A Few Tips To Help You Learn To Speak English Fluently

A Few Tips To Help You Learn To Speak English FluentlySo, you are wondering what I was learning English. It seems like your life has taken a turn for the worse in that you are finding it very difficult to communicate with people of other languages. Well, here are a few tips to help you learn to speak English more fluently.The first tip is to practice English in the easiest possible way. Keep a diary or notebook. Write down every day what is happening in your daily life. Write down what you do and how you feel. This way, you can include every little aspect of your day.The second tip is to make a list of all the words you know in English. Look at the lists you have made, and pick out any common words. The common words would be words that you have just learned the meaning of. Then try to find out the meaning of these words in your native language. This will allow you to put all the information together to give you an easier time translating.The third tip is to start trying to learn to s peak English. You can do this by either joining a class or community based program. A class is the best method because you get the same instruction as a native speaker does. However, you cannot test yourself too much at the beginning, because it takes time to build up your confidence. Remember that you are not going to catch up to someone who has already been doing it for years. So, you need to give yourself some time.The fourth tip is to start using the computer more to help you learn to speak English. Most of the time, you are on the internet or on the phone when you are speaking English. So, if you use these tools to help you learn to speak English, then you will be able to use them whenever you speak English.The fifth tip is to never stop trying to learn to speak English. This tip has helped me a lot because I never stopped trying to learn to speak English. You should always be looking for ways to learn to speak English, because you never know when you will need to speak the lan guage.These are a few tips to help you learn to speak English more fluently. In addition, you will soon find that your communication skills will improve and that you will be able to communicate better.

Get Back To - Phrasal Verb of the Day

Get Back To - Phrasal Verb of the Day Todays phrasal verb of the day is: Get Back ToInfinitive form: Get Back ToPresent Tense: Get Back To/ Gets Back Toing form: Getting Back ToPast tense: Got Back ToPast Participle: Got Back To/ Gotten Back ToGet Back To is an inseparable English phrasal verb. It can be used in the following way:When you talk to someone at a later time either because you are restricted by time (i.e.:preoccupied, busy, etc) or you have obtained additional or new information that you didnt have earlier1.  Mrs. Baker got too busy and realized that she still hasnt gotten back to the students about the final results of the exam.2.  My friends asked me to get back to them to let them know Ive arrived home safely.No Video YetExercises: Write your answers in comments and we will correct them.Fill in the gaps from the video above:Complete the sentences below with the correct form of Get Back To.1. Your father said that you need to ____ ____ ___ him once youve successfully contacted your sister.2. Suzette still hasnt _____ ___ ___ me after the incident at the mall yesterday. I hope shes okay and that shell _____ ____ ___ me soon.3. Can I ___ ____ __ you with that information? Id have to check with my clients first.4.I promise Ill be fine.  ____ ____ __ is the first thing Ill do tomorrow morning.5.  The detective told John to  ____ ___ __  him he remembers the suspects name.Change the example sentences above to negative sentences (or positive, if the sentence is already negative). Then change them to questions.

Goodbye, Steve Jobs

Goodbye, Steve Jobs As any of my students know, Ive always been a fan of Apple and Steve Jobs. Ive been meaning to write something here all week about Jobs death this week, but Ive been traveling and havent had the time.Jobs was always an inspirational person for me. The technology he developed pushed the boundaries of what technology could do in imaginative ways. Many people say that he made consumer electronics into an art form. A quote below from the New York Times illustrates just how he did this:He put much stock in the notion of “taste,” a word he used frequently. It was a sensibility that shone in products that looked like works of art and delighted users. Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.”Several of my students have read this in class with me over the last week, and have had trouble understanding it, so Ill give some explanation here.It starts w ith a phrasal verb, to put stock into (something/someone). This means to value or believe in something, or someone, in this case, the idea (notion) of taste. Taste in this context means, essentially, the ability to know what is art. So, for this sentence you could say that Jobs valued the ability to recognize art.This value, according to the next sentence was something that shone in his products. Shone is the past simple for shine, meaning to emit light, like a light bulb or the sun. So, the value that Jobs placed on art could be seen in his products.The next sentence quotes Jobs, saying that the great products were the result of exposing yourself to the best things humans have done, i.e. experiencing the best artwork, music, literature, etc. and then using the great things about humankinds best work as inspiration for your own work.To rephrase one more time, Steve Jobs wasnt looking at other computers, cellphones or tablet PCs for inspiration, he was looking paintings by Picasso, l istening to The Beatles, or reading Tolstoy, and this great artwork was what ultimately influenced how he created his products.Its a sensibility that makes me aspire to do more with my own work, and we hope that ideas we are developing now will excite our students in the coming months Below youll find a video that again illustrates this idea Jobs had of art. The version of this commercial that appeared on television had an actor doing the voice, but in this version it is actually Steve Jobs.

