Index of Free ESL Lessons

This blog post features an index of free lessons and advice posts about learning English as a second language. Look through them and consider improving your English language skills so much more by signing up for Kingston University USA courses for any skill set.

The Basics of English Words


Practice: The Basics of English Words


Punctuation Marks


Educational Vocabulary


Singular and Plural


Practice: Singular and Plural Nouns


Pictures: Singular and Plural Nouns


Possessive Nouns


Introduction to Symbols


Possessive Pronouns


Symbols w/ Pictures


Possessive Adjectives


Pictures: Signs


Contractions


More Contractions

Even More Contractions

Asterisk


Formal English and Informal English


ESL Lesson: Tenses (Part 1)


ESL Lesson: Tenses (Part 2)


Practice with Pictures: Tenses


Writing Letters


Casual Letter Writing


Writing Business Letters


Internet Part I


Internet Part II

Do you have any questions or comments about any ESL subject? Leave them in the comment section and we will answer them. Stay tuned for more free advice on this and other subjects as well as promotions and news! If you want individual tutoring and help in learning English, contact Kingston University USA today!!

If you want individual tutoring and help in learning English, contact Kingston University USA today!!

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News: How Competition Is Killing Higher Education

Mark C. Taylor of Bloomberg Views gives his opinions on how competition is detrimental to higher education. Here is a snippet of his article:

But in higher education, competition often discourages risk taking, leads to overly cautious short-term decisions, produces a mediocre product for the price, and promotes excessive spending on physical plants and bureaucracies. 

The construction arms race on campus is the most visible example of competition run amok. To become more attractive to potential consumers, many colleges and universities undertake overly ambitious expansions. In some cases, new facilities contribute to educational programs, but too often they are tangential and trap institutions in a costly cycle: The new athletic center, dorm or student center starts to look faded when competing schools open theirs, and it never ends.

You can read the rest of Taylor's writing here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-17/competition-is-killing-higher-education-part-1-.html

Education News: Russia's University Mergers Pit the Old School Against the New

Anna Nemtsova of the Chronicle for Higher Learning writes about how "bringing together Soviet-style instructors and Western-influenced researchers has led to impasse, not improvement." You can read more about how societal and cultural influences affects education by clicking the link below. 

http://chronicle.com/article/Russias-University-Mergers/131844/

News Column: Online Courses Could Lead to Big Changes

Peter Cohan wrote this article on the educational phenomenon of online learning. Here is a brief preview:

Online education is getting a sudden burst of media attention. That’s because the two biggest brands in the business — Harvard and MIT — announced a multimillion-dollar program to deliver some courses online. And since these schools are widely admired, other colleges and universities are asking questions about what they should be doing with online learning. But this leads to a fundamental question: Why do people go to college?

What’s all the online-education fuss about? On May 4, Harvard and MIT announced a $60 million online-classroom venture, called edX, that will launch in the fall. It’s a nonprofit enterprise that will deliver free courses in different academic disciplines to anyone who can get online. And edX goes beyond passive viewing of videos — it includes discussions, labs, quizzes and other so-called interactive learning techniques. Moreover, people who take the online courses and fulfill their requirements get a certificate of completion.

What do you think of online learning? If you are interested in learning opportunities and educational services, visit Kingston University USA at http://www.kingstonuniversityusa.com/

News: Creating a Genuinely Sustainable Higher Education System

This article from The Guardian by Matt Grist discusses the future of higher education in the United Kingdom and some possibilities for improvement. Follow the link below to read more about some of the opportunities that are being proposed for students and future students at universities in the United Kingdom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/may/16/financial-sustainability-universties

Education News: The Presidential Campaign And Latino Education

This article by Gabriel Sanchez Zinny of the Huffington Post discusses the relation of education, politics and demographics in the USA. It is entitled "The Presidential Campaign And Latino Education." Here is a brief preview of his reporting:

The achievement gap between Hispanics and other ethnic groups in standardized testing and overall education is significant. The U.S. Department of Education found that the average SAT scores of Latinos lag behind the U.S. average by 100 points. Additionally, 13.9 percent of the Latino population holds a bachelor's degree, whereas 29.9 percent of the total U.S. population does.

The reasons for this are related not only to lackluster education policies, but also to other factors such as poverty, language skills and school attendance. The 2010 Census found that 35 percent of Latinos were living in poverty, compared to 12.4 percent of Caucasians; Latinos typically attend schools where a higher percentage of students speak English as a second language, making instruction more cumbersome. In addition, Latinos drop out of high school at a 17.6 percent rate, compared to the 8.1 percent rate of the entire U.S. population.

