Tag Archives: ESL

English Novels Every Proficiency Student Should Read No. 7

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British Novels Which Have Added To The Language

No. 7 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

This is a short novel published in 1886. Part horror, part detective story, I can’t say any more about the plot in case you don’t already know the story.

Themes It is about good and evil, the conscious and unconscious mind, Victorian respectability, and an early interest in multiple personality disorders.

Words & Phrases

Jekyll and Hyde \ˈje-kəl-ən-ˈhīd also ˈjē- or ˈjā-\ used to describe a person who changes completely from one situation to the next: The rally was the latest example of Trump as a Jekyll and Hyde public performer, coming just 24 hours after a sober speech to the military setting out future strategy in Afghanistan.

 

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EFL Extensive Reading

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Oxford BookwormsIn EFL we talk about two types of reading Extensive Reading and Intensive Reading. Intensive reading is what usually happens in the classroom: reading to answer comprehension questions or to teach ‘reading skills’ such as skimming and scanning. Extensive reading is reading for pleasure, often fiction at around or just below a learner’s language level. Ideally extensive reading texts should be 98% known vocabulary.
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How to learn English

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Mind Map GuidlinesTo teach (verb) from the Old English ‘taecan’ meaning ‘to show, to point out’.

To learn (verb) from the Old English ‘leornian’ meaning ‘to study, read, think about’.

We tend to see teaching as an active, dynamic activity and learning as a passive one, as if the learner were just an empty vessel waiting to be filled with knowledge. But perhaps, if we look at the etymology of these words, we have not always seen it this way.
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