How Can I Become a Tutor on TutorZ.com

How Can I Become a Tutor on TutorZ.com Hi guys, in today`s article we are going to give you an answer to a frequently asked question : How can I become a tutor on TutorZ.com? All you have to do is visit the TutorZ.com home page. In the top navigation bar pull down the Tutors menu and select be a tutor. Then fill out your account information, including name, email and password. There are only 6 simple registration steps. Its absolutely FREE and will take less then two minutes! You can edit or delete your profile any time. Additionally, you will instantly get $10 on your account for purchasing tutoring leads. So if you’re passionate about helping students excel academically, we encourage you to join our team! How Can I Become a Tutor on TutorZ.com Hi guys, in today`s article we are going to give you an answer to a frequently asked question : How can I become a tutor on TutorZ.com? All you have to do is visit the TutorZ.com home page. In the top navigation bar pull down the Tutors menu and select be a tutor. Then fill out your account information, including name, email and password. There are only 6 simple registration steps. Its absolutely FREE and will take less then two minutes! You can edit or delete your profile any time. Additionally, you will instantly get $10 on your account for purchasing tutoring leads. So if you’re passionate about helping students excel academically, we encourage you to join our team!

Juggling a Side Gig While Maintaining a Full-Time Job

Juggling a Side Gig While Maintaining a Full-Time Job via Pexels.com 1. Set limits for yourself. Chances are, youre probably working about 40 hours per week at your full-time job (maybe more). So when you talk yourself into getting a side gig, youre asking yourself to come up with another 20+ hours in your week. That means another four to five hours per day during the week, unless youre going to give up your weekends. I know people who have decided taking a day off is for the birds, and theyre simply going to work seven days a week. But I honestly dont know how those people make it. If youre going to pick up a side gig and try to hold down your full-time job, you have to set your own limits for yourself. Only YOU know what you can handle. So before you commit to anything, make sure you know just how hard you can push yourself. 2. Schedule, schedule, schedule. Before you sign on the dotted line of your new part-time job, think about WHEN, exactly, youre going to work this extra gig. Its in your best interest to develop a weekly schedule of when youll get all your hours in. Maybe youre picking up a job that only requires you to work a few hours on the weekends or at night during the week. You  must  schedule when those hours are going to be. Go ahead and get into your head that youll never have another free Sunday night. Go ahead and tell yourself that Wednesday evenings are for your side gig. Get it on a calendar and post it somewhere you can see it regularly. This is the only way youll be able to hold down a full-time job and a side gig. 3. Have a support system. Your coworkers (at both of your jobs) might end up being the people who help you through the stressful weeks. More than anyone else, they know how hard it is to make ends meet with the job youre working (hello, education!). So theyll be the ones who will truly stand by your side on your bad days, make you an extra cup of coffee when youre dragging, and pulling you together right before your big company meetings. Make sure you have friends and family who will stand behind your hard-working self. When you need some support, youll need people who will be there for you. via Pexels.com 4. Keep things in perspective. Surely youre not working a full-time job thats going  nowhere.  Surely theres a way to move up the ladder. So it wont be like this forever. You wont always have to work a second job. Its temporary. Soon enough youll be making more money than you know what to do with. Dont get too caught up in making sure you bring home loads of money. Simply live within your means and make the best of the situation that youre currently in. 5. Live within your means. If you havent checked yourself, then you might not be living within your means. Why are you having to get another job? Is it your credit card bills or having enough to buy your groceries? Hopefully, you havent found yourself drowning under a huge pile of debt. If thats the case, its unlikely that a part-time gig is going to solve your issues. At this point, maybe its time to move back in with your folks and work your booty off for the next few years. Working a full-time job and trying to hold down a side gig  isnt  easy. Dont let anyone tell you that it is. If youve decided to make this move in your life, make sure you know how youre going to keep yourself going. Create a schedule for yourself, know your limits, keep yourself in perspective, and make sure you have a support system to keep you going on the days you simply dont want to go anymore.

