English AdvantageEnglish AdvantageInformation for foreign students, especially from the CIS, interested in studying abroad or learning English Articles
Welcome
2020-01-01 05:46:00 Welcome to the English Advantage blog. We are a tutoring and consulting service located in Astana, Kazakhstan. Check out our webpage for more information about our services.This blog is designed for all foreign students planning to study in the US--but especially former USSR students--with news updates, answers to common questions, and interesting information or links as I come across them, so keep checking to see what's new.If you have any questions you want to see answered here, write to walton@english.zendurl.com or leave a message on my message board.
A clever way to learn vocab
2008-05-29 14:32:00 Online Picture Dictionary is an awesome idea. He takes vocab words from GRE word lists (ie big hard words) and posts example sentences, synonyms and a picture to help you understand and remember. It's a great way to learn vocab because it gives a context and a visual clue that is stored in your memory. The sentences are pretty clever and often funny--which makes it easy to learn. Check it out. More About: Learn , Clever
Excuses That Don't Fly
2008-05-28 02:00:00 One of the biggest problems foreign students have studying in America, is the seeming inflexibility of American professors. In my experience, particularly in comparison to professors and teachers in the former Soviet Union, rules in the US do not allow for exceptions for personal problems. It's quite a culture shock for many that US professors expect you to work out your problems and balance More About: Excuses
Entrecard Got Cooler
2008-05-19 10:54:00 So once again I am doing a blog about blogging. I don't like to stray from ESL and student life too much, but this is too good an opportunity to pass up. If you're a blogger and you haven't checked out Entrecard yet, you really should. It's done wonders for building traffic to this humble little blog. I'm not an expert on marketing blogs and I don't have a lot of free time to worry about More About: Cooler
Get Into Harvard? Or Don't Believe Everything You Read
2008-05-17 10:30:00 What do Harvard students have that makes them better? What do they get out of their education that can make them rich? Make them future business leaders of America? According to Daniel Wallace, Class of 2008, the best thing a Harvard student has is the secret of how to get into Harvard. His website, GetIntoHarvard.net, sells a 56-page guide called Get into Harvard for $27. Wallace claims that More About: Read
Easier Loan Repayment Terms
2008-05-15 09:49:00 Thanks to Real World Really for bringing this to my attention. Tufts University in Boston is one of many universities trying to make university more affordable. A new Loan Repayment Program is being introduced and will:give financial awards to graduates who are working in non-profit or public service areas, or those areas that “promote the public good.” One motivation for this program is no More About: Terms
What Do Americans Go Through to Get Into University?
2008-05-14 11:05:00 College Intention lets you know what Americans go through to get into university. It's the blog of a high-school student on his journey to get into college. And it's a good resource for how the college admissions process works, what colleges look for, tips on getting in, and reassurance that someone else is going through the same things you are. I especially liked the post, Dear college: Please More About: University
Down with Bachelor's Degrees
2008-05-13 11:22:00 Inside Higher Ed has a great article up arguing whetherThe Bachelor's Degree Is Obsolete. The argument is primary economic, arguing that the amount of debt and time spent preparing for a four-year bachelor's degree outweighs any benefits from having the degree. The capital markets have pulled out of major segments of lending for college loans. Wouldn’t even a Finance 101 student say this exit More About: Degrees
Humourous Idioms
2008-05-11 08:07:00 This is a list of some expressions that befuddled my students in recent classes. All of them are tied together by the fact that they are idiomatic and that they are all humorous, or have a degree of sarcasm or irony attached to them. Note that most of these phrases are slightly informal. You might use them with colleagues or friends, or in an informal meeting but not in a formal setting. More About: Idioms
Crazy English!
2008-05-06 14:29:00 I just read a fascinating article about an ESL company in China, Crazy English run by a guy called Li Yang. His classrooms veer toward stadiums full of thousands of people. His techniques involve making people shout. For example, during a "class" with medical professionals who will work in the Olympics clinics during the Olympic games, he had them repeat, shouting, "I would like to take your
Teacher Tools
2008-05-02 10:34:00 I occasionally get asked by my fellow teachers how I organize my teaching materials and what kinds of tools I use. I'm not sure I am the perfect organizer but for what it's worth, I'm putting down my method here. First, I keep big folders of material sorted by kind of lesson. Every Xerox, every print-out, every article I clip from the newspaper is in a 3-hole punch binder and organized into the More About: Tools , Teacher
I'm Like, You Should Read This Post"
2008-05-02 09:43:00 I've been meaning to post on this for a bit. I read a great post on using "like" as a substitute for "said", "thought" or "felt". This usage is most commonly associated with teenagers and many grammarians feel that it is not correct. However as Patricia O'Connor points out in The New York Times Magazine, teenagers aren't the only ones who use it and anyway associating it with teenagers and More About: Post , Read
Study Smarter
2008-04-29 13:41:00 Cal Newport at Study Hacks has a really nice blog up for students with strategies for everything from beating stress to public speaking to doing good work (God bless him for his post The Straight-A Gospels: Pseudo-Work Does Not Equal Work. As a teacher I agree fully with that subtitle!). His approaches may not work for everyone and there is no silver bullet to being a good student, but I like a
Good website for ESL teachers
2008-04-24 10:25:00 Just stumbled on TEFL Place, a blog for ESL teachers. It's got some really good lesson plan ideas on it--I'm not sure Water Balloon Volleyball is going to work in my classroom, but it's an interesting idea and it would be fun. I might save that one for a barbecue with friends. I also shudder when I think about Hidden Ringtones designed not to be heard by the teacher because the pitch is too high More About: Website , Good , Teachers
New Way to Make Friends
2008-04-24 10:01:00 Much to the chagrin of their parents and professors, social sites like MySpace and Facebook are a part of university life in the US and worldwide. While you have to be careful not to let your internet surfing take away from your study time, and you also have to be careful what you put up on your sites. Remember your professors, university staff and employers (both present and future) can find you More About: Friends , Make
For Teachers: How to Make a Good Lesson Plan
2008-04-23 10:09:00 I put up a new article on English Advantage for ESL teachers on why and how to plan a lesson. As I say in the article, the most important reasons to have a plan are so that you have clear goals set out for your lesson. Otherwise you are just filling up time and/or entertaining students; both of these can be important too but without a goal, you aren't really educating. Also students don't respect More About: Make , Good , Lesson , Plan , Teachers
Printer Cartridges are Too Darn Expensive
2008-04-20 08:18:00 I was shocked that in Kazakhstan even in the big cities, many university students still hand write their essays for class. Not to make Kazakhstan sound completely backwards--I see primary school kids handing in printed, formatted essays and projects. But it might come as a shock to foreign students that in the US, universities expect essays and written assignments to be produced on a computer or More About: Printer , Cartridges
One Year Ago: Happy Birthday to Me!
