ESL Blogs

Some of you know that I am now living in Saudi Arabia.  If you read my earlier post, you know about my "Day Job" during the school year.  Now that school is finishing up for the summer I have time to comment on my "Night Job".  I still must work four hours each morning, but it is much easier than during the school year.

Every Saturday through Wednesday night, I am teaching English to adults in a Private English Language Institute.  People pay to take English classes here after they have finished

Here's a great news for Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling fans. J. K. Rowling has launched a new website called POTTERMORE.com.

Website's page holds two owls' picture against a red back ground. But you'd have to wait till June 23rd to know what it's actually about. I'm feeling a little curious. How about you?

Note: Pictures are from website and I do not own them.

                      Toronto University, Main Entrance. Photos are taken by me. I didn'y know if I am allowed to take photos of inside the building.

                      This was the first day I went to see the university ,so, I wasn't familiar with the campus at all. This is a main building. There was a squirrel playing up on the hill which is shown like a brown dot in the photo. Can you find it?

                      This is university's yard. It is very beautiful and there is a pond in th

There are many ways to celebrate birthdays. Generally they have a party and which would by attended by family or friends by inviting them to eat together at a restaurant. Convenience as the availability of a birthday cake, and other delicious food, cards, candles and all that goes to celebrate. 

Far different from them, I celebrated my birthday, staying on the bed, cell phone in my hand and I sang a birthday song to myself, remembering past years I have passed. only that ...  no special celebrat

Have you heard of Seth Godin? He is a blogger with a huge fan base. People enjoy his style of writing and his mission to motivate. He wants people to be doers.

Seth Godin has great advice for business people, marketers, and anyone who has a creative idea. Why is Seth Godin a good model for bloggers? He carefully chooses every word. 

For this month's writing challenge, we are going to work on a writing skill called paraphrasing. We are going to borrow some of Seth's blog posts to practise this sk

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY WINNER:  Ranu who wrote: "This little girl is a future scientist. So she says (the caption):

"Do you know that there are more than 100 products made from pork?"

I chose this one because this is something she would probably say. This kid knows far too many facts for her age because she memorizes every word she reads! 

happy even single until now:)....

An angel whispered to me to choose this caption, submitted by Ida, Congratulations!

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One of my drawings ...

Could you give your comments or captions here? Please and I will glad to accept them, thanks!

-Nadiyah-

I've noticed some members just keep writing blogs/blog posts, but don't really like to read or leave a comment on blogs from other members. Don't get me wrong - I mean we do encourage you to write blogs, but we also encourage you to leave a comment on blogs by other members.

Would you like others to comment on your blog?

It seems that everyone wants others to comment on their blog. So many people still remember how excited when they saw a comment on what they just wrote. Some members may wonder w

Plants need water to grow.

When the water is abundant they grow more leaves and forget to produce fruits.

When the water is scarce they feel that they are going to die soon, they produce fruits to continue their generation. 

Just water your plants enough to keep their normal life!

  The prices of commodities are zooming up as fast as the bullet trains. We should take considerations on saving money, petrol, electricity and water and take advantage the free health and community services offered by the government.

  On buying thing like clothes or gadgets, we must first ask ourselves if we really need it. Are you familiar in impulse buying? Sometimes, we only buy things just to spend or we think it look good to us. Not clearly thinking if it is essentially important. A typica

Listen to this post

Did anyone watch Oprah's final show? I did. I even took a picture of my TV to capture the final moment. The only TV show I missed when I spent a year without TV was Oprah.

Why did I miss Oprah last year, and why will I miss her in the years to come? I used to think it was because Oprah offered a mini break from life. At 4:00 PM, for many years, I took a break from school, work, or motherhood to relax in front of the TV.  A few weeks ago, my husband hooked our TV back up for t

Last week I joined my class field lecture in Pacitan, East Java for a week. Well, we had so much activity to did and so less time for a rest. For each day we just had approximately 4 hours to sleep. We had to wake up at 5 a.m, and as soon as went to take a bath. If you're late, you had to wait in long queue, because just there were 4 bathrooms for approximately 50 persons,, hahaha..

After breakfast, at 7 a.m, we had to left our basecamp and went to field we had to survey. We practice different me

Please click on the play button to hear my voice.

Please click on the play button to hear my voice.

On the way to the village, we listened to different Iranian musics. One of which was an Iranian-Turkish song that my father loves it so much. Therefore, the audioplayer played it so many times. You can listen to the music while seeing the attached photos (Please click on the following link to see the photos). On the way to Abyaneh

Please click on the following link to see the related phot

Have you tried out Fotobabble yet? This is a fun tool for talking about pictures. You need to have a microphone to use it.

The Fotobabble team has had its eye on MyEC since we began playing Fotobabble tag. Yesterday, they contacted me and invited us to test out their new feature: Fotobabble Slideshows. 

Will you help me test it out? 

Find more videos like this on EnglishClub.com

This is what you need to do: 

1) Choose a blog post on MyEC that meant a lot to you! It can be yours or a friends. Tak

Have you seen the beautiful welcome messages that some members of our Welcoming Committee have created? These members create their own images and text to place on the walls of new members.  Ali inspired many members to do this. These messages sometimes include useful links. I am so thankful for the members who take the time to do this good deed. It means so much!

Here is a new MyEC challenge for you inspired by Ali: Create your own MyEC Welcome Message

Your Task
1) Create a unique welcome messa

What kind of food accompanies you while you're online? This is my first question to you and myself. I tell you, one of the favorite foods that commonly accompanies me when I am online ... is shrimp vegetable fritter (bakwan udang). I'm able to digest more than ten pieces, the reason why I got fat now (haha ..). Fried food is very simple and can easily be cooked (visit this link : recipe shrimp vegetable fritter).  

In Indonesia, generally this cuisine is served during rest time, while watching T

I've been a proud mom and always will be.  Therefore, I wanted to write something about my son and my fulfillment about being his mother.  I wanted to share the joy of my motherhood.  But in the end, I found myself writing about someone else's children.

Last night, I came across a folder of photos containing my trip to Sri Lanka last September. Something pinched my heart while looking at them.  How could have I easily forgotten about them - the children at the orphanages I visited?  Here I am a

Today, I asked a question in the OR (hospital's operating room). I hesitated to ask at first - what if I asked a stupid question? Would my Canadian counterparts look down on me because of a stupid question? But, the attending (a high ranking doctor) said, 'Good question! I know in Asia you don't...but in Canada we do...'.

So, here comes my question: What could be a 'stupid question'? Teachers usually want their students to ask questions. And, a question can be a good title for an article, or a go

"Listen, Speak, Read, Write. Nuff said."

this caption submitted by Tara Benwell, Congratulations to you!

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One of ways to improve my English, I will print out the news text and bring it wherever I go ...

Hello friends,

please put your great captions or comments for this photo, It is fun. Thanks for your particiaptions!

-Nadiyah-

Have any of you ever heard of Storybird? It's a fun website that allows you to write your own stories based on beautiful art by professional artists. I learned about Storybird via Russell Stannard at the IATEFL conference in the UK last month.