Bite Sized English

Hi. My name is Ola, and I “inherited” this blog from Toby, the one and only – Bite Sized English creator.

So… let me introduce myself: I have been teaching and studying English for quite some years now, and I’ve discovered that it can be very complex, and it can be very simple. It all depends on the way you (as a teacher) present it.

For that purpose I’ve created Really Learn English Vocabulary and Easy English Grammar, an illustrated guide to English and these high interest/low vocabulary ESL short stories eBooks.

My purpose is to make the English language as easy and as simple as possible, for every English learner. Whether you are a beginner, an advanced student or an English teacher.

The important thing is not to remember “the rules.”

What’s important is that you will be able to understand and use English in your life.

So make yourself comfortable, look around and I hope to bring out some new material soon…

January 22nd, 2011 | Category: Bite Sized English, Breaking News | Leave a comment

Generally, I advise my students against using the word ‘needn’t.’ It’s a bit old-fashioned sounding.

But here, it fits: you really needn’t subscribe to this blog.  I don’t have the time to keep it up the way I was and, while I loved the adventure, it won’t be updated beyond this post.  (And, at the end of the year, even that’ll be gone as the hosting expires.)

Why am I writing this?  Well, because Feedburner claims I still have over thirty subscribers and, because there’s a chance some ESL teacher somewhere will decide to carry it on.  If there is a teacher interested in taking over the blog or content, please let me know before it’s too late.

Thanks for a great time!

July 23rd, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off

This entry is part of a series about connotations. This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class.

Most teachers—and students—know that taking a few minutes ‘off’ to play a game, or just chat, can help you re-stock your energy before getting back into the ‘work’ of learning English. But, is it okay to take a few minutes off at work? Is working without stopping always the best thing to do?

In today’s installment of the connotation dictionary, Î want to talk about how you can describe working—or not working—with different connotations. After all, what’s the difference between:

• An industrious worker,
• A conscientious worker
• Screwing around, and
• Blowing off steam?

I know that you want to know all about these things, so feel free to download (as a PDF) and use the second part of the connotation dictionary: ‘people at work.’

February 2nd, 2010 | Tags: connotation, lazy, work | Category: English Three, Vocabulary | Leave a comment

This entry is part of a series about connotations. This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class.

After talking about what a connotation is, it’s hard to learn to use a connotation. After all, speaking English masterfully means using the language not just to convey meanings, but to convey feelings.

How can you learn these feelings?

I’ll get into general answers in a bit (that’s a code for: I have some ideas, but none of them are really good), but there’s something I’ve started doing for my students and that I want to share here: my connotation dictionary.  (Downloadable as a PDF)

Today, we’re going to discuss problems.

We all have problems at work, but what are the other words you can use? What feelings do they convey? Is there a difference if you say that. . .

• I have a problem at work.
• The situation at work is difficult now.
• We face a few challenges at work.

These are all things you can read and learn about in the first installment of the connotation dictionary: ‘work problems.’

Note: I know that there are a few English teachers who read my blog. I’d be thrilled if you gave me some feedback on this. How do you convey connotations? Is a resource like this useful? What do you think of the ’story format?’

February 1st, 2010 | Tags: connotation, problems, work | Category: English Three, Vocabulary | Comments (4)

This entry is a part of the series about hidden meanings. I’ll be adding more as time allows. This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class. This entry includes a listening exercise. You can dowload the MP3 or play it using the button below. (MP3)

I said in the last post that the connotation of the word is the ’second meaning’ of a word. A connotation will say if a word is positive, or negative. It will include the feelings of approval—meaning you think something is good—and disapproval. (That means the opposite, of course.)

Let me try it with a more poetic example: if you think of a conversation as paper, and think of the words meaning as what you write on the paper. . . the connotation will be the color you write the word in, and if you write it in bold, italics, or UPPERCASE. And these things, we know, can change the meaning of the word.

In the recording today, I’ll talk about connotations more exactly, and I’ll use a few examples. And, in the coming posts, I’ll try to include a few more concrete examples.
More »

January 25th, 2010 | Tags: connotation | Category: English Three, Vocabulary | Leave a comment

There are a lot of words in English. A lot of them have almost the same meaning, or meanings that are related. But, often, picking one word over the other can weaken the meaning of your sentence and—in the worst case—even hurt feelings.

Consider a few questions:

• Would you rather be faced with a challenge or a problem?
• Would you rather that someone called you a ‘natural leader’ or a ’skilled leader?’
• If someone takes five minutes to make a decision, would you call them ‘deliberate’ or ‘indecisive?’

Our problem—I’m sorry, I mean our challenge—is that these word pairs have very similar meanings, but can result in misunderstanding if you don’t choose the right one.

What’s the difference? The difference is the connotation of the words. We’ll talk more, soon, about the meaning of connotation, but for now it helps to say this: the connotation of a word is its ’second meaning.’ Often, we use the words ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ to describe this: a challenge is a positive thing, a problem is a negative thing. But it can be more than that.

Why does it matter? If you’re speaking to a native—or fluent—speaker who is aware of the connotation of the words you use, it’s very possible that misunderstandings can happen when you say in English what you’d normally say in your native language.

In the next days and weeks (I don’t know how fast I can prepare stuff) I want to talk about this idea. We’re going to start with some vocabulary to describe this, we’re going to cover specific examples, and we’re going to talk about how you can find out connotations on your own. (After all, every word has some kind of connotation.)

Normally, I’ve organized my lessons at Bite Sized English into different levels: from pretty simple to native level. The lessons we work on for this topic will be all ‘native level.’ You’ll need pretty good English to really make use of them. (Though, it never hurts to learn the extra vocabulary.)

January 24th, 2010 | Tags: connotation, implication, insinuation | Category: English Three, Vocabulary | Leave a comment