“Don't feel obligated to come if you're too busy.” - Daily English Phrases

You're having a party next weekend. You want to invite one of your friends, who's a very busy person. You don't want to make her feel pressured, so you say:

Don't feel obligated to come if you're too busy.

feel obligated to (do something)

"Feeling obligated" to do something means that you feel like you have to do it. People usually feel obligated to do things for social reasons, like because a friend or neighbor asked them to do it. For example:

I feel obligated to help because, you know, he helped us out a couple of months ago.

I don't really want to go, but I feel kind of obligated.

Don't feel obligated to (do something)

This is an expression that you can use when you're afraid that it will seem like you're pressuring someone too much to do something. In the example above, the speaker is worried that his invitation will make the friend feel that she has to come. He doesn't want to cause stress for her, so he says "Don't feel obligated..."

come (to an event)

When do you use "come" and when do you use "go" to talk about attending an event? Here are some guidelines:

• Use "come" to talk about an event that you're having at your house or office, or that you're organizing.

  I'm having a party. Do you want to come?

• Use "go" for an event that you're not going to attend.

  I'm not going.

• Use "go" for something that you're planning to go to, but use "come" to talk about the listener joining you:

  I'm going to this Halloween party. Do you want to come?

via phrasemix.com

Top 5 short videos for Business English warm-ups | Teacher Training Blog

Here’s a small collection of short videos I’ve used to set the mood of Business English lessons, to provoke some interesting discussions and to promote some language noticing.

Negotiation – Fifth Element (film)

Specially funny for those who haven’t watched the film; or who don’t remember the scene. It works well in discussions on negotiating styles and cross-cultural differences.

Talent = 10,000 hours + luck

One of my favorites! So much material for discussion, and the guy speaks quite fast which is good to challenge students’ comprehension (and attention!); also a bit of bad language and sarcasm, just enough to be funny and critical at the same time.

 

Did you know? (Technology)

Not so up-to-date but still incredible. I often ask students to choose one of two pieces of data here and comment on them, trying to relate what they see in the video to  their own lives.

 

Monty Phyton’s – Job Interview

Actually, this is my favorite! No much to say, just watch it and enjoy! Chances are you already did, but not one of my students had when I showed them, so even if it’s old, it’s new.

Hiring the Right People – Mark Zuckerberg

Quite challenging concepts here for those used to traditional recruitment processes  where specific qualifications and lots of experience are the order of the day. This video is part of a series made by Stanford University.

 

And you? Any videos you use in Business English lessons? Let us know!

via tesoltraining.co.uk

Basic English - Past Simple - Essential Lessons for Beginning English Learners

via esl.about.com

  by  naicomenó 

Word of the Day | placebo

placebo •\plə-ˈsē-(ˌ)bō\• noun

: an innocuous or inert medication; given as a pacifier or to the control group in experiments on the efficacy of a drug

The word placebo has appeared in 112 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Sept. 13 in “A Squirt of Insulin May Delay Alzheimer’s,” by Gina Kolata:

A small pilot study has found preliminary evidence that squirting insulin deep into the nose where it travels to the brain might hold early Alzheimer’s disease at bay, researchers said on Monday.

The study, published online in the Archives of Neurology, included 104 people, a group small enough that the promising results could have occurred by chance.

Researchers at the University of Washington divided the subjects into three groups. One got a placebo, one got 20 international units of aerosolized insulin a day, and the third got 40 international units a day.

… One hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is reduced metabolism in the brain, which shows up on scans as less use of glucose, the fuel for brain cells. In this assessment, those getting insulin used more glucose in their brains; those taking placebos used less.

The Word of the Day and its definitions have been provided by the language-loving minds behind Vocabulary.com and the Visual Thesaurus.

Learn more about the word “placebo” and see usage examples across a range of subjects on the Vocabulary.com dictionary.

Click on the word below to map it and hear it pronounced:

Explore placebo in the Visual Thesaurus »

via learning.blogs.nytimes.com

The English Blog: Words in the News: Scrutiny

via englishblog.com

Nice stories for kids in StoryBird

Since I was young, I have always loved reading stories. StoryBird has a big collection of stories for kids as well as the kids at heart. Read one story I saw today in StoryBird!

The Short but Sad Tale of a Girl Named Bella Luna by philomath on Storybird

Nice stories for kids in StoryBird

Since I was young, I have always loved reading stories. StoryBird has a big collection of stories for kids as well as the kids at heart. Read one story I saw today in StoryBird.

The Short but Sad Tale of a Girl Named Bella Luna by philomath on Storybird

When to use Who or Whom?

A CLIL to Climb is one of the blogs I follow ; in fact I even have it listed in my Google Reader. Here is one good grammar lesson from CLIL to Climb which I am re-posting here in my blog. I am even confused sometimes if I should use 'who' or 'whom'.

via acliltoclimb.blogspot.com

I searched the Internet for more online resource about using  'who' or 'whom' and I found another good one from WikiHow. 

