Happy Easter!

Many people in the USA celebrate Easter today.

Non-Christians as well as Christians  celebrate Easter by dying hard-boiled eggs * or buying plastic eggs, putting candy in, and having an Easter Egg hunt.  When I was a child, adults usually hid the eggs.  A long time ago, kids had races and tried to roll uncooked eggs across a field without breaking them. One popular public Easter egg roll is usually at the White House.

*Easter eggs are often boiled for ten minutes.  Vinegar is often added to the water and to the dye cups.  Most people use food coloring or an egg dying kit.  I like to use icing dye in blue, red, and yellow.  My kids mixed the colors.

Families often get together to eat.

Easter is a holiday when Christians remember that Christ rose from the dead. 

Some churches say, "Resurrection Sunday."

Many churches usually start their service with this hymn:

Did you celebrate Easter?  Do you celebrate Resurrection Sunday?  How?

Do you want to practice?

The most important thing you can do to improve English is use English -- talk to people, read, listen, and write English.

I like to teach Grammar because if you use it well, it's an excellent short cut.  If you catch the rule with the grammar pattern, you can immediately understand how to say 10,000 things correctly.  Also, advanced classes usually use grammar rules, and understanding basic grammar ideas and how to use grammar with lots of examples to learn a language makes those classes easy rather than incomprehensible.

• Try to remember grammar rules, but don't get mad when they don't work 100%.
• Make tons of your own examples from the rule, and ask a native speaker if they are correct.
• Repeat correct useful phrases a LOT

Can you find any grammar mistakes in this grammar song?

Some people in our class got an excellent grammar education before this class.  Some never had a chance to learn grammar before. Here are links for some of grammar you should master before going to high intermediate.  If you want grammar practice, try these links.

Can you name the parts of speech?

Simple Present

Present Continuous=Present Progressive

Simple Present vs. Present Continuous

future with will

future with going to

Simple Past

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

Old Fashioned Pronoun Use

Challenge: Adjective Order

Memory work:  80 Common Irregular Verbs 

Irregular Verbs - A variety of little-by-little lists, songs, and games to help you remember  

Non Count Nouns

Common expressions with Make or do

Happy Eid al Fitr

There are more than three million Muslim people in the USA, and tonight is an important holiday.  Eid al Fitr marks the end of Ramadan.

 PBS -- Eid al Fitr

Do you celebrate Eid a Fitr?  (If yes, is this information correct?)  What do you do?  Did you prepare any good food?  What did you cook?  What did you eat?

Happy Norooz! (Nowruz?)

 On March 20th, people all over the world are celebrating Norooz.  Norooz is an important Persian holiday. Many people clean their homes very well -- some shake it up so much that they get new furniture -- to prepare for the party. The party is always exactly at the time of the equinox that happens between winter and the beginning of spring. 

Are you celebrating Nowruz?

What are you doing?

Do you like spring?  What's your favorite season?

Do you like to do spring cleaning?

What do you like to eat?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland.

He started more than forty churches.

Legend says he got rid of all the snakes in Ireland.

Archeologists say there never were snakes in Ireland.

St. Patrick's Day is a celebration of Irish heritage in the USA,

NOT a celebration of St. Patrick.

People wear green and have parties with a lot of beer and whisky.  Stores have sales.

St. Patrick might not be happy that leprechauns -- mythical mischievous little fairies--symbolize his day.

In elementary school, any child (of any heritage) who doesn't wear green on St. Patrick's day gets pinched.  (I think some anti-bullying efforts may be stopping that now.  Tell your child to wear green anyway) 

There are usually many parades and many parties on St. Patrick's day.

Video: History of St. Patrick's Day

Usually there are parades in all the major US cities.  Some cities die fountains green.  Chicago usually dies a major river green.  People wear green.  

Some people want to change St. Patrick's Day to Immigrant's Day.

"Danny Boy" is a famous Irish song

Bide means stay and wait. It's an old word.  Don't use it.

A classic navy drinking song for St. Patrick's day.  Listen to the song and look at the words.  Can you point to the words you hear?  It's fast!

("till his sober"= "until he's sober" in good English.  Sober is the opposite of drunk.  You are sober if you don't drink any alcohol.)

drunken-adjective (description word) for someone who drank too much alcohol.  Often "drunk."

sailor-occupation-work on a boat

Video of a famous Christian Irish Blessing.

Winter 2026

 In Winter 2026, we did units 2,3,4 then we studied employment.  For employment, we talked about how to answer the question, "Tell me about yourself."  We talked about our skills. (Grammar: can)  We practiced using know how to ____(base verb) We talked about responsibilities/duties at different jobs. We practiced talking about our job histories using prepositions of time.

Here are some job interview questions that anyone in our level should be able to answer.

If you didn't understand the grammar in our class or if you are moving up without finishing our book, please study Grammar I want you to know before you go to High Intermediate

Happy Pi Day!!

 

Enjoy Pi Day in Fairfax County!

Do you like math?  Can you tell me a story about using math or eating pie?

Did you get a good deal today because a business celebrated Pi Day?