Grammar in my life- thanks God!

                         There is no ifs, ands or buts about it - reading is one of the most important abilities to help you to improve your vocabulary! Students use to say that they have some difficulties to understand the texts in the booklet because they don't know the meaning of some words. But the point is - you will just learning it by facing it - in order to learn new words and acquire a good level of vocabulary, you must keep on reading! There are no magic pills that will give you a language knowledge just by intaking them! (So sorry about that!) It will require a hard work from you to achieve the level of understanding that you wish - but there is also a good point - the more you read, the better your vocabulary will be, for sure! It means that your dedication will be rewarded! Every attempt of yours will approach you to the satisfaction of being able to read text (any kind of text),understand it and answer the comprehension exercises with confidence and security, being sure that you're doing your best and that you are really prepared for it! Thinking about it and to provide extra sources of good reading that our school has become a Newsweek subscriber and has bought some new books to our library. Remember that you can also recommend some titles to be bought and your suggestion is very important - it's the chance of choosing what you like to read!     

                  We have been using the Anglo booklet since you have started the High School.  Last week, in the 3ºD grade classes, we talked about one of the texts from the Newsweek magazine, the one about the tragedy that happened  in Santa Maria RS, titled "A Time to Mourn". I told them that mourn is a word that we haven't seen in our booklet since we starting using it and we never know...it can be in a text in your "vestibular" test. And this word mourn, by the way, was part of the glossary exercise. Reading the text, the word mourn appeared again, (but now as a verb) in the sentence: "And so a woman mourns over a coffin of one of the Brazilians who died along with more than 230 others at a night club in the southern city of Santa Maria." After reading this sentence, one student asked about the meaning of coffin and then I explained that it is common to see this word and the word mourn in the same text. Vocabulary bringing more vocabulary! And for sure, only knowing the meaning of the words is not enough, not at all! We can not forget the context in which this word is inserted. Sometimes the understanding of the whole text is compromised because we do not understand the meaning of  a word that might be the keyword. The picture above isn't exactly a text to be read but it reminded me the one we read in our class. It's a good example how your conversation can be misinterpreted...you may even being killing your grandma without noticing it!

Post Question for the students: Do you use any technique to improve your vocabulary? What is the most strange word you have learned in English so far? And the most exquisite? In the picture above, someone commented the post written by another person and he (or she) was very sarcastic. Explain why this person was sarcastic (ironic) in commenting the post. 

Tip: To help you to improve not only your vocabulary but also your grammar, there is a site that provides quick and helpful tips. It's a blog written by a girl who is really engaged of helping people to understand the English language better. You can also subscribe to receive the newsletter. Just click here to learn more!