Are your young learners comfortable using apostrophes, commas, and hyphens? Even native speakers of English need a little help with punctuation from time to time. In honor of National Punctuation Day (September 24, 2015) the editor for Sprout English and ESL Library has collected all our past punctuation posts into one handy reference list. (more…)
punctuation
Veterans Day or Veterans’ Day?
Lest We Forget
On November 11, many countries have special ceremonies that honor the men and women who served during wartime. As teachers, it is important to help young learners understand this historic day. The famous saying “Lest we forget” means not only do we need to remember in order to honor the sacrifices of many people during past wars, but also to remember what happened so that history doesn’t repeat itself.
November 11 is called Veterans Day in the US, Remembrance Day in Canada, and Armistice Day in parts of Europe. At Sprout English, we’ve created two vocabulary lessons for you to use this year, Veterans Day and Remembrance Day. This led me to think about mistakes people often make with the titles of this holiday. Why is it Veterans Day and not Veterans’ Day or Veteran’s Day? Why is it Remembrance Day and not Rememberance Day? These punctuation, spelling, and capitalization rules can be tricky for native speakers as well as English language learners. I hope the explanations below will help your students keep these rules straight. (more…)
50+ Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation Resources for Teaching Young ELLs
Time flies when you’re having fun! When you enjoy blogging about grammar, teaching, and the English language as much as I do, a year of weekly blog posts goes by just like that! Our goal at Sprout English has always been to provide quality educational materials to English teachers and students, and my personal wish is that teachers and students will continue to learn from and use our free blog materials. We love helping young learners grow their English skills!
I thought it would be helpful to organize all the articles I’ve written so far into a list that’s easily accessible. (Some articles are included twice if they belong to more than one category.) I hope you find this resource list useful! (more…)
Valentine’s Day – Capitalization, Punctuation & Spelling
Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day will be celebrated in many countries this Friday, February 14. Some schools participate in Valentine’s Day activities such as doing lessons about love/dating/marriage, wearing pink or red, or giving out valentine cards, roses, or chocolate. If you will be discussing Valentine’s Day with your young learners this week, make it educational and teach them the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling rules of this popular holiday!
Capitalization
In English, holidays always use capital letters for the holiday name and the word “Day”.
- I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day.
When it’s clear we’re referring to the holiday, we can drop the word “Day” if we want.
- I got a ring for Valentine’s Day.
- I got a ring for Valentine’s.
But be careful! We don’t use capital letters when referring to a card, gift, or person.
- He gave me a valentine card yesterday.
- I bought a valentine present for my girlfriend.
- You will always be my valentine. (more…)
Using the En Dash Correctly
Happy National Punctuation Day! This quirky holiday is celebrated on September 24th primarily in the United States, but is also gaining recognition in other countries, especially Canada. At Sprout English, we decided to do a blog post in honor of this holiday about…wait for it…punctuation!
I wanted to choose a punctuation mark that was difficult for English learners and native English speakers alike. Two things came to mind, based on my many years of teaching, and, more recently, editing: the en dash and the em dash! What are they? How did they get their names? When do we use them? I’ll blog about the en dash here on our Sprout English blog, and I’ll blog about the em dash over on our sister-site’s blog, ESL-Library. I hope these posts will be informative for you and your students!
What is an en dash?
An en dash is an elongated hyphen (about the length of two hyphens) that is used for specific purposes.
Here’s how the dash family looks:
