Mini-Lessons from Monday, May 7, 2012

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!

• Science: ice ages: times when much of earth was covered with large sheets of ice, called "glaciers." Last one ended about 15,000 years ago.
  
• Language Study: comparative: words used to tell the difference between two things, like "A is bigger than B" or "C is more exciting than D."
  
• Business: memo: also, memorandum. A short, written note about something, usually inside a company. Many companies now use emails instead.
  
• Literature: "There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe": a funny children's rhyme. She "had so many children, she didn't know what to do."
  
• New Words: get with the program: be on-target. "I need you to pay attention, John; if you don't get with the program, you're going to fail."
  
• Slang: Good one: a compliment on a joke, a clever answer, etc. A: "When I almost fell, he said 'Have a nice trip?'" B: "Good one!"
  
• Modern History: antebellum: Latin for "before the war," it describes the culture, lifestyle, and even architecture of the US before the Civil War.
  

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NOTES:

1. Except for the Slang words, all the words in these Mini-Lessons came from lists either on the Oxford University Press site or in the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. I wrote the definitions and examples myself.
2. The Slang words are from my own list, and I wrote the definitions and examples myself.

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This lesson is ©2012 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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