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What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, April 1st

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Lesson 5: (April 1)

In Class

  1. News Hour: “After Chavez, Questions Focus on Venezuela’s Future” News for YouArticle
    • Began by putting the “Check Comprehension” questions from the “Teacher’s Guide”
    • Had students discuss “Teacher’s Guide” discussion questions with their partners then together as a class, had a brief discussion about the differences between capitalism, socialism and communism
    • Asked “If you were Chavez, would you choose your friend to replace you or would you follow the constitution?”
    • During the discussion the word “charisma” came up and we discussed how it referred to a person’s personality
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Survey project:

    • Questionnaire: 3 questions with numbers (1 to 5, Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree); 7 General Questions
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Pages 121 to 122

    • Listened to some of the “Rethinking Depression, Part 3” episode of ideas with Paul Kennedy (an NPR radio show) as it talked abotu SPARX a video game for teenagers with depression. It fit with the North Star unit’s focus on video games that can help people in the real world. (Also gave me them a chance to review the word “acronym” which came up when I was explaining NPR.)
  5. Fluency: IPA worksheet Review
  6. Short Story: Reviewed pages 43 to 44 and read page 45 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Page 43 – Why did Mrs. Stonehouse think “The poor boy”?
    • Page 44 – Why does the man think Mrs. Stonehouse doesn’t cook proper meals?
    • Page 45 – What kind of pizza did the man microwave?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. News Hour: Read “Pope Francis Brings Many Firsts to the Vatican” News for You article

To Listen

  1. ”Calendars: Daily Planners and Scheduling” ESL Cyber Lab Quiz (http://www.esl-lab.com/eslbasic/calendar-1.htm)

To Do

  1. Project: Finish your survey questionnaire
  2. News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “Pope Francis …” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200; then comment on your partner’s blog
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete exercise on page 123
  4. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday with the Study Guide (.odt file from danoff.org)
  5. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 7 on page 85
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Thursday, March 21st

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 1 Lesson 4 (March 21)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • After reading the “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” News for You article and completing the teacher’s guide questions I repeated yesterday’s activity, asking the students to come up with original solutions to the problems presented in the news article. One of the results is below:
    • Also during our discussion of the article we touched upon “Proper Nouns” and that is something we’ll review again and include in future quizzes.
  2. Quiz 1 (vocabulary)
    • Completed the vocabulary section of the NorthStar Unit 6 exam from the teacher’s guide.
  3. NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

    • Continued Unit 6, going through the True/False activity on page 120 and reading the passage on pages 119 to 120.
  4. Grammar in Context 1
    • Reviewed the student’s work on Exercise 4.
  5. Spring Trimester Block 1 Tech Setup
    • Spent the afternoon making sure everyone was up to speed with the course’s main 2 technologies:
    • LibreOffice – Tried to make sure everyone had their default language set to “English,” but that proved very difficult with versions installed on Chinese and Korean computers. The LibreOffice defaulted to their language. Overall though, having the students work on their new survey projects directly in front of me on their lapotops allowed me to notice more about what they were doing and be very specific in my critiques. Got everyone on the same page with how the survey project will evolve this semester, and asked them to leave my comments in the .odt file directly so I can check to see if they’ve made the changes I pointed out.
    • Wordpress.com – Everyone was (mostly) comfortable with blogging on their own, the foil I introduced today was how to comment on other people’s posts. Going forward each student will be required to comment on a peer’s blog post with “something nice to say” and a question.
    • One girl changed the native language on her Mac OSX 10.5.8 install to English which was very cool of her! I believe the additional English students have to encounter using English software and websites helps.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: Review pages 45 to 46
  2. News Hour: “After Chavez, Questions Focus on Venezuela’s Future” News for You article
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Step 2: Synthesize” on page 121

To Watch

  1. Watch the second 10 minutes of this lecture http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-223-listening-speaking-and-pronunciation-fall-2004/video-lectures/lecture-18/ (Short URL http://is.gd/cociep200video4) and write a blog post answering “Do you like the teacher’s style?” and “Why?”

