Live and Learn English with Jean Lee

When I heard an excited voice of this American mom over the phone, I was like ‘Hmmm….what is with all this jollification ? Why is this mom so overly excited?’ The one-sided lecture of this mother about the upcoming prom over the phone just sounded like a trivial fuss to me in the midst of joggling with busy thoughts about my son’s college prep and future. Contrary to most high school kids’ excited moms and dads with the junior or senior prom coming near at hand, my husband and I were very apathetic to this whole hustle and bustle …..which seemed more like unnecessary kerfuffle . This mom on the other side of the phone asked “Where would you like to get a beautiful corsage for my daughter and boutonniere for your son?”, and I was thinking ‘When are you gonna get serious about your daughter’s GPA or SAT scores?’ I bet she must have felt that I was very uninterested in this prom preparation and considered my nonchalant attitude even a perfidious manner in dealing with American high...

Where were you or what were you guys doing when you heard the news of global stars’ untimely demise ? There seems to have always been unexpected and sad news of celebrities’ sudden death.  Each time the tragic news hit the world, I wonder WHAT took the lives of these well-known figures without batting an eye ?!!!  The worldly famous mega stars in the Tinseltown or music industries seem to have everything that normal people dream of: Money, fame, beautiful spouse or friends, steadfast love from fans from all over the world. Yes, they belong to the so-called favored class in our society that could obtain EVERYTHING they put their mind to. Sadly, one of the most dangerous things easily available in their lives is drugs. The drugs could either be legal or illegal. Recently, the super recording artists such as Michael Jackson and Prince passed away due to the overdose of drugs prescribed by their own doctors. According to the American psychiatrist and bioethicist named Robert...

English as a Second Language (ESL) classes face various problems or dilemmas with the increasing number of adult immigrants, which operate as influential factors on their second language learning in the U.S. and Canada. Those challenges range from cultural misconceptions about the adult immigrants’ quality of mental health and characteristics, the change of personal and social identity to misunderstanding about their learning habits to all the misconceptions about literacy and language diversity in the new world to aging as an immigrant. As Weinstein-Shr (1993) argued, there is little or no ground for the belief that elderly immigrants are incapable of becoming literate unless there have negative attitudes towards educators, or the elders do not make the efforts. Therefore, the ESL instructors must conduct the needs-analysis before teaching the learners and help the elderly immigrant learners to manage their problems related to misconceptions about literacy as well as their social a...

What’s the biggest obstacle in your journey of exploring English? It could be grammar, pronunciation, or huge amount of vocabulary that seems to be endless. Above all, idiomatic expressions that have hidden, figurative meanings. Without understanding the cultural background or conventional usage of idioms, one can hardly imagine what those words are supposed to mean. Using the given list of idioms and your imagination, try to choose a proper expression to fill in the blank of each sentence below. a.    cut to the quick b.    beside oneself (with emotion) c.     bare your heart (or soul) to someone d.    clinch a deal e.    bind one’s time f.      hold all the aces   g.    have a ball h.    rigged i.      mugwump j.      cough up (some information/ money) 1. Brian was  _________________________________ with ra...

I don’t remember exactly when, but my fear of birds must have crept into my mind since I happened to watch the Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds as a child. As well aware, the movie is about birds’ sudden attack on humans in a Californian bay area. I find myself sitting on the edge of my seat , white-knuckling the entire movie.  Through my fingers covering my frightened eyes, I saw a huge flock of sparrows and seagulls flying into houses and finally engulfing the entire town. I felt the goose bumps and creeps all over me. Since that day, I have unintentionally developed some kind of ornithophobia . However, as a dweller in a mid-west town closely surrounded by nature in the States, I have come to savor the joyful chirping of the birds early in the morning, and my fear of birds has gradually disappeared. Well, how about you out there? Is there anything specific that petrifies and terrorizes you by just the thought of being around it? Do you think they can be overcome with gumpti...

Language is a medium of communication. The ones normally used by multitude of people in Korea can be useful in the respect that they are common expressions among them. However, that does not mean reciprocal communicability in the countries where English is used as a mother tongue. Let’s change the underlined expressions (=Konglish) in the following examples into correct words. 1. Mrs. Jackson placed the tamales and tacos on a huge plate and covered it  with vinyl wrap .  è _________________________ 2. Kids went to Knott’s Berry Farm and had a lot of fun on the flume ride è _________________________          3. Josh needs some colorful clips and a hotchkis to hold different sorts of documents together. è _________________________and a _____________________________ 4. Coach Tim provided the school track and field team with the best-selling pain relief pass è pain relief ____________________. 5. The highl...