English for the 21st Century

2009-05-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

This is a new blog for anyone who wants to learn English or improve their English. For this first posting I will introduce myself and suggest directions the blog might go in the future. This depends of course on readers' contributions.

I am David Chandlee , head teacher and administrator of Country English, an English school set in the rainforest in tropical north Queensland, near Cairns.

Country English is a school for learners who want to study English intensively, but in a natural setting, away from cities.

I was born, raised and educated in the USA, where I studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Riverside but have lived most of my life in Australia. (I still have an American accent.) I teach both British/Australian and North American English.

I love the English language and try to transfer this feeling to my students. I read lots of English language stories and novels in my spare time, and recommend graded readers of literature to students. They enjoy the great stories in them, and "painlessly" improve their English at the same time.

Today's English topic:

Past continuous [progressive] and past simple tenses

Look at this sentence. Then answer the questions.

I was walking home from school and ran into my friend, Jane.

1 Which action started first?

2 Which action was shorter?

3 Which action was longer?

4 Did I continue walking home?

5 Which verb is in the past simple and which is in the past continuous?

(answers below)

Anybody can raise a topic of English in this blog, or comment on ones I've raised. If you, the reader, have a question, I will try to answer it in an understandable way. If you want to comment on some success you've had, that's OK too. Or maybe you'd like to talk about a teacher who helped you.

This new blog will be for anybody who wants to improve their English skills, or who just enjoy reading and speaking English. Lower level students can also get a lot of pleasure out of the new contacts they will make by learning English.

Answers:

1 walking

2 ran into

3 walking

4 Yes, I did.

5 Ran into is in the past simple tense, while was walking is in the past continuous tense.