'erstwhile' a definition

erstwhile'ə:stwʌɪl► adjective[attrib.] former: the erstwhile president of the company.► adverbarchaic formerly: Mary Anderson, erstwhile the queen of America's stage.

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Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd Edition revised)
© Oxford University Press 2005 All rights reserved.

'Indeed, Turkey's threats to give naval escorts to future Gaza aid convoys, if acted upon, risk a high-seize confrontation between Turkey and its erstwhile, Israeli ally.'

Professional Development | Tecnoimagen In-Company Lessons

 

Tecnoimagen in-company lessons

Lessons held through Wall Street English, which means materials are copyright protected.

3 Sept 2011 – 28 Feb 2012

tailored materials:

vocabulary matching

regular v irregular verbs 

eliciting questions with 'Have you just....?'

Revision

Professional development | Climate Change Class – WSI

This lesson began with a reaction from learners to some comments I wrote on the board taken from a internet discussion thread on climate change. Comments were either for or against climate change being a result of humankind. NOTE the slips of paper containing all comments had been misplaced at the school, therefore writing two or three of them on the board that came to mind served almost as well.

I seated groups according to level, and learners discussed for a short time the views on the board with moderate interest. A good idea might have been to ask that they write onto slips of paper their own views, shuffle and redistribute them, in order to promote some early oral fluency on the topic. I then chested some pictures to the class which contained colour illustrations of various historical epochs (extinct dinosaurs, stone-age people around fires, melting icecaps), and in groups they matched the illustrations with various epoch titles, then those with the correct dates.

Prior to this, I had laid long datelines across each groups' table. However, in retrospect, putting them on the tables later would have been better because learners now started that activity too too early; a task like this should be staggered.

What I wanted to highlight, in order to encourage debate, was some of the changes coming into effect in the world in our relatively short existence.

I read aloud the true dateline for them to check against. Beginning 64 million years ago and reaching the present except for two timeline nodes.

I revealed the remaining dates, 'less than 1 lifetime ago: we used up half the world's oil supply,' and
'just 15 years ago: the development and deployment of the world-wide web.'

As we were running out of time there was a brief final discussion. Considering the large size of the class, I think we did quite well.

listening text from ABC Radio National

We need to evolve to cope with the problem. Not physically but culturally. Not biological evolution, but systems evolution. We would need to use the collective capacity of human beings, from the local community, to the regional community through to the global community. We need conviction of the problem, understanding; we need to know what people are doing in other communities and other places.

Whether man-made or not, climate change is in effect and is seen to be worsening exponentially, thus we are trying to work to find solutions. 

But the history of humanity is that things often have to get very much worse before we actively try to make them get better – why should things be any different in terms of our current crisis?

We usually think of the history of humanity as an unimaginably long period of time, but if we adjust that scale and think in terms of lifetimes, it’s not that difficult to see that, actually, we haven’t been around that long and there’s been a great deal of change,

64 mil years ago                                      dinosaurs became extinct
2 million years ago                                  climate change. the seas were rising
125, 000 years / 1, 800 lifetimes ago(laid end-to-end) our species, homo sapiens sapiens
1, 000 lifetimes ago                                            invention of language
570 lifetimes ago                                            the stone age
140 lifetimes ago                                                agriculture
70 lifetimes ago                                                       writing
3 lifetimes ago                                            industrial civilisation

< 1 lifetime                            we’ve burnt up half the world’s oil

and 1/5 of a lifetime (15 years)    the development & deployment of the WWW

in light of all this, implications are that we can affect change, and we need to consider how it is affected. And so we see, the changes are of our lifetime and that what can happen in our lifetime can be enormously significant.

One way I attempt to fathom it is by thinking about some of those smaller things we do currently and enlarging or extending those into the bigger picture: thinking of that next person in the community as someone connected rather than not – one you have cleared your rubbish at your seat in the park for, the rubbish collector you've separated your domestic waste for, one you've left reading material in the waiting room for, sent the lift down for, planted a tree for – someone who is unseen and unknown to us, yet we are smart enough to know that these small measures help. It is in this same sense, in our current situation, that we need to extend certain considerations to the next generations.

