Jul 3, Free Vocabulary Worksheets

Use these free vocabulary worksheets by yourself (if you are a learner) or with your students (if you are a teacher).

These worksheets practice sentence composition, and they are suitable for beginners. You can use them online.

Vocabulary Worksheet A

Vocabulary Worksheet B
Look at each picture and the bold words above it.Make a sentence to describe the picture using these words.Note that there is more than one correct answer for each picture!There is a list of suggested answers at the end of this page.Dog, happy

Answer:

"The dog is happy."

OR

"The dog seems happy."

(Or any other similar answer.)

Man, books, many

Answer:

"The man has many books."

OR

"This man holds many books."

(Or any other similar answer.)

1) Man, surprised

2) Cake, candle

3) Woman, ball

4) Lady, crying

5) People, clapping

6) Apples, green

7) Apple, red, books

8) Girl, balloons, flowers

9) Family, dinner

10) Bread, baking

1) "The man is very surprised."

2) "There is one candle on the cake."

3) "The ball hit this woman."

4) "This lady is crying."

5) "The people are clapping."

6) "These apples are green."

7) "There is a red apple on the books."

8) "The girl has balloons and some flowers, too."

9) "My family is having dinner now."

10) "She is baking some bread."

1) Bank, money

2) Bed, tidy

3) Heart, broken

4) Trouble, big

5) Cat, butterfly

6) Closet, organized

7) Corner, sitting

8) Box, thinking

9) Armchair, fireplace

10) Refrigerator , empty

1) "He got the money from the bank."

2) "The bed is clean and tidy."

3) "His heart is broken."

4) "He's in big trouble."

5) "The cat is looking at the butterfly."

6) "Her closet is well organized."

7) "The man is sitting at the corner."

8) "This man is thinking about the box."

9) "She is sitting in her armchair by the fireplace."

10) "The refrigerator is empty."

These were some of the free vocabulary worksheets.

Visit the Vocabulary Activities section for many additional activities and exercises.

Jul 18, Building Your Business English Vocabulary

You've learned the basics, and what you really want to concentrate on now is your business English vocabulary.
If you are lucky enough to have a paid job where you are using your English, then you will start to learn some business vocabulary as you work. If you aren't this lucky, and can't get any unpaid work experience or an internship either, then you have to look at other ways to increase your business English vocabulary.

Of course, there are a number of courses, books, computer programs or even apps you can buy. There are websites you can visit. All of these will help you.

If you are looking for something to buy, try to find something that has exercises you can do, not simply a list of words. You will learn much more by reading or listening, then doing something, than you will by just reading or listening.

You need to activate any new vocabulary before you remember it fully. If you do learn new words, try and use them as soon as you can. Even if you only write them in a sentence in your notebook, that will help you. Simply a list of words with a translation in a vocabulary notebook is not the best way to learn any new words or phrases.

Something else you can to do improve your business vocabulary, is to read business websites, newspapers and magazines. The Wall Street Journal is good for articles about finance and the economy, and The Financial Times in the UK is similar.

Magazines such as Business Week or the Economist have useful articles for higher level speakers. Both of these magazines also have very useful websites.

Try and watch business news on TV or on the web. News broadcasts are not often easy to understand, but the more you watch or listen to them, the easier it will become. You will start to hear and recognize new words, and will be able to look them up in a dictionary to find out what they mean.

If you are in an English speaking country and your English is a good enough level, you may want to enroll in a basic business studies course. This will give you a lot of vocabulary, targeted reading, and the opportunity to practice some practical business tasks in English. You will also be able to meet other English speakers, which is always helpful.

If you are not in an English speaking country, then you could try and find a correspondence course in business studies. You won't get the interactive parts of classes you can attend, but it will still be helpful. If that isn't possible either, then a business studies textbook may be useful.

Of course it can be possible to enroll on a specialized business English course, and if you really want to improve your business English vocabulary then this is certainly something worth considering.

Some Pointers for Building Academic Vocabulary

Students all have different goals they want to achieve in their English language learning, and if building academic vocabulary is your goal then you’ll want to do it as easily as possible.

There are some specific problems you will meet when you want to develop your academic language and here is some advice to help you.

DO read academic books and journals. Even though reading fashion or celebrity magazines may help your everyday English vocabulary, they won’t do much to help with the specific language you will need for academic purposes.

This can be a problem. Academic articles on the web, textbooks or research papers will be much more useful to you. Have a dictionary with you when you read, and look up words you don’t know.

DO pay attention to phrases. Academic language isn’t just about individual words. It is about how those words are joined together. Some people concentrate too much on single words and neglect phrasal verbs, idioms and collocations.

DO practice. This can be problematic because you can’t easily practice academic language in daily life. If you did, people would think you're a little strange! You can practice writing though, and you should try writing longer, well constructed essays when you can.

If you don’t have a teacher to check your work, ask a friend. If you don’t have any friends to ask, then compare your work with articles you find on the web. But remember that some of the articles on the web aren’t too good so try and find some from sites with a good reputation.

