Happy New Year 2016!

Happy New Year!! Hi Students, I am writing to wish you all a wonderfully successful 2016! I am excited to continue to support you in your English language learning journey in 2016. I recorded a short audio message for you. In the audio message, I read the Aesop Fable “The Tortoise & the Hare”. The […] Read more »

Reading Lesson – The Cost of Paying Attention

Hi Students! This past Saturday I taught a reading lesson to a group class on Verbling. Together we read through an opinion piece from the New York Times entitled “The Cost of Paying Attention” by author Matthew Crawford. I really liked the article as I think it discusses an important and timely issue. The author uses […] Read more »

Podcast Episode 54 – Talent is Overrated

Hi Students! If you have gone through my “7 Strategies for English Fluency” course and/or you have listened to some of my podcasts, then you probably know by now that one of my areas of interest is personal achievement and success. I am especially interested in how people learn and achieve mastery. As an English coach (teacher/tutor), […] Read more »

Understanding Lyrics

Hi Students! I was preparing some materials for a listening class this morning and I came across this great site for understanding song lyrics. It’s called Genius.com. It is a website where people annotate songs. This means they give you the lyrics of the song with explanations and examples, so you can understand the song better. One […] Read more »

Podcast Episode 49 – 10 Language Learning Tips

Language learning is a life-long process and many people use a variety of methods and strategies to continuously improve their skills. In this podcast episode, I am giving you my thoughts related to 10 language learning tips from a panel of multilingual experts. I read about these suggestions in a recent article online at TheGuardian.com entitled Learning a […] Read more »

How to Increase Your English Vocabulary

One of the most common questions I get from students is, “How can I improve my vocabulary?” Part of learning English is being able to understand a lot of words – word power. To speak fluently at a high level, you must also know how to use these words. There are two basic theories when […] Read more »

Learning English with TV Series

As readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan of learning English by studying grammar books and attending a class once or twice a week. These days, motivated, self-directed learners have so many better, more effective, more efficient tools at their disposal to learn real, authentic English in a fun way. Three […] Read more »

Teaching Children to Have a Growth Mindset with Stories

If you have listened to my free email course “7 Strategies for English Fluency” then you are already familiar with the importance of having a growth mindset. In Strategy #3, I give you a short introduction to the work of Carol Dweck (Stanford University) and her book “Mindset“. I explain the difference between having a […] Read more »

Listening Practice: How Wolves Change Rivers

As you know, I am a big fan of listening widely to improve your English, and so I like to share a lot of resources that will allow you to get more practice with listening to high-quality English language. This video is great for expanding your understanding of words and phrases related to environmental science, specifically […] Read more »

TPRS: Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling

Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) is the method that I use in the Success with Stories program. TPRS was developed by an American Spanish language teacher named Blaine Ray. There are a few key components of the method that I think are very important and I want you to know about them. 1. […] Read more »