Kenneth's English as 2nd Language Blog

Here are some specific suggestions for ways to use your reading to work on specific English skills. A number of suggestions have links to lesson plans which you can use on your own, or in class if you are a teacher. Each lesson plan provides objectives, the lesson plan step-by-step and materials to use in class.

To get the most out of reading, it's important to know the difference between different types of reading which include: scanning, skimming, intensive and extensive reading.

Reading Tips to Improve Your Pronunciation
Reading Tips to Improve Your Vocabulary
Reading Tips to Improve Your Conversational Skills
Reading Tips to Improve Your Grammar
Reading Tips to Improve Your Listening Skills

This quiz focuses on the correct use of punctuation marks and formatting. Before taking this quiz, you might want to first brush up on the basic rules of punctuation using a period, comma, colon, semicolon, question mark and exclamation point. It is intended for intermediate to advanced level ESL EFL English classes.

Using a family tree is a great way to learn about the vocabulary used to describe family relationships. This vocabulary guide offers a family chart, description of the relationships pictured and a follow-up family tree quiz.

Here are three dialogues which will be helpful for those learning English to work in the service industry. Each dialogue contains key vocabulary to the industry and has a follow-up multiple choice comprehension quiz.

• Cleaning Staff - Vocabulary and requests dealing with cleaning rooms and taking care of guests
• A Drink at the Bar - Vocabulary and situations related to serving customers at a bar
• Taking an Order - Vocabulary and situations related to serving customers in a restaurant

Many students have difficulty understanding newspaper headlines. This is because newspaper headlines are often incomplete. For example:

Difficult Times Ahead Under Pressure from Boss Mustang Referral Customer Complaint

Here is a guide to the most common grammar exceptions in newspaper headlines, as well as tips on how to understand them. I've also created a newspaper headlines lesson plan for use in your classes.

Shall we start the meeting and get down to _____ tacks? - brass / gold / bronze / copper Idioms are the salt, pepper and garlic of English. Practice idiomatic phrases with these idiomatic phrase quizzes. Each question provides immediate feedback on correct and incorrect answers with a follow-up score at the end of each quiz.

Common Phrase Quiz - 1
Common Phrase Quiz - 2
Common Phrase Quiz - 3
Common Phrase Quiz - 4

... but they also play tennis" - this is an example of a paired conjunction. You can learn about these forms on the paired conjunction page. Teach your class with this lesson plan on paired conjunctions, or practice your understanding with this paired conjunction quiz.

This site has visitors from all over the world which is one of the main reasons all the materials on this site are English only. However, I think it would be interesting to know how you feel about English only on English learning sites.

Here are quizzes focusing on some of the most common mistakes in English. If you have problems, each quiz is linked to the explanation and examples page.

It's vs. Its
Two, Too, To
They're, Their, There
You're vs. Your
Confusing Words
Since vs. For
Has gone to vs. Has been to
Then vs. Than
Double Negatives

Free-Reading.net is a great resource which provides literacy training for children. Many of these resources are easily adaptable to ESL classrooms. I've adapted four lessons for children's classes (as well as adults who like to have fun!)

Newspaper Crazies - regular and irregular verb recognition
Read and Rhyme - pronunciation and vocabulary recognition through rhymes
The Bell Game - compete to see who pronounces target words correctly
Slap That Word - word recognition game