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Teaching English in Japan: Four mistakes to avoid For both students and teachers, teaching is a learning process. Teachers may make the most progress in the first years of their career, but the learning should never stop. The learning stopping is a dangerous sign indicating that the teacher needs to be doing something new to continue becoming a better teacher. Mistakes are a part of learning. This article will present some mistakes I made in teaching English communication in Japan. Treating Writer's Block: Six Suggestions Writer's block is what happens to writers when they cannot think of what to write. They are unable to write. Something is blocking them from writing. Some varieties of writer's block are short-term, while some writer's blocks can be longer. Writer's block can be related to an actual writing project or something else. We have six suggestions that may help you to recover from writer's block. So you wanna be a proofreader: Ten tips for better proofreading This article provides ten tips to help proofreaders. Follow these ten tips; you will learn and get better. Writing, editing, and proofreading are not mysterious skills that come to us naturally. If we work on them, we will get better. Email messages and finding a job Getting an interview is a major accomplishment in this dismal job market. If you've been looking for a job, I suspect you've sent out dozens of email messages but not received dozens of responses. In this article, I'd like to offer some suggestions based on our experience of screening applicants via email. Delete the adjective: Mark Twain on better writing Adjectives weaken writing; most writers overuse adjectives. Strong writing comes from strong verbs and nouns. Writers can also use similes and metaphors instead of adjectives. Mark Twain cautions us on using adjectives: "As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out." This article will discuss striking out adjectives, writing with strong verbs and nouns, and similes and metaphors, instead of adjectives. Punctuation: The Rodney Dangerfield of writing We enrich our punctuation the same way we improve our writing. We edit our rough drafts. Editing to include variety in punctuation marks can enrich your writing. This article will discuss punctuation including paragraphing and punctuation marks. Stephen King, Mark Twain, hell, and adjectives Adverbs, like adjectives, can help your writing in moderation, but many writers overuse and abuse them. This overuse and abuse has resulted in today's overly strong reaction against adverbs and adjectives. As King says, ""The road to hell is paved with adverbs." This article discusses editing adverbs out and improving your writing. Stephen King: Read before you write If you want to write, you need to read books on writing; you need to surf the web to see what other writers are doing; you need to look at articles and other resources. In addition to reading on the craft of writing, you need to read. This article will discuss how reading makes you a better writer. William Safire and Rules for Writing William Safire offers us his Great Rules of Writing. Safire joyfully breaks each rule as he writes them down. This article examines each of these rules. Following rules is not always the best way to write. Breaking the rules can result in better writing. Without rule knowledge, however, breaking the rules rarely results in improved writing. We recommend that you follow Safire's rules unless you know exactly why you are breaking them. Three tools for learning foreign language vocabulary Accumulating new vocabulary is a challenge in learning a second language. This article suggests three tools for learning and remembering new vocabulary: writing down new vocabulary and creating cohort groups, diagramming, and visual images. The three tools help you to remember new words because you are linking new vocabulary to something else you already know. These tools will help you to steadily progress in your language learning. English Writing and Nonnative English Speakers For the nonnative English speaker, writing is a challenge. Writing demands that we craft our words, which is the editing process. Nonnative speakers, however, often lack the ear or a sense of the language, complicating the process. Nonnative speakers write by combining their knowledge from English and their first language. Knowing about the influence of the first language can help us to better teach these students. Chinese writing once but Japanese writing today Fred explains why Japanese characters should no longer be called Chinese characters. Hundreds of years ago they were the same, but they are not today. The word Chinese should be used to refer to things that are Chinese, not things that are no longer Chinese. Insensitivity patrol: Don't be English centric Fred is attacked for linguistic insensitivity when he returns to America for vacation. Why we write: Arthur Plotnik and what's burning inside you Arthur Plotnik's quote tells us why we write: "You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke." This article discusses what is burning inside of writers and how we can improve our writing. Improving your writing: deleting unnecessary words Deleting unnecessary words is one way to improve writing. As Strunk and White tell us in their "Elements of Style", deleting unnecessary words strenthens our writing. Follow their advice to be a better writer.

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