To Do

  1. Project: Write your third research article summary paragraph
  2. News for You: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “After Chavez …” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 5 on page 82
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete the exercise on page 121
  5. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Wednesday, March 20th

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 1 Lesson 3 (March 20)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • Today’s News for You article was “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” and after completing the Teacher’s Guide comprehension questions, I divided them into 2 teams and had each develop a new plan for handling Guam’s snake problem. They had to both write and draw it out, these were the results (seemed like everyone had fun!):
      image

      image

  2. Grammar in Context 1
    • Started lesson 3 and worked through pages 78 to 81, learning about frequency words.
  3. NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

    • Continued Unit 6, reviewing student’s homework on pages 117 to 119 and doing the first activity on page 119
  4. Comic Book
    • Finished the Fantom of the Fair story from Amazing Mystery Funnies #21, answering the following review questions:
    • Page 7 – What does the thug mean when he says “cut him to ribbons”?
    • Page 8 – What does the Fantom mean when he says “he’s through with crime”?
  5. Short Story: pages 43 to 44 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Worked through the two pages together and students answered the following questions:
    • Page 43 – Why did Mrs. Stonehouse think “The poor boy”?
    • Page 44 – Why does the man think Mrs. Stonehouse doesn’t cook any meals?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: “READING TWO” on pages 119 to 120
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 43 to 44
  3. News for You: “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” article

To Do

  1. Project: Revise your first article summary paragraph; find another research article and write another summar paragraph (4 sentences each) then e-mail me the .odt file with everything
  2. News for You: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 4 on page 82
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete questions 1 to 5 on page 120
  5. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, March 19th

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Tue. 12 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Lesson 2 (March 19)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • Read the “Local Project Puts Brazil’s Poor on the Map” News for You article and had an interesting discussion led by our Brazilian student about favelas. Also completed the Teacher’s Guide activity which had students make vocabulary maps where they used the word in a sentence and made: synonyms, definitions, and a picture of the word. We had a competition having the students try to guess what was eachother’s words via the pictures:
  2. Introduced student this block’s course syllabus & calendar
    • Gave student’s this block’s official course documents for them to use as a guide. (read the18 March 2013 version of calendar here)
  3. Homework Check-in
  4. Review last block’s Final Exam
    • Reviewed last block’s final exam to make sure everyone understood what they got wrong and what they need to review again.
    • Download: Exam / Answers (.odt files from danoff.org)
  5. Quiz 1 Vocabulary
    • Students defined the vocabulary words from page 116 of NorthStar for this week’s quiz and we developed a study guide together for them to prepare.
    • Download: Quiz 1 Vocabulary Study Guide Handout (.odt file from danoff.org)
  6. Survey Project: Review everyone’s topics and introduce how to find research articles, as well as exactly how to write a research paragraph

  7. Short Story: pages 41 to 42 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Worked through the two pages together and students answered the following questions:
    • Page 41 – What does Mrs. Stonehouse mean by “we just eat and run”?
    • Page 42 – Why does the man say the room is “brilliant”?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: Page 81
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Serious Fun” on page 117
  3. Review Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 41 to 42
  4. News for You: “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” article on page 1

To Watch

  1. Watch the first 10 minutes of this MIT Lecture (Short URL http://is.gd/cociep200video4) and write a blog post answering “Do you think you could participate in this class?” and “Why?”

To Do

  1. Project: Find your first research article and write your summary paragraph (4 sentences) then put it in the your essay .odt file and e-mail it to me
  2. News for You: Write a 4 sentence summary of the “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 3 on page 81
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Questions on page 118
  5. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday
  6. Bring your Laptop

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, March 18th

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Mon. 18 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

NEWS HOUR

The “Teacher’s Guide” activity for the “Experts: Fights in Washington Hurt the Economy” News for You activity was wonderful, forcing the students to distinguish between first, second and third syllables while listening, focusing on fluency.

NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

Began Unit 6 on video games going through pages 113 to 114.

COMIC BOOK

Read pages 7 and 8 of the Fantom of the Fair story in Amazing Mystery Comics #21 and worked on the following comprehension questions on the board:

FICTION

After focusing last week going through “One of the Lads” again, we started reading the self-titled ” “Frozen Pizza” story (which we looked at briefly last block) from our book of short stories: Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.

