English, Jack

It's been a busy week here. On Saturday I was in Duke's Epic 8 Hour Relay Series , and then on Sunday my son was in the Kids Of Stee...

I think the level of influence that Alexander Bain has managed in exert on how English is taught and analysed is rather underestimated. I...

The following book review originally appeared in the spring 2007 issue of TESL Canada Journal , Vol. 24, No. 2. Elfrieda H. Hiebert & M...

It's been a while since Russell Smith published anything language-related in the Globe & Mail . But on May 17th he addressed the is...

Listening to Dr. Fowler's stirring aria about metaphors live and metaphors dead, I was moved to wonder about the origin of the word cli...

CBC's "And sometimes Y" presents "Fowler's Modern English, the opera". The character, Dr. Fowler, sings an aria ...

The L-test list has been buzzing with discussion of the TOEFL imbroglio . Apparently, the problems are not confined to Korea. Similar issue...

Su-Hyun Lee, writing in the New York Times , has done a good job of reporting on the ongoing South Korean "TOEFL crisis". "...

I was reading Nonsense Animal Rhymes , a silly and fun--if not really inspired--set of doggerel, to my kids, when the following verse remind...

Andrea Gordon has an article in today's Toronto Star about a new kind of software for struggling readers. The software is described a...

My wife is Japanese and we use Japanese at home with the kids. Of course, my Japanese isn't always perfect. Last night, I was telling my...

One big story here for the last couple of days has been the report by People For Education (see here for earlier reports) that shows Onta...

Today, Laurel Broten, being interviewed on CBC Toronto's 'Here & Now' about the govenment's lame plan to reduce the numb...

Jan Freeman's column from this weekend is about an assignment for high-school students. "Their AP English class had read my Word c...

The Ridger has a wonderful birthday homage to Thomas Huxley, one of Darwin's friends and staunchest backers. To be honest, I'd neve...

Citizenship Minister Mike Colle, in response to questions in the Ontario Legislature has been evasive and dishonest all week. But, one of hi...

To be honest, I'm stretching to make this fit into a blog about English and English teaching, but it pissed me off enough that I sent a ...

This afternoon, I caught the last few minutes of CBC's And Sometimes Y , hosted by Russell Smith's. (These half-hour programs on Eng...

New Scientist Magazine 's Roxanne Khamsi reports on a recent study that claims to support the Whorfian hypothesis . The lead author is ...

The 2005 Report of the Auditor General of Ontario's had a section dealing with ESL/ELD (English Literacy Development) in our public sch...