ESL Blogs

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

[ In Dr. Drakhshan's class ...... Suddenly his cell phone rings ]

- "  Hello, honey ! how r u ? ....... 

Aha ! Ok !... I'll buy that on the way to home.... " [ then hangs up ]

" He was my 4 y.o son... We've got a serious problem about him: can not speak Persian coz we've spoken with him in English,only and we don't know what to do for his school!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

What have u done to that boy, man ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

U've replaced English instead of his mother's tongue

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

Winning caption: "Dad!! I need a bigger bottle :D"   by Junco.

Thank you so much for all your participation! See you next time!

Learn more about Wordless Wednesday and how to write an interesting caption please click here and here. 

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

Dear Captain,

It was a happy day today. I went to visit Ling. Jingjing, Ling's adorable daughter, wrote me an invitation! In the invitation, the characters she had written were so cute. She calls her mom mom, and calls me little mom. Yes, she invited me to take part in her 4th birthday party.

Once I arrived at her home, Jingjing gave me a warm bear hug immediately. And then she asked me why I didn't go to visit her for such a long time. I didn't lie to her, just told her I was busy with study and

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.

Dear Captain,

I am out of the hosptial now. So nice I am at home, my lovely base again.

I went to a park near my home in the afternoon. The tree leaves are yellow and falling with the cool wind. I saw some young moms with their babies sitting near the little river and chatting. I also noticed a funny thing.

Hehehe, many young guys who come from foreign countries I have seen in the park like wearing slippers. Actually I have noticed this before for several times. I find it lovely. Their slippers are

 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

What a familiar topic! I've been asked so many times about my dream by different people whether family and friends or just acquaintances or even strangers. Often I feel shy to tell them my real dream. Gradually my dream becomes a secret of myself and I lock it in my deep heart.

What a nice challenge! I feel like taking it and speak out my secret. Maybe it sounds just like a joke to you, but I mean it. I want to grow old safely and become a learnt granny who has rich stories to tell.

Life is full o

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