Welcome to Part 2 of our Lesson on homographs! In Part 1 we already looked at what homographs mean (quick reminder: they are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and often different pronunciations). We also covered some key homographs in the English language, starting with those word pairs that share the […]
How familiar are you with homographs? 🤔 You might not recognise at first what a homograph means, but you have probably been using them (or at least noticing them) without even realising it! Homographs are basically words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. ✍️ Sometimes these word pairs are related because they
Earlier this week we delved into (dived into) the ‘nuts and bolts‘ (an expression that means ‘everything relating to’) of direct and indirect speech. But of course, it takes time and space to cover such a large topic, and I noticed that some students had questions about the difference in tenses used in retelling indirect
Lesson #231: How two different tenses can be used together correctly in reported speech Read More »
This Lesson post builds on what was covered in Part 1, so if you missed it why not quickly review our basic outline of ✏️ 1) what direct and indirect speeches are, ✏️ 2) the main differences between them, and ✏️ 3) how to correctly use the verbs ‘to say’ and ‘to tell’ in those
For the last couple of years, I have been reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch throughout May and June. It has 8 books (or sections) and so I read one book per week, finishing one of the longest books in just 8 weeks! 📆 It is a marvellous work, and has in fact been described as ‘one
As you may remember, every second Saturday we take the time to look at a poem from English or American literature. This week I am sharing with you a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (whose poem, ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’, we looked at in Lesson #187). 🖋️ As I thought about this poem
Lesson #229: Reading for Appreciation: ‘A Psalm of Life’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read More »
I recently rediscovered a book on our shelves that my mother bought when we were children, and which I had been intending to read many times – only beginning now at last! 🗝️ 📗 This book, Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies (1863), is about a chimney-sweep, that is, a little child who used to sweep
We continue our Lesson on the differences (and similarities) between the expressions ‘be going to [verb]’ cf. ‘will [verb]’ to talk about the future in English. (If you missed it, we looked primarily at ‘be going to …’ in Part 1 of our Lesson) … 📝 ‘WILL [+ VERB]’ (SIMPLE FUTURE) In Part 1 of
📗 “We will go—you and I alone, Caroline—to that wood …” “We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar.” – Charlotte Bronte, Shirley (1849) … 🔎 In what ways is the future tense in these two sentences different? This is a question that baffles many students – understandably, since the differences are very subtle! This
Have you ever been reading aloud and come across a word you don’t know how to pronounce? 🤔 I can imagine that this happens to a good many students who are studying English. English pronunciation can be difficult to predict, partly because English words are derived from (they come from) many other languages with different
Lesson #226: Two simple rules to help pronounce words beginning with ‘c’ Read More »
Welcome to Part 2 of this Lesson, where we have been looking at expressions of place and movement in English (mostly adverbs which English speakers use on a daily basis). … 📝 #15 DOWN THE [PATH, ROAD, WALK, STREET, ETC] 📘 ‘[Fanny] was again roused from disagreeable musings by sudden footsteps: somebody was coming at
For a couple of years now, I have been re-reading Mansfield Park (one of my favourite novels) on my birthday. I am fond of this book for many reasons, one being that it emphasises the importance of making space in our lives for quietness, thoughtfulness, and real gratitude. 🌼 A walk in the woods with