English Is Crazy!

Good morning, dear students!

I hope you all had a busy, successful Monday!  I had some great classes with my Monday students yesterday-- I worked with several people on craaaaazy pronunciation rules.  Pronunciation in English can be very difficult, because English is a mixture of old languages that never quite mixed well.  Because of that, we have a lot of words that don't sound the way we think they should.  Check out this video-- It's a recitation of a poem that makes fun of this problem in the English language.  You'll see how many words can look like they should rhyme, but they actually sound very different!

I'm going to be focus on making pronunciation corrections this week, so be ready!  Our classes won't be nearly as tough as this poem, but this should give you a good idea of how common and large the problem of pronunciation in English really is.

Happy Tuesday and happy studying!

Monday Motivation

Good morning, dear students!  I hope you've all had a great weekend and are ready to get back to work!  Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, makes a great point with this quote.  What do you want to be?  

I want to be a teacher that motivates my students, innovates teaching techniques, and pours herself into her work.  So that's what I'm going to ''pretend'' to be!

I hope you are all ready to set yourselves up for a great, busy, and successful week!  It's the last week of July.  Soon it will be August, and soon after that it will be Spring!  The year is passing quickly and many of you have goals just on the horizon!

Happy Monday and happy studying!

Thursday Music Mini-Lesson: Viva La Vida, by Coldplay

Good morning, dear students!

I have an easy song for you today!  I don't expect you to learn a lot of new vocabulary from this one (although you might!).  This is a nice song to listen to and let your brain relax-- it isn't full of complicated vocabulary or obscure grammar structures.  However, I do think it's great practice to listen for each individual word.  Have a listen (or two) and tell me what you think!

Are there any words that you don't know in this song?
Remember that Wordreference is a great resource when you're looking for definitions, translations, and usage examples!

Did you like this song?  Are you a fan of Coldplay, or not?  What do you think this song is about?

Leave your questions and opinions in the comments so others can compare theirs!  We'll talk about any questions or interesting observations in our next class!

Happy Thursday and happy studying!

Reading: Why the Pig is the Most Loved and Most Loathed Animal on the Plate

Good morning, dear students!  Today I have an interesting NPR article for you.  It's about pigs!

How different cultures and religions view pigs is an interesting phenomenon.  Throughout history, some cultures have loved pigs.  Others, in the past as well as today, loathe them.  Why do you think that is?

This article shines some light on the subject, and hopefully you'll come out of it with some new vocabulary words!

NPR

Do you enjoy pork?  It's very popular in the southern U.S.-- in fact, it's my favorite meat.  However, it seems to be a bit less popular in Chile (although you guys have a cut of pork called the plateada de cerdo that my boyfriend is a pro at cooking!)  Some of my friends don't eat pork, either for religious resitrictions or due to their own personal preference.  Do you or anyone you know follow these restrictions?

Here are a few words I've chosen from the article that might be new for you:

Sow
Litter
Thrive
Roots
Seed
Scraps (of food)
Scavenging
Carrion
Cuisine


What other words were new for you?  Leave them in the comments below, and we'll discuss their definitions in the next class!

Happy Wednesday and happy studying!

CV and Linkedin Translations!

Good morning, dear students!  Today I wanted to let you know about a promotion I'll be doing over the course of the next few months.  While translations are not my primary focus (I much prefer teaching!), I often do small translations for my students.  I always have requests to translate documents like CVs and application letters, e-mails, and Linkedin Profiles.  I know this is a service that many people need, but it's such an easy thing to put off and procrastinate.  Right now, I'm offering to translate your CV or Linkedin for 15.000 CLP, regardless of the amount of text it includes.  If you would like to have both translated, I will translate the pair for 25.000CLP.  If you're interested, don't hesitate to e-mail me, or mention it in our next class!

Remember, my e-mail address is :  Rachellaycook@gmail.com

And don't forget to connect with me on linkedin!

Happy Tuesday and happy studying!

Monday Motivation

Good morning, dear students!!  I hope you've all had a lovely long weekend (or almost long weekend, for those that had to work on Friday).  What are you going to happen to this week?  I had a lot of time this weekend to plan some cool stuff for this week, so I hope you're all ready for some interesting lessons this week.  We're getting closer and closer to the end of July, and we're already in the second half of 2015.  What are you going to happen to this week?  in the next 5 months?  I'm excited to see you all!

Happy Monday and happy studying!

Tuesday Quick Tip: What's the Difference-- Very vs. A lot of

Good morning, dear students!

So what's the difference between ''very'' and ''a lot of''?

