General Notes about my English lessons and life in Viet Nam.
Author: Thay Paul's notes
London-born English teacher, now living and working in Sai Gon, Viet Nam.
I want to use this site to post lesson notes, extra work, helpful links as well as general notes about my time in SE Asia and Viet Nam. I also want to give real classroom experiences and how to deal with real classes of noisy, unmotivated and resistant students. Additionally, I'll be posting links to films, publishing plays and stories, and introducing friends who work in the arts.
2 – King Arthur was based on a ruler but probably a Duke, not a King. Dick Turpin was real, while we are still not sure if Robin Hood was real.
3 – Robin Hood / Dick Turpin / King Arthur / Robin Hood / Dick Turpin / Robin Hood
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
An activity that combines listening & reading, collecting information, and allows for creative thinking, not to mention introducing students to different cultures and legends.
Today we are going to learn about some of the ancient Egyptian gods. First, where is Egypt ? In which continent is Egypt ?
Egypt is in the north – east of Africa.
What ancient buildings can you see in Egypt ?
The Pyramids, the largest one was built about 2,500 BC (about 4,500 years ago), and at 481 feet (146.6 metres) was the tallest building for 3,800 years (NOTE 1).
The creature in front is called the Sphinx. What kind of animal is the Sphinx ?
The Sphinx has the face of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird (maybe a falcon or eagle).
Ancient Egypt was thousands of years ago, from 3150 BC (BCE) to 332 BC (BCE). Animals were very important.
What animals can you see in this picture ?
We are going to focus on four Gods:
Thoth // Bastet // Ra // Anubis
Vocabulary
Pyramids
Sphinx
Tomb
Hieroglyphs
Let’s return to our four gods
Thoth // Bastet // Ra // Anubis
Watch this video, and write down information about the four gods.
What animals do they look like ?
What can they do ?
Which one do you think Mr Paul likes best … and why ?
What animal was Bastet ?
Bastet was a cat, and cats were very important in Ancient Egypt. Can you think why ? What do cats like to chase and eat ? Check your answers:
Now … be creative. Invent a God from your country. First, think what animals you have, then what they can do. Don’t forget to tell me why.
Use crayons, colour pencils. If you can’t draw, it’s OK; just write me a magnificent story. Don’t forget to use the amazing adjectives you have been taught.
Would you like some music to help you while you work ?
Bye Bye from Egypt
Note 1: The first buildings to be taller were cathedrals, in England. St Paul’s was in London, then the cathedral in Lincoln became the tallest building in the world.
Note 2: The British Council ‘LearnEnglishKids’ page has some excellent resources and free print-outs.
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
Last week I held an IELTS Speaking Test. Only one student hit 7.5 although, in fairness, I was probably on the generous side in awarding the student such an admirable score.
Or, to be precise, learn from their mistakes.
I can break them down into three main areas:
coherence
vocabulary
complex sentences
Kicking off with coherence; it doesn’t matter how fluent you are, unless you answer the question, you will loose marks.
The test allows us to assess your understanding of both question and task. An example: one question was
What is the most popular activity in your country ?
ASIDE: I’ve told students until I’m blue in the face, never repeat, “In (my) country,” but since when do teenage students ever actually listen ?
The question asks for ONE activity; several students talked about two or three. This is not answering the question.
Anyone who’s studied at University will know how imperative it is to follow instructions.
COMIC RELIEF: One student, from a previous test, replied that the most common activity, “In my country,” was brushing teeth, and that foreigners do this every day, but Vietnamese only do this once or twice a week. Said student had to continue for two minutes. Needless to say, there were no flying colours.
More disturbing was the lack of IELTS vocabulary. You have been told time and again what that means, and I can’t keep hitting my head against a brick wall.
And so to work … get out your notebooks (those that actually bother bringing notebooks to class), look up previous lessons and write down:
TEN L-FWs
FIVE less common idioms
FIVE everyday expressions
TEN phrasal verbs
TEN basic collocations
I have taught you these ad infinitum. If you are struggling with this exercise, you will probably only get a 5 for the Lexical Recourses section.
