to show you the methods and ways that EC site introduce it to us which helped me to improve English better and better as following:-
1- Learning new vocabularies and
I wrote this blog based on Tara's Practising English Online Challenge. I've added some information and made some amendments from my original blog.
Years ago, I stumbled upon EC when I was looking for an English Chat Room to alleviate my boredom. I met many good friends, but at that time, not many English Teachers or native English Speakers joined the Chat Room. When I re-entered EC somewhere in October last year, EC had changed. I found out many English Teachers and also native English Speakers w
I just returned from an excellent TESOL convention in Dallas, Texas. The annual convention provides professional development for English language teachers from all over the world. I always enjoy listening to the ideas of teachers, administrators, publishers, and writers. Like every year, I always come home feeling inspired.
This year, I attended an excellent session on materials writing. In the English language teaching (ELT) industry, a materials writer is someone who writes materials (tests, l
My wife and I decided that we would attend the TESOL Arabia meetings last month. It was over 6,000 km of driving and two weeks of our hard earned vacation, but we also got to see Dubai and Oman for the first time.
Arriving in Dubai we had an impressive view (in the dark) of this very modern and very clean city. I took this photo two days later.
We missed the first day of TESOL because the people responsible for getting our exit visas took five days getting our papers so we could leave Saudi Arabi
Did you know that our exposure to light can have an effect on our mood? Sometimes this can be strong enough to make people depressed and tired all of the time. When a person is more strongly affected and feels depressed (especially in the Winter) they might have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
Now that the days are beginning to get longer in the Northern Hemisphere, many people with SAD may notice an improvement in their moods. This is even more likely the further North you live.
Lighting in
To Chat or not to chat, that is the question
The chat room here is as good or as bad as you allow it to be. Not every person who comes here to My EC comes with a good intention. Not every person is a "good" person. There are some who come to prey on others. They enjoy abusing others or they are looking to take advantage or prey on others. It is up to each person here whether this is allowed or not. If you permit it, you become part of the problem because you are encouraging it. Every time
If you want to improve your spelling, visit the following link:
100 Most Often Misspelled Words in English
Good luck! 
Writing - Basics
Each Paragraph should begin with a topic sentence. It is a general statement that tells the reader what this paragraph is about and what the controlling idea is. Everything in the paragraph should relate to that idea. “If a sentence or idea in a paragraph does not relate to the main idea, the paragraph lacks unity.” You want the idea to be general yet specific enough that you can talk about one subject or aspect. If it is too general, your paragraph will be too long and cumb
How do you want to be remembered? Write one sentence in the past tense about how you want people to remember you.
For example: "She was a generous neighbour who was always there to lend a hand."
This challenge may change the way you live your life!
Share your sentence with us in one of the following ways:
3 Options For Joining the MyEC One Sentence Challenge
- Take a video of yourself holding up a sign with your sentence. Read the sentence out loud. (just a few seconds please)
- Take a picture of yourself
This blog is written based on Tara Benwell "unfinished sentence" challenge http://my.englishclub.com/profiles/blogs/finish-my-story
Suddenly at 3:00 am, as suddenly as she started, the crying stopped. We looked at each other. Relief was clearly written on our faces. Gently I put the baby back on her sleeping cot. She looked so peaceful. We took a few more minutes and just trying to savour the moment.
After a while, we tip toed from her cot. I decided to leave the sleeping lamp on and left the door
Hi writers! We've had a few serious months of writing, so now it's time to have a little fun. You'll need a partner for this month's writing challenge!
Your Task
1) Ask a MyEC friend to write an incomplete sentence that could be the start of a story.
2) Start a new blog post. Use your friend's sentence to write the beginning of a short story. Use the title: Writing Challenge: Finish my sentence [Be sure to give credit to your friend for the example sentence.] Write for a few minutes until your mi
