Teachers, Halloween is upon us, and your students may be brewing up some spooky stories. Don't let them fall into the trap of clinging to overused intensifiers and boring adjectives!  Continue reading...

The title of this month's column is a direct quote from one of my students. Please imagine it being delivered in an accusatory tone. What caused such a lament? You see, I had the audacity to suggest that learning new words was, well, fun.  Continue reading...

Welcome to a new Visual Thesaurus feature for educators, the weekly worksheet! First up is a worksheet to help students explore the Latin root "bene." Click here to download, and check out our related lesson plan, "Rooting One's Way to Meaning," here.  Continue reading...

Adjectives can be a writer's greatest friend, creating rich images and clear meaning. They can also be her worst enemy, convey conflicting ideas and tripping her up at every juncture. Today, we dip our toes into the pool of adjectives with a few general rules.  Continue reading...

We recently heard from Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer about the "chunking" approach to English-language instruction, which focuses on teaching students how stretches of words ("lexical chunks") tend to fall together in high frequency. Brett Reynolds, a professor of academic English at Humber College in Toronto, has long been somewhat skeptical of chunking, and we asked him to offer a contrasting perspective on the value of the approach for language teaching.  Continue reading...

Looking for great ELL teaching ideas and resources? Check out these sites:

Colorín Colorado

British Council's LearnEnglish Kids

ESL Partyland