(in class the teacher could elicit many of those small things we do that make a big difference, e.g. turning of the lights, the air-conditioning, riding a bicycle, solar energy.)

It’s not that we might be sadistic, a take-as-you-need society, reckless or careless towards the environment and Earth's ecosystems, rather we just don’t know how to see it and act. 

Having said that, as awareness and understanding spreads and as warming goes on increasing, so does the culpability of larger institutions and companies who have a greater ability at quick change and prevention of damage. 

All the same, the most apparent solution in my mind, as we see the solution of having one singular world-government becoming less viable, lies in the collective will power of the individual. 

Change begins with one. Even the mightiest waterfalls

have begun with a single drop of water, and look what becomes of that.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Professional development | Book Club class no.2 – WSI

Fruits of students' efforts in our second Book Club class.

Using a newspaper article about the London Underground or subterranean railway network to encourage ideas on how they could improve their own transport system the learners were asked to read and jot down suggestions, first alone, and then in groups. Some seemed not greatly interested in the task.

To be fair, we'd discussed the subway in a previous lesson, where learners read a collection of subway-themed poems (Goldfish, Mosquito, and Tow Logs) and walked around like passers-by themselves in 'subways' reading various billboards. In that lesson some good, meaningful discussion had come about. 

The lesson I had prepared was tasked-based. The aim of the lesson was 'to develop skills of reading for gist and oral fluency through task-based activities.' This was a Friday night and the learners were tired. But also there was a new mix of learners, some of whom hadn't been in the previous lesson.

This was not a lesson for slow discussion about book themes and plot, etc., but a skills lesson based on books as materials. Skills and language development are achievable within one  sixty-minute lesson.

  
The pictures above some ways to improve the city's transport system, a post-reading activity.

In Literature by Alan Duff and Alan Marly (Oxford University Press), the book from which I took this lesson's article on the London Underground, it states that literature is better used to stimulate language activities by 'engaging the students interactively with the text, with fellow students, and with the teacher,' favouring this over a study of literature per se (either from the literary critical or the stylistics viewpoint). 

Some other comments:

'[with this approach] The student is an active agent not a passive recipient.'

'The activities should offer ample opportunities for the students to contribute and share 

their own experiences, perceptions, and opinions.'

'The text should be allowed to suggest the type of activity. This means breaking away from  

the stereotypical format of text and questions.'

'Texts can be presented in a variety of ways. This may sometimes mean withholding the 

text until the end of an activity, cutting it up, using fragments of it only, and so on.'

But then what about real literature? The book comments further:

'[this approach] might be seen as failing to teach real literature and taking literature 'seriously', by which is generally meant a body of texts recognised as great literature [...] There is nothing sacred about a literary text. All such texts were at some time written down, rearranged, scratched out, torn up revised, misprinted, and so on. Anyone doubting this should simply look at any well-known writer's notebook or manuscript.'

'More importantly perhaps, if students are encouraged to adopt a 'hands on' approach to texts, they are likely to lose some of the awesome respect which the literary printed word inspires, and which gets in the way of the individual reader/interpreter's personal response to the text.'

Any practice is good practice, and it was still a good skills lesson.

In future I'll continue to find ways to energise the class and perhaps adapt materials.

'abdicate' a definition

(transitive & intransitive verb)
noun - abdication, abdicator
Spanish -  abdicar
origin - mid 16th cent.: from Latin abdicate-'renounced', from the verb abdicar, from ab- 'away, from' + dicare 'declare'.

1. (of a monarch) renounce one's throne; renounce one's right, power, claim, in a formal manner; abdicate, renounce, resign are synonyms when they are used in the sense of to give up formally or definitely a position of trust, honour, or glory -abdicate is the precise word to use when that which is relinquished involves sovereign or inherent power: it is applied specifically to the act of a monarch who gives up his throne -but in extended use it may also be applied to any act involving surrender of an inherent dignity or claim to pre-eminence

[without object] in 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated as German emperor | [with object] Ferdinand abdicated the throne in favour of the emperor's brother

the father image of the chancellor casts a long and overpowering shadow of a people which has in the past  abdicated its political thinking and social sovereignty to the paternalistic leader - Handler

Libya's Gaddafi opposition body trapped under the emperor to abdicate the city a critical situation - Free Paper

  

2. fail to fulfil or undertake (a responsibility or duty)


the government was accused of abdicating its responsibility 

Renounce  is often used in place of abdicate the king renounced his throne especially when sacrifice for a greater end is intentionally implied.

