FREE DAILY ENGLISH LESSONS!
In time, these lessons and "stubs" will be migrated to the Buzzwords site.
Until then, consider them historical.


Mini-Lessons from Friday, Dec. 16, 2011

These Mini-Lessons are posted on Twitter, and in China on Weibo, throughout the day. You can follow them there!

To get the most from them, you should try to use them in sentences, or discuss them with friends. Writing something on Twitter or Weibo is a great way to practice!
  • Tip: Learn to describe your world. Look at things around you right now: how many of them can you name in English? Learn to say them!
  • Proverb: Oil and water don’t mix. It's hard for two things that are different to get along. Cat and dog. Student and teacher. Man and woman?
  • AcVoc [Academic Vocabulary]: function: use or purpose (n); operate (v). "What is the function of this button?" "I don't know; it's not functioning."
  • Lit [Literature]: King Arthur: legendary king of old England. Head of the Knights of the Round table at Camelot, and husband of Guinevere.
  • Art: fiction: the opposite of "fact," it describes novels and short stories--any literature that is not actually true. Films, too.
  • Slang: to be (or look) a little down: to be sad or blue. "Are you OK, Mark? You look a little down."
  • Geog [Geography]: Timbuktu: A place in West Africa far from any city. But used for any far-away place: "He lives hours from here, way out in Timbuktu."

NOTES:
  1. Academic Vocabulary is the Academic Word List from Oxford University Press. This is "a list of words that you are likely to meet if you study at an English-speaking university."
  2. The Proverb, and the Literature, Art, and Geography words are from lists in the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. I wrote the definitions and examples myself.
  3. The Tip and Slang words are from my own lists, and I wrote the definitions and examples myself.

This lesson is ©2011 by James Baquet. You may share this work freely. Teachers may use it in the classroom, as long as students are told the source (URL). You may not publish this material or sell it. Please write to me if you have any questions about "fair use."

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