DO look at vocabulary to help you organize your writing. Discourse markers are words which help give signposts to our writing. Examples are, firstly, in contrast to, and in conclusion. If you learn and use these, your writing will be much easier to follow.

DON’T neglect the little words. Prepositions, such as to, in, on, of, about, etc are often forgotten and these are important in academic language (as well as in general English usage).

Conjunctions are also important. You will be familiar with conjunctions such as and, but, because, so, etc but you will need to start using more advanced words such as whereas, moreover, despite, in spite of, and so on. Pay attention to these when you are reading. Underline them in texts to concentrate your attention on them, instead of skimming over them.

DON’T forget the tone. Formal vs informal English can be tough to get right, but academic vocabulary is often much more formal than everyday vocabulary.

For example, you would be more likely to read the word children than kids in an academic text. When you discover a formal equivalent of a more informal word you know, then add it to your vocabulary notebook.

DON’T forget the language specific to your subject. Each subject has specific language and you should have a section in your vocabulary notebook for words particular to your subject.

If you read as much as you can, and practice as much as you can, as well as following the above tips for building academic vocabulary, then your Academic English should grow and improv

Jul 18, Improve Your Lessons with ESL Vocabulary Games

I've seen some really boring vocabulary lessons, from teachers who ignore ESL vocabulary games.

Uninteresting reading activities, followed by lists of words to define or translate. Sometimes students having to do spelling tests.

Although these vocabulary activities can be productive, if done incorrectly, they aren't very exciting for students.

Here are some suggestions of how to use ESL vocabulary games.
Most people have a competitive side to their personality. If you put your students into teams for any quiz or test then they will be likely to work together to try to beat other teams. Even a simple quiz becomes much more fun this way.
Don't use the same game all the time. Hangman and Hot Seat (where two students sit with their backs to the board, you write a word on the board, and the teams have to describe the word for the two students to guess) are popular with teachers because they are easy.

Try to find some different games to use to stop your students (and you!) becoming bored.

An example of a quiet game, which works with individuals or in pairs or groups is word transformation. Ask students to give you a four-letter word and write it on the board. Then ask for another four-letter word and write this underneath the first, leaving space between them.

Then ask your students to change the words, one letter at a time, each time creating a new word. The object is to reach the second word with the least possible number of moves.

Obviously, this is best for higher-level classes but it can bring up some good new words.

Games with movement are good to break up a long class (to break up means to put short activities in between longer ones).

You could stick words and definitions (or translations) around the room and have a race to see which individual, pair, or group can match the most pairs.

Or you could give the students the words and definitions and get them to find the person who matches with them. This is also a good technique to get students to work in different pairs.

Memory games work well with vocabulary. You could have some objects on the table and give students 5 minutes to find out the words for them together (if they don't already know) and to remember as many as they can.

You can also use pictures for this, getting students to look at the picture then describe it, or answer questions about it.

Storytelling is a great classroom favourite of mine, and of my students. I get a bunch of unconnected words, including nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.

I then get students, in groups or pairs, to write a story using as many of the words as they can. Sometimes I award points for each word and turn it into a competition.

I have also had the students work in pairs, with one reading the story and one acting it out.

Vocabulary activities don't have to be boring. With a few new ideas and a little imagination, ESL vocabulary games can make your lessons much more lively and fun.

Jul 8, Vocabulary Lesson Plans

Having good vocabulary lesson plans is key to helping your students improve. Increasing vocabulary is important to learning a language, as anyone can communicate if they know enough words, even if their grammar isn’t great. If they don’t know the words they can’t do anything.
Well, here are some key points to help you. Students won’t remember random words so teach new vocabulary in groups. For example personality adjectives, weather words, clothing, words connected with travel, etc.
It is usually quite ineffective to simply let students try and work out meaning from context. But seeing or hearing words in context will help them remember. So for example you can pick out words from a reading text and get them to look them up in a dictionary and make their own sentences using these words.
If you see or hear a word once, will you remember it? It isn’t likely is it? Use the words more than once and present them in different ways. Students have different learning styles – some will remember from reading a word, others will remember from hearing it. Others will need to use it to remember the word. So try and give them plenty of opportunity to read or hear the words.
If the students use the word, producing it in their own sentences, they are much more likely to remember it. Let them use the new vocabulary in written texts, role plays or presentations. Make sure they use the new words and don’t stick to old, ‘safe’ words they know. It’s important to get them to make sentences that show they understand the meaning. For example if you’ve taught ‘stormy’, the sentence ‘It is stormy,’ does not show understanding. A sentence like, "We didn't go out because of the stormy weather," would probably be much better. Push the students to do the best they can and don’t let them get lazy.
That may not always be true but if you are teaching adjectives, it makes sense to teach them in pairs as students will be more likely to remember them that way.
Make it fun.  Vocabulary teaching is a great opportunity to get some games into the classroom. Many teachers resort to Hangman as a filler at the end of the lesson but it isn’t much fun, can be culturally insensitive, and doesn’t really help learning all that much. Pairs matching/memory games work well with vocabulary and there are a load of games you can make more interesting by setting up teams and letting them compete against each other. 
Don’t teach vocabulary in one lesson then forget it. Always have an activity in the next lesson to reinforce the learning.
Of course you can tell your students new words, but you may need to show them how to learn them. Let them see different techniques of organizing vocabulary notebooks – mind maps, lists, translations, sentences, etc, and encourage them to look up new words they encounter.

