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Hello, Friends.
October is here. While the leaves are still green, for the most part, they are beginning to fall to the ground here in Indiana. It is still summer warm, but the days are getting shorter.
October is a great month. It starts in the summer and ends with Halloween. Halloween is probably the second most decorated holiday (behind Christmas). This year, the inflated decorations seem to be the biggest hit. Some are scary looking, but big balloons are mostly just fun.
October is football season and pumpkin spice time. Caramel apples. Apple cider and apple cider slushies.
Enjoy!
Fun, Fieldtrips, and Finds:
Octoberr 3-4: Carmel Clay Public Library Book Sale: Fill your shelves with some great and not so great finds.
Decorate your porch and home with pumpkins picked fresh from the pumpkin patch. Here are the picks of the patches for Hamilton County. Family fall pictures are always a hit when posing with a pumpkin!
Find a Fall Festivals and Fun in Hamilton county continue!
American English and Culture: changing verbs into nouns
In our classes, we are noticing particular English language developmental trends. Suddenly everyone is using gerunds and infinitives. Is it our conversation or are we getting fancy?
In American English, verbs (action words) cam be magically turned into nouns (naming words-See! There it just happened.) When this happens it could be a gerund or an infinitive.
Gerund: I like playing. A word that is formed by adding -ing that turns a verb into a noun.
Infinitive: I like to play. The word “to” is added before the verb and it becomes a noun.
Both infinitives and gerunds can function as the subject or object of the sentence.
Another magical addition to verbs that change them into nouns is to add "-er" (or in some cases "-or") to the end.
play becomes player
walk becomes walker
Geek out about gerunds and infinitives:
International Friends Meeting Notes
Join us! Click here to register.
International Bible Study: Monday, 8-9:00 PM, Zoom
We enjoyed reading Exodus 17-18 and the poetic recount of the Israelites escape from Pharoah and his armys in the the Red Sea.
October 6: We begin with Exodus 19.
American English and Culture: Thursday, 9-11:00 AM, Zoom
We explored our common interest in shopping. By asking and answering open-ended questions (which one, what kind, how many, how much, who, what, when, where, why, how), we kept the conversation moving, made connections, and drew conclusions. We had fun playing a grammar memory game to practice talking about our likes and dislikes: “I love to read. I love reading.” As we got to know each other better, we also reviewed pronouns, past and present tense, and new vocabulary. We love idioms! Do you know these: scratch the surface, open a can of worms, stick with it, worn out?
October 9: Do your homework. These little exercises are designed to reinforce what we covered today and send you on your way.
Write three sentences to review the pattern we drilled today. Try using these verbs: hate/dislike/can’t stand/don't care for, begin/start, continue, prefer. Do they follow the same pattern?
For example:
- They hate skiing. They hate to ski.
- He began studying at lunch. He began to study at lunch.
- She continued to work at the office. She continued working at the office.
- We prefer to drive to the meeting. I prefer driving to the meeting.
- I can’t stand having too much stuff (not stuffs) in my purse. I can’t stand to have too much stuff.
Keep a list of adjectives/describing words that you use this week as you think or talk about people, places, and things. Be ready to share your list next week. Example: Carolyn is the nicest, kindest, smartest, wisest, most generous person I know.
Think of some animal idioms (either in English or in your home language) to share. We have several idioms in English about pigs (lipstick on a pig, when pigs fly, pearls before swine, wrestle with a pig.)
American English and Culture: Thursday, 7-8:30 PM, CLC, Carmel, room 100
Sentences on the board are a great way to talk about American English and Culture. We are able to spot trends in hearing, pronunciation, and common threads. As English knowledge and skills develop, trends and patterns develop.
October 9: Continue writing three sentences a day about your day (21 a week). Read over your past sentences. Are you noticing trends? Can you make corrections? Do you have any questions about your sentences? We will talk about them next week.
American English for Kids: Thursday, 6:00-6:30 PM, private Zoom
We looked up the Nine Tailed Fox. We discovered that this animal is part of the folk lore of China, Korea, and Japan. In China and Korea the fox is not someone you would want to run across. It is a shape shifter that takes on the form of many things to trick people. It is a clever animal.
We also discovered some oddities in the description of the fox in the translation of the Wikipedia article from Japanese to English. We found the great word: attribution which is either a particular trait or something that is credited to something or someone. This is a great word to go with the Nine Tailed Fox because of its clever abilities as well as the fact that people can use the fox as an excuse.
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