Lost and Found

What do you do when you lose something? How can I find it once it's lost?
Let's learn some useful vocabulary and phrases for when you need a lost and found.

The normal meaning for a 'lost and found' is a place where you go to find an item that has been lost.
 
Lose and Find are irregular verbs that conjugate (present-past) as:

lose-lost
find-found

Easily lost items:

• Mobile phone
• Wallet or Purse
• Coat
• Glasses
• Keys

Example Sentences:
I lost my wallet on the train.
I lost his keys in my apartment.
I lost your coat last night.

How to Find lost items:

Where do I go?

• Security office
• Reception counter
• Manager's office
• Police Station
• Lost and Found

Once something is lost, after searching for it, you need to ask someone if it's been found.

Dialogue:
A: Excuse me, I was here yesterday and lost my phone.
B: Can you describe it?
A: It's a white iphone with a red case around it.
B: Let me check the lost and found. Maybe someone turned it in.
A: Thank you.
B: Here, this looks like what you described. Is it yours?
A: Yes, it is! Thank you!
B: Please be careful next time.
A: I will thanks.

Other ways to ask if someone has found your item is:

• Have you found any coats recently?
• Did you find a set of keys in here?
• I'm looking for a blue purse. Have you seen it?

We all have the experience of losing something and having that sick feeling in the pits of our stomach, but we have to remember to stay calm, retrace our steps and ask questions to find what you have lost.

This is not so different from:

Dropped: When you have something and it fell out onto the ground. Something dropped can become lost.
I dropped my wallet while walking in the park.

Left: Put it somewhere and forgot it there. Something left isn't lost because you have a clear memory of leaving it there, but will find it at the lost and found. I left my hat on the bus.  

Misplaced: When you remember having the item, but can't remember where you put it. This happens commonly in your home. She misplaced her movie ticket in her room.

Stolen: when the item has been taken and will likely not be returned. Something stolen should be reported at the police station. His bike was stolen in front of the supermarket. 

I hope you find this helpful the next time you need to find that item you've lost, dropped, left, misplaced or, hopefully not, stolen.

Please email or leave a comment if you have any questions, examples or stories you would like to share about anything you may have lost and found.

Happy learning!

The Video Newsletter

The video newsletter is here!! 

Meet me, Joshua Wood, the Chromatic English School Online teacher.

3 Podcasts Worth Listening to

Podcasting is more popular than ever with the new generation of smartphones. As language learners' we are in the perfect position to listen, study, and speak the language during our commute to school or work, while we cook dinner, before we go to bed or first thing when we wake up in the morning.

3 Podcasts worth listening to help with English learning

1. Culips ESL Podcast; Free
Maura, Harp and Jessie put together a podcast in Canada for English learners of all levels. Their focus is on everyday English with natural expressions, slang and idioms. To listen is free and if you want to go further for a small membership fee you can purchase show notes and transcripts to deepen your learning.

2. Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips; Free
Mignon hosts a podcast that provides you with short and friendly grammar tips to help you with English writing. Lots of these grammar podcasts can apply not just to writing but to speaking as well. She does a great job with presenting complex and difficult grammar rules in an easy to understand way. This podcast is for high beginner to advanced. 

3. On Being with Krista Tippett; Free
Krista interviews people at the top of their field doing very interesting and exciting research and development. Although Krista's guests are scientist, business people and artists she has the especially brilliant gift of making the content easy to understand without lots of technical vocabulary or jargon. This podcast is for intermediate to advanced learners.

Podcasts can be heard or downloaded on the show's websites or from the itunes store.

If you have any great podcasts you would like share with us please tell us in the comments section. We're always looking for great new shows to listen to. Who knows, maybe one day the Chromatic English School will be on that list one day. 

Happy learning!

5 Conversation Starters

How does a conversation begin?

A typical conversation goes like this:

A: Hi, how are you?

B: Fine, you?

A: Fine. Did anything exciting happen?

B: I went to work and that's about it. You?

A: Same.

