Good Luck and Farewell …

Hi Everyone,

It’s the end of my career at SDA. I have mixed feelings about this. In some ways, I’m happy to be going home. The drill tests, conversation tests, etc have gotten a little tiring for me. At the same time, I’m sad to be saying good-bye to you.

I want to say thanks to all of you for your patience and for being strong in my class. Yes, I was strict but I did it because I want everyone to speak good English and tried to motivate everyone. I hope I did not fail in my mission.

All the best to you. Please be sure to email me or post here when you graduate. Keep up the hard study and be happy. Enjoy SDA and the experience. Make friends. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s been brought to my attention that the answers to the listening quizzes are no longer available here on this site. When I get back to America, I will remake the videos and include the answers in the videos. Please hang tight and be patient.

Also, I will be attempting to create a ‘home-stay’ type program in America. I will post more information on this soon. You will not be living with me but rather have your own house! Yes, your own house and you can bring friends or family if you want. It will be very inexpensive. There will not be 8 hours of classroom English but rather shopping and traveling and other social activities to help you improve your English. Stay tuned.

Ok, I’ll stop here for now. Again, take care and God bless,

Andrew

October 5 Greetings!

Hi Everyone!

I’m wondering how many of you will get this posting?

It has been a loooong time. I’m doing well and I hope you are too!

For a limited time, I am giving away my e-books on English:

Secrets of Mastering English book 1 & 2 and a few others.

To get a copy, please email me: andrew.ikeda@yahoo.com.

It would be nice to hear from you.

Take care,

Andrew

Update from America June 28, 2009

Hi Everyone,

It’s always good to hear from you. I always wonder how everyone is doing and if you have all finished level six yet.

The economy here is very bad and jobs are tough to find. I just got one two weeks ago as an insurance salesman but I don’t really like it (at least so far) but I got a call the other day for another interview that I think I will like more so we’ll see.

I hope everyone is well. Please feel free to email and let me know what’s up in your life.

All the best,

Andrew

June 4th Update

Greetings Everyone,

How are all of you these days? I pray all is well.

Earlier today I passed my insurance license test. I had to take the disability insurance test 3 times before I passed. The life insurance only once. I’m glad it’s over with. See … I’m not good at taking tests either but I decided to stick with it.

My sister is a licensed school teacher and teaches both elementary and high school. She is looking for some private students. If you are interested, just email me at andikeda@netscape.net and put “Private Lessons” in the subject line so I know it’s not spam.

She will charge 20,000 won for the first 2 hours and then 30,000 after that. There is no contract, you can pay as you go and start and stop whenever you want. You can do conversation, grammar, whatever you like.

Ok, back to other stuff… I’m working on buying some real estate too. If you are interested in buying property here in America, let me know and I will send you a private email to let you know what is involved. Unlike Korea, you don’t have to have 100,000,000 to 300,000,000 KRW for a down payment. You can get in for as little as 25,000,000. You can get properties that have renters already in them so you can cash-flow from the first day. Again, just email me for more information.

Life is very different now that I’m done teaching with SDA. While I miss the students, I don’t miss the teaching part of it. My life is much better now and I feel much more free.

Take care everyone and please keep in touch! I’d love to hear from you!

Hopefully you will be graduating soon. Remember to just work on the basics – grammar: verbs, verb tenses, articles, prepositions and be diligent. You’ll make it, I’m confident of that.

God bless,

Andrew

I am Back!

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been gone a long time and I’m really sorry about that. Life has been very busy here these days.

I finally found a job last week as an insurance salesman. It’s not the job I was wanting but it should be a lot of fun.

I am also working on real estate investing and hoping to buy some property soon. I’ll keep you all posted.

So how are you guys doing? Are you still studying English? How is the economy over there in Korea. It’s very bad here but not everyone is unemployed, although it seems like it.

Ok, I’ll stop here and wait to see if anyone answers.

Take care and be good.

Andrew

Q & A for LQ 12

Well … I’m having problems uploading the PDF file onto this blog so I’ll copy and paste the answers until I can correct this situation.

Here are the questions and answers for the latest LQ video:

Questions and Answers
Listening Quiz #12
January 1, 2009

Peter is invited to Paul’s Birthday Party

Questions:

1. What did Paul invite Peter to?
2. What did Peter’s mother say to him before he went?
3. How did Peter go to the party?
4. What did Paul’s mother forget to do?
5. What did Peter do and then say?