Check it out:

''Very'' modifies adjectives and adverbs.  It works the same way as ''muy''.
We can say that Chileans are friendly people, but if I want to emphasize the adjective and make it stronger, I would say that Chileans are very friendly people.

''A lot of'' should be used to talk about a big quantity of a noun.

Chile has a lot of copper;  South America has a lot of countries;  I have a lot of students.


Questions?  Try out a few sentences on your own below in the comments, and bring your questions with you to your next class!

Happy Tuesday and happy studying!

Monday Motivation

Good morning, dear students!  I hope you've all had a great weekend!  I spent mine relaxing in bed and avoiding the rain.  What did you do?  It's the beginning of a short week!  It's very cold and that can make it difficult to stay motivated, but remember that we're halfway through the winter and moving quickly towards spring!  What goals do you hope to achieve before then?  What methods are working to help you achieve them, and what methods might need to change?  I look forward to discussing that with you this week in our classes!

Happy Monday and happy studying!

Thursday Music Mini-lesson: Hotel California

Good morning, dear students!

I hope you're having a great week so far!  Today I have a song for you by The Eagles.  

''Hotal California'' is a pretty famous song.  Do you already know it?  The pronunciation is very clear and there are some really interesting words in the song.  

Do you like this song?  What words were difficult for you?

There are a lot of references made to the Mexican-American culture that prevailes in the Southwest U.S., such as colitas (in this case, ''colitas'' refers to the tiny end of a cigarrette, usually of marijuana/ the flowery end of the marijuana plant, or other types of generic desert flowers-- the meaning can go both ways here).  The mission bell is also mentioned.  These bells come from the religious settlements that the Spanish established during their colonization of Mexico.

Other words that may be new for you are:

shimmering     sight      dim     heaven     hell     plenty     courtyard     sweat     alibi

feast                 beast     steely  knives     


Hotel California is a very strange song.  There are a lot of theories about the meaning about it. If you liked the song or want to discuss it in class, I'd love to hear your theory!!

Happy Thursday and happy studying!

Reading: Why Sit-down Meals May Be Just as Unhealthful as Fast Food

Good morning, dear students!

Today I have an interesting news article for you from NPR.

It's an interesting read, because there is a lot of information online and on television today about how unhealthy fast food is.  Everyone assumes that sitting down at a table and eating from a plate probably means getting better food and fewer unhealthy ingredients.

This article talks about this misconception.

Interesting vocabulary words for this article include:

Regard     Fast food joint     Dug     Recall     Intake     To scarf     Convivial

Dine         Questionnaire      Labels  Aware    Kick in   Own          Old-fashioned

What did you think of this article after reading it?  Did the information surprise you?  What other words were new for you?  Leave your comments and questions in the comments section below, and bring your opinions to class!

Happy Wednesday and happy studying!

Tuesday Quick Tip: What's the difference? Actually vs. Actualmente

Good morning, dear students!

So what's the real difference between the words ''Actually'' and ''Actualmente''?

These words are hard for both English speakers and Spanish speakers.  

They are considered false cognates-- both of them look very similar, so it's easy to think they mean the same thing.  However, in this case it isn't true!

Check it out:

If you want to talk about what you're doing at the moment, ''actualmente'' in Spanish should be translated as ''currently''.

The same is true for the words ''actual'' and ''current''-- these are the adjectives.

For example:

Barack Obama es el presidente actual de los Estados Unidos.
Barack Obama is the current president of the United States.

If you use ''actually'' the same way as ''actualmente'' is used, the listener will not understand that you are talking about ''right now'' or ''current'' things.


Additionally, if you want to emphasize the truthfulness of something, or make a correction, ''Actually'' is a great way to start your sentence.

For example, if someone tells you that Valparaiso is the largest city in Chile, you should respond,
''Actually, Santiago is the biggest city.  It has 7 million residents.''

''Actually'' in this case doesn't mean ''currently''.  It's similar to saying ''De hecho''.

Got it?  Try out a few sentences on your own!  Bring them with you to class or leave them here in the comments!

Happy Tuesday and happy studying!

Monday Motivation

Good morning, dear students!  I hope you've had an AMAZING weekend celebrating Chile's championship win in the Copa America!  Chile has had a rough history in football, and a difficult 2015 in general, but this victory seems to really be a turning point in people's attitudes.  I hope that you feel invigorated, excited, and proud after watching the selection work so hard to achieve this!  I hope that you feel ready to run full-speed at your own goals, too!  What is your sparkling life, and what are you doing to pick it up?

Happy Monday and happy studying!