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Politeness Through Indirectness
I was sitting in a remedial exam session last Tuesday, watching a bright, professional man in his forties stare at a writing prompt with pure frustration. He knew the grammar, he knew the vocabulary, but every time he tried to make a request, he sounded like he was barking orders at a subordinate. It is
English Rhythm Is Stress Timed
I was sitting in a cramped exam hall last Tuesday, listening to a candidate struggle through a monologue, when I felt that familiar, sharp ache in my chest. It wasn’t his vocabulary or his grammar that was failing him; it was the staccato, robotic pacing that made every sentence feel like a heavy lift. He
The Schwa and English Rhythm
I remember sitting in a tiny, humid classroom in Johannesburg, watching a brilliant student—a man with a Master’s degree in his own language—completely freeze during his speaking exam. He knew every grammar rule in the book, but he was speaking English like he was reading a grocery list, syllable by heavy syllable. He was trying
Varying Words Without Losing Precision
I was sitting in a cramped exam hall last Tuesday, looking down at a student’s essay, when I saw it again: the “Thesaurus Explosion.” He had replaced every single common verb with a complex, heavy-handed alternative that made his sentences feel like they were choking. Most textbooks will tell you that learning how to use
Instructions Somebody Can Follow
I was sitting in a cramped, dimly lit classroom in Johannesburg last Tuesday, watching a student stare at a technical manual as if it were written in ancient hieroglyphs. He wasn’t struggling with the English language itself; he was drowning in a sea of unnecessary adjectives and passive voice that turned a simple task into
Contractions Make You Sound Natural
I was sitting in a cramped exam hall in Johannesburg last Tuesday, watching a student stare blankly at a writing prompt, when it hit me again. He was trying so hard to sound “academic” that he had stripped every ounce of life from his sentences, producing a stiff, robotic essay that felt more like a
Exam Vocabulary by Topic
I can still see the faces of my students from last Tuesday—that specific, hollow look of exhaustion when they realize they’ve spent three weeks memorizing a list of “advanced” synonyms only to fail the writing section. They came to me asking how to learn vocabulary for an exam as if there were some magic glossary
An Introduction in Two Sentences
I’ve sat across from hundreds of exhausted students in my classroom, watching them stare at a blank page with that specific look of quiet desperation. They’ve been told by textbooks and expensive tutors that how to write an essay introduction requires some sort of grand, sweeping philosophical statement that changes the world. It’s a lie.
Twenty Words for a New Topic
Stop wasting your weekends highlighting entire chapters of a textbook and praying for a miracle. I see it every single year: bright, capable students sitting for their exams, only to freeze because they tried to memorize a dictionary instead of focusing on what actually matters. They think that if they just cram more words into
When No Article Is Correct
I was sitting in a quiet corner of a testing center last Tuesday, marking a stack of advanced level essays, when I saw it again. For the hundredth time, a brilliant student—someone who clearly understood complex sentence structures—lost three precious marks simply because they couldn’t grasp how to use zero article correctly. They wrote “the