Answers:

1. Paul invited Peter to his birthday party
Peter was invited to Paul’s birthday party

2. Peter’s mother told him to be polite and to wait
Peter’s mother told him to be polite
She told Peter to be polite at the party

3. Peter rode his bike (bicycle) to Paul’s house (party)
Peter went by bike (bicycle) to Paul’s house (party)

4. Paul’s mother forgot to give Peter some cake (food)

5. Peter said loudly: “Does anyone want a clean plate?”

To watch the video go to: www.youtube.com/youreslpal
For the questions and answers, go to: www.eslmastery.wordpress.com

Listening Quiz Videos

Greetings!

  You can find listening videos on the next page of this blog. Just go to the very bottom where it says “Older Posts” and click there to go to page 2. There are several pages so you may need to go back further. You can also find the videos on www.youtube.com under ‘urpal2me’ or ‘ureslpal’.

  Enjoy!

  Andrew

Question from Workbook

Hello Everyone,

 Below is a comment from a recent email sent to me. I thought I’d share it with you: 

I asked a question from the workbook on page 152, No.1  this morning.

” I heard him ___ out a few minutes ago.” 

The answer was “go”.

I found some information about that.

Verbs of perception like feel, hear, see, listen to, notice, perceive, observe, look at, etc.

have objects+Root of verb/-ing.

“Verbs of perception + Objects + Root of verb/-ing”

I didn’t know that. 

Have a nice weekend and see you on Monday.

Great! I learned something too! Thanks and take care!

Andrew

More on Listening Improvement

Hey There!

 Last night I had a great chat with my level six students. Somehow, we got into a discussion of watching TV to improve listening skills.

 One thing that came to mind is that you must emerge yourself into the culture. If you are interested in American English, then watch and listen to how these people talk. You can also watch their body language and facial expressions. But you must also be aware of Konglish. For example, the sitcom “Friends” is spelled in Korean with a ‘P’ (ㅍ) and not an ‘F’ (ㅍcan’t work here). Also, in Korean, it ends with (드)  and not ~ds, so as you can see, there is no plural. It’s very subtle but it is everywhere.

 Sometimes I see restaurants that show their business hours as Open: am 10, Close: pm 10. In Korean, this would be spoken and written as 오전 10시 and 오후 10시. If you take this and translate it literally into English, it would be am 10 and pm 10. Remember that everything in English is backwards. The number goes before the letters.

 One reason it is so difficult to learn English here in Korea is because there is Konglish everywhere. On TV, in magazines and books, posters, music, even stationary – I think Morning Glory stationary is ALL Konglish. I’ve seen Konglish on t-shirts.

 The classroom is a terrible place to learn English. It’s like we are just ‘manufacturing’ graduates. The best way to learn English without traveling abroad is to pay close attention to the culture and listen and observe carefully what foreigners are saying.

 Hope this helps. Feel free to comment and share ideas!

3 Ways to Improve Your Listening Skills

Greetings Everyone,

  I just got an email from a level 2 student asking me about improving listening skills. She asked if watching CNN and AFN and American Dramas would be helpful.

  My answer: NO! NONE OF THOSE ARE GOOD! Why? They are too difficult. Think of it this way, if you have difficulty with the practice listening quizzes I give in class, then how do you expect to improve your listening by watching CNN? CNN is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT!

  Don’t start with TV. My recommendation would be to start with the listening quizzes on this blog. Just scroll down this page and start taking a few of the quizzes. You can take them over and over and over until you feel comfortable with them. When that happens, email me and let me know you are ready for more difficult listening quiz videos and I’ll make some more. You can also go to www.youtube.com and find me. My youtube ID is: youreslpal. I have several more videos posted there. I have used up all the space on this blog so I cannot post anymore videos here.

  My second suggestion is to watch Disney and Pixar movies like: “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Monsters, Inc.” and others like these videos. Why? Because they are entertaining, the English is not such a high level and the fluency is still great. Plus, if you can understand the humor in these videos, you’ll have a better understanding of American culture. Plus you dont have all the bad words and violence in them and if you have kids, you can watch these movies with them. 

  The third way is to take notes in class. Koreans are notorious for NOT taking notes in class. I think if you listen and then write it down, you will remember it better plus you can improve you listening because you will force yourself to pay attention. If you don’t take notes, then your mind just wanders and you forget.

  So to summarize:

   1. Don’t watch CNN and AFN. Instead, watch the listening quiz videos posted here first.

   2. Watch Disney and Pixar Studio movies

   3. Take notes in class but not on listening quizzes.

 Hope this helps. Have a great day.

  Andrew