Without a doubt, a large vocabulary is important when you are learning English as a Second Language (ESL). One way to learn new words that are very useful for school is to study the words on the Academic Word List. This is a list of words developed by Dr. Averil Coxhead, and they are high frequency words used in academic settings such as a universi…

Dogs (Español abajo) They all do it. Yes, every dog barks, including my pet dog Smokey. The word of the day is bark, and bark in Spanish is ladrar. And the best way to learn this word is to listen to the audio recording! The podcast is at the bottom of this post. After listening to the podcast, you will know the meaning of the word bark. The Barkin…

Un Modismo de Abril Quiero compartir contigo un modismo en inglés que es muy apropiado para hoy. Es porque hoy estaba muy lluvioso (y el mes de abril), así que pensé acerca del dicho: “April showers bring May flowers.” Una traducción literalmente es “Las lluvias de abril traen las flores de mayo.” Pero, de verdad el sentido es “No hay mal que por b…

Once Is Not Enough – Español en la parte abajo This post is all about two! There are several words that are good to know in English that are associated with the number two. These words help you to express the concept of two without saying the number two. Let’s look at the words. Pair People use the word pair when they want to express two of somethi…

Tough Words (Español en la parte abajo) Some words in English are just difficult! I want to help you better understand difficult words in English, so I created this podcast called “Tough Word Tuesday.” The word tough in English is a synonym for something that is difficult. For example, if hearing the difference between two similar sounding words is…

A Common Symbol (Español abajo) The @ is called the at symbol or the at sign. You will hear people call it both names. I believe the @ is technically a symbol, but many people refer to it as a sign, and it’s not incorrect in everyday English to say either one. Nowadays, the @ is very common because of email. The symbol is used in all email addresse…

ESL Podcast Number Four: This podcast is an audio lesson on the days of the week in English. There are opportunities to practice your pronunciation and example sentences with the days of the week. The recording also has a YES, You Can Learning Tip to help you learn the days of the week quickly. Enjoy the podcast! The Days Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, W…

ESL Podcast Number Three: This English as a Second Language (ESL) podcast is on how to respond when you are asked for personal information. When you meet someone for the first time, the person will probably ask you for your name. You want to be confident in your response, and also be able to provide other personal information when you’re asked for …

ESL Podcast Two: This podcast will help you learn how to pronounce some of the numbers in English. Without a doubt, it’s important to know the names of the numbers in English and also how to say them. You can be sure that one day a person will ask you for your phone number, and you will need to be able to say your phone number using the correct num…

ESL Podcast Number One: Here is a podcast on how to pronounce the English alphabet. Listen and repeat the letters until you have them memorized. In this podcast there are also verbs that correspond to each letter of the alphabet. Letters and verbs, lots of fun! Remember, it’s important to say the letters and words out loud, in order to improve your…