'supplant' a definition

(transitive verb) 
noun -  supplanter
Spanish - supplantar
origin - Middle English: from Old French supplanter or Latin supplantare 'trip up', from sub- 'from below' + planta 'sole'. 


supersede and replace; to take the place of (another), as through force, scheming, strategy, or the like; basically implies a dispossessing or ousting by craft, fraud, or treachery and a taking or uprising of the place, possessions, or privileges of the one dispossessed or ousted.



the socialist society which Marx believed would eventually supplant capitalism.

you three from Milan did supplant good Prospero - Shakespeare

the pretty young wife finds herself in the humiliating position of having been supplanted by a brisk, unlovely woman - Bullet 

eager to succeed Luis and even to supplant him - Belloc

The ministry gave no details of the talks but the meeting itself was an indication that Beijing wants to keep open lines of communication with the rebel forces that could supplant Gaddafi, even as it urges a political solution - The Zimbabwe Mail


But, supplant sometimes implies an uprooting and replacing rather than a dispossessing and usurping; in such cases trickery or treachery is no longer implied

his tutor tried to supplant his fears by arousing his sense of curiosity
don't claim that the Devine revelation has been supplanted . . . but that it has been amplified - Mackenzie 

the architect, to serve the vogue, uptilts greenhouses thirty stories high on stilts, supplanting walls of stone with sheets of glass - Hillyer 

Friend Page – WSI

'FriendPage', an imaginary online social network

    Despite a small turn-out this class went well. The service manager at the institute provided me a lesson plan for it which was sourced from the British Council's website. As the plan describes, in this lesson students are given 'a chance to create an imaginary on-line "wall" where they can react with each other.'

    After a general discussion about Facebook, Twitter, social networking sites, learners read a text to answer one question which encouraged reading for gist. Then afterwards, reading for information. Learners thence were introduced to 'FriendPage' written on the board. I elicited typical profile information under the heading on the board. Prompts included 'interested in?', 'personality?', 'right now I feel?': a few of the prompts the students were then given to construct their own profile with. Learners worked alone. Although the plan prescribed a 'snappy' feel or pace for the lesson, this one had more of a relaxed pace a) because of the size of the group (and the absence of a sense of it being a lesson) b) the late hour of the class c) the mixed aspect of student levels. Nevertheless, the group seemed interested in what they were doing. I demonstrated the next activity and learners followed, writing a question of their choosing on each wall of the neighbouring participant (on a piece of paper with lines marked 'fold here'), before passing the papers clockwise, reading and responding to the comment by writing a response, folding the paper over, and so on. 

    At the end, the class unfolded their 'walls' and read the interesting conversations that had transpired there.

Students' 'walls', and postings thereon.

Professional development | Book Club class no.3 – WSI

Students study poems 'Goldfish' and 'The Mosquito'
 (Alan Jackson/D. H. Lawrence).

One very good skills lesson.

In this class learners saw a large picture of a goldfish via Google Images then listened in horseshoe seating as I related to them my own story about a camping trip in The Blue Mountains, Australia.

I asked the learners that over the next few minutes they recall an incident of their own involving either fish or mosquitoes.

As learners thought back over fish and mosquitoes in their life, I played a Monty Python clip via YouTube,  "Mosquito Hunting" followed by another clip of some interesting looking fish, that their memory may be jogged.

They moved themselves into groups of four and recounted their stories. Everyone had a story. The materials, it seemed, had activated the schemata.

I let this go on for at least ten minutes.

We then listened to a reading of two poems. Firstly, 'Goldfish' by Alan Jackson and 'The Mosquito' by D. H. Lawrence (which I'd had recorded by one of the staff at the centre). We listened to the first poem three times. In between listenings learners tried to piece together fragments by sharing what they had  heard and understood. The same for the second poem. I handed them each a copy of the poetry they had just listened to and asked them to mark anything either interesting, difficult, or similar between the two poems – I wrote instructions on the board in case of any misunderstanding.