Lastly, the old chestnut, complex sentences.
I had nine students, each with about ten minutes of speaking time. How many complex sentences do you think I heard ?
Yes, Steve …
That’s right … ZERO
EXERCISES: Use at least two L-FWs, one idiom and other IELTS elements
(and if you think it’s funny to ask what I mean, after all this time, by ‘IELTS elements’, just get up and leave the class).
Speak for one minute about:
one of your cousins // your favourite gift // sports // your best memory from childhood // best films // problems in your city // typical local food.
Part Two: Critical Thinking
“Oh, teacher, I’m tired and feel lazy.”
Work in teams. Watch the following short clip about the ancient Greek king, Sisyphus:
Characters from Greek and Roman mythology permeate western culture, and references and allusions are ubiquitous.
You may watch the video again, writing down new words. There is a lot of background (in which you may encounter a character from ‘The Avengers’ movies), but the main feature starts around the 4:00 mark.
Your task is to relate this story to modern life. Choose a person you know, or something from your own experience. You may even project your thoughts about the future, once you have left education and joined the workforce.
talking until (pronoun) blue in the face / the grind
putting an old head on young shoulders
Look up the meanings yourself. Your teacher won’t be with you to give you the answers in life. Think for yourself.
Athene, Goddess of wisdom
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
A selection of photos found on web searches. No copyright infringement is intended.
adoreness.com
Model Pattie Boyd from vogue.com
Britt Ekland from outdressing.comImage from elle.com
theatreoffashion.com
time.com
adoreness.com
itsacharminglife.com
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
The suffix –ist is used to create an agent noun — a noun that denotes someone or something that does something. Two suffixes more commonly used to create agent nouns are –er and –or, as in worker, bookseller, beginner, visitor, creator, and accelerator.
amelioration
The development of a more favorable meaning for a word. Take, for example, quell. In current usage, banks move to “quell inflation.” Governments issue proclamations to “quell fears”.
In Old English poetry, on the other hand, when a warrior “quelled” his opponent, he killed him.
Semantic amelioration is not as common as semantic deterioration, in which a formerly inoffensive word acquires a negative meaning.
anarthrous
As a grammatical term, it means, “used without the article.”
From ‘Daily Writing Tips’
When commenting on the opening sentence of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, Geoffrey Pullum called it an “anarthrous occupational nominal premodifier.”
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.
Pullum said that the construction is “reasonable” in a newspaper, but has the “wrong feel and style for a novel.” Had Brown written, “The renowned curator Jacques Sauniére,” the sentence would have escaped criticism.
apposition
Commas with appositives
An appositive is a noun or noun element that follows another noun and serves to identify it further. The nouns are said to be “in apposition.”
An appositive phrase usually follows the word it explains or identifies, but it may also precede it.
The term derives from a Latin compound meaning, “to set beside or near.” Nouns in apposition are set beside one another. When one of the nouns simply restates the other one, commas are needed to set it off.
Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth US president, ranks among the three worst presidents of the United States.
The phrase “the seventeenth US president” is just another way of saying “Andrew Johnson.” It provides additional information, but leaving it out would not change the meaning of the sentence. The additional information is non-essential, so it is set off with commas.
Take another example:
My English teacher says that Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is overrated.
Here, The Great Gatsby is in apposition to novel. Because Fitzgerald wrote more than one novel, the specific title is essential information. It cannot be omitted without obscuring the meaning of the sentence. The teacher does not necessarily think that the author’s other novels are overrated. No commas are needed when the additional information is essential.
In the following sentence the nouns in apposition restate the nouns that precede them. Because the information they provide is non-essential, commas are needed to set them off:
As a team, we send our thoughts and deepest sympathies to Peter’s wife, Jill, and his children, Mark and Hilary.
False Titles
A common type of apposition found principally in journalistic writing is the “false title.” This is a descriptive phrase placed before a noun, but used as if it were a title.
