The other day I was teaching an upper-intermediate student who had difficulties presenting her ideas about a process. She said she finds writing much easier than speaking. “You should start an audio diary,” I suggested. “What do you mean?” she asked.
There are so many different standardised tests available to test your English skills: the Cambridge certificates, TOEIC, TOEFL, IELTS, BULATS and, here in Japan, the Eiken/STEP test. For a lot of people, these tests are pointless. If you need the certificate to get a job or a college place, go for it. If not, read … [Read more…]
One of the first things students are taught when they are learning writing skills is not to answer questions with further questions. In conversations, however, it does happen.
A few of my students have part-time jobs in cafés and restaurants. This post is for them and anyone else who needs to use English in restaurants. ‘May’ or ‘can’? Generally, when you are taking orders for people, use ‘may’; it’s more formal and customers should be respected. ‘Can’ is more informal and it’s not … [Read more…]
When you talk to or about someone you can use their name first and then afterwards use a pronoun. The problem with this is that it you can, without bad intentions, insult people or sound ignorant.
When you have to say something that needs to be in order you need to sequence your ideas. This can be done with the past, present and future. There are two main ways to do it: numbering your steps or without numbers.
When you speak sometimes you need to say exactly what you mean but at other times you need to make an impact. When you need to be dramatic, exaggerate.
When you are talking and can’t find the words you need, you need something. I’m going to tell you how ‘something’ can help you when you can’t remember vocabulary.
In today’s post we’re going to look at the filler ‘you know’. You can use it at the start or the end of a sentence.
When you talk to someone and cannot understand what they say, you need to ask questions. There are right ways and wrong ways. ‘What?!’ is wrong. So are ‘Huh?’, ‘Eh?’, ‘Come again?’ and ‘One more time.’