Education News: Education Protests in Chile

This article by the Associated Press discusses the Chilean education crisis and the protests in response to it. Here is a brief preview:

The march, organized by the Confederation of University Students of Chile, was the second of its kind this year.

Thousands of protests were held last year by high school and college students demanding an end to for-profit education and the implementation of free higher education.

The Santiago Times said President Sebastian Pinera has proposed ending reliance on student loans from private banks, which made an estimated $500 million last year off of government-backed student aid.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/05/17/Chile-Students-protest-education-system/UPI-43161337270383/#ixzz1v9QlyGJU

Education News: ESL Conference

Alleen Brown of TC Daily Planet discusses a recent ESL Conference in Minnesota. Here is a preview:

The winner of this year’s ESL Advocate Award, Denise Harlos, described an experience many of the ESL teachers attending last week’s Minnesota ESL, Bilingual and Migrant Education Conference seemed to relate to.
She recalled starting as an ESL teacher in Shakopee 12 years ago, when she said there were 75 EL students speaking 10 languages. There was no English learning program. The schools couldn’t communicate with non-English-speaking parents, and they couldn’t find licensed ESL teachers...

News: 2012 International TESOL Convention in Philadelphia

This article by PR Web services through Yahoo! News discusses an international convention in Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A. on TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Here is an excerpt:

In support of participants in this year’s International TESOL Convention and English Language Expotaking place in Philadelphia March 28 -31, ESL Shop is offering extended conference pricing on all online orders. With a database of over 20,000 titles, it is the hope of ESL Shop to connect English language teachers worldwide with the materials they need to best serve their learners.

The rest of the article can be read here:

http://news.yahoo.com/esl-shop-shows-support-teachers-participating-2012-international-070402879.html

ESL News: ESL Class Incorporates Slang

This article by David Britto of the Daily Pennsylvanian discusses a  learning strategy used in an English as a Second Language (ESL) class. This class embraces informal English with slang, idiom and other overlooked components of English. Here is an excerpt of the article:

While most would easily call the presidential election a ‘big deal,’ foreign students may be stumped by these kinds of idioms.

Thankfully, one English as a Second Language program, that is celebrating its 15th anniversary at Penn, helps internationals cross the language barrier.

‘SLANGuage,’ a free ESL class hosted by The Christian Association at Penn, aims to educate students about idioms and slang language that they might not learn in a more formal English language course.

According to William Kelly, the founder of SLANGuage and the Coordinator of International Programs at the Christian Association, the ESL course is designed to allow foreigners to interact more successfully with Americans.

The full article can be read here.

ESL News: Professor Articulates the Need for ESL Teachers

This article by Christine Metz at JL World discusses Professor Hyesun Cho's speaking on the importance of ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers. Here is a brief excerpt:

“Every teacher will have an ESL (English as Second Language) student at some time. If not now, in the future. That is pretty much guaranteed. Unfortunately, these teachers aren’t being prepared to utilize the student’s background,” said Hyesun Cho, an assistant professor of curriculum and teaching at KU. 

Cho has co-authored an article with Terri Rodriguez of Duquesne University that examines the experiences of bi- and multilingual student teachers and the insight it could provide in developing more effective teaching practices. 

The article, published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, studied the experiences of Latino teaching candidates in the Midwest and a group of bilingual student teachers in Hawaii. Those in the study described what it was like to be a bi- or multilingual student and how their backgrounds influenced their teaching styles.

The rest of the article is available here.

Literacy Volunteers help adults with reading, ESL

This article is from News and Sentinel 

A fifth of all adults in West Virginia have difficulty reading beyond a fourth-grade level, according to the National Institute for Literacy.

The Literacy Volunteers of the Mid-Ohio Valley, a member agency of the United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley, is working to change that.

The Literacy Volunteers is a community-based nonprofit organization serving adults 18 and older in Wood and Wirt counties who need to learn or improve their reading skills and who need to learn English as a second language.

Maine Heritage Policy Center holds online learning conference

This article is from wlbz2.com
Maine's Department of Education has been exploring new ways for students to learn, including the idea of online and virtual learning. 

Friday, the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative think tank, invited people from companies that specialize in online learning to present their ideas to educators and school board members from around the state. 

Single-District Virtual Ed. Seen Growing Fastest

This article is from Education Week

Single-district online learning programs were the fastest-growing sector of virtual learning in the United States in 2011. Whether it is to provide more options for students, keep more students from seeking virtual learning options outside the school district, or simply to move toward 21st-century teaching and learning, many districts are launching and sustaining their own virtual learning programs.

