Perfect Phrases for ESL Everyday Situations
Perfect Phrases for ESL Everyday Situations
Preface
As an instructor and trainer to non-native English speakers, I have always understood the difficulties my English as a Second Language (ESL) students face. Adjusting to change—a new country, a different culture, a foreign language, a new career—is challenging and may create a crisis. In December 2010, I actually became one of you. I walked in your shoes.
I moved my home and my work from New Jersey to Hollywood, Florida, both in the United States. Moving—packing, unpacking, and discarding meaningful items and memories—was difficult, but I knew it would be. What I didn’t realize was that moving within the United States, on the same coast, only two and a half hours away by plane, where the same language is spoken and the same career exists, would present so many situations in which I would feel frustrated, inadequate, and bewildered. I felt like a fish out of water. I often had the urge to withdraw.
Problem situations ranged from the silly to the serious. They included finding a good place to get a haircut, registering to vote, and researching doctors and hospitals in a new location. Learning rules and regulations of new living quarters, researching public transportation, and investigating employment opportunities became everyday activities.
Change can be risky, but it also presents opportunities. Change may be the opportunity to grow emotionally, linguistically, and in many other ways. What I have done—and urge you do—is push through the feelings of discomfort instead of isolating myself and withdrawing. Take chances in your new environment and with your new language. Become an active language learner. Follow the ideas for active learning at the start of each part of this book and any other techniques you come up with. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Happy learning!
Who Can Benefit from Using This Book
You can and will benefit from using Perfect Phrases for ESL: Everyday Situations if you are an adult learner of the American English language, whether you are learning English as a Second Language (ESL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). English learners, who are about to travel to the United States or have recently arrived, especially may benefit from phrases offered in the text because of the new situations with which they will likely have to cope.
In the chapters of Part 1, this book offers attention to the educational system in the United States, including choices for you to investigate for your children and yourself. There are numerous phrases you may hear during your search for learning opportunities. Additionally, there are phrases for you to say that will aid you when you call, visit, or inquire about these locations. The word choices present you with new vocabulary and idioms as well as sentences in which you can plug in your own specific thoughts.
Part 2 provides phrases to use when inquiring about medically related situations such as visits to the doctor, dentist, hospital, and pharmacy.
Community resources are addressed as well. The chapters in Part 3 offer phrases for getting services from the bank, the library, and the post office, as well as information and emergency help from the fire and police departments. Phrases to use when shopping for food, putting gas in your car, and finding auto repair help are included in Part 4, “Around Town.”
There are Active Language Advice activities at the start of each part as well as in the appendix. Learning a language, as we know, is a life’s work, and serious language learners are always open to additional techniques for doing this work. There are also sections that pay attention to situations the higher-level learner may not have encountered yet in the United States, such as hiring a nanny or reporting an emergency.
How to Use This Book
Perfect Phrases for ESL: Everyday Situations, like most other books, may be read from beginning to end, and if you have the time, that is a good way to read it. If you are an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) student studying English in a non-English-speaking country and preparing to travel to the United States, that would be a particularly good way to go through this book. It gives you some background information on education, medical, and community service issues in the United States either before or soon after you arrive, as well as vocabulary and idiomatic expressions you may not have studied in your EFL classes. To quote the words of a Toastmasters local club past president, who lived and worked in several countries and taught himself several languages while abroad, “The way to gain an intimate knowledge of a language is to learn its idioms and learn about its country’s culture.”
This text also gives you the phrases for many situations you may encounter immediately upon arriving in the United States. Therefore, for high beginner and intermediate ESL or ESOL learners who have been living in the United States, a more as-needed approach also could work. For example, if you have been in the United States for some time and need a dental appointment, you could turn to Chapter 6 before making the call. It would, however, be a good idea to read Chapter 9, “First Responders,” to learn phrases to use in an emergency before you may need that information. If you do that, you will be prepared, just in case.
Those who have read my previously published ESL books in McGraw-Hill’s Perfect Phrases series—Perfect Phrases for ESL: Everyday Business Life and Perfect Phrases for ESL: Advancing Your Career—may also wish to look at this Perfect Phrases book. They may find vocabulary, idioms, and phrases that were not in the prior publications because the subject matter in this book is survival-related, rather than work-related as in the prior texts.
Readers have commented that the size (dimensions) and weight of the books in this series are real advantages; the books may easily be taken in a purse or a handbag, a briefcase or an attaché case, or even a beach bag. They may also be put into the glove compartment of your car to be read while waiting to pick up the children at school, a friend at a bus or train station, or visitors at an airport. The books are also a good size to leaf through if you are having a meal alone at a restaurant.
Remember to use this book as it best suits your learning style. Write notes on the blank pages at the ends of each part, underline or highlight words or phrases you want to remember, dog-ear pages, or attach Post-it Notes to pages. Add your own words or phrases to what is printed in the book.
The Perfect Phrases for ESL series lends itself to study group or classroom use as well. Have fun, and learn from the books and from each other.
Idioms and Other Vocabulary
Addressed: paid attention to
Advantages: good qualities, useful benefits
Aid: help make a situation easier
Bewildered: confused
Come up with: think of, think what will help you
Cope: handle, deal with
Dog-ear: turn down the corner of a page to mark a place in a book
Felt like a fish out of water: felt as if in totally unfamiliar surroundings
Frustrated: upset because one cannot control a situation
In case: in the event that
Inadequate: not up to handling a situation
Intimate knowledge: detailed knowledge
Isolating: separating yourself from other people
Leaf through: turn the pages of a book or magazine
Plug in: insert, add, put in
Post-it Notes: the trademark name for a small piece of sticky paper, used for notes
Push through: get past without giving up
Ranged from: include from one thing to another and everything between
Risky: has a possibility of something bad happening
Silly: not serious
Suits: fits in with
Techniques: special ways to do something
Think outside the box: think of unusual ways to do something.
Urge: strong wish
Walked in your shoes: understood what you have gone through by going through the same situation
Withdraw: separate from a situation, pull back from, stop participating