Happy End of the Semester

Dear Students,
In reading your final papers, I know that you have all come a long way from that first day in grammar class. You have all done very well. However, the study of English grammar must go on because you can never know enough.

It has been my great pleasure to study grammar and to blog with you. This blog will remain available to all of you and to my new students. If you have any questions about grammar or teaching ESL in general, please send them in. If you want to share any experiences with students, please post your comments. I will be starting a Google Groups site soon and will inform you as soon as it is ready. There we can post documents and concerns that we want to share.

Happy Holidays!

The End of the Semester

It's finals time, and although that means stress and work, it also means that the Christmas and New Year holidays are almost here. For ESL students these holidays may be familiar or unfamiliar, depending upon the culture they are from. How do Americans celebrate Christmas? The answer is hardly simple. They celebrate many types of Christmas traditions, from German to Irish and English, from Italian to Greek and Russian. They celebrate differently in different parts of the country, from eating lobster in Maine to making ice sculptures in Alaska, from a visit from a Cajun Santa in New Orleans to a parade with bagpipers in Virginia. Christmas is a religious holiday, but it has also become a secular celebration that some non-Christians celebrate with tress and presents. Students need to know its origins and some of its popular customs.

As for New Year's, many cultures have some type of New Year's celebration, so they can compare and contrast their celebrations with the American one(s). Students can do research and make presentations on the celebration of the New Year around the world as a class project.