As districts move in this direction, they are taking a harder look at how they will evaluate their local models of virtual education, which is gaining popularity even though reviews on its effectiveness compared with that of more traditional approaches are still mixed.

National Geographic Learning Secures Significant Customer Adoptions in Florida and Texas

This article is from The Sacramento Bee

 National Geographic Learning, part of Cengage Learning and a provider of quality educational and ELT materials for the K‐12, academic and adult education markets, today announced significant adoptions of their K-5 Science and K-8 English as a Second Language (ESL) products in Floridaand Texas, respectively.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20070724/NYTU125 )

National Geographic Learning (NGL) Science has been adopted by 21 school districts in the state of Florida, including Hillsborough County, the third-largest district in the state. This innovative and forward-thinking science product is a newcomer to the K-5 science sector and has achieved 28 percent market share in the state – reaching more than 320,000 elementary students. These students will have the opportunity to experience a research-based program that brings science learning to life.  Covering all aspects of science – science inquiry, science content and scientific literacy – NGL Science works with educators to immerse students in the nature of science, unlock big ideas, build scientific and content literacy, and get students to think objectively as scientists. The product was created to be customizable, so as to target the specific individual science standards in any given state.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/08/4322184/national-geographic-learning-secures.html#storylink=cpy

Online learning 'could look at business practices'

This article is from Virtual College

Educators rolling out e-learning platforms could benefit from analysing the successes and failures of companies that have used this strategy.

Director of Glasgow Caledonian University's Caledonian Academy Allison Littlejohn said during a Chat Live discussion hosted and published by the Guardian that oil corporation Shell has been using global knowledge networks in a pioneering manner.

She noted her higher education institution has been using similar online learning tools to improve the effectiveness of education for students in the Netherlands and UK.

New Report Urges Online Learning Expansion in Texas

This article is from Texas Insider 

The Texas Public Policy Foundation would like to see Texas follow Florida’s lead in increasing access to virtual schools.

A report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation suggests that virtual education and blended learning both present the opportunity for cost savings and academic gain in Texas.

“At the K-12 level, the potential of virtual education is enormous,” said the report’s author, James Golsan. “Through the use of technology, students in rural districts would have access to the same educational resources as students in more populated areas. Familiarization with technology could prepare students for the work force more quickly.”

Acme Packet University Charts the "Course" for the Next-Generation of Interactive Communications

This article is from Market Watch The Wall Street Journal. Here is an excerpt:

Against the backdrop of a complex, dynamic, and sometimes confusing marketplace, Acme Packet(R)APKT -0.40% , the leader in session delivery networks, today announced the first annual Acme Packet University, a day of discussion and discourse to clarify and set the stage for the future of the IP communications industry. This invitation-only event for media and analysts features company executives and industry thought leaders, and will be held Thursday, March 15, 2012 at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, MA.

Technology Director Turns Cellphones Into Classrooms

This article by Jennifer Howard at the Chronicle of Higher Education is about new ways technology can help people learn. You can read an excerpt here:

For students in South Africa, mobile phones aren't just for texting. They're often the surest route to the Internet, especially for the many who have little or no reliable computer access off campus. And, as in much of Africa, cellphones are ubiquitous. A 2007 study found that 98.5 percent of the country's university students had one.
Laura Czerniewicz thinks a lot about how students really use those phones in a higher-education setting. She's an associate professor of education at the University of Cape Town and the founding director of the Centre for Educational Technology. Ms. Czerniewicz used to work in commercial publishing. She made the jump to higher education in part to figure out fresh ways to get content to people who need it. She now heads the OpenUCT Initiative, which makes Cape Town research and teaching and learning resources openly available online.

MSD Creates Parent Outreach For ESL Parents

This article is from Milford Live

Milford School District is moving forward with its initiative to reach minority communities with the institution of a Parent Resource Center. The program focuses on reaching out to parents that are historically not engaged with the public schools in the Milford area. With a growing ESL (English as a Second Language) population in the Milford School District it has become critical for school officials to use a proactive approach to incorporating these families into the district.

On Wednesday, February 29 Director of Student Support Sylvia Henderson visited First State Manufacturing with several principals and teachers from the Milford schools. The Parent Resource Center creates an outreach program for parents at their place of employment during their lunch hour. First State Manufacturing has opened its doors to school officials so that the school can speak to these parents directly. This is a unique opportunity for both the school and the parents to engage with each other about the specifics of their child’s education.