Teaching in Lebanon - May Mikati's Blog

                                                                                                                                            ...

Among the figures of speech used for responses to corona are the usual war ones often borrowed in medicine from the military, as in Trump’...

When news spreads like wildfire on social media, we say it has gone viral . How many of us had ever reflected on the origin of the adjec...

The dictionary words of the year 2018 included many that were environment related, whether as top scoring words or runners up. This past ye...

It is always good to blog out of the blue, spontaneously, even verging on “stream of consciousness”, letting your thoughts flow on the pa...

Inviting guest bloggers with similar interests can add diversity to one’s blog. Guest postings are useful for both the host and the g...

Taking a long break from blogging can seem strange after years of regular postings. You may feel awkward yourself, and your readers may rig...

A look at the past year’s English words of the year sheds light on people’s current interests and concerns globally. Merriam Webster ’s ...

Having tutored at the AUB Writing Center, I can confirm that tutoring is a different ball game than classroom teaching in many ways. It i...

Last week some university students who had read my recent blog post on ghost writing jokingly commented that they were tempted to t...

Reading student essays is usually a pleasure for writing teachers, especially when students research fresh topics, argue effectively, or...

It is good to be blogging about language and teaching. A University of Westminster PhD dissertation by Maha Taki analyzing blogging in Le...

When the Collins Dictionary announced “Fake News” as Word of the Year 2017, Human Rights Watch rightly expressed concern. Defined as “fa...

This semester I told one of my classes that they had broken an attendance record. Several weeks had passed and not one of the students i...

Handwriting is dead! Studies comparing people who are used to handwriting with those more accustomed to typing have shown a relative defi...

How much attention do you pay to your audience when you write? Linda Flower, a professor of rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University once w...

When you see mascara do you think “maskhara”? Well, you are not too mistaken if you do: that is the Arabic origin of the word! Most etym...

A fellow blogger colleague recently wrote on uncommon words in English. My post here, on the other hand, is on commonly used English words ...

Merriam Webster finally announced its Word of the Year 2016 as surreal , subsequent to rising lookups following various shocking world eve...

Mashable recently reported that Merriam Webster had not yet announced its Word of the Year although, by the end of November, “fascism...

Academics worldwide will soon be celebrating International Open Access Week, from October 24 to 30. When I first blogged about Open Acces...

It may seem easy for teachers to judge students; in fact, it is part of their job. How fair the teachers are in their assessment is anoth...

There seems to be a renaissance of language pedantry with the advance of technology and social networking. Not only does Google try to co...

Many institutions of higher education all over the world now view students as customers. One only has to take a look at the terminology use...

Since the weather is occupying news headlines these days, it would be interesting to look at some weather idioms in English; the first that...

In a highly popular blog post by its English online editor, Al Jazeera last month dropped the word “migrant”, preferring to use “refuge...

W hen the title “Ms.” was invented, it was meant to replace “Mrs.” and “Miss”. This alternative was promoted by feminists and others who ...