In a Bangor Daily News article by Sam Schipani, Acadia Center for English Immersion Director Brian Boyd offers advice on how to learn vocabulary in context and stay motivated in your independent language learning.
Posts Tagged: idioms
5 Tips for Making New Vocabulary Stick
When you take an English immersion course, you have a great opportunity to expand your vocabulary in English. But how do you make the new words stick in your long-term memory, so that you remember them not just tomorrow, but next week, next month, next year? Here are 5 tips for making new words part of… Read more »
English Immersion in Maine: Perspective Mexico
Many executives and professionals from Mexico and Latin America have found Maine, with its friendly people and distance from any Spanish-speaking populations, to be the perfect place to study English in a total immersion environment. In this video, Rosario, an accountant from Mexico, talks about her experience in a 3-week intensive English immersion course at… Read more »
Learn English Prepositions with Photos
Who is the English language student’s enemy number 1? Prepositions. Prepositions are small but pugnacious, refusing to fade into the background. Prepositions laugh at translation (that’s laugh at, not laugh with, because it’s not a friendly laugh). Depende de in Spanish. De = of or from in English. So, it depends of the context, right? Wrong. It depends on… Read more »
Writing: The Best Way to Improve Grammar and Vocabulary in English
Have you ever cornered a native English speaker and begged her or him to correct you every time you make a mistake in English? If you have, the experience was probably highly frustrating for both of you. During an online lesson or an immersion course, a good teacher can take notes on the mistakes a student makes… Read more »
Carried Away: What does it mean?
In a recent New York Times interview, iconic American writer and radio host Garrison Keillor was asked: Have you ever felt carried away by a particular place in America? The phrasal verb carried away, used in the passive with the verbs be, feel, or get, means delighted and enraptured, and can also imply getting a… Read more »
Between You and Me: Grammar Conundrums
Between you and me? Between you and I? Between me and you? Even native speakers of English confess to feeling perplexed when it comes to choosing the correct pronouns. In his entertaining podcast Lexicon Valley on the online news website Slate, Mike Vuolo presents a satisfyingly thorough and often funny discussion of the confusion provoked by… Read more »
Comic Strip English – Doonesbury
A great way to practice English is to read the comics – they’re short and funny, they feature everyday English vocabulary that you can really put to use, and like movies they give you plenty of visual clues to what’s going on. A classic American comic strip is Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury. in circulation since 1970 and featuring such… Read more »
Want to Expand Your English Vocabulary? Read.
The best way to learn new words in English is to read something challenging. Read articles in an online magazine like Slate, or choose a book that interests you – probably non-fiction unless your English level is very advanced. Avoid getting frustrated by the difficulty of the reading by following these steps: 1) First try to understand… Read more »
Business English: How to Learn Business Vocabulary
What is the best way to improve your knowledge of business English vocabulary? Read. And I don’t mean read business English textbooks, which can be useful in a classroom setting. Read business newspapers, magazines, and websites. Choose articles that interest you and are related to your business. If you work for a bank, read the… Read more »