On eating eggs and learning new words “How do you like them eggs? Soft boiled? Omelet? Scrambled? Poached? Sunny Side up? Over easy? Benedict?” To the bemusement (or embarrassment?) of my family, for years I would dread being asked how I wanted my eggs cooked at the Waffle House. Tired of gambling with my eggs, […]
How I Teach the English “th”
The English “th,” the dread of so many ESL and EFL learners. Tricky to learn and to teach as it means pronouncing sounds unused in many languages. Note: If you are just interested in learning how to pronounce the English “th” and not in the technical aspects developed at some length here, you can skip […]
English Idioms 3
This is the third practice page for the English Idioms course I am teaching at the Université Saint-Louis (Marie Haps). These exercises are designed to complement and practice the material learned in Units 19 and following (with some material from units 1–18 for practice purposes) of the course and should be fine for anyone with […]
English 5 – CVO Tervuren 2021
English 5 CVO Tervuren 2021 We use the book Speak Out 2nd Edition – Intermediate. Holidays Schedule Spring break – 15/02 – 19/02/21 Easter holiday – 05/04 – 16/04/21 Last class – 09/06/21 Summer holiday 1/07 – 31/08/21 Feb. 1, 2021 No class. Homework was sent to replace the session. Don’t forget to do the […]
English Idioms 2
I am currently (Fall 2020) teaching a Bachelor 2 course on English Idioms at the Université Saint-Louis (Marie Haps). These exercises are designed to complement and practice the material learned in Units 11–15 (with a few ones from Units 1–10) of the course and should be fine for anyone with a B1 English level. The […]
Listening to English Online
(This is a revised version of an older post) At some point when you learn English (or any other language), it is important to listen to “real English,” not just to small pieces or excerpts from language textbooks and manuals, even if you do not understand everything. There are many easy ways today to listen […]
How to Improve your English
How do you keep on learning a language during the lockdown? How do you improve your English when you can’t go to classes, conversation tables, private lessons? More generally, how do you get your language skills up by yourself? Though some of this information might be useful for a beginner, the point here is to […]
A Year in Books 2019
I did not really start reading books until I was a teenager. My father subscribed to the Reader‘s Digest (I didn‘t even know the RD was still around until I checked for a link). I loved reading Astérix, Tintin, and some children books. I do remember that I enjoyed thumbing through our encyclopedias. I went […]
Two Tips to Learn a Language with YouTube
The use of YouTube to teach or learn a language is pretty much a given today. Yet, speaking with colleagues and students, I realized that not all of them were aware that there are some features available that are really useful for language education. Here are two of them: Subtitles (or closed captions) and the […]
Best Reads of 2018
After a survey of my best readings of 2016 and 2017, time has come for the 2018 edition. Once again, I had meant for this to come out in a timely manner in January. Maybe next year. After a less than lackluster literary 2017, 2018 proved to be a richer crop: more diverse and with […]