Split It Up The Top Technique for Learning Vocabulary in Another Language

Split It Up The Top Technique for Learning Vocabulary in Another Language Split It Up: The Top Technique for Learning Vocabulary in Another Language Youve come here because youre thinking: Why the %#@! cant I learn foreign vocabulary?Welcome.Let me ask you a few questions before we proceed.Is your brain all  muddled up with huge lists of words but unable to  deploy the proper vocabulary in conversation?Have you  tried memorizing words with flashcard apps, only to find that you cant fit these isolated words into full-on sentences?In this situation, well always end up blaming ourselves and our own bad memories. Other people, we think, are good at memorizing wordsâ€"but we just dont have the ability to learn vocabulary.Theres also a chance well pass the blame on to our flashcard apps and waste precious time testing all the available options,  instead of spending that  time learning our target languages.Lets put the blame game to rest and figure out whats really going on hereâ€"whats so hard about learning vocabulary in another language? Why Your Brain Forgets Isolated Foreign VocabularyThe real problem has nothing to do with some genetic ability. The real problem is that youre too trusting.You believe the common wisdom that learning vocabulary is as simple as learning loads of words. It isnt.Your brain has not developed to remember isolated words. Neuroscience has found that our working memory has developed to remember short patterns of no more than four items at a time. Thats only one more thing than a monkey can hold in its memory.It doesnt matter how many individual words you memorize. Without fitting the words into patterns, your brain will have trouble retrieving them in the heat of the moment.The Solution:  Hack Your Brain with ChunkingThankfully, science has also come up with a foolproof way to harness our brains natural abilities: Chunking.With chunking, you find self-contained groups of words and learn them as one unit.Simply put, chunking is learning phrases.You mean by using  phrasebooks? I hear you asking.Well, almost.Lets use an example to demonstrate chunking. Ill take the following phrase from  this list of advanced Spanish phrases: ¿Qué pelicula te gustaba mucho cuando eras niño/a?  â€" What film did you love as a kid?This is a pretty long phrase, which contains far more words than the three or four items needed for a chunk. You dont want your chunk to be too long and complicated, either.Its actually made up of a few chunks. For example, two of these could be:Te gustaba mucho  â€" You really liked/loved Cuando eras niño/a  â€" When you were a boy/girlThese phrases both sound natural, and are extremely versatile. Now you have two proper phrases that you can mix and match with others to form new sentences.Sometimes, chunks dont make sense when you try to analyze the words separately. For example, take  this French phrase:Ça te dit?  â€" You up for it? or Sound good?These words literally mean something like It tells you? This is pretty nonsensical, but as a casually-used  phrase  the words come together to make complete sense.Split It Up: The Top Technique for Learning Vocabulary in Another LanguageLearning through chunking is as simple as one, two, five but it can take a bit of getting used to. You have to retrain yourself not to just look things  up in a foreign dictionary, learn the isolated word and then leave it at that. You need to get into the practice of combining the words into little phrases.Here are four steps to help you, plus a great shortcut in Step 5.1. Gather Your VocabularyThe first step to use chunking is to list all the words you want to learn. So, grab a piece of paper or a blank document and list down all the words you need to memorize.Havent got any specific foreign vocabulary you need to learn? You can skip this step and go straight to the phrase-finding.2. Find Some Great PhrasesNext, you should find some phrases that use those words. If you can double up words into one phrase, then youll reduce the amount you have to memorize. Thats not necessary thoughâ€"its fine if you cant fit the words on your list together. The main goal is to find a phrase for each word on the list.Where to Find Great Foreign PhrasesHere are four places to find useful, correct foreign phrases. Dont rely on automatic translators, which might produce badly worded phrases.Also, focus on finding phrases made up of useful chunks, not sentences that will only make sense in one situation.PhrasebooksThe good old fashioned phrasebook can be a good starting place. However, before buying one, make sure that its of full sentences, not just word lists. Its surprising that many modern phrasebooks are filled mostly with isolated lists of words.One excellent option that never fails is Lonely Planet. The phrasebooks put out by Lonely Planet go way beyond a handful of words.Online Phrase ListsThe modern version is the online phrase list. These are easy to search and there are more being written on blogs every day.FluentU already has many lists of useful phrases on the Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese,  English  and Business English bl ogs.Books and Other Learning MaterialWhen youre reading in another language, list those words that you dont know. This is part of the intensive reading strategies that you should definitely be using to boost your language learning.Be sure to copy out a  whole chunk from the text, not just one  word alone.As an example, heres a sentence from a random book in English, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens:At these words he fell into a reverie, in which he thought of several things.The word to learn,  reverie,  means a state of being pleasantly lost in ones thoughts; a daydream. Its not a very common word, so it could be hard to rememberBut the chunk we can use is fell into a reverie.  