Learners worked studying alone. 

Key moment: some students from higher-levels finished quickly and started already discussing meaning of the poetry.

Therefore, I mixed the class so that there were new people at every table. They discussed the words or sentences they had marked in the poetry, which eventually grew into a wider discussion of the meaning of the poems.

After about five minutes worth of feedback and some varied interpretation of 'The Mosquito' and 'Goldfish', I made some comments, announced the next class and handed out materials to be discussed there only to those who said they would come back for it.

Professional development | Who's that? A class of 'true' beginners – WSI

I was happy to see the students from my level-checking class return to the social class directly after. In it, I could work more on points from the level-checking class: possessive pronouns and the verb to be.

I scaffolded the social class before practice. 

Narrative:–

To warm-up, I put 'is this your passport? Yes, it is' on some paper then cut it into individual words, shuffled and handed them to the learners. I signalled they should stand holding the paper in order to produce a correct sentence, they should un-jumble it. After a few minutes they succeeded and I placed the pieces, in sight, along the base of the white-board.

Whiteboard: 'name', 'job', 'nationality', and 'marital status'. I elicited from the class the complete question for each, i.e. what's your name – what's your job – what's your nationality – are you married or single?

I then gestured they practise in pairs.

We were encountering some production problems still, after after about ten minutes, so I highlighted, remodelled and drilled it well and signalled they practise again in new pairs.

I marked several columns onto the white-board adjacent 'name', 'job', 'nationality', and 'marital status', and marked learners' names across the top.

Placing several markers on each table I signalled they come up to the board and complete the remaining rows from memory. 

They were able to complete the table.

I now wrote 'who's ... ?' on the board and elicited the complete question 'who's that?' and 'who's this?' shortly before clarifying the differing demonstratives 'this' and 'that' by repeating and pointing hither and thither of where I stood.

Demonstrating roles A and B I said 'who's that?' pointing at a learner, changing position I answered  'that's (learner).' We moved into a controlled-practice stage of the class. With a bit of remodelling and facial expression at the sound of incorrect utterances to keep things on track, it was working well, with learners using the scaffolding we'd built on the board to complete their utterances.

While this was going on, I went about looking through newspapers and magazines around the room in search of possible photographs of any recognisable personality and found one for each learner.

One at a time, the they each stood in front of the class, chested the newspaper photograph and asked 'who's this?' The class chanted back the name, nationality, occupation and marital status of the important types before them, in a much less-controlled way, giving them great practice of the target language and confidence.


I'm looking forward to the next class with these students.


Who's that?

Sights fixed on scanner

Looking for a cheap, standard computer scanner at the moment.

Professional development | Book Club class no.1 – WSI

Book Club class was opened well tonight with learners discussing meaningfully by the end of it some poetry given to them on hand-outs. 

Without a great deal of planning, and still tired from the meticulous planing warranted by last week's series of workshop-esque classes titled 'job interview success', I think I did alright, considering. With only a lesson sketch and one good resource Literature by Alan Duff & Alan Maley, I left staging, timing, classroom management, etc. to be what they might.

Narrative:-

Learners listened to a recording, ex YouTube, of their local subterranean railway, trying to identify the sound. 'Highway! Train! Car!' were suggested, before finally, 'the subway!' After this, they could even guess which railway line it was, 'blue line A!' 

Keeping the lights dimmed I asked the group to work around and find five billboards I had printed on A4 and stuck up around the room, to read them closely and find one they liked. 

They seemed to be enjoying themselves. After five minutes I seated them in groups of four.

I prompted them to recreate their favourite billboards, in groups, from memory, drawing it if they wished onto a piece of paper. Note, even though this was all preparatory and a sort of warm-up, some wanted to know which part of the billboard they were 'meant' to discuss and 'must' write down, I told them simply to discuss what they had seen; I think this kind of gradual comprehension of the topic is alright if it means they are more immersed in it later, as it becomes less mysterious and abstract.

