Another ESL Game Board: Verbs with Gerunds/Infinitives

Below is another favorite game board that I created a few years ago. My fellow instructors have used it successfully as a simple way to get students speaking to each other using these structures.

The verbs included on the board come from lists in Betty Azar's classic Blue grammar book (click on 'Contents' of Third Edition of Blue Azar book). I usually photocopy the reference lists (14-9 and 14-10) and hand them out to students to use as they practice creating their own sentences orally, rolling dice and moving around the board.

The tenses or structures that you ask your students to use with the board can be adapted to several levels from intermediate to advanced in any course where the object is to get students to produce and control these forms in speaking or writing. Try it out, and let me know if it works for you.

CAE - Fall 2008

From pain to gain!

Mixing Up English

What's the problem? The words 'to marry', 'married,' and 'marriage' are perhaps poorly chosen words for what are legal designations as well as rituals or actions often performed in churches in our society. You wouldn't think a simple eight-letter English word could cause so much trouble, would you?

The mixing of two definitions of 'marriage' - one legal and one religious - has resulted in Californians passing Proposition 8, a law which prevents gay people from enjoying the right to equal treatment under the law, including the right to be legally married.

James Madison, often thought of as the Father of the United States Constitution, once said “...I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

In this case, the mixing of meanings of 'marriage' in our language has led to a decision that seems based on religious interpretations rather than consideration of the U.S. Constitution.

The 'New' Cambridge Advanced English Test

This fall we are training a large number of students for the new Cambridge exams. As usual, I am teaching the CAE everyday, which means that I cover all five papers (reading, writing, English in use, listening, and speaking). After seven years of helping students pass the 'old' CAE, it is nice to have a fresh challenge.

If you go to the Cambridge test site, you can get a very thorough overview of changes to the exam. Having had a chance to look at the two practice exam books, I can say that I like the alterations overall, especially the fact that the CAE is about one hour shorter.

I'm sure that our students were happy on Friday that our first practice test didn't go beyond 3 p.m. Some of them planned to head up to L.A. right after the exam. That was the 'carrot' they dangled in front of themselves to get through the all-day event. Hope they had a chance to unwind before we get back down to business tomorrow. ;-)