Learn English with Teacher Joe

On my website I suggested to students that they learn vocabulary by reading the captions under newspaper photos.  (Click here to read the original article.) That is one way I used when I was a student to learn many French words. The pictures help you to understand the meaning of the captions (the words under or next to a newspaper photo) and they can be very interesting too.

Just now I saw some interesting photos from my “second hometown”, Beijing. Things have changed a lot since I came here almost six years ago. You can see lots of interesting photos on Yahoo right now (Click here to view.) and learn English by reading the captions. Also, you can see where I live and some of the interesting things that are going on here.

I’m going to try to find some tickets to Olympic events in the next few weeks and I’ll let you know if I am able to see anything interesting. Probably, though, I’ll just be watching most of the Olympics on TV, just like you! (^_^)  Until then, I hope you go to Yahoo and learn some new words by reading!

 Hello Everybody,

I just finished the first week at my new job and I’ve been thinking about how important it is to enjoy your work. I can’t say I enjoyed the first week because I spent most of it either in meetings or observing other teachers to learn about the school’s approach to teaching. Next week I will actually start teaching, which will be much more interesting and fun for me.

I found two fascinating, but conflicting, quotes about work on the Internet this evening. First, writer David McCullough wrote, “Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love“.  This seems true, but how possible is it find work that you really love? More than 2000 years ago, Aristotle said “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind“.   This ALSO seems true to me at times because, even though I love teaching, I don’t love working for someone else who tells me what to do and how to do it.

How do you feel about work? Is it something you love to do or something you just need to do? I’m looking forward to reading your comments!

Hi Students,

 Sorry, I’ve been busy preparing to start a new job and moving into a new, though temporary, apartment. I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and shopping and other boring stuff. How has your English been during my absence? Still learning? I hope so. Below you can find links to some stories I made. Vocabulary is explained on the side, so it may be useful for some of you. Let me know if you like these.

       Vocabulary Story 1

       Vocabulary Story 2

       Vocabulary Story 3

       Vocabulary Story 4

       Vocabulary Story 5

In previous discussions, we’ve looked at risk-taking and the importance of doubt. In a similar way, today’s quote is about change. We often think of Charles Darwin when we say “only the strong survive” or when we use the expression “survival of the fittest”. We may think it is strength that wins or intelligence. But Darwin himself said:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.“

Do we rely on our strength to help us survive? Do we think our intelligence is enough? In our changing world, how we respond may be crucial to our success. In our changing world, Darwin’s idea may be more important than ever. How responsive are you to change? What are you doing now to adapt to the change in your life? What could you be doing differently to respond to change in the world?

I think anybody reading this blog is already responding, at least in a small way, to change. Instead of just learning (or teaching) in the classroom, we are here learning (or teaching) English together online. If you travel, if you live or have lived in another country, if you have changed jobs and learned from the experience, then you have responded successfully and grown.

Please write about your successful past changes in the comments section. Let us know what change you faced, how you responded, and how that response helped you. In that way, we can all learn from each other and continue to use this opportunity to change for the better.

A teacher from the U.S. just left a comment on my previous “Free Rice Update” post. Thanks Nancy! You can see how Nancy’s students have done by clicking below and reading the comments at the bottom:

http://eslblogs.englishclub.com/teacherjoe/2008/06/11/free-rice-update/

It seems my students are a little shy about reporting what they have done. So far, we’re up to 9000 grains of rice. If you’ve been studying vocabulary through www.freerice.com, please tell me how much you’ve earned.

Hello English Learners! 

Several months ago I set up a chat room on my website but never had time to use it.  I am not as busy this week as in past weeks, so I am ready to try some live chat. I hope some students show up. I am going to be in my room (see link below) at the following two times:

Session 1:  Beijing - Sunday 9 am,  Osaka - Sunday 10 am, California - Saturday 6 pm, New York - Saturday 9 pm, Sao Paolo - Saturday 10 pm, Paris - Sunday 3 am, Moscow - Sunday 5:00 am,  Tehran - Sunday 5:30 am,  Delhi - Sunday 6:30 pm.

Session 2:  Beijing - Monday 8 pm, Osaka - Monday 9 pm, California - Monday 5 am, New York - Monday 8 am, Sao Paolo - Monday 9 am, Paris - Monday 2 pm, Moscow - Monday 4:00 pm,  Tehran - Sunday 4:30 pm,  Delhi - Sunday 5:30 pm.

If you’re interested and have the time, click on the link below to go directly to the chat room:

http://www.teacherjoe.us/EnglishChat.html

 If anyone finds any mistakes in my time calculations, please leave a comment here! See you Sunday and / or Monday!

This joke is an example of “black humor” - it is about a dying woman. I thought it was funny, but some people will disagree. If you do not like this kind of humor, please do not watch it!  You will see the joke two times. The first time is straight through with no stopping. The second time the joke is stopped after every sentence and the vocabulary is explained. Let me  know if you find this helpful or not. Also, be sure to give the video a rating and add comments!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TIO7yr8xvk

For my Chinese readers, here is the blog of the man who beat me (2nd place) in the Shanghai speech contest:  http://peterwan19.blog.sohu.com/  (It’s mostly in Chinese.) You may have seen my speech on You Tube. Well, his speech was better! Remember, if he can do it, so can you. 

Some of you must remember learning from the news story about solving traffic problems. That was a bit difficult because the real meaning of the story was not so obvious. Students had to really listen carefully to get the humor. Here is another news story, but this time the humor seems obvious, maybe TOO obvious. Still, for me this is quite funny. Your job as students is to try identify WHAT, specifically, is funny about what the people say. Click on the link below, watch the video, then come back here with your comments! Try to give specific sentences that you think are funny and explain why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUu8sHpH6Y

I went to www.freerice.com again during the weekend. Do you remember Free Rice? It’s the site where you can practice your vocabulary and for each right answer, 20 grains of rice will be donated to poor people around the world. It’s a great site, but laziness has prevented me from using it often.

Now, I plan to go back several times a week. Even though I am an English teacher, I can still learn some new words. I seem to bounce around between levels 35 and 50, which are quite challenging! I hope other teachers try out www.freerice.com too!

Please go to Free Rice today and try the quiz. Use the “Options” button at the top to save your level and to keep track of how many grains of rice have been donated thanks to you. So far, I am up to 2000 grains. I hope everyone will tell me how many grains they have earned, and we can keep a total here. Looking back at old comments, I see Chichi earned 1040 grains before, so our grand total is 3040 right now. As a group, we can do better than that! Go to www.freerice.com. Learn vocabulary, help the poor!