HOMEWORK

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context: Pages 77 to 79
  2. Frozen Pizza: Pages 39 to 42
  3. News for You: ” Local Project Puts Brazil’s Poor on the Map”

To Do

  1. Project: Choose a topic for you next survey project and e-mail everything it to me as an .odt file
  2. News: Write a 4 sentence summary of the article and post it on your blog
  3. NorthStar: Write your own definitions of the words on page 116
  4. Grammar in Context: Pages 79 to 80

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, March 12th

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Tue. 12 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

NEWS HOUR

Today’s news hour activity introduced students to the concept of paraphrasing, they were already summarizing articles, but the activity focused them specifically on paraphrasing the Dramatic Meteor Strike Grabs World’s Attention article’s first two paragraphs. 

Afterwards we divided into teams and competed over who could answer more comprehension questions quicker!

VIDEO 

Had a short chat about the Richard Grahm YouTube video that was Thursday’s homework. The students said they enjoyed it and agreed with his rule #1: (as an English student) if you think you can, you can!

They also supported future video assignments. 

CHICAGO CULTURAL RESEARCH POSTER PROJECT 

Evaluated the student ‘s poster drafts and had them write outlines of their short presentations they’ll be delivering on Thursday. 

Download the how to make a presentation handout here (.odt file from danoff.org). 

FICTION

Read through the second half of “One of the lads” together to review for Thursday’s exam. 

LESSON 2 OF GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 1 REVIEW

Spent the afternoon reviewing lesson 2. We re-read the introduction to each grammar point then, working in teams they wrote quiz questions to test the other teams. You can see their questions on the board below:

HOMEWORK

To Read

  1. Review “One of the Lads” story from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life for Final Exam

To Do

  1. Project: Write second draft of your essay and ONLY e-mail everything to me as an .odt file
  2. Project: Finish your poster
  3. Presentation: E-mail me your speech as an .odt file
  4. Study for the Final Exam

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

Lesson Plan for Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 COC IEP 200 Class

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Lesson Plan for Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 COC IEP 200 Class: Read the lesson plan online in HTML here.

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Posted in COC IEP 200, Collaborative Lesson Planning, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, March 11th

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Mon. 11 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

NEWS HOUR

Today’s News for You article was “Baseball Players Shut Out of Hall of Fame.” After completing the comprehension questions from the teacher’s guide I put the students into 2 teams to see who could come up with better answers to the discussion questions:

image

Jane’s team beat the A team.

QUIZ 3 REVIEW

Went through last Thursday’s quiz and discussed some of the more troublesome questions.

Download Quiz 3 from danoff.org by clicking here (.docx file).

CHICAGO CULTURAL RESEARCH POSTER PROJECT

Went over the poster the students need to make this week as a visual aid for their project presentations.

Download the Poster Explanation handout from danoff.org by clicking here (.odt file).

SHORT STORY

Read through half of “One of the lads” together to review for Thursday’s exam. Had the students answer: Why did Luke forget how he joined the gang? (Because he was always afraid of the gang getting rid of him.)

FREE CONVERSATION PRACTICE

We began the afternoon with an extended conversation about what we had for lunch that led to talking about karaoke and the Matrix.

LESSON 1 OF GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 1 REVIEW

Spent the duration of the afternoon going through lesson 1 again to prepare for Thursday’s exam.

Download the Final Exam Study Guide from danoff.org by clicking here (.odt file).

HOMEWORK

To Read

  1. Review “One of the Lads” story from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life for Final Exam
  2. News Hour: “Dramatic Meteor Strike” News for You article

To Do

  1. Project: Write second draft of your essay and e-mail everything to me as an .odt file AND post the link to the google doc on your blog
  2. Project: Finish the first draft of your poster
  3. News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the News for You article and post it on your blog with the tags COCIEP200 and NewsForYou
  4. Study for the Final Exam

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, One of the Lads, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Thursday, March 7th

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

NEWS HOUR

Had a long, wonderful discussion about and around the “North Korea Tries to Limit News From Outside World” News for You article. Talked about the country itself, its leader, Dennis Rodman’s visit, china and bias in the USA news media. Made sure to note to the students that I myself was biased in that I don’t typically trust the USA media and that many Americans would disagree with my attitude. 

image

QUIZ 3

Took over 30 minutes for this week’s quiz. Had vocabulary and grammar questions as usual and this week i added 2 reading multiple choice questions about the short story we’ve been reading: “One of the Lads” from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.

