Lesson 1: Asking Questions, Polite Requests, Contractions, and Improvement Tips

In this beginner-friendly class, we focus on:

• Asking questions (intonation, question words)

• Negative/positive contractions for agreement/disagreement

• Polite requests (“Can you…,” “May I…”)

• Avoiding rude questions (too direct or broad)

• Improving speaking (mimic sounds, read aloud)

• Improving spelling (use dictionary, write daily)

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Lesson Guide

This lesson we talked about questions and how to ask them.

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There are several ways to ask a question in English such as:

• Raising your voice at the end in pitch not volume

• Using a question word (5W and 1H, for example)

• Adding a negative contraction (example: shouldn’t, can’t) at the end for someone to agree with you by saying “yes”​

• Adding a positive contraction (example: can they?, right?) for someont to agree with you by saying “no”

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To request something (an object, help, a favor) or ask a polite question we ‘soften’ our question by adding words such as “Can you…” or “May I…”

• ​If you do not add these to a request it can sound like a demand which is not polite in English in most situations. You don’t demand something of your boss, your parents, or a server.

Sometimes using a question word can be rude if it is too direct such as “Why do you think that?” or if the question is too broad such as, “What’s the whole thing about?”​

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To improve speaking: Try to mimic the sounds of your favorite Youtuber or TV show, this will help you learn how to form words in English. I also recommend reading out loud anything you write before you check grammar. This will help you learn to recognize mistakes. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, it means you’re improving.

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To improve spelling: Spelling in English is very difficult, to improve it, be sure to have a dictionary on hand and try to write a sentence or two about your day. You could even write a To-Do list.

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​As far as dictionaries go, I recommend Merriam-Webster which also has a Word of the Day option to help improve your vocabulary (as an English native I find this a lot of fun as it’s entirely random.) If you click on “See Entry” it will even take you to the word page where you can hear the word of the day read out loud.

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​Note: if you use the thesaurus it will give you synonyms, or words that are similar to a word but do not mean the same thing. This can be a bad thing as while you may try using a larger word, it may have a different enough definition that it will make your sentence sound weird.

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​How to check your progress: Go back and read something you wrote even a month or two ago, if it sounds strange to you, you improved! It takes a long time to learn a language and sometimes those changes can be so subtle you might miss them.​

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Check Out the Presentation Here