I set up the billboards at the front of the class in full view and conducted short plenary feedback. Learners reported their general likes and dislikes about them.

We then talked briefly about whether there were any interesting billboards in their city that might contain poetry. One described a long, interesting Quino comic strip extending along a long subway tunnel; another mentioned a heritage montage at an historic railway station.

The poetry hand-outs I had prepared were now ready to be handed out (short poems that could potentially be displayed on public transport, as printed in my resource Literature). 

The aim of all this was, by first stimulating an everyday situation, to draw a connection between some written works they might see in public, outwards to the larger poems they now held, and towards a full-length article on the wider themes of dangers, difficulties, and delights on public transport, which, ultimately, prepared them for discussion in the next class (in the next class half of the learners who came to this one didn't show, and a new mix of learners did! who weren't really impressed by the theme. See here.).

Twenty or so minutes passed with learners reading the short poems, checking with peers and using dictionaries, and making notes. At this point all learners were quite engaged, including those who at first couldn't understand the warm-up task.

During feedback I could hear some really interesting interpretations of poems and we went over two or three lexemes as a class (below).

On the board I marked out three columns: difficulties; dangers; delights. Learners quickly gave me suggestions for these aspects of their own railway network, as by this time we had breached the 60-minute mark; another teacher came to collect a learner for their class. I stopped to hand out the reading text for the great discussion in the next class, newspaper article 'Crime and violence against Underground – Police plan new strategy to make the Tube safer.' Now they were now absolutely ready to read it, thinking of ways to improve their own network whilst reading. In fact, the entire lesson could have been a way to supply a purpose for reading that text, at home.

As I would see in the next class, of the learners who actually returned, none could find the time to read the text, and so the wider discussion never took place, nor did we bother reading the article.

board-work, café, restaurant, ocean – WSI

This picture was divided into two - students made comparisons between left and right.

Haiku poetry by unnamed – WSI

An Haiku poem. Translation into Japanese amended.

Friends Day - social class – WSI

Friends Day - social class – WSI

Some board-work from the class: the first is translated and the second reads life made us friends and our hearts made us brothers.

Phrasal or Prepositional?? – WSI

Last Friday I set out trying to teach phrasal verbs versus prepositional verbs in a 'complementary' class (language-focused class) with very little information provided in the teacher's manual at the institute. During the class I discovered some interesting things -not the least of which a slightly dazzled group of learners- including the many and varied types of what I know now as 'compound verbs'. So perhaps best to draw a rough line between them all to separate.

Some like to analyse the form of them and classify them under different 'types'. Others prefer to learn them as individual items of vocabulary.

The term 'phrasal verb' was first used in "Words and Idioms" (1925) by North American-born essayist, critic and literary perfectionist, Logan Pearsall Smith. Compound verbs have existed throughout the history of language are not exclusive to English. They are very common in all the languages of India, in Korean, Japanese and modern Greek, to name a few.. In Quichua-influenced Spanish, Ecuador, compound verbs have been innovated into the language

De rabia puso rompiendo la olla, 'In anger (he/she) smashed the pot.' (Lit. from anger put breaking the pot). Or, Botaremos matándote 'we will kill you.'

A 'prepositional verb' is a type 2 compound verb (or multiword verb). A compound verb is made up of a verb and a particle, be it a preposition and/ or an adverb (e.g. away, back, off, on, out). There also exist type 1, 3, 4 compound verbs.

Type 2 compound verbs need an object and this can't go between the verb and particle i.e. they are transitive and inseparable

She never asks me to look after her children. (NOT . . . look her children after.)

We were heading towards Sydney. (NOT *. . . heading Sydney towards.)

It is type 1 and type 3 that are phrasal verbs, which can be used in both a literal though more often than not, idiomatic or figurative sense i.e the meaning must be inferred and is elusive to the learner; it is not readily understood; it has a meaning which is different to the original verb. Learners often find phrasal verbs more challenging. A phrasal verb is made up of a verb and an adverb.


Phrasal verbs are usually used informally in everyday speech as opposed to the more formal Latinate verbs, such as “to get together” rather than “to congregate”, “to put off” rather than “to postpone”, or “to get out” rather than “to exit”.

