Improve you English by writing posts
By daeckardt
@daeckardt (6237)
United States
March 12, 2008 10:16pm CST
Hi all!!!
My name is Debbie and I would like to help you to improve your English writing skills. What I would like to see happen here is for you to write something about what you think about topics of discussion that appear here and I will make suggestions on how to improve as well as commenting on your topic. You can respond to anyone and say what you think, but I ask that you say more than a few words so I can see how your writing is. If you want me to tell you personally what mistakes were made, please state this at the end of your post. If you would want everyone to see how to make the changes, let me know that it is ok to make the corrections on this list. I will only do that if you give me permission.
First, I will tell you a little about me. I am from America but have been teaching English in China both last year and this year at different universities. I have two brothers and three sisters. I have lived in many states in America including: California, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Missouri, and North Carolina.
Now it is your turn. Tell me about your family and where you are from. Try to write at least 10 sentences. More is ok. Good luck and have fun!!!
8 responses
@jeanniemay (1798)
• Philippines
22 Mar 08
Hi Debbie,
I am passionate in improving more my writing skills. I write blogs once in a while to improve on grammar and to make my english writing better. I also joined a toastmaster international club to improve on my communication skills and be better in public speaking. Joining forum sites like mylot which uses English as a medium of communication is also my way of learning.
I live in Baguio City, that is Northern part of the Philippines, and grew up 4 to 5 hours away from this place. Being the eldest in the family, I have to do some work before and after school so I didn't have the opportunity to join extra-curricular activities related to journalism or being part of an English club in elementary or high school days. Walked 30 minutes away from my house to attend school. I don't see myself unfortunate though. I made ways somehow.
I love to read novels, detective stories, entrepreneur magazines, reader's digests, and also motivational books. I think, they were the ones that has helped me a lot. I stay awake late at night in my high school days just to read my school books and understand them well. I am not intelligent so I have to make an extra effort for it.
Now, with the advances in technology, I am assured that I will improve more.
I am most honored if you give me an evaluation and tell my mistakes.
Hope to hear from you. Thank you in advance.
All smiles,
JNY
@jeanniemay (1798)
• Philippines
22 Mar 08
Wow! Thank you!
I am learning more from you! You are helping me a lot. Hope to see more of your topics so I could learn more of my mistakes and change them.
Thanks to you.
You may also want to check my blogs! And comment on my mistakes. I am quite shy of asking but I'll ask it anyway. I find it too much to ask. If you have time for it, you may. Thanks again!
Here's the link: http://www.freewebs.com/avon-jny/myjournalblogs.htm
@jeanniemay (1798)
• Philippines
22 Mar 08
Or you may want to check one of my mylot discussions, http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1440350.aspx
I would really appreciate if I get some more evaluation from you and comments on the topic.
Thanks. More power!
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
22 Mar 08
Hi,
I will first comment on things that need improvement.
English should be capitalized; the same for any proper noun (person's or place's name).
You talk about growing up I have to...should be had unless you are talking about right now.
This looks good!!! From what I have read of your posts, you are very smart!! You say you are not intelligent, but you are aware of your shortcomings and that takes real intelligence!!! Talk to you later.
@jairgirl (2877)
• United States
21 Mar 08
not sure if i can post to this one haha! im not a good writer myself but like to learn how others do just by reading them
finally found your name, that's cool i was thinking how did you get such user name, hmmmm.
it's very kind of you do do stuff like this, i assume you have encouraged your student to join to this site and practiced their english, very good move there.
i should tell the same thing to my friends in china and to some teachers as well (if i can get hold of 'em)
which part of NC you live in? i've never been much around here but we're saving for trips to go places maybe next year, im so excited, haha!
how's your mandarin?
do you encourage your student to teach you and some other foreigners to learn mandarin?
anyway, i commend you for your hard work and sincere help for those who wants to learn english.
do takecare!
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
21 Mar 08
Why wouldn't you be able to post to this one??? I mostly used that title because I had heard from so many Chinese students, but I think so far there have been more responses from other countries than from China. That is fine with me!!! It is open to anyone. My username is my initials and last name. really simple. I had encouraged my students to join, but then I found out that what I sent them was not the referral link so I don't know if anyone signed up yet or not. I sent out the proper referral link today so I will see if anything changes in the next few days. I might also send out to everyone else I know as well so that I have the greatest number of people.
When I was in NC, I lived in Raleigh and Cary. My Mandarin sucks. I haven't been able to get into it since I dropped the class last semester because they just started this week and the day they started I was teaching. I would have trouble next month anyway because I will have three doctoral level courses that I am taking. One of them will end in May, but April will be one miserable month. Have a great day!!!
@laurika (4532)
• United States
21 Mar 08
Hi Debbie, it is nice to meeting you. I am Laura and I am from Europe, but living right now in Maryland. This was very good idea to post something like this and I wish you would make some topic every day or so, so we can write and improve our english after you say us, where we make mistake. That would be really sweet of you, because there is no better way than if someone point you the mistake you made. Sometimes when I am reading the sentences after myself I can find few bugs, but I am sure , you will find probably more.Have you start already to learn chinese? I think you was posting some discussion about it before. Have a nice day and hope to hear from you soon and I will be happy to participate on your others discussions.
