ESL Class Blog

More practice with Articles

For more practice with identifying where articles (a, an, and the) are required, here's a paragraph from a movie review about Tim Burton's recent take on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," starring Johnny Depp.

5 nouns in this paragraph need to have "the" in front of them, and one noun needs "a" or "an" added.  In the "comment" to this blog, retype this paragraph with these articles added.

For extra credit, post a comment that tells how many countable nouns are in this paragraph. Here's the paragraph:

New Tim Burton movie stars Johnny Depp as ageless werido, whose magical skills are matched only by his hangups about where he came form and how he is supposed to make friends with regular people.  Film is called "Edward Scissorhands."  ....Oh, I beg  your pardon.  I meant to say film is called "Charlie and Chocolate Factory," and it springs from book by Roald Dahl.

Vocabulary practice from War of the Worlds movie review

The following are vocabulary words from the paragraph on "War of the Worlds."  What do these words mean?  If any of them are nouns, are they countable or uncountable??  If any are verbs, what prepositions should come after them?  Type your answer into a "comment" for this posting.

After you write your comment, go to your own Weblog and write a short posting that uses at least 2 of these nouns and 2 of these verbs in it. You can write description of what you did over the weekend, you write a story (one that is not true), or you can write just a series for 4 sentences that use each of these words.

mythology
disaster
crisis
to address
stark
imperceptible
jellyfish
clamber
jagged
bolt
activate
eon
crunch
vaporize

The answer to the second part of the paragraph

The White House is not heard from, and worried diplomats do not meet the United Nations to address the crisis.  In this stark, horror-movie take on H.G. Wells 1898 classic, the aliens land in a noisy flash of lightning, imperceptible as jellyfish as they clamber down jagged bolts.  They quickly activate the war machines that they buried in the ground eons earlier, reappear on the surface of the earth inside giant tripods, and begin crunching across the American landscape, vaporizing everything in sight.

The answer to the first part of the review

There are no experts in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds-- no brilliant scientists from Caltech or M.I.T talking of alien bloodtypes.  And no military-intelligence officers, either, or any of the other authorities wearing thick glasses who showed up in science-fiction movies half a century ago and who became so much a part of the mythology of disaster. 

practice with a,an,the

This is an article about Steven Speilberg's movie "War of the Worlds."  All of the a's, an's, the's and plural endings are missing.  please retype it in the "comments" to this post with the correct words added.

There are no expert in Steven Spielberg's "War of World"-- no brilliant scientist from Caltech or M.I.T talking of alien bloodtype.  And no military-intelligence officer, either, or any of the other authority wearing thick glass who showed up in science-fiction movie half century ago and who became so much part of mythology of disaster.  White House is not heard from, and worried diplomat do not meet United Nation to address crisis.  In this stark, horror-movie take on H.G. Wells 1898 classic, alien land in noisy flash of lightning, imperceptible as jellyfish as they clamber down jagged bolt.  They quickly activate war machine that they buried in ground eon earlier, reapper on surface of earth inside giant tripod, and begin crunching across American landscape, vaporizing everything in sight.