Getting TESOL Certification! This weekend will be days 3 and 4 of my 6 day Oxford Seminar course to get certified to Teach English to Speakers of other Languages. The next weekend (June 13 and 14) I will have to do a 20 minute Lesson based on a Lesson Plan I develop. I am thinking of doing one on (a) "to do" versus "to make" or (b) Conditional statements If ... would. After June 14 I will be looking for work somewhere in the World. I am very open as to where I will go. South America is a possibility since it would enable me to continue learning either Spanish or Portuguese (Brasil). But going to Asia or Russia is also a possibility since I have never been there. I love new experiences especially when it comes to cultures and languages.

I have decided to finish a project I began with my students in Mexico. That project consists of taking the 500 Most Frequent Words used in the English language and finding their equivalent meaning in Spanish. We finished the first 10 Lists (250 words), and they are online now at http://timnew.com/esl . I am adding the other 10 lists today, but initially they will just be English. If you are a native Spanish speaker, I'd love your input! I will mostly be using VOX Spanish and English dictionaries and English and Spanish Verb books. That will get me close on most words, but I have learned that some words in the dictionary are not what is used on the streets. I am primarily looking for Spanish of Mexico since I am hoping my former students will use the list to continue learning English. But any comments are welcome. If the word has a different or unique regional meaning, please let me know. Once I have the project completed in Spanish, I may expand it for other languages. If you are learning Spanish this list can help you also! If you are not a native Spanish speaker but would still like to help - feel free. I was learning Spanish while teaching English, and a lot of the Spanish I learned was by doing lists like this.