It’s nice when making the site a better place to learn also makes it look cooler. We’ve got some new ESL teacher brain power on our team at Ebaby! these days, so we’ve changed the way our lessons look to help people learn more from them. We hope you’ll find this looks nicer than our old layout too (it could be quite a bit of words all on one page).

Now each part of the lesson (intro, dialog, grammar, quiz, discussion) has a tab you can click on to see it. Each tab focuses on developing a different skills like building vocabulary and improving listening comprehension or grammar.

This new layout will also help you customize your learning and, we hope, get more out of our lessons. We find that the tab system encourages students to listen to the dialog multiple times, for maximum comprehension. Teachers can also use this format to make a lesson in which each part builds on the one before it.

Now members with free accounts can:

* Review vocab before you start a lesson.

* Easily go to a particular part of a lesson.

* Take the quiz and listen to the audio (or watch the video) without the dialog on the same page.

* Scroll down to the forum quicker. We hope more of you will share your thoughts on each lesson!

* Take the quiz without reading the dialog or without reading the discussion.

But people who are serious about learning English, or teachers who want to share these lesson with their classes, can do even more as Super Members! They can take a special vocab quiz, save vocab terms to learn later, print the lessons, download mp3s, or even ask questions of a live English teacher.

Go take a look at today’s lesson and tell us what you think of the way the lessons look now! We’d love to hear from you.

Since Amanda is leaving English, baby! and her character is breaking up with Mason on the soap opera, I thought I’d put together a few highlights from their relationship, which was at the center of the soap opera plot when it began in late 2007, and has continued throughout it’s first 60 episodes. (It was also loosely based on my real life.)

Crush on a Friend

Before there was the soap opera, there was this lesson. I asked Mason and Amanda to improv a conversation on the topic, and the members demanded more.

*

Mason’s Date

This was the first soap opera episode and the first in a long series of episodes in which Mason is oblivious to the fact that Amanda likes him.

*

Cuddling on the Couch

One the best Mason-is-oblivious lessons and probably our most sexually suggestive lesson ever. It’s also worth watching for hilarious Friends references.

*

Foul Ball

Meanwhile, my character tried to hook up with Amanda. It didn’t go very well. This was the first of several episodes in which Amanda and I are fantastically awkward.

Triangulate

And Devan developed a crush on Mason, which made for tension between her and Amanda. I love lighthearted Mason is when he enters the scene.

*

It’s Raining Men

Amanda couldn’t decide what to do. Was it worth it to try to wait for Mason? What if he never noticed her? Marni gives her advice, and Amanda wonders if maybe Jason would be a good option after all.

*

Magic Moment

But just in time, they finally got together in a very unique, pre-scripted English, baby! lesson, which was filmed in Amanda’s actual living room.

*

Trouble in Paradise

After some months of happiness, Mason and Amanda had a fight that was rooted in the drama that took place before they got together.

*

Awful Flirty

During her fight with Mason, Amanda spent some time with Jason in order to make Mason jealous. Amanda is so good at acting flirty, that I actually got king of embarrassed here and had a hard time thinking of things to say.

Make Up

But before too long, Amanda and Mason realized they were being silly and made up on an afternoon walk. I wanted this scene to recall the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but in the take we wound up using, they didn’t lock arms.

My True Love Gave to Me

When the holidays rolled around, Amanda got Mason a great gift and he got her a not so great gift…and then surprised her with 7 more!

*

Healed

Then, when Devan and Jason were both in bad health, Amanda prayed for them to get better. It worked, and she shocked everyone by announcing she would become a nun.

*

Farewell

And in her last Ebaby! appearance, Amanda leaves Mason to become a nun. It’s a sad and awkward scene that’s difficult to watch. Just minutes after shooting this, Amanda left Ebaby! forever and Mason and everyone else were sad to see her go in real life too.

If only our members knew how funny Amanda really is. I have to cut brilliant jokes from at least half the lessons she’s in they’re just not suitable for English lessons. But they’re more than enough to make me and the rest of the Ebaby! cast laugh really hard every time we meet.