When talking to people, old friends or new encounters, we like to have interesting new things to say or ask. Here's a list of 5 questions you can ask to spice up the conversation and get your speaking partner to open up. They're mostly opinion or experience based questions which we all have plenty of.

1. What kinds of movies do you most enjoy? Why?

This is a good question because we all love movies and talking about movies.

• Action
• Romance
• Comedy
• Romantic Comedy
• Horror
• Animation

I like comedy movies because after a long day it's nice to have a good laugh. Laughing can help you relax and get rid of stress as well as exercise your face muscles. Anytime you want to smile you can just remember a funny moment from a movie and your instantly beaming.

2. What’s your favorite beverage?

This is a classic 'What's your favorite...' question. You can substitute beverage for just about anything. As far as beverages go.

• Juice (orange, apple, grape, strawberry, etc.)
• Coffee
• Tea
• Sports drink
• Milk
• Water
• Beer or Wine (for the adults)

Once someone says, "My favorite beverage is coffee." don't let the conversation stop there, make sure to ask follow up questions such as "How do you take it? Black? With milk or sugar? Where do you buy your favorite coffee? Do you drink coffee just in the morning or in the afternoon? Do you own a coffee maker?" and so on.

3. What’s something you should throw away, but can’t? Explain.

We all have something in our closet that we never use or have any need for and always think to ourselves, "I might need it one day." so you hang on to it just in case even though we should probably throw it away.

• My old computer
• Old blankets
• VCR or Cassette tapes
• Notes from University class

Yeah, this is a list stuff hanging around in my closet. The VCR tapes are definitely a huge nuisance. On the one hand I own most of my favorite movies on DVD and probably won't watch them on tape again. On the other I paid a lot of money for those tapes and can't bring myself to get rid of them. A bit of a conundrum.

4. How often do you get a haircut? Describe your worst haircut.

I think you can learn a lot about a person by how ofter they cut their hair.

• Once a week
• Every 2 weeks
• Once a month
• Every two months
• Whenever it feels too long

And we've all had bad experiences at the barber or salon. Getting someone to tell their terrible haircut story is a good way to gain trust through our personal embarrassments. Don't forget to add, "What did you do?" at the end to find out how they solved their bad haircut problem. "I wore hat for 2 weeks until it grew back!"

5. Do you save old greeting cards and letters, or throw them all away? Why?

I like this questions out of pure curiosity on what others do with old cards and letters. When I throw away cards I immediately feel guilty so I still have some cards given to me by friends and relatives. Letters of course I never throw away. Letter writing is a dying art so I like to preserve letters people have written to me. How about you?

The next time your in a conversation throw one these questions into the mix and enjoy the responses you get.

Happy learning!

February Newsletter

 

 February 2013

A Brief History of Chromatic English School
by Joshua Wood, Manager and Teacher

In the spring of 2009 I came to Japan from the United States with the hope of having a working vacation. Unsurprising to me I became to love going to work everyday and teaching English in a small town of Japan enriching the community with English and cultural exchange. After two years I moved into the city of Osaka and have been working with different English schools, students and people to achieve their English learning goals.

As a developing teacher and professional I was searching for more ways to reach new students, hobbyists, and speakers of English. I developed the the idea for an online school and in November of 2012 launched the Chromatic English School. We started off with just an email and Skype account. Now we have been working hard to bring you free English learning content through twitter, Youtube and our school blog. We are also working with educational app programs Voice Thread and Socrative to bring interactive content to your fingertips. Please be sure to visit those sites and sign up to be apart of our interactive English learning community. Happy learning!

Chromatic English Top Blog Articles
The fun of adding 'S' at the end verbs
We all know verbs can be tricky especially with people or thing nouns and pronouns he/she/it. Noun + simple present verb 's' That 's' can be very thin when listening to native speakers. But to get it just right we should do some exaggeration exercises.Read More

Independent Speaking Task #1
The independent speaking task is a question in which you speak from your own knowledge and experience.
Question: What new skills would you like to learn?
Explain why this skill would be important for you to have. Include details and examples in your answer. 
Read More

Events
Sunday, February 10th
Meet Chromatic English Teacher Mr. Joshua Wood. Questions or concerns about taking lessons with Chromatic English School? Let's meet up on Skype and have a chat about learning English online. It's safe, secure and free!

