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“Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: Could have, would have, and should have.” (Louis E. Boone)
I hope no one minds that I have made a gentle alteration to the above quotation: It orinally read, ‘Could have, might have, and should […]

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El otro hermano de mi amante
El amante de mi otro hermano
El otro amante de mi hermano
El hermano de mi otro amante
Translate these lines into your students’ mother tongue. Then ask them to translate them into English for a tongue twister:
My lover’s other brother
My other brother’s lover
My brother’s other lover
My other lover’s brother
How fast can you […]

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Like many teachers, I love expressions and sayings in the classroom. What I like about an idiom such as “The grass is always greener on the other side” is that it offers us such good value for money. Some possibilities:

Find out if students have an equivalent saying in their language
Ask […]

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I wanted to link to my favourite blog posting of the year so far. Joshua, an English teacher working in Qingdao, China, came across an interesting set of building blocks for children learning English. Don’t just scroll down the page and look at the pictures - make sure you you read Joshua’s entertaining comments as […]

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One of my students - a restaurant manager - asked me if I could spare 5 minutes at the end of class to check his translation of a Spanish menu.
“Don’t worry too much,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

I’m sure that this is a common scenario for all those who teach English to […]

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