Ron's ESL Blogs

My grandmother is an old Chinese woman. She is 74 years old. Countless wrinkles are the years trace on her face. When she looks at me, her gracious smile makes me feel pretty warm. She is a sun.

I’m the oldest grandson of my grandmother. Before I attended primary school, I stayed in my grandmother’s home during the daytime of weekdays. Half of my childhood was spent with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother had a major influence on my life in this period of time. Except cooking, she didn’t have any other hobbies. I always ate a lot if the meal was cooked by her. She liked to smile and look at me when I was eating.

She often told me many past experiences of her. At that time, she looked like an old book. She taught me many principles for conducting, which helped me grow up well. Although I made some serious mistakes, she never bit my head off. She just told me what my mistake is patiently, and reminded me to avoid making the same mistake again.

There were many diseases in her body. Heart disease and diabetes mellitus were threatening her health, and the pain in her legs were hurtful. She can’t eat hard food because her teeth are almost exfoliated. But she was a tough woman. She faced her life optimistically.

As I was growing up, I have more and more friends. I had many interesting things to do, so I didn’t often go to see my grandmother. I felt sorry about that, but my grandmother never blamed me. She tried her best to cook for me every time I went to see her. And she always smiled and looked at me when I was eating, as in the past.

In 2007, she lost her husband, my grandfather. It was a heavy blow to her. She cried, and it was the first time I saw her crying. After that time, she became silent. She always pondered deeply over by herself as a stone. Luckily, with my father’s help, she smiled again.

I haven’t seen her for half a year. I miss her and I know she also miss me. I really want to see her smile, the sooner the better! – Zhou, Shichun

There are many ways on learning English such as attending school, buying English course, taking online classes, reading books and talking English frequently. Learning English is a challenge for some people although to others it is easy to learn.

 For me learning English is a challenge, because I’m a shy person to speak to others, when I speak English I get nervous and my tongue freezes then the pronunciation is different from the spelling also English is not my first language and learning a second language is not easy as it looks. These are some of the problems for me to learn English, but this time I’m very confident on myself to reach my goal on learning English that’s why I’m trying hard on it.

 These are my ways to learn English, first of all I’m coming to school every day, I pay attention in class, I’m doing my homework and the exercises in the book, also I’m reading books at home, listening to the radio and watching TV in English. Another thing that I’m doing is speaking a little more English with others.

 Second I’m writing every day a short paragraph without worrying about punctuation and spelling for me it is a way to help myself on how to write an essay. Another thing that I’m doing is writing vocabulary words this way; I learn how to spell and the meaning of the word.

 Third I download applications on my phone like grammar, how to pronounce the words, verbs, prepositions and more, also I’m studying on the web site the teacher gives us.

 The most important to learn English is studying hard and be a fighter to achieve the goal of learning

This time I would like to talk with you about a topic relevant to vocabulary.

That topic is English word formation processes.

As any student soon discovers, English has a very rich vocabulary. But obviously, it didn’t get all of its words at once. Most of the English words were gradually developed, some adopted, some simply invented.

By understanding these processes, you can get greater understanding of the background of English.

More importantly, by looking into the origin of single words, students can gain deeper understanding of the vocabulary they are trying to learn.

Let’s look at a practical example.

The student is studying a new word for them – “guard” (a person who protects a place or people). After understanding the literal meaning of “guard,” you can look into this word’s origin.

It turns out that it comes from the Old French word “garder,” which means, “protect.” Now, this makes sense, doesn’t it? A guard indeed protects!

Here is another example. The English word “secure” actually comes from the Latin word “securus,” which is built from “se-” (free from) and “cura” (care).

So as you can see, word etymology (the origin and history of words and their meanings) can truly enhance understanding.

Try this tip and see how it affects your or your students’ progress.

And click here to learn more about the different word formation processes in English.

I am a chinese, i have beenn studied english for about 10 years. The first time leaning english was in my primary school, i think the english is fresh and interesting, i was reading every day that is fun.

howere, i transferred to high school. The english is very dry and difficult that is one of the most important sujects in my high school life. Almost every one knows that we should learn english well, but i don’t know how to learn it well. My english exam failed again and again , i am worred. English is very difficult to me, i try to give up, because i don’t need use it in my life in china. But the god will make a joke to people.

In the end of my high life, i got a chance to go to  the Unite State, but  i was so afraid, because i am not ready and i cant speak english as well as, i regretted why i didn’t study english. At present, i am almost afraid of talking to people. usually,” sorry i don’t understand.” i knew english is very important in my life. I try to study it now, It is the first step that is troublesome, and i lost much time in my before, i should get a new start.

I try to get some english class in my college, i got key points in study english. firstly, we should be brave to talk with in english, by doing this , i can improvetalking and listening skill. secondly. i try to listen to all kinds of english programmes,news,radio as much as possible. in this way , i can gradully improve our pronunciation. thirdly, i should often reading in english.

let’s start on the way!

When you are a child and you start to speak, it is easy, because your parents and people close to you are talking in their language all the time, that is why you learn to speak it, and it becomes your native language.

After a few years, school begins, you meet other children speaking the same language and you start to communicate with them that is the way to improve your language; with practice.

I lived in Mexico, where the official language is Spanish and it seemed to be difficult to learn a different language, because everyone around speaks Spanish and you can’t practice well.

In my case I started to learn English when I was 5 years old. At that time I met an uncle who used to live in the US but he had to go back to Mexico. He liked to take me to the park, to the movies, to buy an ice cream, everywhere. And when we went out, he taught me some words in English. I still remember the first words I learned: Pumpkin, lobster, pillow, cat, dog, mom and dad. I really enjoyed his “classes”, although he didn’t teach me grammar, he helped me to discover a new skill.

Everything was perfect, but one day my parents and I moved to another state and I couldn’t see my uncle very often, only on vacation.

However I felt excited to keep learning and I decided to do it by myself. How? Sometimes I don’t know, I started to listen to music, memorize song’s lyrics, watch tv or movies in English, of course. Also, I had a vocabulary notebook with all those words that I didn’t know.

Time went by, and when I was in high school I took English classes at school but they didn’t work to me, because I knew already everything that the professor was teaching us, and of course I always got the best grades. I felt frustrated but glad at the same time; I had a great knowledge, but I wanted to learn more and I couldn’t do it with those poor classes. That’s why I kept using my own method.

When I decided to come to the US, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I took the risk, and now I can practice cause all I can hear all day long is English, and I believe this is the best way to improve my new language.