Category Archives: Grammar

Asking Yes/No Questions and Explanation Questions in English

23 Mar ’25

Yesterday Morning I Fed My Cat

4 Nov ’24

Pronouncing the -ed Endings of Regular Verbs in English

20 Oct ’24

Every Morning I Feed My Cat

3 Feb ’23

Thinking about the Future on the Day the Clocks Fall Back, November 3, 2019

3 Nov ’19

… In English we deal with the future by using nine helping verbs called the modals: will, shall, can, could, would, should, may, might and must. Only will will ever happen; all the others are possibilities, the wouldas, couldas, and … Continue reading →

ESL Lesson: Parts of Speech

22 Sep ’19

… Objective: This lesson is for beginner ESL students to understand how English works. Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are discussed by the teacher with enough information for the learners to recognize them in the sentences. The main objective … Continue reading →

Walking and Thinking about the Present in English

7 Sep ’17

… Walking through Tompkins Square in New York City, I see red roses in the brisk air. I’ve been thinking about the present tense in English because that is what I will talk about with my students this morning, and … Continue reading →

Learning English: Simple Sentence Syntax

4 Aug ’16

… If you were going to teach English to someone who was just beginning to learn it, what would you teach? There is a game I sometimes play with beginners, a kind of bingo with a die and some beans … Continue reading →

Learning English: Main Verbs

9 Apr ’16

… To the English Learner: If you want to learn English, begin with the verbs. That is where the action is. This is true with any language, and very true with English because what makes English English are its helping … Continue reading →

On Nouns Becoming Verbs in English

21 Aug ’15

… In English we can take a noun and change it into a verb and the sentence still makes sense. I saw an example recently. There was a sushi restaurant on First Avenue near St. Mark’s that had a great … Continue reading →