I Am Issa

If pronunciation teaching is aimed at achieving native-like proficiency, it’s a futile business. However if reasonable intelligibility is the target in pronunciation instruction, it’s a fruitful, promising quest. The problem now is: how do we gauge reasonable intelligibility? There’s an interesting factor known as the interlocutor’s familiarity and attitudes towards the speaker that has to be considered. Do the

Dareme2write.com sprang up to Neil and me sometime in October when we agreed to deliberately improve how we write. It surprisingly evolved into an ESL site dedicated to intermediate and advanced learners of English as a Second Language after a few brainstorming for a better subject for the site. Now ESL Online has got its new home. One closest to the name and

Connie captures in a few words what normal people say in strings of plenty syllables, exactly opposite of what Walter habitually does. Sometimes, he forgets simple names of tools for fixing: “Could you please pass me the tool for driving screws?” requested Walter. “Say “screwdriver”, dear,” replied Connie. At other times, his mom’s lessons on

Why say more than you ought? Learn to leave out some words that belabor expression. First of all I shall give you a lesson in Vocabulary, and last of all in Composition. Omit “of all” as it is unnecessary. I sought him throughout the whole country. Leave out “whole” because it’s already implied in “throughout”.

Only whenever a letter is silent, or usually so, do we form Spelling/Pronunciation rules. We cannot spell by rules –there are just too many exceptions. I’ll tell you why we’ve got to forgive our English teachers for torturing us of pop spelling quizzes back then. B keeps quiet before t, or after m, on the

Do you wonder why she keeps saying “he” for “she”? And instead of saying “have finished”, she insists “have finish” no matter how many times you have told her to use the past participle after have/has? How about the ill usage of the past tense of verb after the word “did” as in “Did you

“All my life, without a douBt I’ll give you, All my life..” If not for the B, he must have been the heartthrob of the singing contest. Yes, he’s tall, handsome, and quite young with a deep voice YET with a loud B before his T.  T, an unvoiced consonant, forces B to lose its voice. Simply, T silenced B. Say