Enter an Archive of 6,000 Historical Children's Books, All Digitized and Free to Read Online We can learn much about how a historical period viewed the abilities of its children by studying its children's literature. Occupying a space somewhere between the purely didactic and the nonsensical, most children’s books published in the past few hundred years have attempted to find a line between the two poles, seeking a balance between entertainment and instruction. However, that line seems to move closer to one pole or another depending on the prevailing cultural sentiments of the time. And the very fact that children’s books were hardly published at all before the early 18th century tells us a lot about when and how modern ideas of childhood as a separate category of existence began. “By the end of the 18th century,” writes Newcastle University professor M.O. Grenby, “children’s literature was a flourishing, separate and secure part of the publishing industry in Britain.”
Passive voice - board game I love playing games with my students. They lower students’ anxiety and they give them a chance to practise the language. Moreover, in a game mistakes are welcome, and students find it easier to concentrate and perservere. Therefore, a well designed game supports the learners’ growth mindset and is better than a lot of worksheets. In this post, I would like to share a board game which I created for my students to practise the passive voice. 35 fun classroom practice activities for Present Continuous (Present Progressive) - Articles The simplest use of Present Continuous is to talk about things that are in some way in progress now/ presently/ currently/ at the moment, which is the main focus of this article. This use is often contrasted with Present Simple for present routines/ habits/ repeated actions. In normal communication, Present Continuous is perhaps more useful to talk about future arrangements such as meetings, dates and appointments, but this is so different from the basic meaning that there will be another article on that future use. There are a couple of activities in this article for the much rarer use of Present Continuous to talk about regular habits – often annoying ones – like “She’s always sucking her teeth”. For all these uses, students will need to practise different forms of “be” (“I am”, “he is” etc.), pronunciation of contractions of “be” (“she’s”, “we aren’t” etc.), and spelling rules for “-ing” verbs.
5 New Google-Made Apps That Are Cool, Useful, and Fun Google is constantly developing new apps, conducting experiments with AI, and making cool stuff. In case you missed their latest and greatest, here’s a quick rundown. Google is a technology giant that is a massive part of how we use the internet today. First conditional - grammar explanation for learners of English First conditional is very similar to time clauses. However, I would say that first conditional is easier than time clauses. First conditional is used if we speak about two possibilities in the future. After the conjunction IF we use present simple tense and in the other clause we use WILL. You can see the explanation in the mind map below and then you can try a quiz to practise this simple grammar. First conditional – mind map
ESL Kids Classroom Games & Activities Airplane competition: First, have your students make some paper airplanes. Stand the students in a line and let them test fly their planes. For the competition, assign different classroom objects points (e.g. table 5 points, door 10 points, trash can 20 points). Travel - Japan’s unusual way to view the world Withdrawing my hands reluctantly from the slowly spinning bowl, I watched its uneven sides slowly come to a stop, wishing I could straighten them out just a little more. I was in the ancient pottery town of Hagi in rural Yamaguchi, Japan, and while I trusted the potter who convinced me to let it be, I can’t say I understood his motives. Smiling, he announced, “it has wabi-sabi” – and whisked the bowl away for firing. I sat, contemplating the lack of symmetry and wondering what on Earth he meant. As it turns out, failing to understand this phrase is not unusual.
Conditionals We use conditional sentences to say one thing depends on another. They can be used to talk about real or imaginary situations. One of the clauses starts with if (or a similar word) – this is the conditional clause. The other clause talks about the result of the conditional clause happening. Don’t worry, it’s a lot easier than it sounds.