Don't have Skype, go to www.skype.com to sign up and join for free today.

We hope to see you there!

English Learning Tip
To get yourself thinking in English, wake up every morning and say “I wonder what time it is? I wonder how the weather will be?” Looking at the clock say “It's 6 o'clock.” Looking out the window say “Today's sunny.”

Promotional Discount
Sign up for online lessons with Chromatic English School by April 1st and receive a 1 hour lesson FREE!
 
New free English learning content is being added daily. Visit us at Chromatic English School and sign up for a free 30 minute trail lesson to decide for yourself if online English learning is for you!
 

Don't worry about it.

Many times in a day people might commit minor aggressions towards you.

Minor aggressions may include:
Stepping on your foot
Bumping into you
Being late
Saying a negative comment

When these happen people might say:
I'm sorry.
Excuse me.
I didn't mean it.

Since these aggressions are minor and not terribly upsetting it's best to respond with:
Don't worry about it.
That's OK.

This is a good way to accept their apology without making a big deal out of the minor aggression. Besides it happens to all of us on both sides.

Happy learning!

You should read this post; Making Suggestions in English Conversation

In conversations we have with friends, family, acquaintances or maybe even strangers we can't help but notice something we think they can do better, so we make a suggestion.

**Remember suggestions are easier to make than decisions.

Making Suggestions
Two common ways to make a suggestion:
Should
Make sure to

Should/Shouldn't
Should is used to express a request and to soften a direct statement.

To say-
Go to bed. is direct compared with the softer You should go to bed. as a request.

Examples:
She should study English for 2 hours everyday.
He should eat more vegetables. 
They should be quiet after 10pm.
We should drive to the lake tomorrow. 
I should learn to play chess.

Shouldn't is used to express a request in the negative.

Examples:
You shouldn't wear those shoes in the rain.
He shouldn't buy another guitar.
She shouldn't bite her fingernails.
They shouldn't be punished so harshly.
We shouldn't be late for the meeting.

Make sure to (do an action)
Another way we can make a suggestion is to say make sure to (do an action).

(do an action) is the infinitive verb form: to go, to play, to wash

Examples:
Make sure to put on a coat.
Make sure to wash the dishes before going to bed.
Make sure to pay the electric bill.
Make sure to charge your phone.

Maybe we say it differently than this:
Make sure your homework is in your bag.
Make sure that the recorder is set to record our favorite show. 

Frequently fluent speakers will say make sure in this way but it has the same suggestive meaning. 

Make sure to use these suggestive phrases when speaking English.

Happy learning !

How to Use Voice Thread

This tutorial is on how to use Voice Thread so that you can join our interactive learning community.

In this tutorial I will so you how to register for Voice Thread and talk about some of the interesting things we can do with Voice Thread.

Step 1
Go to voicethread.com

This the home page. Click on the Sign in or Register button in the upper right-hand corner. I have put it in a red rectangle box.

Step 2
On the Sign in or Register page click on the Register button. I have referenced it with a red arrow.

Step 3

Referenced with the red arrows put in your First Name and Last Name.

Referenced with the blue arrow put in your Email and re-enter your Email.

Referenced with the black arrow put in a Password and re-enter your Password.

Referenced with the green arrow put in the secret code to prove your not a robot.

Referenced with the red star push the Register button.

Step 4
Your Registered!

Once your singed in your taken to MyVoice that shows your threads, threads you're subscribed to or take a tutorial on the voice thread functions.

  

From here you can Browse different Voice Threads (red rectangle) or Create your own threads (blue rectangle).

Step 5

Make a comment on a Voice Thread

Click the Comment button on the Thread screen.

Click on the video camera to make a video comment, the microphone record to make an audio comment or the A type button to make a written comment. The telephone button is to make a phone call comment if you don't have a computer microphone. 