2008-04-20 07:38:00 One year ago, this blog was just starting and at the time I was focused a lot more on universities, whereas I seem to have shifted more and more towards English language learning. It was very useful to go back and look at my first posts and be reminded that I planned this blog to serve both ESL learners and international students. Three posts that really stand out, I think, are my first post on More About: Happy , Birthday , Happy Birthday , Year
Don't Ignore the Library
2008-04-17 10:29:00 In light of National Library week this week (the 13th to the 19th of April), I thought I'd remind everyone what a valuable tool the library is for language learners. One of the most basic tools for learning a language is the library. Perhaps it's so obvious that a lot of people ignore it--or some people like to own books and look down on borrowing. Let's face it, libraries aren't exactly cool More About: The Library
PowerPoint Presentations
2008-04-17 10:26:00 Another blog I found online, University Scholar, run by a student in Indiana with tips and resources for being a better student. I particularly like the post on making good PowerPoint presentations which has some videos taken from experts so you can get a good idea of what works and what doesn't. There's also a recent useful post on getting a regular sleep method. I really don't recommend going More About: Presentations , Powerpoint
Some New Lesson Plans on englishadvantage.info
2008-04-12 11:36:00 If you want a quick online test to check your knowledge of Parts of the Car. Fill in the names of the parts of a car, check your answers as you work and get your final score. For teachers, the test is printable to use a worksheet in class. Have You Ever, Would You Ever is a list of questions on what you have done and what you would do. Under what circumstances would you steal? Or live in another More About: Info , Plans , Lesson
Ultimate Vacation
2008-04-12 11:13:00 A lot of students come to the US and they never really get out of the region near their university. They might go to the biggest city nearby (New York, Chicago, Boston, LA) but most of your vacations are spent going home and studying takes up all your time. If you want to have really amazing memories of your trip to the US, go to Hawaii. It's a lot cheaper and easier than you might think. And More About: Vacation , Ultimate
Salaries for PhDs Too Low?
2008-04-12 05:14:00 InsideHigherEd reports on an academic who briefly worked in an elite escort/prostitution ring to supplement her meager salary as a professor. Rhona Reiss, who got her PhD in 2000 from the University of North Texas, was teaching at Towson University and also working as interim department chair of Occupational Therapy at Howard University in 2001. Despite her 35 years of experience, her salary
Recommended Textbooks
2008-04-06 06:59:00 A lot of students ask me for my recommendations on books to use to study English. Occasionally I get a supposedly interested client who just checks out my bookshelf and walks out, which is pretty rude! I hope the only reason I'm in business is not that I have access to amazon.com and a credit card! In truth, studying with a tutor is ten times better than just studying with a book because you More About: Textbooks
American Universities to Be Fully Subsidized: Free to All Citizens
2008-04-01 05:09:00 Barak Obama, leading candidate for President of the US, announced today his plan to fund all universities directly from the government budget. In a speech in Pennsylvania, which holds its primaries in 3 weeks, he said: Education should be available to everyone at every level regardless of ability to pay. The only way to lift the poor from disadvantage is through education. Education means better More About: Free , American
Lesson Plan Link Love
2008-03-26 12:44:00 I'm looking to build up my homepage as well as this blog. One thing I want to do is build up my collection of lesson plans. And for bloggers out there I want to offer link-love. So if you have a great idea for a lesson plan, a game, or even an online resource that you think would help people learn English, leave me a comment or email me at walton@englishadvantage.info. I'll put it up on my lesson More About: Love , Link , Lesson , Plan
A Good Rap
2008-03-20 08:10:00 So one great source for learning English is rap. Rap tends to be highly creative and the best rappers play with the meanings and sounds of words. It can open your mind to new ways of listening to the language. It's also a never-ending source of slang, though you have to be careful since rappers also invent words--my friend Chris is constantly annoyed at Akon's song Smack That where he invents a More About: Good
New Site
2008-03-16 16:28:00 Just as I got this blog moved to a new location, the host of my resource site went out of business. So the English Advantage website has a new home at http://www.englishadvantage.info. Because the old host wasn't very stable host, I didn't pay much attention to the site but now that it's migrated, I want to play with it some more. You can find TOEFL-like tests there as well as Lesson Plans for More About: Site , New Site
Green Beer Means Yum
More articles from this author:2008-03-09 04:29:00 Another post in my series on American holidays, which started (late) with Valentine's Day. This time I'm looking at the upcoming Saint Patrick's Day, which is almost always held on March 17th. This year though, it has been moved to March 15th (because the 17th is part of Holy Week--the build up to Easter). That may or may not influence the secular authorities--probably it will since the 15th is More About: Beer , Green 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
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