A couple of months ago, Amanda told us she was going to leave English, baby!. We tried to talk her out of it, but it was no use. When the time to tape Amanda’s last set of lessons was coming up, we had to find a way to have Jason and Devan be healed and for Amanda’s character to leave the soap opera. So we decided Amanda would miraculously heal her friends with prayer and then become a nun.

It’s tragic, really, since the whole idea of having a soap opera on English, baby! was inspired by comments from our users that they wanted to see Amanda and Mason get together. We spent months dragging out the tension between them, and when their characters finally got together, it really was kind of magical. So it’s not only a shame that the Ebaby! staff and members won’t get to see Amanda as much, but also that her character’s relationship had to end.

We haven’t posted all the movie and music lessons that we taped with Amanda yet, but since her final soap opera episode goes on the homepage on Tuesday, I asked her if she would answer a few questions over email so her fans could get some closure. Be sure to visit this look back her character on the soap as well.

Jason: You’re moving on and we’re so sad to see you go. You were on the Ebaby! cast long before I was. How did you get involved with it? What are you going to do now?

Amanda: Over two years ago, I came across an interesting posting on Craigslist. I was a stay at home mom, just easing her way back into the workforce. In addition to working part time teaching baby/toddler song and dance classes as a glorified clown, I wanted to do something else on the side. Something that had nothing to do with being around little kids. No offense to my only and favorite son.

I loved the fact that Ebaby! was an online resource for those learning English. We’ve come a long way w/ESL programs. Plus, my old buddies from college (shout out to Phi Kappa Psi!) had created a group companies that Ebaby! is a part of, so that totally sold me.

Right now I am going to try and spend more quality time w/my kid. It’s funny, the grass is always greener. When I was a stay at home mom, I wanted nothing more than to get back to work. Now that I’m working my freaking flat ass off 24/7, all I wanna do is be with my kid. I will continue working my other 100 jobs: 1) Tradeshow/NanoPort Operation MGR at FEI 2) Property Manager 3) Actor/Model. I was burning the candle at both ends for a while and no one wins in that scenario. When your kid looks you in the face and says, “Why don’t you wanna spend time with me anymore? You come home from work and then you go back out to work,” it’s time to re-evaluate and take a breather. My bad.

Jason: What’s your all time favorite lesson that you’ve been in? Does one stick out as your least favorite?

Amanda: That’s easy. The phone call between Amanda and Jason. I could watch that one a hundred times, oh wait, I already have. There’s just something about the cadence between the two of us that is freaking hilarious. And there’s that special and perfect douse of awkwardness. Voila!

My least favorite (but not because it isn’t a good lesson) is between Amanda and Devan, when Devan announces that she has cancer. Yes, I think that it’s important to increase awareness of something that has taken loved ones from all of us, but at the same time, I felt uncomfortable acting as though she was sick when she really wasn’t. It seemed almost taboo to me. I felt uncomfortable the entire 60 seconds.

Jason: You’re really funny, and the members didn’t get to see a lot of your jokes because they can be a little too adult for the site. Where did you get your sense of humor?

Amanda: I actually don’t find myself funny at all. Usually, I figure people are just laughing at me. My father is a self-proclaimed pervert, a dirtbag, if you will. I guess I am my father’s daughter. When you grow up with Playboys laid out on the kitchen table like they were Good Housekeeping and a VHS collection of porn by the living room TV, you tend to become very candid about sex.

My biggest fear of all time is stand up comedy. I really admire those guys. I would pee my pants if someone put me on a stage with a mic and said, “Make us laugh!” Oh and by the way, Tina Fey is my idol. Unbelievable how funny she is. Delicious stuff right there.

Jason: You do a lot of acting outside of English, baby! What are some of the most interesting rolls you’ve played? Where can we see your work?

