imagineigo
  • English
  • YouTube
  • いまじん英語
    • お問合わせ
    • 概要
  • About
    • Jeffrey じぇふりい
  • Blog
  • Consulting
    • English Diary Resources
  • Contact

Learning English can be easier than you think
​--just use your imagination!​

Business English textbooks

2/21/2023

 
For ESL English students, learners, and teachers...

My friend Steve Quasha has produced an excellent new textbook for learning Business English.  The topics, activities, and projects are all very useful and updated to today's business world.  It engages students to use the materials and their smartphones to research and actually use the language they are learning.  And every topic cycles through all four modes of communication: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading.  Also, the listening audio and pronunciation videos are easily accessible online through smartphone QR codes.

If you are learning English for business communication and skills, I highly recommend this textbook, and I am happy to help you work through it.  You can order it here.
Then contact me for a free trial ZOOM lesson.

And if you are teaching Business English at a school or privately, I definitely recommend giving this a try!

https://www.englishbooks.jp/catalog/index.php/Think-Big-for-Business-c-9220
Business English textbooks: Think Big for Business
Think BIG for Business!

Coffee Cake?

8/19/2022

 
We're starting to really have fun with this English in the Living Room thing...  This time we talked about traditional American "coffee cake" which doesn't actually contain any coffee...  and of course we ate some too!

Thank you to Sanseido Sweets for making a very nice coffee cake right here in Miyazaki, Japan!
https://www.facebook.com/sanseidosweets
https://instagram.com/sanseido_sweets

This is for fun, so there's no schedule...  but we will probably continue to do it about once a week in the early evenings (local Japan time).  If you subscribe to the channel AND setup the notification bell, you will get alerts whenever we go on--

I hope you will join us sometime!
Jeffrey & Kumi
Sofa Eikaiwa LIVE! (Armchair English)
A relaxing English session with Jeffrey & Kumi.  We will talk about culture and many other interesting topics.  Come join us in the living room and ask questions LIVE!

Business English with Jeffrey & Kumi

8/14/2022

 
Greetings,
Kumi is trying to learn more English for her business and asking me a lot of questions about it.  So we decided to stream the answers on YouTube to help anyone else studying business English.  We will talk about business vocabulary words and special grammar points, especially connected to financial and tax accounting and law.

Come join us in the virtual office!

English in the Living Room

8/10/2022

 
Hello everyone!
We recently decided to stop watching TV shows, and start our own fun show for entertainment instead!  We still sit down on the comfy sofa, but now we chat in English on a live YouTube stream.  It's pretty casual, and you can join us by watching and commenting and we will do our best to answer back in the video...

This is for fun, so there's no schedule...  but we will probably do it about once a week in the early evening (local Japan time).  If you subscribe to the channel AND setup the notification bell, you will get alerts whenever we go on--

I hope you will join us sometime!
Jeffrey & Kumi
Sofa Eikaiwa LIVE! (Armchair English)
A relaxing English session with Jeffrey & Kumi.  We will talk about culture and many other interesting topics.  Come join us in the living room and ask questions LIVE!

Saw my favorite Japanese musician live in concert!

8/7/2022

 
So happy I got the chance to see my favorite Japanese musician Yamashita Tatsuro in a fabulous live show! His live voice is even better than on recorded CDs, and the band is always right on time with the melodies-- And when he sings in English it's perfect and it feels like he's singing just directly to me-- It had me dancing in the aisle!

using mouth pictures to teach pronunciation

6/9/2022

 
Yes, awareness of correct mouth positions is the foundation of proper pronunciation, and visuals are an important part of that.  But don't just throw down some cutaway views from the anatomy textbook and expect students to get it.  No one imagines that's how the inside of their mouth looks.  Use simple line drawings, exaggerating only the relevant parts used in the production of each sound, and use gestures and mirrors to ground the images in the physical stuff.
I do have a complete method for teaching and learning English pronunciation that ties mouth positions, phonics, and spelling into one comprehensive system that is easy and effective to use because it is grounded in the learner's experience.  If you are interested in learning how to teach it or use it, even just the parts that you particularly need, please contact me here.
In the meantime, please enjoy this silly little meme...
The problem with using anatomical mouth pictures to teach pronunciation...  It looks like some kind of shellfish...
phonics mouth pictures R / L phonemic awareness
Try something simple like this instead...
phonics mouth gestures R / L phonemic awareness
Then demonstrate with outrageous gestures like these...

using IPA to teach a foreign language

6/5/2022

 
While the International Phonetic Alphabet is absolutely invaluable to the field of linguistics, it probably isn't the most efficient tool for simply learning a foreign language.  Physical awareness of the correct mouth positions grounded in the most commonly representative phonics & characters of the target language itself are likely much more practical and effective.

