For a very long time, I've been wanting to create a post with some useful resources around the web that can help you improve your English for free. I receive a lot of emails from students asking me for suggestions, so I hope this post today will provide some useful ideas. I'll also add on any other resources as I discover more! Please share with us if you have any other resources that you've benefited from. Some students may find your suggestions useful too!

I get a lot of my lesson ideas from my personal life. Although most of the time, I'm stuck in front of my computer writing, drawing, or handling business issues, these little things in life can still inspire some great English lessons! I like to bring real-life into teaching as I believe this is what makes learning more useful, easier to remember, and more authentic. A lot of the lessons you have come across were either inspired by your emails or my own life.

A hospital is a place people go when they're sick or injured. It has a lot of purpose - to get surgery, to have a baby, to get a routine check up, get prescriptions, treat both life-threatening and non life-threatening injuries. A doctor can usually treat, heal or cure your situation. 

Mother's Day is just around the corner (Meaning: coming up quickly ; arriving soon) . For many of your around the world, this is a time to make your mother, or anyone in your life who is a "mother" figure, feel special by showering them with lots of love and attention. It's not too late to get a gift or plan something special, but if you're out of ideas, The English Student has made it easy for you with these Mother's Day Coupons that would surely make a mother's day. Give your mother one coupon or all of them! 

What is a coupon?
A coupon is a ticket, voucher, or document that allows you to exchange something in return. These may include a free gift or a discount on products. If you read the newspaper, you may remember seeing coupons. You would cut them out and take them into the store to redeem the offer. We receive a lot of mail-in coupons that fill up our mailbox every day. Sometimes the coupons may be handy (Meaning: useful, convenient) but most of the time, it's just clutter and goes straight for recycling.

As I always say, everything is an opportunity to learn. Use these coupons to learn new meanings. Let's go over a few of these:

Breakfast in bed:
Breakfast served in bed.

Dinner out:
Have dinner outside at a restaurant. If the dinner is "fancy" it means it's a more extravagant and expensive restaurant.

House cleaning:
This is pretty self explanatory. House cleaning usually involves cleaning around the house. These may also be known as "chores." Common chores: sweeping, mopping, doing laundry, washing dishes.

Click on the image to save and print or head over to the Free Stuff Download page to print them out.

The second Little Guide features another group of important words. This week we're learning about common appliances in our homes. Appliances are machines are devices that would usually require some electricity to work. These include things you use to cook with, clean with, or make food with. Think about all the appliances that you use or depend on every day:  a refrigerator to keep our food fresh, an air conditioner to keep us cool, a heater to keep us warm, a hairdryer to style our hair, a washer to clean our clothes. All these appliances make our lives so much easier by saving time and energy ( and can also make us lazier). At a store you might see a sign that says, "This Way to Home Appliances." You'd most likely find the items below at that section of the store.

Not much explanations are needed of each item below as I'm sure you know what each one is just by looking at the images. This is why I love using visuals in teaching and learning - it's clear and very little explanations are needed.

In the past few weeks, I've been working hard on a series of "Little Guides" for you to learn some common vocabularies associated with places or topics that we come across frequently. It's much easier to learn words when we can see them ....and use them. These are meant to present just some frequently used vocabularies but not everything (that's why I've named it A "little" guide. If you have just a few extra minutes every day, why not review these and increase your word power.

The first in this series is the HAIR SALON because it's a place we all go to quite often. The hair salon is a place you go to get your hair washed, cut, styled, or dyed. You might go just to get a wash and sometimes you might want a hairstyle change and get a new color or a new haircut.

I get pretty lazy about going to the hair salon and most of the time, I'm not risky enough to make drastic changes to my hair unless I really trust the hair stylist. I prefer anything that is easy to style and maintain because I hate wasting my time worrying about it when I could be making more Little Guides! If you don't know already, a hair stylist is the professional person who cuts or styles your hair.

Next time "A Little Guide" will be featuring useful names of home appliances.