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WELCOME!!!

 All right, so yet another new blog dedicated to English language learning and, more imporantly YOU, the LEARNERS in this ongoing task.

 Your Author
First, a word about me.  Associate Professor of English in a French business school, I have taught English as a second language for nearly 31 years as well as being very interested in linguistics in general, history of language, language/linguistic change and mutation, teaching methods and pedagogy, translation and interpreting.  Sure, I am specialized in business English, but not only.  These other areas will come across in my blog posts later on.

 So, Why this Blog?
The main purpose of this blog is to be a complementary learning tool for my students, friends, acquaintances and their networks of friends, family, and so on.  Please look on it as a reference guide, one of many references available on the internet.  When other sites, pages, exercises, and so on are available elsewhere, I will make reference to them.  When I think something is missing or something needs to be added, corrected, modified, specified or verbalized, I will "throw in my two cents' worth" (your first idiomatic expression!) via these pages.  
Also, my friend Nabil and former colleague Christine have both said that with everything I write for my students and courses I should have a blog, so here it is.

 What This Blog is Not
In no particular order...

  1. A political forum -- other sites are better for that, so keep your politics there and not here.
  2. A religious forum -- same.
  3. A place for hate speech -- to enable internet trolls to crawl back under their vitriolic rocks, I will systematically delete any language which I find inappropriate or offensive according to MY set of values and in compliance with the terms as set forth by Blogger.com.  If this makes you unhappy, well then T.S.
  4. Selling stuff or marketing commercial websites or items.  These posts will also be deleted as I see fit.
  5. A definitive, end-all-be-all source.  No one knows everything and not everything you read on the internet is true. Human beings can be wrong.
  6. Private English lessons.  If you need something corrected or you're looking for a teacher, then contact someone else unless you are prepared to spend thousands of [your currency here] for my services...which for fiscal reasons do not exist.
  7. A monolingual dictionary, a foreign language dictionary or a thesaurus.  (Click for some very good resources.)
  8. Your personal internet hogging space for your posts alone and no one else's.  Blogger is a great resource for letting people know what you think, so why not start up your own page.
  9. Un truc ou bidule or machin en français.  Yes, I speak French and rather well at that, if you don't mind my saying.  However, I'd like this to remain as much of a French free zone as possible -- not that there is anything wrong with French, au contraire!, but out of respect for learners whose native language might not be as Gallic as your own.
  10. Anything else I can/care to think of in the coming months or years.
How to Use It
Use it like a book* or any other reference.  If you're having trouble with something, keep a clean copy of an exercise somewhere and come back to it.  Also, if someone you know is having trouble with an item, send them a link to the page concerned if it exists, or write to me to write a page if you need one.

I love current events and linguistic usage and manipulation in the media, including advertising, and will undoubtedly be making entries on these subjects also.

And if there is a forum somewhere (I'm still learning also), feel free to use it.

*For you Millennials, books were what we used before Google...

So Have a Look
Flip through the pages to see what is useful, what is interesting or not, what you need and enjoy.  Learning a language should be an enjoyable experience and not a chore!  Use popular culture to help you remember new vocabulary or expressions.  Images are also a great way to improve -- after all, a picture is worth a thousand words!  (Another expression.)

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