If you had to explain what an oxymoron is, what would you say? And would you know how to use one correctly? You might even be using oxymorons already completely by accident. After all, how many times have you talked about a “small crowd”, described someone as a “big baby” or gossiped about an “open secret”?
Let’s explain more about the term. An is a figure of speech where two words of opposed or contradictory meaning are used together to create emphasis. While some oxymorons are created by accident – such as “small crowd” – sometimes they are used deliberately to draw attention to something or to create drama for the reader or listener. Let’s take a closer look at some popular English oxymorons and get to the bottom of what they actually mean.
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This is an oxymoron because all babies are small. The word ‘big’ is added to emphasize the fact that someone is acting more childishly than you would expect. All babies can be childish but, for some reason, adding the word ‘big’ communicates that the person you are talking about is even more childish than a regular-sized baby.
“The teacher told James not to be such a big baby when he complained about having too much homework.”
When you act, you are pretending to be someone that you are not naturally, and yet, it is very common to use the phrase “act naturally” to encourage someone to be themselves. This oxymoron works because often people have to work hard – against their desires – to just be themselves in certain company or in certain situations.
“When you meet your new boss, just act naturally.”
How can a mess be organized? This oxymoron is often used to describe the chaos that someone has created – but when they actually know where everything is.
“I can find everything on my desk because it is an organized mess.”
If something is a secret, no one else is supposed to know about it. This oxymoron is a great way to describe a fact that started off as a secret, but now a select number of people know about it. Many people will gossip about this 'secret', but won’t necessarily spread it any further.
“Everyone at the party knew about Sarah’s new boyfriend as it was an open secret.”
By definition a crowd is a substantial amount of people – but adding the word 'small' makes it easier for us to imagine the difference between a crowd of 100 compared with a crowd of 500 people.
"We found a seat at the concert as there was only a small crowd of people there."
Silence can't deafen you but it's used to describe a situation where there is a complete and noticeable lack of communication or noise. This absence of sound can be so powerful that it creates a significant emotional impact.
"The group was anxiously waiting for the doctor to respond. There was a deafening silence in the room."
Appearances can be deceiving. A wise fool is someone who seems foolish or unintelligent at first but may actually be wiser than you think.
"The hermit was a wise fool, offering meaning insights about life to those who visited him."
Oxymorons in the English language can be a terribly good way to enhance your writing and speaking, making it more varied and interesting. Try to remember any you come across and add it to your English repertoire. There are hundreds to find.
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Stories can make us laugh, cry or tremble with fear. They can teach us valuable life lessons and transport us to other worlds. They've been around since the beginning of language itself, but can they actually help us learn a language?
Stories are one of the most useful toolswhen teaching childrenEnglish. Not only do they help with listening and reading skills, but they can also support speaking and writing skills by providing context, language and structure.
Very young learners may already be familiar with stories – they may hear them in daycare, school or at home with their parents. Therefore, incorporating these into their language classes may help them to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. And if children feel comfortable, they are more likely to be receptive to learning.
Storytelling usually happens as part of a group in the classroom. This means that it becomes a bonding activity for children where they can communicate and subconsciously pick up the key language. While having fun listening and interacting with the story, theysoak up information without even realizing they’re learning.
So, what storytelling activities can we use with younglearners? Let’s find out.
Often, we think of storytelling simply as reading a book aloud to children. Yet, there are other activities you can do. These include:
To get young children interacting with the story, first read out a sentence alone. Then, have the children repeat the line with you as a group. Repeat as many times as necessary, until the children feel confident with the language.
If your learners are happy to, ask them individually to repeat the sentence after you. Make sure each one has a turn and praise them for being brave and trying to use the language.
An activity that works well with children is to act out the story’s characters. For example, there may be animals, fairies, monsters or other exciting characters that they can each act.
Ask them to make the noises of the animals, the wind, or the scenery to create an atmosphere while you read. This gets them interacting with the story and the rest of the group, which will help their communication and listening comprehension skills.
Young learners react particularly well to visual aids and realia. Why not use puppets or dolls to act out the characters, or even ask students to have a go with them? They will engage more with the story and the language.
Children’s story books are usually quite visual with illustrations and pictures. Make the most of these while telling the story. Try asking students questions about the images to get them using the vocabulary.
You could ask them, “what can you see?”, “what’s he wearing?” or “can you find an apple?”. This is another great way to reinforce the vocabulary they’re learning in class.
Use these activities individually orincorporate a mix into your lessons. Either way, storytelling will help your learners with more than just developing their English language skills.
While we often think of storytelling as a pastime for children, it can also be a useful language learning activity for adults.
Stories are part of our daily lives, from news to social media to books and movies. Therefore, they can be extremely beneficial tools for English language learning.
Yet, the way we approach storytelling as a class activity for adults differs to that of young learners. While we typically read fairy tales to young children, we can bring in a much wider range of content for adults, such as:
Storytelling can be a wonderful language learning tool for both children and adults. If you’re looking for a new way to engage, inspire and motivate your learners, why not try it in your next class?
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