English with Jacqui

12/10/2021

This is my favorite book to teach English to children or absolute beginners!

Book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Learn: expectation

Each page tells you what is on the next page.

Learn: repetition

It is a perfect first book. 📚 You can memorize it first, then learn to read it.

I like to sing it to my son, which makes memorizing easy.

You can pair the words you memorized to the words on the page when you’re ready to start reading.

Learn: basic vocabulary

Each page teaches an animal and a color.

Learn: Syntax

Each page has an article before a noun (brown bear, red bird, yellow duck, etc).

Each page also has a question.

*I like to buy books on Abebooks, which has cheap used books.*

11/21/2021

🤣

09/16/2021

Practice English on Social Media:

• One of the best ways to practice your English is to do so naturally - not just by following accounts that are centered around learning English like mine (although I’m thankful that you’re here!)

• Here are a couple of accounts that I personally follow and enjoy reading.

• What I like about these:

— They are all positive ☀️
— They are all relatively short readings 📚 (beside Humans of New York], but those are pretty easy, conversational readings)
— They are all accounts that many native English speakers follow 🌎

• Remember, reading can help you learn both grammar and vocabulary. If you’re not sure of a word’s definition or how to pronounce a word, you can always look it up online!

Here is a basic description of each:

1) = positive news

2) = positive news

3) = positive news

4) Humans of New York] = interviews from people living in New York City (good examples of natural-sounding, conversational English)

5) = positive quotes

• Do you have any other recommendations for your favorite Instagram accounts to follow? Tell me in the comments!

09/12/2021

09/10/2021

I came across this picture the other day. It’s from my first Spanish class in Seville, Spain. 🇪🇸

•I believe this was taken in September 2012. I had just moved to Spain to work as a language assistant through and signed up for an immersion experience for a couple of weeks beforehand.

•It wasn’t until I moved to Spain that I realized I REALLY didn’t know Spanish. 😳😬🤣

•Luckily, after two years of teaching, tutoring, and making friends, I finally started to feel more comfortable in the language.

•How long did it take you to feel like you could communicate in another language?

09/07/2021

💙

09/02/2021

Work smarter, not harder!

08/31/2021

•I took this photo 9 years ago. I had just moved to Europe (literally just gotten off the plane maybe an hour or two before) and took a walking tour.

•When I finished the walking tour, I went back to my hostel, climbed into my bed, cried, and went to sleep 😭😆. I was so nervous about my new adventure.

•It was my first time traveling alone and I had no idea what to do.

•I had just graduated with my bachelor’s degree in psychology and accepted a job to work as an English Language Assistant in Andujar, Spain 🇪🇸 for one school year. But before I went, I stopped in London because I had found a cheap flight there. I thought it would be easy to just travel there for ONE DAY and then travel on to Spain.

•Nowadays I would never do that lol 😆 I had a HUGE, heavy book sack with all of my clothes and had to go to the airport the next day and start traveling all over again. Oh yeah! And that cheap flight I took was a Ryanair flight, which does not allow for much luggage at all ✈️ (I didn’t realize that I had to pay extra when I got there to be able to take that HUGE, heavy book sack lol). I think I started crying in the airport. 😆 …

(There’s lots of crying in this story 🤔😂)

•I didn’t know then that this would be the beginning of something truly wonderful for me.

•I ended up staying in Spain for two years and moving back to the US to go to graduate school in English to focus on TESOL (Teaching English to SPEAKERS of Other Languages).

•This picture makes me think of being naive and starting something big and new. I didn’t know what would happen. Those two years taught me so much and really shaped my future.

•Have you ever made a move to a new city or country? Where did you go? Did you make mistakes along the way? Are you proud of what you’ve accomplished since then?

07/02/2021

TikTok user Jayjtix explains how native Louisianans pronounce Lafayette in a TikTok segment dubbed 'educajun'.

01/06/2021

I’m back from a Christmas/ New Year’s trip! 🎉🎊 (Happy 2021 everyone 😘😉!)

Can anyone guess where I was?

Hint: It’s not too far from Lafayette, Louisiana.

12/23/2020

Caption this.... 🎄🎁 ⭐️

(PS: Yes, it’s me! 😉)

Reminder: The Christmas English Table = TODAY at 2:30 pm central time zone *on zoom*