Once you click on the record button the flash player will ask you to let it access your microphone or web camera. It's safe so don't worry. Click the Allow button and wait for signal to start recording. It should take only about 2 seconds.

Once you the Thread starts recording speak normally into your microphone. When your finished push the big red button that reads Stop Recording.

When your finished recording the Thread will playback automatically. If your happy with your comment push Save, if your not happy with your comment push the Cancel button and it will erase and start from the record screen again.











 
 It will then take you to the share page where you can add the Thread to your webpage, email to a friend, invite your friend to Voice Thread and copy the link and post on facebook or twitter.



Finished! 
It's an easy 5 step process to begin your journey on the interactive learning pathway.

Register and get started today.

Happy learning!

Independent Speaking Task #3

This is an independent speaking task from the TOEFL speaking exam.

Question:

What is your favorite place to study? 

Describe it and explain why you like studying there.
Include details and examples in your explanation.

This is a great question! I think about this question all the time. I'm always looking for good, quiet comfortable places to study or especially where me and others can meet and study together. 

Where are your favorite places to study? 

Let's learn (review) some vocabulary to help us out-

At a:

Coffee shop

Library

Home

Park

Restaurant 

In a:

Car

train

museum 

or in a meeting.

Why?

Describing it can be difficult, always say because...

Adjectives that help:

It's-

quiet

peaceful

private

convenient

Prepositional phrases :

it's-

near my house

far from distraction

on my way to school

across the street

Put it all together into a comprehensive sentence with 'I like ...'

Example

I like studying at a coffee shop because it's peaceful and I also like coffee.

Put your answer on Voice Thread

That's your homework. 

Happy learning!

Chromatic English School

I was like...

As an English learner you may have noticed by watching American or British television programs or having English speaking friends or teachers that the way they use 'like' in conversation is often different than the way you learned it in school. In the English language we use 'like' in many different ways for different situations.

How you learn 'like'
In English class you learn 'like' to say that you favor one thing over the other. You preference towards food, animals, music, movies etc.

I like pizza.
She likes pink.
He likes action movies.
They like snowboarding.
We use like to compare one thing to another thing in the way we sense it (see, hear, taste, smell or feel).

See-looks like
Hear-sounds like
Taste-tastes like
Smell-smells like
Feel-feels like

Example Conversations

A: Hey, what's that smell?
B: I don't know, but it smells good.
A: Yeah. It smells like fried chicken.
B: Oh yeah. Let's buy some.
--------------------------------------
A: What's that over there?
B: Oh wow that's cool. What is that?
A: Looks like a museum doesn't it.
B: Yeah. Let's go check it out.
A: OK let's go!

How you may not have learned 'like'
Feels like can be used when we touch something
A: I like your shirt, what's it made of?
B: I'm not sure but it feels like wool.

Or when we have an emotion.
A: What's it feel like to be in love?
B: Well, it feels like living in Disney land or hitting a home run in the championship game.

The meaning of 'like' can also become a comparison of one thing to another. Everything in life is like something (an action or emotion) to something else.
A: I was writing a blog post when my computer shut down and I lost all my work!
B: That's like the worst thing that can happen.
A: Yeah, it was like getting hit in the stomach.

Constantly we use like in the above example, but when we say 'I was like (something)' it doesn't have to or usually mean the thing we did.
A: I was at the store and this guy was standing really close to me and I was like 'go away'.
B: Really, did you say that?
A: No. I just walked away.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A: We went to this really scary movie and I was like screaming the whole time.
B: Didn't the people around get annoyed?
A: I wasn't literally screaming the whole time, but you know what I mean.
B: Of course.

The next time you speak with your English teacher, friends or watch a television or movie in English I hope you can noticed when 'like' is used in its different variations and you'll be able to understand the meaning clearly.

Thanks for reading and happy learning!

Chromatic English School

How to use Online Lessons

Using online lessons with the Chromatic English School is simple and easy. For your convenience we created this short how to guide.

Step 1
Contact Chromatic English school at chromatic.english@gmail.com.