This chunk means something like started daydreaming. Keeping these words together will be easier for us to remember than just trying to learn the word alone.Firstly, you can learn the whole phrase at these words he fell into a reverie.  Then, when youve really learned it, try shaking it up by fol lowing Step 4 below.VideosVideos are a great place to find vocabulary in context, with the added bonus that they already include the correct pronunciation.YouTube, along with other online services, are full of videos where you can find useful phrases. Many of them also have subtitles or closed captions which allow you to see the phrase written down.However, for a shortcut, FluentU provides a completely self-contained vocabulary learning system, which uses chunking and includes subtitles. The most useful videos are already chosen for you, meaning you can spend less time sentence mining and more time learning.Jump to the bonus Step 5 at the end of this post to find out more about FluentU.3. Learn the Phrases by HeartOnce youve gathered some phrases, you need to learn them all  by heart. You can do this the same way you used to learn individual words. For example, you can:1. Play recordings of the phrase and repeat it back until you can say it properly (try Google Translates Listen but ton  if you have no recording of the phrase). Then, record yourself and compare with the original.2. Put the whole phrase into your favorite flashcard app and learn it in the usual way.3.  Use mnemonics to fix the chunk into your brain.4. Write down the phrase from memory and compare it to the original phrase.There are many ways to remember phrases which are really quick and effective.4. Shake It Up to Avoid Over-reliance on ScriptsLearning specific phrases by heart is fine, but it can mean that youll become overly reliant on scripts. If youre memorizing those scripts, you might not be able to change them up in conversation. You want your phrases to be flexible.The real power of chunking is that you can reuse the same chunk in many different phrases.So, taking our example of the chunk fell into a reverie  from the last step. The original phrase at these words he fell into a reverie might not be very useful in most situations. But here are some other possible phrases you can use this chunk in:We were chatting, then suddenly she stopped talking and fell into a reverie.After watching the film I fell into a reverie  for ages, it really made me think.My grandpa used to fall into a reverie every time we  talked about the war.If appropriate, use the chunk often in conversation and when talking to yourselfâ€"try to say it out loud 10 times in a day and see how effective it is.Changing the chunkSome chunks are self-contained and only make sense as a unit. However, many words can be applied to lots of chunks. When youve learned your first chunk, you might want to apply the same word to a new chunk.For our word reverie, we could use the following chunks:When writing his sermon, the priest drifted in and out of reverie.My five-year-old broke out of her reverie and asked a difficult question.He tried to rouse her from her reverie.I found these chunks by searching for terms like a reverie,  her reverie,  into reverie,  out of reverie,  etc. (with the quotation marks include d) in  Google Book Search  and  Google News Search, which are multilingual resources.5. See Chunking in Action in Under 2 Minutes with FluentUStill not convinced that learning phrases in context is the best way to learn new words?Sign up for a free account with FluentU to see it in action. Simply go to the homepage and click the Sign Up For Free  button.FluentU takes videos from all around the web in your target language. With dynamic subtitles, it teaches you loads of new vocabulary using a few methods. As well as learning the individual meanings of words, it takes phrases directly from the video and applies the vocabulary to meaningful chunks, ensuring that you can use the vocabulary in context.So, sign up now and check it out. Its free and is a great demonstration of how chunking in practice is an easy, quick and lasting way to learn foreign vocabulary.Learning vocabulary in another language doesnt seem so scary anymore, does it? With these five simple steps, you can learn new wo rds in your target language and take your language-learning journey by storm!Alex Owen-Hill is a European freelance writer. He writes about science, travel, voice-use, language and any of the hundred other things hes passionate about. Check out his website at www.AlexOwenHill.co.uk. Any questions? Connect with him on Twitter at @AlexOwenHill  and ask away!