Type 1 compound verbs do not need an object i.e. they are intransitive

We got up early. The plane took off. 

Type 3 compound verbs need an object which can go between or after* the verb and particle i.e. they are intransitive and separable

Can you put my parents up if they come? 

Don't bring these problems up at the meeting.

*however, if the object is a pronoun we have to put it between the verb and the particle e.g. put them up; bring them up. (NOT put up them; bring up them.)



Type 4 compound verbs need an object and have two particles which must stay together, a preposition and an adverb i.e. this type is transitive and insperable

You should look up to your parents. (NOT . . . look up parents to.)

The difference between compound verbs and other verbs followed by an adverb or preposition

In compound verbs the verbs and the particle(s) function as inseparable parts of a single unit of meaning. In the case of 'He made up a story' it would be nonsense to ask and answer questions about the individual components of the compound verb; to check the concepts of the individual parts:

1. What did he do? He made
2. In which direction? up
3. Up what? a story

In a straight forward combination of verb plus preposition or adverb (e.g. He ran up the stairs) we can ask and answer these questions

1. What did he do? He ran
2. In which direction? up
3. Up What? the stairs

note: depending on context the same combination of two words may sometimes be a compound verb or  sometimes not:

He looked up the meaning in the dictionary: look up is a compound verb.

He looked up and saw her smiling at him: up is an adverb saying where he looked.

bibliography~
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc
Grammar for English Language Teachers (2008) by Martin Parrott

Job Interview Success - Video! – WSI

http://vimeo.com/26475849

Job Interview Success Workshop - Part 3, lesson plan - WSI

Job Interview Success Workshop - Part 3, materials – WSI

modal verbs of certainty, a brief guide

board work "happy people - boy & girl" – WSI

My first efforts with this little Japanese book "Let's draw happy people" by Sachiko Umoto. Here we can see "boy" and "girl" helping me to elicit various sentences containing modal verbs of certainty, past and present. Good job guys!

Girl

She must be popular.

Boy
He might have been hungry.

Professional development | Job Interview Success Workshop - part 3 – WSI

report

Planning                                  | B | set more realistic times for lesson stages

Classroom Management             | A | Finished the 'encounter' early. Was better sorting papers/materials etc 

Use of Resources Aids               | A | Std-centred board activity was nice. chocolates worked well

Manner and Rapport                  | B | Still: eye contact! Definitely did more talking than listening between stages. Work on not shouting.. use intonation, projection

Dealing with Language Issues     | n/a| (lesson was task-based)

Dealing with Error                     | B | didn't have time to go over some things out of place on the board for job qualities/ skills task. Monitoring not that great hence mediocre feedback.

Dealing with Individuals            | A |

Achievement of Aims                | B | achieved aims of every stage but didn't complete every stage as planned        

Summary/ Wrap-up                   | A |

students' work for the 'job skills/qualities' activity

gaol!

Tonight in class I was prompted on the strange spelling of the word 'gaol' /dʒeɪl/. I wondered whether it was uniquely Australian i.e. that it might have undergone a change, etemologically speaking, in the UK and other places but retained its original form in the great southern land.

The word under trial and its partner in crime and phonetic twin 'jail' /dʒeɪl/ are in common usage, the former more so in British English and its varieties, and the latter in General American.

The word came into English in two forms during the Middle English period (c. 1150 to c. 1470), jaiole from Old French, and gaiole from Anglo-Norman French. Gaiole was originally pronounced with a hard g, as in 'goat'. Both were borrowed into (Middle) English from the language of the English nobility, the Anglo-Norman French, during that time. Read here about William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and subsequent Norman Conquest of England. Well, the other name for it is prison, which came into English via Old French prisun, from Latin prension.

'Jail' was probably adopted in the US during her great 19th-century spelling reformation. This was a period in which many words underwent orthographical change — it is beacuse of this period we have the two spelling standards today (read here about the interesting mix of standards extant in Canada). 

Its birthrights, if so, would be owed to Noah Webster (1758 - 1843), lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author, whose surname became (and still is) synonymous with 'dictionary' in the US, and who, it is said, fathered the reform. 

