Comparatives and Superlatives

Listen to native English speakers from the United States, Scotland, and England being interviewed about what they think is the biggest city and the most beautiful language. This video was filmed by Mike Marzio of the Marzio School in France.

Modals (review)

John of LearnAmericanEnglish explains the basics in this video:



In the next video, John focuses on progressive modals:



In the following video, John explains about passive modals:



Below, John talks about using be able to with modals.

Adjective Clauses (review)

Here is a very simple explanation of the basics of adjective clauses:

Adverb Clauses

Here is a very simple explanation of some of the types of adverb clauses in English:

Lessons on the Passive Voice

To review what you learned today about the passive voice, watch this video by Jennifer Lebedev, aka "JenniferESL":



In this second video, Jennifer shows you how to make a passive sentence using an indirect object, rather than a direct object. (In the sentence, Michael made his wife a birthday cake, his wife is the indirect object; a birthday cake is the direct object.)



Smart Teaching Online reviews the same information in a simpler way in this video:

The Danger of a Single Story

Listen to Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie's speech at TED in July of this year. Adichie's thesis is that we tend to stereotype other people if we know only one story (aspect) about them, so it is important to learn many different stories about others. She ends her speech with these words: "Stories have been used to dispossess and malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity."

Adichie tells several stories in her TED speech. You can go directly to those narratives from here by clicking on the Open interactive transcript link to the right of the words About this talk. When you click anywhere in the transcript, the video will begin again at that part of the speech.

Try clicking on the following:
1. The beginning: "I'm a storyteller...." The narrative begins with "I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria."
2. "I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family...." The narrative begins with "So the year I turned eight, we got a new houseboy."
3. "But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty...." The narrative begins with "A few years ago, I visited Mexico...."
4. "I recently spoke at a university...."

There are many other small anecdotes throughout the entire speech. Perhaps you will have time to listen to all of it at home.

As you listen, observe the use of the various verb tenses and aspects.

An example of a narrative speech

Watch this short TED video in which William Kamkwamba narrates the extraordinary story of how he brought power to his village in Malawi. Notice William's use of simple past and past perfect. (William is not a native speaker of English, and he makes a few mistakes in tense. Can you find them?) Also, observe his use of time expressions ("Before that time," "that day", "then", "right now", "today", "one year," "in 2001", and "within five months". Use the subtitles if you need to. (Note: If you want to read the interactive transcript of William's talk, you must go to TED.com.)