ESL Blogs

At the beginning of April I took part in a teachers’ training “Teaching English Through ICT Is Fun”, organized by ITC in Prague and funded within COMENIUS LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME by Polish National Agency.

I would like to share with you some useful tips on encouraging creativity and using ICT to make teaching and learning English more fun.

The first training session dealt with creative thinking. To encourage creative thinking, you can give your students a number of tasks where (it’s the most e

QUIZ 6 is a bit tough, huh!  Take a look at the RESULT of your quiz based on Lesson 6.  Percentage is computed by the following formula:  

                      Raw Score/Total Number of Items x 100 = %

Let's CONGRATULATE RABAB, KIRIKU and SOFIA  for making it to the top.  For those who didn't, please study harder! And for those who failed, you still have a chance.  Answer key is given to recheck your work.

ANSWER KEY

Dear Learners, welcome to QUIZ 6.  If you think you are not ready to take the quiz

This is the RESULT of your quiz based on Lesson 5 (Confusing Words).  Percentage is computed by the following formula:  

                      Raw Score/Total Number of Items x 100 = %

CONGRATULATIONS to the Learners who made it to the top.  For those who didn't, it's not yet too late because the MAJOR EXAM is yet to come.  Answer key is given to recheck your work.

ANSWER KEY 

Dear Learners, welcome to QUIZ 5.  If you think you are not ready to take the quiz, click the icon below and it will take yo

"I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English."                                                                                                                                   -Anonymous

Click the icon below if you want to see the schedule of the lessons:

I couldn’t describe it, but I wanted to share it.  This time, I failed to write the precise words that would give a vivid picture of what I truly felt.  I was stunned, fell short of words, too happy, or maybe too excited.  Oh, I don’t know, but I really felt grateful as I am, always. 

I guess this was what others felt when they published their first blog after being dormant for a very long time. 

Guess what!  The first group I created yesterday after having stayed in EC for almost 4 years, has bee

    Do you know what the colors of time are? When the seasons change, each has its own featured color. All tiny green leaves are growing and tell you that spring has come. Summer arrives with golden sunshine and red flowers, and in Vietnam it is called flower for students, because it blossoms just in summer and it warns of the end of the long school year. Yellow falling leaves are an absolute sign of autumn, the most beautiful season of the year with little cold breezes and thin fog. Early in th

First of all, It is a new way of expression for me. So, I want to say thanks for giving me a chance to learn a new thing. Of course, there are some Life hacks in my life also, but I am not sure whereas I would be able to write down properly or not! Okay, lets try.

1. Put same color clothes in a place - It is worthy in many ways. For example, it would be time consuming to locate, no need to be worried to get stain and after washing you may hang and place them together.

2.Use a pinch of salt-  If yo

Hi Tara! 

I’m a Honeybee! I would like to nominate myself for the Mascot of EC. I have the following grounds for wanting to be considered for the post. Please peruse at your leisure!  

1. A honeybee is part of a colony - a closely-knit family, like the EC community, to be precise! Our colony consists of a queen, drones and workers. 

2. The colony wouldn’t have come into existence without our benevolent sovereign, the queen. The way I see it, you have your own caring sovereign, Mr Josef Essberger wh

Ah.. I guess everybody are very happy with this topic, and so curious to know how to make our life easier.. Even I know this life hacks, but have yet to do it... Not 100% guaranteed.

1. Heat a corn wrapped in a plastic in the microwave  
Put a corn inside a plastic, and heat it in a microwave, just in a couple of minutes you will get a very delicious steamed corn, you have to put it inside a plastic to keep it fresh, unless it will dry. I'm not sure about the safety.

2. Not to promote, but buy

Most of my life hacks came from my Mom which sometimes can be viewed as 'old wives tales'. However, later on, I gathered more reasonable life hacks through articles and friends. In here, I want to share both life hacks; the 'old wives tales' kinds and the reasonable ones.

1. Use Unmatched/Unusable Socks As Wiper

Most of us are always facing with large collections of unmatched/unusable socks. We always ended up throwing away those socks. I learnt those socks are the best wiper ever. Just use those

Who has ever get jealous with other people?

There's a painting on the wall of chapel in Pandua, made by Renaissance artist, named Giotto. He depicted envy as a creature with big and long ear, which can hear every bit of news of another's success, but also a tongue of a serpent to poison the reputation of the one of being envied.

And, what's even more interesting from that painting, the creature is blind, because the serpent bite its own eye, and destroying itself with its venomous evil.

When we env

A big goal usually is something in the medium future or maybe in the far future.Sometimes the problem with big goals is that in the beginning, it inspires us, it gives us energy and we feel excited, but when things became tough and very difficult, as every tougher achievement behind have challenges. We give up to stay the phase.. because the goal actually hurt us & making feel bad & weak to go ahead for future move, it just feels too difficult and too far, even sometimes it leaves less motivatio

"The most powerful way to win an argument is by asking questions. You'd be surprised at how it can make people see the flaws in their logic." via @LifeHacks

Have you heard the expression "life hack"? This is a trendy expression that is commonly used as a blog topic. A "life hack" is a creative solution (or a creative way of doing something) that makes life easier. A life hack usually simplifies a task. It is often something that many other people don't know or realize.

When you share a life hack,

I woke up on Saturday March 8 like any other day. Moaning and groaning. Dragging my feet to do the screaming laundry. Even the happy chirps from all those birds can't brighten my mood. I did not listen to the television nor do I log into my Facebook. I was in a bliss trying to do some sorts of housework. After I felt human enough and pacified those screaming laundry, I log into my Facebook. I was shock when most of status were about the disappearance of MH370, a Malaysian flight bound to Beijing

I feel sorry when a learning platform is invaded by perverts, having the intention to learn and to know people around the world, it is really sad to chat with person whose the aim is to chat with girls and driving them to a video conversation just to talk dirty and show them bad things.
I feel sorry for EC, it is a nice place with nice people but those perverts can make it a bad place !!!
I have a message for those perverts: EC is for good intentions, and if you don't have the willing to change yo

                                                            Friends,

                               As all of us know about the incident of plane MH-370 !

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport en route to Beijing at 00:41 on Saturday 8 March (16:41 GMT Friday).

About 50 minutes later, the aircraft lost contact with air traffic control.

No distress call was made.

On board, there were 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 countries. That included 15

Dear Captain,

After a long while, I've calmed myself down from my deteriorative memory and my stupid mistake and decided to write to you again. I am sorry that a thing happened in last June which drove me crazy delayed my letters to you. I hope everything is going well with you.

In that gloomy June, my belief was destroyed by Grandma Zeng's death. I thought I was getting better just as mom always encouraged. It turned out my condition rapidly worsened and it caused a big pity as well as made me lo

Failing in exams is one of the common problems that many school, college and university students face during their lifetime. There is not one, but a number of reasons that can be associated with this problem. Every student has a different style of learning, and therefore, one problem or one solution cannot be generalized. Here is a list of reasons, which many times lead to exam failure, and their appropriate solutions.

1. Plain reading instead of learning

In my education counseling career, I have

Some of my friends say Mickey lacks common sense because sometimes I ask them stupid questions. But at the same time, they tell me the answers patiently, giggling. Unluckily, I wasn't born a genius, therefore I have a lot of things that I don't understand and I have to learn little by little.

I have asked quite a few people a question: Why is my skin yellow, my eyes are black and so is my hair? Why are some others white skinned with yellow or brown hair and blue eyes and more hairy? Why there are