Mini-Lessons from Tuesday, May 1, 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: Andromeda galaxy: the galaxy (a large, spiral-shaped collection of stars) nearest to ours (which is called the "Milky Way" galaxy).
• Language Study: articles: a, an, and the. Perhaps the most common and hardest words for English learners to use correctly!
• Business: big business: large companies considered together, not small businesses. "Big business wants government to lower corporate taxes."
• Literature: Chinua Achebe: (b. 1930) Nigerian writer, wrote "Things Fall Apart." Writes about conflict between traditional and modern life.
• New Words: cybersquatter: one who buys a domain name (URL) that should belong to someone else, hoping to sell it to them later for a high price
• Slang: Can you say…?: a way to introduce a word to call someone else. "A" drops something; "B" says to "C": "Can you say 'clumsy'?"
• Modern History: James Cook: (1728-1779) English sea captain. Sailed the Pacific Ocean, to New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, west coast of North America.

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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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