How Tutoring Can Fix Math Problems Over the Summer - TutorNerds

How Tutoring Can Fix Math Problems Over the Summer - TutorNerds How Irvine Tutoring Can Fix Math Problems Over the Summer How Irvine Tutoring Can Fix Math Problems Over the Summer When your student falls behind in math class, they are more likely to stay behind in the math classes that follow. This is because math classes in the United States follow a mostly linear progression where each class builds on the material learned in the previous class. So, if your student is falling behind, you want to catch it early and fix it. Here is how private Irvine math tutoring can fix math problems and set your student up for future success. What an Experienced Irvine Math Tutor Can Do Find the problem It is often very difficult to find just what went wrong when a students math grades start slipping. An experienced tutor will be able to look at your students grades and materials from their last class and talk to them to see what theyre doing wrong and why. Work only on the important areas Students learn a huge amount of material every year in math class. Not all of it is important for future math classes. There is a lot of secondary and tertiary subjects covered to allow students to push themselves, practice things that might be more interesting to them, and to overall be exposed to more topics in math. However, when we are trying to fix math problems and improve for the following years, it is important that time isnt waste trying to relearn and practice old material that your student will never have to do again. Help master the essentials Once the essential topics that will be reused are found they need to be mastered. This does not mean that your student should understand it and be able to do a problem or two. It means that theyve done many problems successfully and will remember how to solve them for years to come. There are usually fewer than ten essential skills in a given math class, even if upwards of one hundred can be taught. An experienced tutor can make sure your student has mastered whats important. Get the student ahead An experienced tutor knows what your student will be working on next year and going forward. Once theyve mastered the essentials and fixed the problems from last year, a tutor can teach your student some of the most important topics for next year. This often gives a huge boost to students confidence and success in math when they do things in class that they are good at. That confidence can help propel them forward with good self-esteem and a more positive opinion of math. It is important that your students tutor is a qualified, experienced, and effective educator. Simply having knowledge of the subject often isnt enough to truly help diagnose and correct problems and prepare for the future. Discuss with your tutor what you are looking for and expecting out of the lessons. Falling math grades can be a significant problem that continues to get worse, but you can feel confident that an experienced tutor can help set your student up for long-term success in math. Take the opportunity now over the summer while your student has more free time and less stress. Call TutorNerds today to book your private in-home Irvine math tutor for the summer! Michael C. is currently a private math, science, and standardized test tutor with TutorNerds in Irvine and Anaheim. All blog entries, with the exception of guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at pr@tutornerds.com for guest blogging and collaborations. We want to make this the best free education resource in SoCal, so feel free to suggest what you would like to see us write.