Caitlin's Tutoring Blog

Past Tense Regular Verbs

Here’s a funny thing about English – all regular past tense verbs end in –ed: walked, talked, showered, continued, approved… but none of them are actually pronounced ‘ed’! There are three types of sounds that regular past tense verbs make: ‘t’, ‘d’, and ‘id’.

Here is a link to a video giving a short explanation of regular past tense verbs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M7xIwAqy9I

The ‘t’ sound endings are the most common. One way to determine if the word will sound like ‘t’ is to look at the base verb. If it ends in p, k, s, ch, sh, f, x, or h, it will probably...

This post is all about the “th” sound in English. I noticed that my Brazilian students had difficulties with “th” sounds, so I did some research. The first video below gives a good explanation of the two types of “th” – voiced and voiceless. The second link is to a webpage with some excellent tongue twister to practice the sounds. For additional English practice, look up unfamiliar vocabulary and try to make sense of the tongue twisters as a whole!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag4qoNzEH4w tutorial on "th" sounds

http://evaeaston.com/th-practice.html riddles and tongue twisters

The two types...

Reading and learning about grammar is so boring! It is about as much fun as reading the telephone directory (who even uses those anymore?). However, grammar is the building blocks of language and so important, especially as an adult ELL (English Language Learner), to learn so that you can successfully cultivate the language which leads to relationships which are the building blocks of life. I personally like to know the rules of what I'm learning, and to know why I am learning something. When you drill something that you have trouble with, whether its a certain pronunciation, or remember when...