015 : Lie versus Lay

How can you tell?

Well here's when you gotta bring out the big ol' Grammar Book back to refer to, because there IS a difference,  not just in spelling but also pronunciation. It's also important to note the overlaps of these words in certain tenses, which makes it even more confusing.

First, it's important to know that lay is a Transitive Verb (TransV) while lie is an Intransitive Verb (IntransV). This means that lay requires a Direct Object (DO = something the action is done to) while lie (except for the meaning of 'telling untruths', for which a DO is optional) does not.

Verb          Infinitive       Past Tense      Past Participle
lie               lie                  lay                   lain
lay             lay                  laid                  laid 


Here are some altered examples of sentences using these, from Grammar Girl.

Blue = Lie, Pink = Lay, Yellow = Direct Object.

The present tense of lie and lay are rather easy to distinguish:
You lay down the sheets of paper.
You lie on the floor.

The past tense of lie is lay, so
Last week, Steve lay down on the floor.
The cat lay in the mud after it rained yesterday.

The past tense of lay is laid, so
Last week, I laid the TPS report on your desk.
Mary forcefully laid her ring on the table.

The past participle of lie is lain, so
Steve has lain on the floor for days.
The cat has lain in the mud for hours.

The past participle of lay is laid, so
I have laid the TPS report on your desk.
Mary has forcefully laid her ring on the table.

 This is just a simple account of the issue. For more information, please refer to these sites (aka my sources):

Lay or Lie?

Lie and Lay

Grammar Girl : Lay Versus Lie

Learn the Difference between "Lay" or "Lie"

Cheers and have fun with grammar. ;P

011 : cool illustrations for visual aids in the class

Illustrations used in the texts to assist learners are usually pretty dull. Granted, they're usually black & white, so that leaves not much space for them to get our attention to begin with, but they could be spruced up a little, doncha think?

I was looking around the WWW for pictures for my assignment (which involves lesson planning) and I stumbled upon an illustrator by the name of Heather Sloane. She has a few sites under her wings; one of them is Mrs Pancake:

"Mrs Pancake is the teacher everyone loves. She's kind to the kids, always brings treats and just loves making Doodads - wonderful educational resources for parents and teachers."

The site caters to mainly younger children of literacy, numeracy and even for art&crafty subjects, though some things may be useful for the older students as well, like printable certs and some charts.

This site is such an adorable little space worth checking out! :)

[ link : mrspancake.com ]

009 : funny education-related poetry

If you want to have a 'light' lesson, you may want a 'text' for an activity that can keep the students awake AND interested. A site worth checking is Poetry Teachers. They have a nice assortment of poetry that are quirky, fun and exploitable (in the sense that you can try to create lessons around them, eg. grammar), like this.

It's a cute site worth looking at, even if you don't have teaching intentions in mind :)

[ link : poetryteachers.com ]

008 : parts of speech, simplified

Need to refresh your mind on what nouns, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, etc are? Or just wanting to find worksheets useful to focus on lessons on these topics? This Enchantedlearning sub-site offers some nice material catering this, and they're also handy because they are explained in a simple way so that if your students are having problems with parts of speech, they can do it in their own time.

[ link : @enchantedlearning.com ]

007 : more resources for teaching!

Edhelper has puzzlemakers, worksheets, and other convenient stuff for your teaching needs. For the topical worksheets, they are graded according to the level of learners, so it makes it easier for you to suit/adapt the lessons to the needs and abilities of your students.

The site is catered for younger learners and offers stuff for English, Maths and a few other subjects. Their language resources in particular can also be good for ESL learners, regardless of their age.

Note : not all of their resources are free (like most teaching resources), but the ones that are available are worth checking out.

[ link : edhelper.com ]

006 : adjectives - think you know?

Until a few years ago, I never knew that multiple adjectives (English, at least) had a certain order when combined. This realisation came to me when I was tested for a job interview. I'm not sure how well I did on that test, but I did get the job, and I did learn that there was a proper order for adjectives, so all was good I guess. Haha.

Anyway, for the language teaching course I'm currently studying, we have to do a microteaching session as one of our course requirements. I think adjectives would be a good thing to focus on for this because it's easily underestimated but very much exploitable.

Here's a few links I found particularly useful to know about adjectives and their word orders:

[ link : @enchantedlearning.com ]
[ link : @learn4good.com ]
[ link : @grammar-quizzes.com ]

If you want to try more questions to check your understanding, go here:

[ link : @web2.uvcs.uvic.ca ]
[ link : @johnsesl.com ]
[ link : @edhelper.com ]

004 : fun with tongue twisters

I love tongue twisters! Although the words in them are usually easy to understand, they totally mess up your head! It's simple fun to get out of a bored state of mind or to freshen up sleepiness. Plus, it's good for fluency practice as well! If it doesn't, at least the students and you will be amused :)

Here's a site I found that's pretty cool for this, check it out:

[ link : @fun-with-words.com ]

003 : what is the longest word?

For English, AskOxford says, nobody can really decide.

"Most of the words which are given as 'the longest word' are merely inventions, and when they occur it is almost always as examples of long words, rather than as genuine examples of use..."

Quite an interesting (short) article :)

[ link : @AskOxford.com (sub of Oxford University Press) ]

~

For any language in general, however, there are many words which are loooong.

[ link : @fun-with-words.com ]