If you follow these tips when you are writing vocabulary lesson plans, then your lessons should become more effective and more enjoyable.

Talking about Holidays

Do you know words for different types of holiday in English?
Read these definitions, then choose the right one to fill the blanks in the exercise.

Holiday definitions
bank holiday = a type of public holiday in the UK when banks and businesses close for the day. All bank holidays in the UK are on Mondays. You might also hear the phrase "bank holiday weekend".
cruise = a journey on a luxurious ship.
city break = a short holiday where you visit a city (often in a different country) for a few days or for a weekend.
day trip = a day's holiday – often to the seaside. A person who goes on a day trip is called a "day tripper".
long weekend = a weekend plus one or two days.
outward-bound course = an activity holiday, often for children and teenagers.
package holiday = a holiday where everything has been pre-paid.
public holiday = a national holiday (on any day of the week).
sightseeing tour = a holiday where you visit places of interest.

Examples:
1. Student: "I'm coming to your lesson next week."
Teacher: "OK. Please remember to bringyour dictionary." (bring / take)
2. Can you lend me €10 until tomorrow? (lend / borrow)
3. High petrol prices will affect the economic recovery. (effect / affect)
4. You need to study economic policy to understand their decision. (economic / economical)
5. I think we're lost. Let me look at the map. (watch / look at)
6. Can you check these figures for me please? (check / control)
7. Is he attending the reception tomorrow? (attend / assist)
8. Please remind me to cancel the order. (remember / remind)
9. At the weekend I often go to my parents' house. I like being with my family. (stay / be)
10. If you lose my phone, you'll be in trouble! (lose / loose)

Exercise
Fill in the blanks with a type of holiday from the list above.
1. I like going on ——–, because I don't have to worry about booking hotels or flights.
2. Next weekend is a ——– bank holiday weekend. We've got three days to do something interesting.
3. When we were in Paris, we decided to pay for a ——–. It was worth it, as we got to see all the sights.
4. They've taken Friday and Monday off work, so they've got a ——–.
5. Let's get up early tomorrow and go off somewhere on a ——–.
6. In the UK, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are ——–.
7. The travel agent is advertising ——– to Barcelona.
8. For their honeymoon, they've booked themselves a caribbean ——–.
9. Her children learnt how to climb rocks on their ——–.

Sea and Seaside Vocabulary

If you're planning a beach holiday this summer, here are some useful words to describe what you can see:

The coastline

cliffs = rocky hills / mountains that drop down to the beach or sea

dunes = sandy hills behind the beach. OFten a particular type of grass grows on the dunes.

beach : can be formed by sand or pebbles – small smooth stones

bay / cove / inlet = where the sea comes inland in small – often semi-circular – areas of water

Water

sea is UK English, while ocean in American English

waves / breakers (breakers are big waves)

rockpool = a small, maybe quite shallow – area of water surrounded by rocks

current / undertow = where the water's energy can pull you in one direction. This can be dangerous if you're not a strong swimmer

high tide / low tide = when the tide comes in (leaving less beach) or when the tide goes out (leaving more beach)

driftwood = the wood which is left on the beach at high tide

Sea creatures

crabs = small animals with four legs that have a shell and are edible

jellyfish = a white-coloured sac with strings coming down from it. These strings can sting you.

shoal of fish = a group of fish

Examples:

1. I went to Scotland last month.
Oh really? What was it like?
Beautiful.

2. Have you met David's brother, Paul?
He's just like him.
I think that physically they both take after their father – they look like him.

3. What's this made of? It feels like cotton, but it looks like linen.

4. I want to go to the beach today. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.

6. This soup is wonderful. It tastes like a combination of tomatoes and potatoes.
Exercise

Fill in the missing words in this holiday postcard.

Hi all

Having a great time in sunny Cornwall.

The ——– is really interesting – rugged cliffs but sandy ——– in places. We've been exploring some of the smugglers' ——– famous in this part of Cornwall. The smugglers would bring the ships in from the sea, then steal all the cargo.

At ——— we often go walking along the shore to see what the tide has brought in. Haven't found anything interesting yet.

The sea is generally quite rough, with huge ——–. We've been told it's quite dangerous to swim, and we felt a strong ——– yesterday even at knee-height.

Not been stung by any ——– yet, though just a matter of time probably!

Love to all