Baan Ajarn

Archive for the ‘English Language’ Category

For years an email has been circulating about the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which includes a very clever list of words made by changing common words.  It’s a hoax, because The Washington Post doesn’t really have such an invitational. Nevertheless, it’s a funny list and I enjoy it every time I see it. It has even inspired the website WashingtonPostsMensaInvitational.com which is collecting and publishing new submissions.

Since I have just received this e-mail for the n-th time today, I thought I put it up here as an inspiration for English teachers. It does make a fun presentation for your truly advanced English students. Depending on the age of your students, you may want to omit some of the entries. Then, have your students come up with their own list of modified words and their meaning. Laughter in your classroom will be guaranteed!

Here is the full e-mail:

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid..
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a  spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Learning a language quickly and successfully depends largely on a student’s motivation. If your students have a compelling reason to learn English, they will make rapid progress. They will study not only in your classroom, and do their homework, but they will also seek out ways to learn English outside of your set curriculum.

But how do you motivate your students?  Easy.  Give them a compelling reason why English is useful to them now.  Telling them they’d be able to “get better jobs sometimes in the future” just won’t do the trick. Students are typically not motivated by something way out in the future. They want to get the rewards now.

So how can English be useful to your students now? Easy again. Watch where they are headed after school. Many of your students will undoubtedly march right to the next internet shop to spend some time online. Naturally, they are visiting sites in Thai Language while browsing the web. But that’s only scratching the surface of all the internet fun out there, because the language of the internet is English; at least at this point in time. Chinese has been catching up rapidly, but nevertheless, English will continue to be the dominant language for the hottest and coolest sites.

Again, don’t even try to motivate your students with better job opportunities at some point in the future. Show them where and how English skills can be used right here and now. Show them how much more fun the internet can be when they access and understand sites that may only be available in English. Sites like BigFish Games, GameHouse, and Pogo.

To get started, help them, for example, to create their Facebook profile in English. Even though Facebook is available in the Thai Language, this activity makes an interesting classroom lesson. Download this Facebook Profile Sheet and use it in class to help your students getting started with Facebook in English. If you have an advanced class and want to make it extra interesting, try the Facebook Pirate Profile Sheet.  To switch Facebook’s language to the Pirate version, scroll down all the way to the bottom where you see your current language displayed as a link. Click on it and then click on “English” and select “English (Pirate)”

Kids of all ages have enjoyed playing Snakes and Ladders for generations and now you can use it in the classroom! The version below is guaranteed to add some excitement and fun to your grammar lesson teaching the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous.

Feel free to download the game for your students and enjoy watching them practice verb tenses in a playful and competitive way.

How to Play

All you need to play the game are 2 to 4 players, a dice, and one marker for each player.

Players roll the dice, then move the designated number of spaces, between one and six.

Once they land on a space, they have to form a proper sentence in the correct verb tense with the words in that space and a pronoun respective to the number rolled (1 = I, 2 = you, 3 = he, 4 = she, 5 = we, 6 = they). Each field hints to the correct tense to be used, either Present Simple or Present Continuous.

Players who do not produce a correct sentence have to move their marker six spaces back.

Ladders: Whenever players land on a space at the bottom of a ladder, they will climb the ladder, which brings them to a space higher on the board.

Snakes: Whenever players land on a space that is at the tail end of a snake, they must slide down to the head of it, landing on a space closer to the beginning.

The winner is the player who gets to the last space on the board first.

If you teach small groups or one-on-one, and find some students struggle with pronunciation, put them at ease with this funny clip of  Inspector Clouseau (Steve Martin) trying to say “I would like to buy a hamburger.”

There are 12 Verb Tenses in the English language. They are used to indicate action that takes place in the past, present, and future. The following two grids show how and when to use each of these tenses.

The 12 Verb Tenses

click on the image to enlarge – or get the PDF version.

The 12 Verb Tenses – Usage

click on the image to enlarge – or get the PDF version.