“La Novia Muerta” Alma R. Cacho Era una vez en un panteon al atardecer con el viento escalfriante, los arboles moviendose, las ojas de los arboles volando la obscuridad se asercaba! Cuando de pronto en una de las tumbas se comenzo a escuchar un ruida, como de una cripta abriendosa y entonces al voltear veo […]
Students in my BOCES Adult Literacy ESL LEVEL 3-4 class got in the spirit of the season by writing scary stories inspired by the illustrations of Edward Gorey (what an appropriate name!) First in their native language (Spanish) and then translated by them into English. Finally, they read their stories in both languages to another […]
It all started last year. My husband Lou Del Bianco and I had just returned from a trip to Mount Rushmore where he presented his grandfather Luigi’s story to visitors to the mountain on the busiest days for tourism, July third-fourth. Lou’s grandfather Luigi, an Italian immigrant, was the chief carver on the mountain from […]
There’s a wonderful character in the musical, My Fair Lady, a Cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle. Eliza is chosen by a professor of English to be his protégé. He bets a colleague that he can teach Eliza proper English in a short period of time. After a few weeks, Eliza is exhausted and frustrated […]
“As I pronounced it to you.” “Suit the action to the word.” In Shakespeare’s Hamlet we find excellent advice on how to communicate effectively in the speech Hamlet makes to a troupe of actors. “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you trippingly on the tongue.” “Suit the action to the […]
STP: The title of this vocabulary exercise is taken from an old race-car motor oil advertisement. Just as STP makes your car run better, our STP (Select, Transform and Pronounce) makes your vocabulary three times better. This is how it works. MODEL: READ. WRITE. Select unfamiliar words from a reading excerpt. These words are from […]
ArtofEnglish Guest Bloggers Students from my BOCES ESL class post their favorite writings from Fall Session 2011. My Fourth Guest: Khosrow Nassiri. Khosrow is a former police administrator from Iran who is now a U.S. citizen and a daily participant in our ESLclass. His wisdom and understanding are an inspiration to us all. —Can you […]
ArtofEnglish: Guest bloggers: Students from my BOCES ESL class post their favorite writings from Fall Session 2011. My Third Guest: Hermogenes Sanchez Hermogenes is a quiet, thoughtful Peruvian gentleman who has been in my class for two years. He enjoys learning new words and has become a “living” dictionary for many of his classmates. We […]
ArtofEnglish: Guest bloggers: Students from my BOCES ESL class post their favorite writings from Fall Session 2011. My Second Guest: Michiyo Soga: Michiyo is a lively, enthusiastic Japanese woman who recently discovered her talent for writing poetry; a talent she inherited from her mother. She started our class in early 2011 and is in this […]
Students from my BOCES ESL class post their favorite writings from Fall Session 2011. My First Guest: Anonymous (My first guest blogger wishes to remain anonymous.) She is from Taiwan, has studied English in different places and has been in our class at Carver Center, Port Chester since September. She is in the picture. Assignment: Write […]