Amanda: About the same time that I started with Ebaby!, I dove into the ever challenging and humbling world of acting. I have no formal training so I’m pretty much fumbling my way through, simply giving it my best. It’s for fun more than anything, at least right now. Because I am always on Craigslist, I went to my first casting through a posting, landed the principle role, got an agent and the rest is history. Now I can’t imagine not having it in my life. Better late than never. I’ve always wanted to play a hooker but have yet to have the opportunity. Some of the more interesting roles have included: reporter, attorney, college sports fanatic and Asian Woman. That last one took months to prep for.

Some really exiting news: A feature film that I shot last summer is an Official Selection of the Phoenix Film Festival! We could not be more ecstatic about the recognition. I just booked my flight and can’t wait for a weeks worth of screening and parties. You can follow our journey on www.frontave.com, as we’ll blog about our experience at the festival.

Jason: You mentioned once that it’s hard for Asian women to be cast in comedic roles. Can you talk about that?

Amanda: With the exception of Margaret Cho, there aren’t a lot of comedic Asian female actors, nor roles for those actors. We are mostly depicted in a more serious, dramatic, dark, aggressive, competitive, cold and sometimes oversexed/vixon-esque light. Not that that’s a bad thing. But when was the last time you saw a slapstick style sitcom or film with an Asian as the lead? Jackie Chan, not included. It’ll come around some day, but for now, the audience isn’t gonna gravitate to the Asian chick for a chuckle right now.

Jason: Finally, in the last episodes of your character, you become a nun and leave town. If you were going to make a sudden, dramatic change in your real life, what would it be?

Amanda: This is a tough question as I am a total and complete creature of habit. I have to do what I normally do and if not, there has to be a plan. There are few things I’d drop everything for to chase. And I actually would never even do that. I’d have to convince my husband and kid to come with, otherwise it would be a no-go. The only sudden, dramatic changes I could think of would be:

1) Have a 2nd child
2) Quit my day job to be back home
3) Move to Bend or Palm Springs
4) Get my real estate broker’s license
5) Change my current cell phone plan

And there’s no chance I’d do any of these anyway. That’s what she said.

March Madness usually refers to basketball, I know. But this March is full of conferences for ESL teachers like me. And doesn’t that conference logo to the left kind of look like a basketball tournament logo? It’s pretty intense.

I am gonna give you my top three conferences in March. You might not be able to go to them all. (I certainly can’t.) Hopefully, though, you’ll be able to go to one. So here they are:

1. TESOL Convention- March 26-28 in Denver, Colorado. Learn teaching tricks and tips. Hear about the latest research. And bonus, there is a large job fair at the conference.
2. American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL)- This conference is more research based, but it is the same week as TESOL (March 21-24) and in Denver. So you could do both maybe!
3. Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO)-At this conference, you will find out how people are using technology in their classes and how that benefits students. It will be on March 10-14 in Arizona.

I am going to the TESOL Convention. I’ll be presenting a little something about why ESL students report using Facebook. If you happen to go to one of the other conferences on my top three list, please tell me all about them. You can learn so much at a conference. I am excited!!

John is always telling me about shows he watches on TV about people who do dangerous or disgusting things to prove a point or just to prove a point or just to prove they’re fearless. He says the remind him of me because I do things like embarrass myself in front of NBA basketball teams or ask strangers for directions to a wedding in Istanbul.

But those things were warm.

On Saturday, John and I are going to jump into a freezing cold river with a lot of other people in strange costumes. It’s a fund raiser for the Special Olympics, an international athletic competition for people with intellectual disabilities. It has medals and stuff, just like that other Olympics we went to last year.

But jumping into cold water doesn’t raise money on its own! People have to sponsor us. Click here to donate money or watch our progress. And watch for the video of our plunge soon!

This week’s blog comes a little late because I spent most of last week in Washington, DC. I was training people from the University of DC to use instructional technology. UDC is very lucky that many of their teachers and administrators are extremely passionate about their work. One of the GED teachers, in particular,  touched my heart. (He is so humble, so I am going to leave his name out of this. I don’t want to embarrass him.) But hopefully, you will also be inspired by his dedication and creativity.

