Michelle's independent resources for ESL Students at Vancouver Community College

This is a Canadian ESL blog for Intermediate and Advanced Students who want to learn and improve their English. Each PAGE above contains thousands of free English lessons, tutorials and practice exercises to help you learn and improve your English grammar, reading, listening, pronunciation, speaking, writing and editing. Some of the resources are Canadian. Others are from around the world.

The resources on this Canadian blog are all free, and I spend a lot of my time working on it, so please consider becoming a SUPPORTER. I appreciate all the support I get. It is the fuel that keeps me going.

Membership is FREE.

NOTE: To leave a comment, click on the word "comment" at the bottom of the page. A comment page will pop up.


About


   HOW TO CONTACT ME: 

 Email:  
1)  englishwithmichelle@gmail.com   
2)   atomick1@gmail.com 


Hi, my name is Michelle Morissette and I am an ESL instructor at Vancouver Community College in Vancouver Canada. One of the big problems with teaching language is that students never seem to have enough time to practice what they are learning in the classroom.

My students often complain that they would like more time, especially for listening, reading and writing.  Although no one is particularly crazy about grammar, most of them have clearly gotten the message that grammar is simply a tool to help them do everything else better in English. 

We are living in an era where the world is at our fingertips with a simple stroke of a keyboard and an Internet connection. Every single one of my students is wired to the Internet, so last winter I decided to set up a blog as one more tool to help my students achieve their own personal goals in their own time.  The aim was to provide independent study practice material in all skills that students could access at any time. Some of the material would be my own. Other material would come from a variety of sources. The  blog has since become a website used by students from all over the world.  It is still a work in progress, so hopefully each time you come back, you should see an increasing number of activities in all of the separate pages above.

HOW TO USE THIS WEBSITE

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Postings:  
The largest and most visible part of the blog is the post page. Here I write about a wide range of topics. Some are specifically aimed at ESL students or  instructors. Others are aimed at anyone interested in Canadian and world culture, relevant social issues and a host of other hot  topics. Needless to say,  am not excluding students from readers of these topics. Many of them are already enjoying them Posts will continue to evolve and to be somewhat eclectic.For example, a few weeks ago, my class was studying a unit on overpopulation in which they were reading, listening to, discussing, and writing about the the causes and effects, as well as potential solutions to world population hitting 7 billion around October 31st. This is an important topic for everyone, but my students certainly benefited from it enormously  Very recently this very topic has been all over the media. Many of my students who went to the effort of writing 3rd or 4th drafts of their essays on the topic, were ecstatic, and quite justifiably proud of  themselves because here was  something  they completely understood and had even worked on ahead of the media pack. 


Suggestions and Guest Bloggers are Welcome
If anyone wants  to suggest topics, issues or even grammar, reading, writing, speaking, or listening topics you think I should address, please let me know either by email,or in  the comment box below. Also, if anyone is interested in posting a guest post, please contact me, I am always interested in guest bloggers. 


Links: 
If you look on the right hand side, you will see a long series of links organized into categories. 
  • Online dictionaries
  • Vancouver Resources for students and families
  • Reading
  • News
  • Listening
  • Video listening 
  • Podcasts
  • Grammar
  • Medical English
  • Vocabulary
  • Writing
  • Spelling 
  • Pronunciation 
  • Speaking 
  • Recent Posts 
  • Archives 
Stand alone Pages: 
At the top of the page, under the page title you will see a group of pages.  

The current pages include: 
Home ( which takes you to the main blog) 
Reading, 
Writing, 
Vocabulary,
Listening and Speaking, 
Proofreading and Editing, 
Music, 
About me 
Homework. The homework page is designed for my students, but any upper level students would benefit from it if they have some of the materials. I post the listening homework directly into the homework page. Occasionally the reading homework is in the reading page.
 
I am relatively new to blogging, so some things such as some of the speaking and listening activities I have planned will take a little longer than I would  like, so bear with me. . 


Comments:

I would appreciate your feedback, and comments on all aspects of the blog.If you you wish to leave comments on anything, or wish to make suggestions about future contents, or improvements,  please leave a comment below, or email me.  I will try to respond as quickly as I can.




















9 comments:

  1. Dear Michelle

    I was watching your blog Its amazing! You have increased more information. I am very glad because the activities are helpful. Actually I have sent your blog to all my friends in Peru. Thanks a lot for helping me to learning English.

    Best regards,

    Enrique

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Enrique,
    Thank you for your kind comments. I am happy that you have sent the address to your friends. Keep reading. I will be posting a lot more in the next month as I have a month off from teaching.
    Michelle

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Michelle

    I found your blog recently. I think I am lucky. It is really informative and fascinating. However, I have a little problem that I notice there are some labels below each article, can I find articles according to them? I'm a little confused with the label system.
    Appreciate your answer.

    Best regards:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Clara,
    I'm delighted that you like the blog. I hope you can get a lot of use out of it. The labels below each article are called "tags." Bloggers and internet writers use them to make it easier for people to find the kind of content they are looking for when they do a general search on google.

    You can't really find articles based on that. Instead, you would be better off using the search function on your right. You can also check out each of the pages and scroll down to see what kind of contents they have.

    Right now, I have thousands of exercises in grammar, reading, listening, speaking, writing, vocabulary etc.
    If you are still having problems finding something specific, write me a not to tell me what you are looking for and I will try to find it for you.

    Cheers,
    Michelle

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Michelle,
    I noticed a link on your site to mine (English listening world) and just wanted to say thanks! I will try to find a place to put a reciprocal link on my site.
    Thanks a lot!

    sincerely,
    -Les

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Les,
      Thanks for the response. I like your site tremendously and often send my students there.

      Merry Christmas

      Michelle

      Delete
  6. Dear Michelle
    This new year i decided to improve my English then i searched through
    Google found your blog.truly useful blog.from today one by one i'll study.Thanks for your valuable services.

    Happy new year.

    best regards
    E.Jeyachandran

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Mr. Jeyachandran,
    Thank you for your lovely comment. I love helping all students to improve their English in any way I can. I know it is difficult. I hope various activities on the site are helpful and that you come back often. Why don't you become a member? Just sign up at the top right hand side. It's free.

    Keep in touch. By the way, what is your first name?

    Happy New Year,

    Michelle

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dear Michelle
    it's morning in my hometown, Indonesia. It's been so long ago I really want to write in English well, so that I practice a lot. I have just found your blog, and I think it's very useful. You do a great job.

    I am a student of English pedagogy in a university. I am in the last semester. But, teaching in school or become a teacher is not my major interest. I like literature and psychology so much.

    To increase my English skill I do a crazy effort, I think. I increase my vocabulary by making fake facebook accounts, so that I get friends from other country. I also try to help people in English country on yahoo answer. I also make some blogs and post everything related to English and literature, though my English is not good enough.

    One thing I really hope is to join a writers community, not a professional one. I have been searching everywhere and making my own group, but I found no one active. In 2009 I join a writer community. It was Indonesian writer community. All of the members were not professional writers, they were still practicing like me. We wrote everyday, then we read the works of other members and gave feedback. The result, I got a great improvement. Some of my short story and poems got published on some media.

    Do you have any idea for that? I hope your students or friends interested in that activity.

    Best regards,
    Sunardi

    ReplyDelete

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