Part of the process involved choosing from a selection of etemological varients (in this case jaiole, gaiole, gaole, gayole) the alternative more in accord with pronunciation, in this case it would be  'jail'. 'Gaol', then, sustained its Anglo-Norman appearance in the UK. A further  example, offense, the General American spelling of 'offence', was derived from Old Fench offens (then Latin offensus), it must have seemed rather logical to adopt s in its spelling.

That 'jail' came about this way is only my hypothesis, but below are some more well known differences between spellings:

Examples of orthographical change* in order to more closely represent sound, are -ize (organize, realize, paralyze, utilize); -or (color, honor, ardor, fervor, neighbor); -er (certre, theater, liter). Also, tire, curb, clark, carburator, check (tyre, kerb, clerk, carburettor, cheque). Other simplifications can be seen in homophonic words such as 'practise' and 'practice', verb and noun (the two forms being sustained in British Englishes), also 'license', and so on. Removing double letters took place in words such as  'travelled', 'controllable', 'councelling' (traveled, controlable, counceling).

I guess it's time I had my own Webster! If at least to help highlight these differences to learners and help increase awareness.

bogeyman | boogeyman
arse           | ass  (my sympathies for the donkey)
moustache | mustache
pyjamas     | pajamas

...know of any more?

*the ending -cre as in words like acre, mediocre, massacre was preserved to protect the /k/ sound of the c

vocabulary - illnesses

I was asked for some examples of diseases today by an elementary student at Wall Street English, and my mind went completely blank.

disease /dɪ'zi:z/ (noun); diseases, diseased, diseasing, (to) disease.

statements of meaning-

= an illness
= an incorrectly functioning organ, system, structure
= an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism
= affects people, animals, plants (but also materials, such as tin, as in 'decomposition')
= resulting from genetic errors, infection, poisons, nutritional imbalance or deficiency, toxicity



negative check-

= virus (a kind of germ. causes disease. replicates itself. composed of NRA / DNA. ultrumicroscopic. in living things only. harms the host to which it's attached in order to, live, feed, benefit itself: is parasitic)


close synonyms- 

= illness
= sickness
= infirmity
= ailment 


antonym-

= health


examples-

AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Alzheimer's disease. Anemia. Anthrax. Appendicitis. Arthritis.  Bronchitis. Bubonic plague. Cancer. Cerebral palsy. Chicken pox. Cholera. Chronic fatigue syndrome. Coronary heart disease. Congestive heart disease. Cow pox. Dengue. Diabetes.  Encephalitis. Ebola. Emphysema. Genital herpes. Gonorrhea. Gangrene. Hepatitis A,B,C,D,E. Huntington's disease. Hypothermia. Influenza. Common cold.  Jaundice. Lead poisoning. Lyme disease. Lymphoma. Malaria. Measles. Meningitis. Multiple sclerosis. Mumps. Muscular dystrophy. Osteoarthritis. Osteoporosis.  Parkinson's disease. Whooping cough (Pertussis). Plague. Polio. Rabies. Repetitive strain injury. Rheumatoid arthritis.  Rickets.  Scarlet fever.  Scurvy. SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). Shingles. Small pox. Tetanus. Tuberculosis. Typhoid fever. Warts. Yellow fever. To name a few...




how to present-

Elementary class
S1:   What means disease /'dɪzɪz/ ?
T:    Pronunciation -  /dɪ'zi:z/ - like see or read - [model stress] - can you say it?
S1:   Disease /dɪ'zi:z/ .
T:    Good - AIDS, cancer, Diabetes, Hepatitis are types of disease. 
S1:    Oh, yeah - thank you.

Intermediate class
S1:    Sorry, what does disease mean?
T:    Does anyone know that word - disease?
S2:     Sick. Ill.
T:     Yeah, okay, just ill? Or very ill?
S3:     Very ill.
T:    Usually for a short time or a long time?
S4: A long time.

phonemic chart, pronunciation guide – WSI

click here students. click the symbols to hear their sounds with given examples.

enjoy.

Job Interview Success Workshop - Part 2, materials – WSI