ESL Blogs

Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? This is the short form for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, at least 300,000 people try to write the first draft of a novel in just 30 days. To complete this personal challenge, NaNoWrimo participants have to write 50,000 words between November 1-30. 

I've always wondered what it would be like to write a novel so quickly. My first novel took me ten years to outline, draft, revise (a million times), polish, edit, and publish! This year, since I'm feeling a

There are not many keys on my keychain.  It says that my way of life is simple. There aren't many doors or locks I need to open, and it also shows that I like my bag lightweight, so I usually leave the keys I don't in use at home.  

One of the keys is my steel horse (motorbike) key, which tells that I need it to go to work every day. It's a good partner that is always ready for me no matter how the weather is, taking me to the places I need to be. I really appreciate it.   

The other two keys, a p

You can listen to the audio version of the blog here.

I only have three keys. I never paid attention that I do not have so many keys:one for the entrance door and the other for my car. The third one is an extra key that I made for my dad last year.He came to Canada to visit me and as such, an extra key was made for him. I think the reason that I do not have different keys with different key-chains is that I do not like to carry so many objects with me. I like to have a neat and organized purse

It has been a while since we've done a "getting to know you" exercise on MyEC. I hope you'll join me in this month's writing challenge! 

For this writing challenge, I will need you to reach into your purses, knapsacks, or coat pockets and grab your keys. Set your keys out in front of you and have a good look at them.

What does your keychain say about you? 

When we use the word "say" in this way, we do not mean to speak out loud. The word "say" can also mean "to reveal/show/prove/suggest". For examp

Are you an English learner? Do you like spending quality time on MyEC?

Do you have the following goals?

1. To be fluent in English.

2. To develop my confidence in speaking the English language.

3. To improve proper pronunciation.

If your answer is yes, then we have the same goals! I truly believe that learning a language involves commitment, hard work and patience. I would like to present to you some tips that I've been following to improve my English.

1. Set goal/s that you want to achieve.

    Your g

" Come here, messy boy, let me clean your mouth for you!"

The winning caption was submitted by Ha Nguyen. 

Hello, everyone welcome to Wordless Wednesday. At the very beginning, I didn't think I was lucky enough to catch these two creatures simultaneously. I only aimed my camera at one of them that was moving on the tree. After few minutes before I intended to shoot it, the other one appeared miraculously from another branch. No doubt I pressed t

Hi, everyone. 

First of all, receive my warmest regards 

Well, here I am again writing a few lines to express my feelings about EC. 

When I first came to EC in 2005 , I was barely an English teacher trainee and I was scared of making grammar mistakes on the forums. However, several members made feel comfortable to write as much as I could so that I would practice more and more. 

But I didn't come by chance. My "English I" professor asked me (us, my classmates and I) to meet people abroad and exchang

Learn English with Kaplan

From the infographic above, we can see that there are four main benefits from learning a language: love, travel, intelligence and money. And, it's interesting to see that being a bilingual person can increase our chances to get a better life. I remember I read research posted on an online news that bilingual students performed better in various tasks than monolingual students just like the result that was shown by the infographic.

If I was asked to determine, which is th

If life is a metaphor for an article, then taking a trip will be an exclamation mark. This year I've visited some places for a short trip not far from my city, but this time I spent three days in the north of Taiwan. During the trip, we explored the natural landscapes of the mountains, the coastlines and the old towns. In order to survey the best scenery and take some great photos, we didn't mind at all climbing and walking a lot to the top of the mountains. Imaging yourself is part of the local

In the fast changing world,public teaching is also changing.As part of the changes the teachers role and authority in the classroom .

