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Issue #065 -- Week 02/08/15-08/08/15 August 12, 2015 |
Hello,Greetings and General InformationLet me start with my apology for not being able to publish this e-zine yesterday, as planned. My laptop would not charge its battery during my work, so I was suffering with frequent power cuts, so I didn't even try to attempt starting and losing my work at any moment... Here we go - it's sorted, so enjoy the present issue as from today. A warm welcome to our new subscribers! I wish you will find My English Club fun and instructive and I look forward to welcome you as a new valued member soon. Read, learn and communicate around the world! Please feel free to contribute to these pages when you have a minute. They are meant to be a platform for exchanging ideas, stories and opinions - an ideal medium for practicing your English, which should be used to the full. Together, let's bring it alive, let's make it the welcoming community you wished for, when you joined. Use the Comments facility at the end of every page and start making friends worldwide. You and your friends can always subscribe individually through the form on My English Club If anybody mentions to you that they are interested in receiving it, please tell them this, with thanks. Also, they can read the previous issues on Back Issues for English Corner E-zine. Of course, you can also unsubscribe at any point, by using the link at the end of any issue of the e-zine, should you wish. Now, I am fortunate to be able to send you this issue a in time today. However... given my intensive travelling since our last e-zine, you will have to excuse my inability to create a new grammar lesson for you today. Shall we all take a little break this week, from learning English grammar? Well, without further ado, let's start our other lessons today. Month 13 ~ Lesson 49We started studying three subjects back in September 2014: pronunciation and grammar for improving your communication skills, as well as website design and development, for those advanced students of ours who would like to apply their English to building a business online. Once we covered the basics of pronunciation, we started a new course in reading, which we finished in March 2015. Following some requests at that time, we started a section on educational games, to add the fun into your learning. I do hope you like these. AnnouncementPlease note that we are also approaching the end of the course in website design by the end of August 2015, as planned. There are requests for a new course in writing skills, like we had the one in reading. Please feel free to send in your requests all along the month of August, just in case you have different preferences. I look forward to receive your comments - just reply to the email you receive from My English Club.Until I'll have the time to write my e-books from these courses, you can enjoy our past lessons for free, as follows: Pronunciation Lessons Reading Lessons Grammar Lessons Website Design Lessons Weekly Games Grammar ~ Relative ClausesI discovered from some compositions some students sent me that people are still struggling with linking two sentences together, using the correct linking word and making the necessary changes in the dependent clause. Today we shall try to clarify a number of alternatives with regard to relative clauses. Let me point you to the relevant page (don't confuse the two words - look them up)the Relative Clauses page. Here you will find the theory behind the use of a few relative pronouns, such as 'who' (with its forms: whom/whose), 'that' and 'which' together with an exercise. Website Design ~ Deciding When to MonetizeGiven that building a website usually means building a business, the most important point is to decide when is the right time to monetize There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, "When do I monetize?" As a general rule of thumb, do not monetize before you... • have at least 30 pages of high-value content (excluding privacy, about, disclaimer and disclosure pages) Otherwise, if you have fewer than 100 visitors per day, there is not enough audience to monetize (unless you sell an expensive service or specialized product and do not need many customers). But there are downsides to adding some monetization models, such as AdSense ads and affiliate links, to your site too soon. Why risk it? If your site doesn't meet the above guidelines, keep adding content and get at least a few more quality inbound links, until you are ready for the Monetization. Once you can say "yes" to the above 3 criteria, ask yourself these three questions. They are "softer" (i.e., qualitative), but they are even more important for your long-term success. i) Have I created value for my target audience? Without high-value, original content, your pages won't be near the top of the search results, which means you will have little traffic and even less income. ii) Does my content/information focus on the needs of my visitors first, rather than my need to make money? What is the search intent of my visitors? iii) Does my site have a clear Valuable PREselling Proposition and voice, or does it sound like an encyclopedia? Rewrite the content if your answer is "encyclopedia." Do it now, before you have to rewrite 100 pages! Always remember... You are a "content provider," a publisher, first and foremost. You are not your monetization model. High-quality, relevant content on your site and beyond it (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) is what drives the C T P engine that delivers high volumes of PREsold visitors who love you. Once you have a solid traffic base, monetization is possible. If an affiliate link or an e-book (your own creation, or someone else's effort) truly adds value to your visitors and it will not hurt your traffic-building potential, then consider monetizing earlier. Really think it through. • Would you add this offering even if you were not being paid for it? Make an objective judgment -- don't rush just to earn a few dollars right now. Why risk hurting your site's reputation at Google, and with your visitors? Every entrepreneur, online or off, invests to build a real business. Each invests time and/or money - you are investing your time. It's tempting to want to rely only on "passive income" (income that sort of "falls into your lap" while you are sleeping or relaxing on the beach). But to make a good income from that type of monetization requires high traffic. Or you can put more time and energy into finding/developing "higher level" monetization models, even develop your own product. But that leaves less time for content and free traffic... obliging you to eventually spend money on "paid traffic." Now that you understand these issues, use them to think through your own circumstances and ambitions. Next time we shall look into how to implement your monetization plan.
Game of the Week ~ The Plural Girls GameToday I shall invite you to try your hand at the FunGrammar The Plural Girls game, a nice and easy vocabulary game, however... one in which you can actually select the level of complexity, from simple to tough - both in multiple choice as well as in filling the gaps type of exercises.
The rules are given before you start the game (the screen above), but in case you can't read this, in today's game, you will have to choose the correct words (the correct plural form of the word given) for you to return Pearl and Flora's friends, who were lost in the bubble machine. You won't be timed during this game, but at the end you will get the time when you actually did the exercise, not the duration. Even this may confuse you, as it is the American time - so, don't worry about it... Let us commence:
So, which one is correct if the singular is 'mongoose'? Look it up if you need, I would recommend never to guess, because this is how you learn more efficiently. Also, even if you get it right by chance at times, you would still not be absolutely certain when you need to use the word in your own writing.
If you get it right, you are told this and the words will not appear again. However, look what happens if you get it wrong:
You only receive the correct form - the one you missed, but you are not given the singular form again, for you to be able to consider and internalize it. I would suggest for you to do your thinking and consult your dictionaries before you lose thew words from sight.
As you see above, this is basically the way the game goes, until the end. You get a string of little friends for the two plural girls - OK... this is a game aimed for children. However, don't be fooled - the vocabulary is quite complex, should you choose the higher levels!
At the end you get the number of correct hits, from ten and the chance to play again, as well as to change your chosen level. Clicking on the 'Go' button will start another game, so go ahead, play the The Plural Girls game... challenge your kids to a turn :-D This is it for now, my friends!I hope you find this information useful and not too confusing. Even though you're at the stage of building on it, have patience at this point in your learning and you'll be able to reap the fruit of your work later on, whichever aspect of our lessons you are concentrating on. Please feel free to comment and suggest your ideas by replying to this email - I look forward to hearing from you. If you wish to chat either with me or with other members worldwide, go to My English Club . Everybody, have a great summer holiday and a good week ahead, those of you who need to keep working for now! All the best from me, until next time, Lucia da Vinci Founder of My English Club |
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