1. Understand the difference between who and whom. Both who and whom are pronouns. However, "who" is used as the subject of a sentence or phrase, to denote who is doing something (like he or she). On the other hand, "whom" is used as the object of a verb, to denote who has something done to it (like him or her). While a preposition (at, by, for, in, with, etc.) often comes before "whom", this is not always the case, so the key question is to ask "who is doing what to whom". What follows is a quick way to determine which pronoun to use in a particular question.

2 Use whom when referring to the object of a verb.

• To whom it may concern:
• To whom did you talk today?
• Whom does Sarah love?

3 Use who when referring to the subject of a sentence or phrase.

• Who brought the paper inside?
• Who talked to you today?
• Who went to dinner?
• Who ate the cake?

4 Ask yourself if the answer to the question would be he or him. If you can answer the question with him, then use whom. It's easy to remember because they both end with "m". If you can answer the question with he, then use who.

• Example: A suitable answer to the question, "To [who or whom] did the prize go?" is, "It went to him." (It is improper to say "It went to he.") The correct pronoun for the question is whom.
• Example: A suitable answer to the question, "[Who or Whom] went to the store?" is, "He went to the store." (It is improper to say "Him went to the store.") The correct pronoun for the question who.

5 When trying to decide whether who or whom is correct, simplify the sentence. Where other words in a complex sentence might throw you off track, simplify the sentence to include just the basic subject, verb, and object. It helps to move the words around in your head to identify the word relationships. For example:

• "Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting only invited people to their party [who or whom] they considered to love parties as much as they did." The simplified mental version becomes: "whom they considered."
• "Marie Antoinette prevented her mother from knowing [who or whom] she invited to the Petit Trianon." The simplified mental version becomes: "[who or whom] she invited." Then, you could rearrange it again to say: "she invited whom", clarifying that she did something to (invited) whom.

6 The distinction between who and whom is less important in informal spoken language than it is in formal written language. It's possible that the distinction might someday erode away altogether. For now, though, it is important to keep the clear in written language.

via wikihow.com

I searched more and I found a good  video from YouTube about using  'who' or 'whom'.

Ambiguous Words

http://muse.dillfrog.com/ambiguous_words.php

ESL Video Quiz - Mr Bean Goes to the Dentist

ESLVideo is one of my favorite video ESL sites because in this site I can watch a video and learn and practice English as well. Teachers can make video quizzes in this site too. 

Grammaropolis

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via grammaropolis.com

How To Avoid 10 Common Grammar Mistakes | General Writing

via howcast.com

Using TO and FROM

Many English learners have difficulties understanding the difference between of and from in English. This comes from the fact that a number of languages, including romance languages such as Italian and French, as well as German, use the same preposition for both of and from. For example, In Italian the phrase, I am from Milan or I come from Milan can be translated as, Sono di Milano. The possessive use of 'of' in English can also use the preposition 'di' in Italian. For example, the phrase, He's a friend of ours can be translated into Italian as, E un amico di noi.

In other words, the preposition 'di' in Italian corresponds to the use of both from and of in English. This is true in many languages. In English, however, there is a distinct difference between of and from.

This short guide to the differences between of and from in English should help you avoid English usage mistakes in the future.

OF

Of - Possession

Of is mainly used as a possessive. For example,

He's a friend of mine.
The color of the house is red.

It is important to remember that it is more common to use the possessive 's' or the possessive adjective in English, than to use 'of' - even if 'of' is grammatically correct. Thus, the sentences above would generally be in these forms:

He's my friend.
The house's color is red.

Common Phrases with 'Of' - All of / Both of

Of is also commonly used with 'all' and 'both' to describe a common trait that many objects share. For example,

All of the students in the class enjoy volleyball.
Both of the assignments are due at the end of the week.

Common Phrases with 'Of' - One of the most ...

Another common phrase with of is 'one of the + superlative form + plural noun + singular verb'. This phrase is commonly used to focus on a specific object that stands our from a group. Notice that although the plural noun is used, the singular phrase takes the singular conjugation of the verb because the subject is 'One of the ...'. For example,

One of the most interesting things about my job is the people I meet.
One of the most difficult subjects for me is math.

FROM

From - Origins

From is generally used to express that something originates from something else, that something comes from somewhere, or some person. For example,

Jack comes from Portland.
This formula derives from the work of Peter Schimmel.
This pearl comes from the South Pacific.

From - To / From - Until

From can also be used with the prepositions 'to' and 'until' to mark the beginning and ending point of time of an action or state. Generally, 'from ... to' is used with past tenses, while 'from ... until' is used when speaking about future actions. However, 'from ... to' can be used in most situations. For example,

I played tennis from two until four in the afternoon yesterday.
We are meeting in Chicago from Monday until Thursday.

via esl.about.com

Basic English - Comparative Form - Essential Lessons for Beginning English Learners

via esl.about.com

  by  TenSafeFrogs 

Read Aloud Storybooks | RubbishBooks

via rubbishbooks.com

  by  Fred Seibert 

Students - English as a Second Language - Cambridge University Press

Connect Arcade

Test your skills with interactive activities and download self-study audio either as MP3s or formatted for your portable media player.

via cambridge.org

How to Never Lose at Tic-Tac-Toe