In your email please include:

• Your name
• Contact details (email, phone number, skype name)
• Your lesson and time prefrence

We will contact you immediately to setup a lesson.

Step 2
On completion of your lesson you will be sent an invoice through email from PayPal.
Click on the link to make a payment using your credit card, debit card or PaylPal account*.

*No PayPal account is required

Step 3
After filling in your payment information press send and your finished.

All payments are private and security guaranteed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or concerns with this payment method please don't hesitate to email us.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Happy learning!

Chromatic English School

Classroom Management

Teaching English in Japan allows the opportunity to work in many different settings. A traditional school, language cafe, International school or private English schools where I found myself working for the past 4 years.

A private English school usually consists of small class sizes from private lessons to up to 8 or sometimes 10 students per class. Different schools have different requirements for class size, amount of time, and pricing but the curriculum and management of those classes are pretty universal.

Here in this post we want to discuss some of our classroom management tips for managing elementary school aged children in the private English school.

*Reminder*
The private English school business is ultimately a customer service based industry as well as an education industry so classroom discipline is very sensitive because we want the students to be happy with their lesson, the parents to be happy with their children's lesson and see their child learning English as an investment in their future.

Classroom Rules
Rule number 1 is always 'I can do it!'. My friend Richard Graham over at Genki English came up with this motivational rule and has worked for me in the classroom every week.

Rule number 2 should be the class's number one offense, each class may be different.
Examples may include:
Sit nicely; Keeps control with manners and keeps kids safe.
No elbows on table; Elbows on the table leads to putting heads on the table and looking bored. Alternatively this rule could be Sit up straight.
Keep hands to yourself; touching other students can lead to teasing or fighting.
No picking your nose; That's just gross! 
No eating your fingers; It's hard to speak with fingers in your mouth.

Rule number 3 No Japanese, English please! Of course if your in another country use the students native language, No Korean, English please! The English classroom is a safe environment for kids to learn and practice English speaking skills, but Japanese is their native language and some kids may not understand this rule and so shouldn't be punished harshly for something that comes naturally, although this rule usually combines with a no talking rule in which no Japanese is the customary response rather than be quiet. And always 'No Japanese' should be followed by 'English please'.

Rules 4-6 Should reflect the same as rule number 2 with each one being the lesser of offenses. Recently my students have been playing with name tags and this has been my usual rule number 4. Of course rules can change month to month. To practice routine I don't recommend changing rules every week so it's a good idea to write them down in your class notes to keep track of each classes rules.

I don't recommend overburdening them with rules to follow. For younger classes start with 3 then add 1 the next month etc. and here we have 6 but for one class rules shouldn't exceed 5, plus think about how much time you want to use explaining your rules.

What to do when the rules are broken (uh oh!)

One of my managers gave me the idea of putting tallies on the board for the student's to see how many times they committed an offense, but...

Think about this:
1+1=2
1-1=0

The problem with tallies is that your adding not subtracting. This motivates some children to model bad behavior in order to receive tallies that to them may represent points.

So let's do the opposite. Give each student a starting amount of points (I use 10) and subtract from that number each time the student commits an offense. Seeing their points amount go down each time they break a rule sends a bigger message, in my opinion, that putting points/tallies on the board.

Don't be afraid to be cute.
A coworker of mine gave us the idea with young students to start each student with three smiley faces and each time they break a rule erase one of the smileys or turn the smiley into a sad face.

It's not all about subtracting
When a student does a good job reinforce their good behavior by adding a point to their score, especially if a student lost a point find a way for them to earn that point back. Don't be to strict; saying sorry, participating well in the next activity can earn points back. Playing games is a good way for students to earn more points to their score even if they haven't lost a point. The student with the most points is that day's class champion!

The main goal to classroom management is providing expectations. With these rules we can give students the backbone to how they should behave in our class and from there we can learn, be safe and have some super fun!

Please share your classroom management ideas with Chromatic English. I would especially love to hear ideas about teaching in public school, Jr. High and High school.

Thanks for reading and happy teaching! 