In the past teachers used to be the major source of knowledge ,the leader and educator of their students ,they used to be the authority in the class, but nowadays teachers need to teach their learners how to gain the information and how to select and use them,but the main problem is that the role of the teacher is changing day by day ,and  teachers face many proble

Some of you took part in Kaplan's blog competition a few months back. It was a great experience, wasn't it? Here is another opportunity to practise your writing. Kaplan is holding a new blog competition (Sept 28-Oct 26), and you are invited. It is called "Inspire Language Learning". Find the details on how to enter here. You can write your post on your MyEC Blog. Let me know if you need help embedding the infographic. Don't forget to vote for your favourite post. You may recognize one of the jud

If you have ever seen a Japanese movie Quill, you would probably not unfamiliar to the dog Labrador. Last week, I got a chance to learn more about guide dogs from a non-profit charity organization. Here I'm sharing some of what I've learned with you, and was wondering if it is allowed to bring guide dogs or pets entering the public places in your country?

Commonly, the breeds of Labrador retrievers, Golden retrievers, and German shepherd dogs are most potentially to be picked thanks to their work

Story About My Painting - Colour of My Passion

Often I have something to tell, but I can’t really do it in words. I am kind a weak in describing things. That is when I will start to paint.

I will paint to describe how I feel about something. This is a painting about how I feel about my passion.Sometimes, the painting came out not as what I thought from the first place. I thought of something else but as it gets on going, something else came out.

First

I was sitting in a reception of an office, wait

I'm impressed by the spirit and passion of the EC members in posting discussions topics and blogs. But, unfortunately, many of them ignore (perhaps unintentionally) kinds of rule in writing such as capitalization in the tittle, name of a person, place, the use of punctuation marks and so on. Some of them even think that the usage of the colors is more important than the correctness on how a text or writing should be presented. I'm not sure what the reasons behind it. Maybe they don't know about

This morning when I came from school I was thinking about how people behave when they are in public and when they talk in private! 

Sometimes You see in chat someone is very naughty and even rude sometimes, but when You talk to them in private You see completely different person. This new person can be very kind and friendly and may be even sensitive! 

So my question is why such difference? Is it some kind of protection? What do You think?

Have you ever wondered if you, your child, or a friend might be dyslexic? Dyslexia is a condition that is inherited, and ranges from mild to severe. A dyslexic person's brain does not function in the same way an average person's brain functions. The weakness is related to the processing of language. The word dyslexia comes from the Greek words dys (difficulty) and lexia (language). 

Dyslexia is not simply a reading disorder. Dyslexics may also have difficulty with writing, spelling, pronunciati

 Ohhhh, I’m not good in cooking. But you can do it. Very easy…

Now, we need :

-  4 eggs

-  1 can of milk (500ml)- sweetened condensed milk

-   Mold (make from aluminum)

-   Liquidizer + Sifter

-   3 sugar spoons.

* First,  We break 4 eggs + milk  into liquidizer. Add 750ml hot water together. See….

* Second, open your liquidizer and mix them around 5 minutes. Be careful, if your liquidizer is small, you need to take care of it.

* Now, finish? OK, next step, put 3 sugar spoons into your mold. A little wa

Recently, I read a newspaper about psychology of queuing when people are waiting to do something. Passengers in Houston airport gave a number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim area many years ago.

They later increased some baggage employees for settling the issue. This method helped to reduce wait times, however, the complaints didn't vanish. So, the airport took an in-depth analysis, finding that about 88 % of passengers' time was wasted on waiting their baggage, and made anoth

I always believe that the initial purpose why main room was created is that members have a place when they can learn English in fun ways. Well, of course the definition of fun is something constructive to build up people and not to destroy them.

Sometimes, it is boring to chat about serious topics on main room, especially when we have a boring day or just don't have a good mood for something serious. Well, then maybe we can play games on main room.

These last three months I have seen some members

For this month's writing challenge, Tara Benwell posted another educational blog about compound nouns. She is inviting us to participate on this challenge, and make our own compound noun list as well.

Here are some compound nouns that I'm not familiar with. Could you help me define these words? Please make sentences using the compound nouns that are listed below. You can write down your answers on the comment section. 

My Word List

1. blue-green

2. breakwater

3. spoonfuls

4. cheapskate

5. fire-fly

6. lo