Giving vs Getting

Having filled in the gas into my car, I went to pay for the gas 391 Czech crowns with the intention of giving 9 czk to the cashier.
It was Friday and I felt I could do something nice.
I took of the pocket 500 czk and boldly said to the woman behind the counter:
"Keep the change,"
clearly understanding that 9 czk wouldn't be to much of a loss to me.
The woman behind the counter did as she was asked.
Pleased with myself I left the gas station.
How terrified I was when I after 5 minutes, realized that instead of nine czk I had given a 100 and nine!
I went on driving angry with myself for having made such a stupid mistake when I suddenly thought:
"If it happened, it must have happened!"
After such a self-calming observation I tried to leave this annoying thought and switch my mind into something else.
On the next day I went to a saxophone repairman to show him a borrowed instrument and to buy a new one and to my complete surprise, the serviceman repaired my old sax free ( a work worth of 800 czk) and then agreed to give me a discount of 675 czk for the new one!
Even without a calculator it was clear: the Lord compensated my loss 15 times more (800 czk + 675 czk )!!!
You know what?
When we hear theses stories from others we never believe them (at least I don't )
But how to not believe when this happens to you?
Cheers
George



  

Do You Use the verb ' to like ' correctly?

Hi Everyone
A few days ago, Dasha, one of my students asked me to explain the use of the verb to like.
The link below will take you to this short video lesson.
Enjoy
George
                                 http://www.youtu.be/1B3UTQHSJC0

Written Grammar Exercises: Pros and Cons.

                     Years of teaching English have brought me a great deal of interesting observations about the ways that adult learners use to improve their English speaking skills.
Doing written exercises is one of the most loved by a good number of students.
Why?
Because sets of written exercises are always included in all kinds of entrance tests and final exams.
Gone are the days when the examiners talked to their students trying to test their knowledge during a short conversation on a topic with asking questions and checking student's abilities to react adequately on various language tasks.
                     Patterns with correct answers have become a usual procedure for checking the students' choices for receiving a needed number of points for winning a lucky entrance/ passing ticket.
Such a method of learning English may work for passing tests of a high school, but
         will not work for developing your speaking skills.
               In my video lessons I give the basic rules of saying sentences in all tenses active and passive voice and offer drills to practice your speaking skills.
        Remember: speaking is developed only thru speaking, 
practicing, trying to create sentences, react on questions and asking all kinds of questions.  In short-being able to communicate in English.
Here's another video lesson of my video course :
Learning English Grammar Tenses.

Enjoy!
George
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMjGhS8ohlQ 

  

Listening is the Key to Success

                           Yesterday one of my students proudly showed me a series of exercises consisting of a number of sentences from the text with the questions to each sentence.
"I spent more than an hour doing these exercises," he said.
                       Having not received an immediate, seeming so obvious appreciation, he was waiting for my reaction. I knew, my reply would not please the student, but I felt obliged to damage his false theory of doing the work that lead to now-where. Proving the latter didn't take me long: I read the sentences and offered Honza without looking into his home work, to ask special questions.
He failed to do so. The paradox, however, was that almost all the questions had been written correctly!
Simply said, Honza followed so nicely tested by time and generations of students an old-fashioned method of doing written grammar exercises.

Dear learners of English,
Writing is the wrong path of learning that will never lead to speaking!
        Speaking is only a product of doing oral exercises!
"What on earth, do I have to do?!" my poor student exclaimed.
"Trust me," I replied.
"Watch my videos and do what you are supposed to do," was my final advice.
"Click the link below and follow the video instructions," I added.
By the way, you can do that too. Just click the following link.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJQj9i8_3A
 Wishing you the best of success
George Rusky

Dear Learners of English
After having learned and then taught English for more than half a century (that long!) I've come to a conclusion that speaking a foreign language is not about getting a number of explanations from your educator. BUT!
Here's a more effective way of fast and stable progress-the following formula:
Demonstration(trainer)
        ->brief instructions(trainer)
                 ->repeating (trainee)
                         ->correcting (trainer)                    
                                        ->practicing (trainee)
 The final result is an imitation of the tutor's performance.
Since I have found out this 'magic' formula, I have helped tens of students who agreed to accept my concept.
Now is the time for you to make a decision of speaking English following my instructions.
Video Lesson Two: Present Simple tense with the verb to have:
                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX2mAXcd-40 

Happy Learning
George

The First Video Lesson

Dear Learners of English

             Before we go to the first video lesson, I want to share with you a few main ideas that lead me to recording this video course.

             The Learning English Grammar Tenses Video Course is a set of forty video lessons where I am giving you the basics of speaking about past, present and future with the help of all 12 English grammar tenses.

             The course consists of forty lessons that are divided into two groups: one group of lessons will teach you to make affirmative sentences, to ask yes/no and special questions and answer the questions.

              The other group is a set of drills for training the patterns you learned in the previous lessons.

              I haven’t included alternative (“Do you like this or that?”) and tag  ( It’s an interesting book, isn’t it?) questions in my lessons because in some languages these questions are not frequently used (Russian, for example)…

              The rest of the information about the tenses and how they are used in the language, you can read in your native language in the grammar books available in your book stores, libraries or on the Internet.

              Please, read everything in your native language and of your national English Language gurus. They know better than anyone else how to use the English language for expressing your thoughts and ideas that you want.

Later, when you become better practitioners of English you will get more instructions from English native speakers and read more monolingual textbooks.

             Today I am posting the first video lesson where I’m giving you the basic formulas of using the verb to be in affirmative sentences and Yes/No and special questions.

Enjoy the video lesson and remember:

                             Repetition is the Mother of learning.

So, learn the patterns and practice them as often as you can.

Happy Learning

George
           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqzXMWhB8Kw

Happy New Year,
Dear Learners of English!
 May all you dreams of speaking good English come true in 2013!

The end of 2012 was very hard to me: I had to finish my
Learning English Grammar Tenses DVD before Christmas.
Today I am offering you the first video lesson that I had included in the DVD.
I hope you will find these materials useful and practical.
Happy Learning in 2013!
George
Video lesson: Introduction into English Grammar tenses.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haOLli7n5qs