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
21 Mar 08
Hi Laura,
One of the things I like about this is I get to talk to people and help without having to be there. A couple of things:
You can say either "nice to meet you" or "nice meeting you". That is not a big deal.
I would say "after you say to us" and "if someone points out the mistake you made" and "you were"
In response to your discussion:
I will try to make a new topic at least a few times a week. In fact the one I have in mind for today is not on a happy note. I learned a little Chinese last term, but my grading and classwork (I am a student as well as a teacher) was too much to allow me to stay in classes that were not for grade. I was going to get back into it, but they scheduled the first classes on days and times that I was teaching so I will probably pass on the formal classes. I will talk to you later.
@jiangweichao (34)
• Singapore
17 Mar 08
hallo, i'm a chinese student who studying in singapore now, i still studying english now, i hope u can help me improve my writting, and i also wanna make friend with u on the mylot.hehe. thanks a lot.
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
18 Mar 08
I sent you a personal message on how to fix this. I hope you do well with your studies in Singapore. I will make an effort to help you improve your writing skills. Have a great day!!!
@lindaway224 (91)
• China
16 Mar 08
Hello daeckardt. Nice to meet you.
I found your post on mylot about improving english. That was attrctive to me so that I added you as my friend. :)
I hope that we could have more communications about english studying. You can correct me any time.
I am chinese, IT worker. There are some foreigner colleagues in our company, who are from India, America, UK etc. I have some chances to talk with them, but a problem appear, I can understand what they said, but I cannot express my meaning definitely. Sometimes, I'd like to tell them lots of things, but I can say a little at last if I need to speak in english. So I have come to speak less and less words to foreigners.
Could you tell me a good way to change this? Thanks.
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
16 Mar 08
Hi lindaway224,
I would love to be able to help you. You can also look at the response I gave to the above responder for another thread I started. a couple of things. Chinese should be capitalized (just like you did for the other countries). Don't worry about not being able to express yourself right away because it can be expected that you don't have perfect English. I am trying to learn Chinese as well and I have a lot of trouble with it. Fortunately there are enough students around here that want to practice their English that I get by ok. What you might want to do if there is something that you want to express, start by writing it down the night before if possible. If you want, you can write it as a post in the other interest area I started. If you need to discuss this further, you can either write it here or pm me. Have a great day!!!
@RangaF (81)
• Sri Lanka
19 Mar 08
Hi Debbie..!!!
I'm Ranga from Sri Lanka working in a pvt company who makes gaments for US market for customers like Visctoria's Secret, GAP, Nike, Adidas, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic etc...
Hope you are wearinga one of the above.....
I finished my degree in Textile Engineering and
working here for 2 years now......
I have 2 sisters and both are med. students and will be doctoers with in 2 years.....
Its very nice of you helping people to improve thier knowledge.....
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
19 Mar 08
Nice to meet you Ranga. I don't use many of those brands. Maybe Nike or Adidas, but most of them are designed for the younger generation I think. I may be wrong on that, but I'm not into Victoria's Secret (I'm too old and fat) and I don't know what GAP, Ann Taylor and Banana Republic are even!!! What is textile engineering? I am not familiar with that. Have a great rest of the week!!!
@titaniumsoul (1191)
• Singapore
13 Mar 08
Hi Debbie,
I have always trying to find a voluntary teacher to teach me English writing skills and I finally found you in mylot. To get started, let me introduce myself, my name is Chuck and titaniumsoul is just a screen name. I lived in Singapore, employed as data coordinator. I am the only son in the family and know about mylot through word-of-mouth. I like music, Internet, chit chat, television and many more. Having said about my screen name, you can browse my discussions pertaining to my screen name and give recommendations or suggestions on my English language. I find your discussion is absolutely great, because this approach not only benefit me, it benefits mylot members. Thank you so much for being a voluntary teacher on mylot. I would like you to point out my mistakes in this discussion by sending a message instead of putting it as comments or using Windows live messenger to contact with me. I am willing to learn English from you. My email address is loong_hai@yahoo.com.sg, I am looking forward to your reply.
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
13 Mar 08
Hi Chuck,
It is nice to meet you. You can use this area to talk about anything, in fact if you want to find out about other people and practice English, it will work well!!! I have turned on the link to be notified of any discussions you start so I will watch for new ones. I sent you an email with the corrections, of which there were not many. Anything I can do to help let me know. If you want to start other discussions in this area that would be ok too. We can all learn from each other. Have a great day!!!
@ayou82 (3450)
• Philippines
14 Mar 08
Yes i think you can improve your english skills here in mylot because you get to give your best by participating with the discussions and let you sit down and think whats the word youre looking for, the best feature is the auto correct spelling and that is so good and makes mylot more easier and faster
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
16 Mar 08
Where are you from? Is English a second language for you? Check out the discussion in the new interest area "Calling all Chinese students wanting to improve their English writing" or something like that. I should have made the title a little shorter, but I didn't realize there were people from other areas in here as well. So far, the only person that responded in there was not from China. But that's ok. Thanks for the information and hopefully many people will do better by using this.