March 2007 Archives

By an accident of search engine behaviour, we have a lot of people asking us how to narrow their topics to a single spoke or to a sub-header spoke on a map. Even though these questions have been posted in an English language forum, we have have tried to find the exact answer, without any success.

Mr Lowe requested the right to reply and this page originally contained his comments.

In area like Quizzes and Handouts, we try to classify entries grammatically. However, many of the entries defy easy categorisation. When this happens, we either put them in General or put them in a category that seems to fit best.

We currently have a list of nearly two thousand phrasal verbs. The distribution of particles/adverbs/prepositions is, however, dominated by a very small number: the top six account for well over a half of the total. After that, the next few account for most of the rest of the list, and it tails off very quickly; phrasal verbs are dominated by a very small number of particles.

The TEFL Blacklist has had its version of the OSCARS for the worst in the ESL/EFL world. It's an interesting and idiosyncratic selection, with some obvious choices of old friends and some quirky and unexpected choices.