For example, the American English vowels from the IPA chart could generally be represented as:

FRONT:  ee / i / e / ae / a
MID:  u / o / au
BACK:  oo / oe

These could hold down the basic vowel sounds and regular spellings, with alternatives such as "ea / oa / ei" taught as they come up in a common representative word.

(By the way, this particular representation also has the advantage of easily extending into an easy to understand explanation of the Final/Silent-e Rule...)

Of course, at the university level I do think it's fine to introduce the IPA as a useful tool.  Some academic abstraction is to be expected there.  Also, I think the power of the IPA for learning a second language comes from the layout of the chart itself rather than the universal symbols (which are more useful for linguistics).  So I definitely advocate for basic familiarity with the organizing principles behind that chart layout.  I just think it's more practical to drop actual phonetic patterns from the target language into the chart than try to memorize all the extra symbols...  So I still wouldn't make it the subject of intense study or testing unless there is a strong linguistics component to the course.

Yes, I have personally gotten a lot of mileage out of the IPA in my work in the various fields of linguistics, philosophy, poetics, education, and foreign language study.  But I am also exactly the kind of nerd who learned to read and write Tolkien's lovely Elvish script in junior high school.  Most students don't have this level of interest in obscurities, and they probably shouldn't be forced to memorize a third-party set of symbols just to learn and use a second language...
I do have a complete method for teaching and learning English pronunciation that ties mouth positions, phonics, and spelling into one comprehensive system that is easy and effective to use because it is grounded in the learner's experience.  If you are interested in learning how to teach it or use it, even just the parts that you particularly need, please contact me here.
In the meantime, please enjoy this silly little meme...
The problem with using IPA to teach a foreign language...  It looks like some form of Elvish... I can't read it.  There are few who can.

Happy Mother's Day!

5/10/2020

 
​To all the mothers out there, "Happy Mother's Day!"  I hope you get lots of love and appreciation from your families today!
​

I live very far away from my own mother, literally on the other side of the world!  So, tomorrow morning I will give her a call on Skype.  If I call her now, it will be way too early!  But when I call her on my Monday morning, it will be Sunday evening for her, and still Mother's Day.  Time zones make family holidays and birthdays a little complicated!
This is my speaking diary of daily life.  It's in easy English so you can enjoy some listening & reading practice and learn some useful daily conversation.  Enjoy your day!

↓  Students & teachers,
https://www.imagineigo.com/english-diary-resources.html
↑  you can freely download a printable copy of the text here!

Back in action!

4/30/2020

 
​Wow!  It's been a long time!  But I'm finally back with some English conversation practice for you on YouTube!

I'm sorry about the long delay.  But my tablet suddenly broke, so I couldn't shoot videos anymore.  I had to order a new one and set it all up again.  That took forever...!

But now I'm back in action.  With a new and improved mobile device!  Yay!

Lately it has been sunny almost every day.  And it is definitely getting warmer.  I am usually getting up around 5:00 am now, and I'm enjoying going for walks in the morning.  Spring is here and every day many small bamboo shoots pop up from the dirt around this mountain.  I pull them up and we cook them in our rice for lunch and dinner.  Yum!
​
I'm glad to be back, and I'm looking forward to sharing more diary entries with you!
This is my speaking diary of daily life.  It's in easy English so you can enjoy some listening & reading practice and learn some useful daily conversation.

↓  Students & teachers,
https://www.imagineigo.com/english-diary-resources.html
↑  you can freely download a printable copy of the text here!

New online lessons with ZOOM!

4/20/2020

 
​I just ordered this new drawing tablet for my online English lessons.  Now I can write English sentences and draw pictures so easily.  It's a fun way to show some useful phrases and vocabulary, or teach a grammar point smoothly.  If you would like to try an online English lesson, please contact me.  Let's Zoom it--
ESL teacher using drawing tablet with laptop computer on online English lesson
​This fun new WACOM drawing tablet is making my online English lessons really go ZOOM!
<<Previous

    Author

    Jeffrey じぇふりい
    ​
    An experienced trainer and teacher using techniques from Special Education and psychology to make learning effective and enjoyable for everyone.

    Archives

    February 2023
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All
    Culture
    Grammar Navi
    Holidays
    Life In Japan
    Memes
    Movies
    Pronunciation
    Resources
    Words Wisdom

    RSS Feed

imagineigo = English education × imagination


Sitemap

English
日本語
About
Blog
​Consulting
​Resources

Contact

imagineigo@live.com

JPN:  080-5167-1228
USA:  951-267-9752

This website uses Google and Facebook cookies for performance analytics and advertising purposes.  You can manage, block, or delete collected cookies in your browser privacy settings or here at Google and Facebook.
  • English
  • YouTube
  • いまじん英語
    • お問合わせ
    • 概要
  • About
    • Jeffrey じぇふりい
  • Blog
  • Consulting
    • English Diary Resources
  • Contact