Play It 4 Word

A Game of Wits and Words for ESL learners, Basic Writers, High School English, Developmental Writing and First Year Composition. http://www.stevenleeclimer.com/PI4/

The object is to be the first to complete a sentence and get all the points. Playing the game that teaches learners of all levels the parts of speech and word position and helps students understand parts of speech and how English sentences are constructed

Play it 4word rules
http://www.stevenleeclimer.com/PI4/pi4_rules_traditional.html

Also in Junior (for beginning readers, ESL beginners, literacy programs), Wicked (not for the squeamish or vocabulary challenged), MLA and APA versions. PlayIt4Word MLA and APA are described as a fun way to learn documentation of research in an essay. The ultimate oxymoron, or what?

Understanding the Sentence

Word recognition, decoding, and spelling are important skills in sorting out the meaning of a sentence, but good syntactic and working memory skills are also needed to get the job done.  Find out more in Education Connection's "Sentence Comprehension: The Connection to Reading Skills."  

http://www.brainconnection.com/content/4_1  

This segment is the fourth in a six-part series called Reading Fundamentals. 

http://www.brainconnection.com/library/?main=eduhome/reading-fundamentals

About ESL Newsletter: Complicated Sentences

NEWSLETTER	About ESL

	from Kenneth Beare Things can get complicated in some English tenses: for example, when you are referring to a future time before which something will have happened, or speaking about something that had been happening up to another point in time. This week's newsletter features some new advanced tense resources.
In the Spotlight

How many years will you have studied by the end of the year? Teaching absolute beginners requires the teacher to pay Wow! The phrase above is complicated! It's an example of the future perfect tense. Here are guides to those complicated future and past tenses...read more             More Topics English Tests and Quizzes - Practice Materials for Learning ESL English Learning Resources, Schools, Courses, Software, Learning English for Beginners - Beginning ESL EFL Learning English for the Intermediate Level Learning English for the Advanced Level - ESL EFL Advanced E Free IELTS Preparation Free English Courses Useful Phrases - Saying No Nicely, Showing Preferences, Maki Here are useful phrases with follow-up quizzes for everyday situations: ..read more   Its OR It's difficult?! The choice between it's or its is an example of a common mistake. There are a number of common mistakes that even native speakers have problems mastering. Here is a...read more

New Year's Resoutions

Write complete sentences, number and post as "comment" to this post. More worksheets and activities at Boggle's World

Dictionaries

Dictionaries
Bilingual dictionaries are necessary but not your best learning or reference too. Most, especially the small paperback version do not distinguish between different meanings and best usages. Nor do they provide examples. As soon as possible, start using an English-English dictionary. Not all dictionaries equally suitble for ESL learners. A category referred to as learner's dictionaries is designed for use by non-native speakers

Here are some useful dictionary choices. A number include audio files for correct pronunciation. Browsw them to see which one best suits you. You should also purchase your own paper copy of a good learner's dictionary. When you are further along in your studies, buy a GOOD English-English dictionary.

Dictionary activities
As part of reading/vocab development, use on-line dictionaries from this list (& search for more if you wish) to find multiple sentences using assigned target words. In the past, I've asked students to write original sentences, but there are too many errors this way, and the sentences are often too vague to show a clear context. Be “warned” that many samples are only phrases or sentence fragments. You will need to be develop the sample phrase into a complete sentence.

A good online biligual dictionary http://www.wordreference.com
Or search "dictionary + english + [your language]"

• The Internet Picture Dictionary http://www.pdictionary.com/
• Visual dictionary http://www.infovisual.info/
• Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/
• Cambridge Dictionaries online, select Learner's or Advanced Learner's at http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
• Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary http://www.oup.com/elt/oald/
• Merriam-Webster's Learners Dictionary http://www.learnersdictionary.com/
• English Learner Dictionaries for English as a Second Language http://esl.about.com/od/engilshvocabulary/tp/tp_dict.htm
• Heinle's Newbury House Dictionary of American English http://nhd.heinle.com/

While you are looking through the online dictionaries, I'll be thinking about interesting target words for the activity I described above.

Post a comment to let us know what you think of these resources and which one you would recommend.