Novelist John le Carré has set himself up as the psycho-analyst of the cold war.—Time
Cellist Joshua Gordon, in the slow movement, showed off his rich, lyrical tone. Buffalo News
This construction is known as “a Time-style adjective” because it’s thought that Time magazine either began the practice or popularized it.
diaeresis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The diaeresis diacritic indicates that two adjoining letters that would normally form a digraph and be pronounced as one sound, are instead to be read as separate vowels in two syllables. For example, in the spelling ‘coöperate’, the diaeresis reminds the reader that the word has four syllables co-op-er-ate, not three, ‘*coop-er-ate’. In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well. However, we still see it in words such as naïve.
endonym and exonym
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An endonym (from Greek: éndon, ‘inner’ + ónoma, ‘name’; also known as autonym) is a common, internalname for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language.
An exonym (from Greek: éxō, ‘outer’ + ónoma, ‘name’; also known as xenonym) is a common, externalname for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community.[1] Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons, but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words.[1]
The Premier League, also known exonymously as the English Premier League or the EPL is the top level of the English football league system.
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
Let’s kick off with an adjective review. What adjectives have you been taught recently ? I’ll give you a clue with the first letter:
f (means to be cheeky, a little impolite but in a funny way)
u (not usual, someone acting unlike their normal self)
p (very relevant, of interest at this time)
This is a test to see who has been making notes in class, and who has been coasting.
Hhhmmmm … this is not going to be a piece of cake
The answers are facetious, uncharacteristically & pertinent. For those that didn’t know, you now have to use them in a sentence. It may be one complex sentence, which would really impress me, or three basic sentences. What are you waiting for ?
If you learn English you will increase your job ____________
Nowadays, most young people are _____________ _________________ . They are able to use programs such as Word, ___________ & ________
When selecting a university, you may have to be ______________ in case you don’t get into your first choice.
Getting a great, well-paying job is essential if you want a high ________________________ .
One student moved to Boston where the temperature can drop to below freezing. He’s really having ________ to the new culture.
My actor friend is busy 24/7, attending parties, setting up meeting, pitching ideas and Tweeting. That guy is constantly ______________ .
Phew ! Thay Paul is a Tiger Teacher
Class Game
Split class into two teams.
One team selects an idiom and the other team has to use it, correctly of course, in a sentence.
EXAMPLE:
I would love this guitar, a left-handed Rickenbacker which is a famous American company with a very distinctive look and sound yet, to my dismay, it costs ______________________
Idioms from Semester 2
Another string to (your) bow – a new skill or learning experience
bear with me – please wait a very short time (usually spoken as opposed to written)
bit of a sore point – something that makes you sad or angry
down in the dumps – depressed, unhappy, feeling gloomy
hit the ground running – to start something immediately and with all your energy
like a madhouse – a place or area that is crazy, too noisy, too busy etc
run of the mill – ordinary, typical, normal, usual, boring
up in arms – to be very angry about something, to protest strongly
you take your life in your hands – doing something that is extremely dangerous
Idioms from Semester 1
Which you should all know by heart and be able to reel off at the drop of a hat.
it’s raining cats and dogs
it costs an arm and a leg
piece of cake
I’m burning the candle at both ends
once in a blue moon
pass with flying colours
Remember these old chestnuts ?
without further ado // tricks up your sleeve // ace the test
pass with flying colours // do yourself proud //
you are in the driver seat(or you are in the driving seat) //
Please Note: All photos are taken from Google Images or free photo sites, and are used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement or offense is intended. If I have used your photo or image, and you wish me to remove it, just ask. This site is not monetized, I run it on my own dollar. Thank you.
Here’s a sneak preview of our forthcoming piece, the ‘Berlin Suite’, which will feature keyboards, electronics and experimental sounds, a departure from our previous material.
The suite is an audio representation of this unique and iconic city. The music will feature orchestral effects, reflecting the classical aspect of Berlin, as well as some techno-inspired dance tracks for which Berlin is famous.
The following piece was composed with theKaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in mind, a church that was partly destroyed in World War II and today is kept as a memorial against war.
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