Hello!

Hello!

Yesterday was Alex’s last day as teacher blogger. I’m sure we’d all like to thank him for his inspired blogs and handy tips on the English language. Cheerio, Alex! Now you can enjoy a bit of a rest.

From today, I’ll be the new teacher blogger. I’d like to say ‘hello’ to everyone, and I hope I can fill Alex’s shoes and help you to improve your English, even if only a little bit!

But first of all I should tell you a bit about myself. My name is Jo Kent and I’m a freelance writer and editor specialising in materials for students of English, or to use the jargon term, ELT (English Language Teaching) materials. You know those textbooks you had to study in school? The ones that contain reading comprehension exercises, writing tasks and grammar explanations? That’s the kind of thing I write. Sorry if I’m responsible for any of you having to do lots of homework!

I live in Hampshire, which is a county in southern England. I don’t live in or near a city. In fact, I live way out in the sticks, near a little village called West Meon. There is very pretty countryside all around me and, thanks to e-mail and the Internet, it’s easy for me to keep in touch with everyone. I lived in big cities for a while, but now I like the peace and quiet of the countryside. The only problem is that if you want to go shopping, you have to get in your car and drive. But I’m not really a shopaholic, so I don’t suffer from cravings.

When people see my name, they often think I’m a man. I’m not! Look at my picture at the top of this web page – I hope I don’t look like a man, do I? If you see the name ‘Jo’ in English, that person will always be female. ‘Jo’ is short for ‘Joanne’, ‘Joanna’ or less commonly ‘Josephine’. The male name ‘Joe’ has an ‘e’ on the end. Native speakers often get this wrong too – I’ve lost count of the number of letters I’ve received addressed to ‘Mr Jo Kent’.

I’m looking forward to getting to know the student blogger and everyone reading out there, and of course answering your questions and reading your comments. This is the first time I‘ve ever written a blog, so I’m pretty excited about it!

Until next time, yours very femininely,

Jo

Vocabulary

Handy – something that is ‘handy’ is useful.

Cheerio is an informal and friendly way of saying ‘goodbye’. You’ll hear it most often in spoken English.

If you fill someone’s shoes, you try to do something as well as that person has done it.

freelance can be a noun and an adjective. If you work freelance, you are self-employed, and usually work for several clients.

jargon is technical language, often used by a specific industry or group of people.

Someone who lives in the sticks lives in the countryside, a long way away from a big city.

The word shopaholic is a combination of ‘shopping’ and ‘alcoholic’. We use it to describe someone who is addicted to shopping. Another word like this is ‘chocaholic’ (addicted to chocolate).

A craving is a strong desire for something.

Collected by camaraderie237@gmail.com