Vacabulary Building Game 2.0

In my original post for Vocabulary Building Game we used a tic toe style board with vocabulary words in the squares and scored that square by making sentences with those words in the squares.

So far in my classes this has been good game for private lessons and small group lessons (2-3 students).

Recently in one of our textbooks I read a similar idea of this game but instead of one board we use TWO!!

I used this 2.0 version this week in my classes to help with verb tense building. The two board system adds a level of difficulty that helps students with improving problem solving skills as well as English. It has been good with classes of 4 or more students with the students put into teams so they could help each other as they played.

The rules are changed slighly:

1. From the board each team says the word they want the other team to use. Ex. Team A: "Know." Team B: "Knew."
2. The team that answers gets the square. Ex. Team B wins. 
3. Repeat until finished. 

 Of course this style of game has lots of opportunity for variation and once my students become comfortable with it I hope to evolve it into a Grammar Building Game where the students use sentences to win the square.

If you have any ideas on variations or improvements please let me know in the comments.

Chromatic English

Articles, friend of foe? Part 1

Recently my friend, Japanese, posted a Facebook status that read:

I'm living in the another world.

Reading this status I felt an uneasiness that I didn't understand. I said this sentence in my many times like a mantra, I'm living in the another world.I'm living in the another world.I'm living in the another world.

Although grammatically correct and conveying meaning something about this sentence doesn't feel right. What could it be?


Breaking it down:

I'm living in; perfect use of present continuous with the preposition.

the another world; here's the complicated part. Sounds like a place out of a science fiction novel, which if it was then this sentence would make perfect sense. My friend is reading a book about a place called Another World and for the moment is living there.

But...

That wasn't the intention so the use of the article 'the' is being misused.

Articles Defined

'The' is an article used to identify specific people, places or objects. (Definite article)

For example,

The sun
The TV
The man
The Netherlands
The West
The singer
The pencil
etc.

All of which we can conceptualize and especially if we are in the same room or vicinity of those objects can see with our own eyes and will say or learn detailed information about it.

The man has brown hair.
The pencil is on the table.
The singer has really cool clothes.

'A, An' is an article used to identify non-specific people, places or objects. (Indefinite article)

For example,

An apple
A horse
A cup
A singer
An umbrella
A man
A computer
etc.

All of which we can conceptualize but not necessary for us to see in the moment.

An apple is red or green.
A computer is useful.
A singer sings a song.

In Part 2 we'll look at the future of English and the use of articles in the spoken form.

Please feel free to ask questions or give examples in the comments.

Happy learning!

Chromatic English

Independent Speaking Task #2

Hello and Happy New Year from Chromatic English!!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and enjoyed great times with family and friends.

But now,

Back to practicing English, Hooray!!

Speaking Task #2

Read the short paragraph (out loud) and answer the questions below.

Car Navigation Systems

People usually take a map with them when they visit unfamiliar places. These days, however, many cars have navigation systems. These systems show drivers where they are and how to reach their destinations. Drivers can even hear directions from the systems, so they can drive safely and comfortably without looking at a map.

Questions
1. According to the passage, why can drivers drivve safely and comfortably without looking at a map?

2. Do you own a car?
          If yes, what kind of car do you drive?
          If no, would you like to have a car?

3. How do you feel about drunk driving in your country?
    What measures can be taken to prevent people from drunk driving?

4. Do you think more people will drive electric cars in the future?

**Helpful Hints**

Remember to keep answers clear and short, no need to mumble or drag on about nothing.
When asked a 'why' question start your answer with 'Because..."
Be honest with your answers, don't just say what you think is the right answer, 'No, I don't own a car. I would like to have an American 1967 Ford Mustang super muscle car.' If it's true then alright but honesty, 'I would like to have a mini-van to take my kids camping on weekends.' sounds better.

Now on Voice Thread
Participate in the VoiceThread.You can record your answers by pushing comments then the microphone button. Making comments is really simple and you can delete and re-record as many times as you like.


This is a new and exciting way to practice your speaking skills. Please give it a try and let me know what you think. As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments.

Don't forget to follow us on twitter @chromaticeng

Happy studying!