PROJECT

Spent about 20 minutes introducing students work to the thesis statement; how it summarizes your paper’s main idea in 1 sentence. Then the remainder of the paper is supporting/proving it.

image

FICTION

Spent the afternoon working through the first 2 pages of the next short in Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, the self-titled story, “Frozen Pizza.” Along the way we got into a brief chat about the difference between normal monologues and interior monologues (I also shared the term “stream of consciousness” which is similar).

Put my comprehension questions on the board:

image

To Read

  1. Review Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 39 to 41
  2. News Hour: “Baseball Players …” News for You article

To Watch

  1. Watch the video below “Teach English EFL/ESL Part 2/6” by Genki English (http://youtu.be/Gwy3zpwA1rs OR http://is.gd/cociep200video3) from 0:48–1:30 minutes and then write a post in your blog answering: “Do you like this video? Yes or No?” and “Do you agree with rule #1? Why?”

To Do

  1. Project: Write the thesis and introduction for your paper, then e-mail everything to me as an .odt file AND post the link to the google doc on your blog
  2. News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the News for You article and post it on your blog with the tags COCIEP200 and NewsForYou

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Read more ›

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Wednesday, March 6th

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Wed. 6 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

You can compare what actually happened with what was planned in today’s lesson plan by reading it here.

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

Vincent started the day by reading his article summary. Students then completed the lesson plan exercise for the “Names from the Past Lead to Battles in South” article, finding details to support the article’s main ideas.

Afterwards we listened to the mp3 recording of the article and completed the article’s exercise from the teacher’s guide.

QUIZ 3 PREPARATIONS

Went through this recommended resource on the present perfect from englishpage.com together.

image

Next we reviewed “One of the Lads” a short story from ‘Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.’

imagef

Main Characters and short descriptions:

  • Big Dave – strong
  • Mike – he’s a loser
  • Gerry – big
  • Luke – weak, dreamer
  • Steve – quiet

image

Plot:

  • 0) Luke met and joined the lads.
  • 1) The lads drink at a pub.
  • 2) The lads plan their trip.
  • 3) The lads travel to watch England vs Holland.
  • 4) Dave throws glass at a young boy and then Luke leaves the lads.

Chicago Cultural Research Poster Project

Prepared a handout (download PDF from danoff.org) for students to use as they write their conclusions and continue finishing their essays.

FAST LISTENING

Finished Lesson 4, completing the “Driving Road Test” listening quiz.

HOMEWORK

To Read

  • News Hour: “North Korea …” News for You article

To Do

  • Project: Write conclusion paragraphs then put the google doc link on your blog AND e-mail me the .odt file with all your paragraphs so far in 1 document
  • News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “North Korea …” article and post it on your blog with the tags COCIEP200 and NewsForYou
  • Study for Quiz 3
  • Buy a binder

CLASS NOTES

  • Following-up on a Monday discussion, I explained to the class that the shamrock is a symbol of Ireland, like a rose is associated with England. One girl had asked why the shamrock is associated with St. Partick’s day.

image

Student drawing of a shamrock.

  • This chat led to the same student asking about leprechaun origins? From Wikipedia:

A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán) is a type of fairy in Irish folklore, usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish mythology. The Leprechauns spend all their time busily making shoes, and store away all their coins in a hidden pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If ever captured by a human, the Leprechaun has the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for their release.

  • We also discussed how in 2 Saturdays the Chicago river will be dyed green.
  • During the grammar review I was unable to explain the difference between meets and met. “Met” is the past simple form of the verb, while “meets” is the third-person singular (thanks usingenglish.com). 3rd person singular is the “form of a verb used (in English and other languages) with singular nouns and with the pronouns he, she, it and one (or their equivalents in other languages) [via Wiktionary] e.g., “He meets her at class every day.” vs “John has met her at class every day.”
  • Finally, we talked about American Indians and students interested in more should read this Wikipedia article.

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Read more ›

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, present perfect, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago, third person singular