Here are three inspiring things that he does:

• He continues to teach classes over break, so that students don’t get out of the groove.
• He works (informally) with companies in town to get his GED students jobs. He even hires some of them to help him with his house projects.
• He does everything he can to get students (and keep them) in class. Including picking them up at the bus stop.

I was so impressed by him. He goes above and beyond to make sure students get what they need (from jobs to rides to school). He was the same way at my training. So I guess, I just want to put this out there. Some of us are great teachers. But others of us are so much more than great teachers! After meeting him, I hold myself to a new standard of teaching and caring for students.

People often act like the only way to meet someone online is through a dating site. But in a lot of ways, the Internet is just like real life–if you do the things that interest you, you’re likely to meet people while doing them.

I bring this up not only because Valentine’s Day is just a few days away, but because we just learned that another international couple met on English, baby! and is going to be married. Last year around this time we brought you the story of a Turkish man and Ukranian woman who met while learning English on our site and decided to get married. They welcomed me at their wedding to make a video. I checked in with them on their first anniversary and I’m happy to say things are going quite well.

But now I’d like to introduce you to Doni (real name: Donato), an economics teacher who lives in Switzerland and Nelly (real name: Lamia), a travel agent who lives in Algeria. They first met while practicing their language skills in the English, baby! chat rooms in 2007 and plan to be married this November.

They got together in person for the first time last summer. Nelly tells the story:

We first met in Serbia when I went to spend my holidays on Jun 2008. It was the last three days of my vacation that he came. I was waiting him with my uncle in Belgrade airport. My heart was beating quickly because I was so impatient to see him. When he arrived and I saw him. I was too too happy. We spend an unforgettable three days in Dolovo countryside. There he saw my parents and I introduced him my relatives…we spend all the moments we have together.

Since then, she has visited him in Switzerland and he her in Algeria. They actually hadn’t heard about our Turkrainian couple and didn’t think they’d ever fall in love online. “I have never imagined that something like that can happen via the net,” says Lamia.

Aren’t they so cute? They’re both 26 years old. The above photo was taken in Switzerland. Here’s one from Algeria:

And one from Serbia:

We want our ESL students to read, write, and think. But how do we help them do that? With Read-Write-Think curriculum and online materials, of course. The site has great materials that students can work on by themselves, but it also has examples of how teachers can integrate Read-Write-Think tools into lessons.

The Essay Map is one example of materials available for learners. It walks students through the process of making an outline for an essay. There are a bunch of writing lessons on the site that use the Essay Map. I have used it in class and students liked it. It makes essay writing a lot easier. Bonus: after making the Map, students can print it out in a nice format. (Alternatively, teachers can leave the Essay Map blank and print the blank Map to use as handout for class.)

If your writers are more advanced, they might not need the Essay Map. But the site has other things to offer too. Here are my favorite Read-Write-Think online activities for students:

• Letter Writing- learn the traditional format of friendly and business letters. And some lessons to go with it.
• Literary Graffiti- give artistic student the chance to summarize a text in writing and with pictures or other creative lessons.
• Persuasive Map-similar to the Essay Map. Also includes a variety of lesson ideas.
• Eye on Idioms- learn a few idioms and see why they make (a little) sense.

They have materials for all students of all ages. Some are more appropriate than other for adult ESL students. Anyway, I like Read-Write-Think. Hope you do too.

Guess which of our nearly 3000 English lessons has the most comments? Last year’s Will You Be My Valentine lesson is the winner with 230. I think it has a lot to do with that hilarious photo (thanks, iStockphoto)!

This year we have a whole series of Valentine’s lessons planned for next week, but our members beat us to it with a love poem forum thread. The topic of romance is definitely a favorite among Ebaby! members. Almost every week we feature at least one, sometimes two lessons about relationships and dating. The response to our Crush on a Friend lesson was so positive that it inspired us to start a soap opera that’s now on its 58th episode. The most popular episodes and plot lines are ones where couples get together, like the first time Mason realizes he likes Amanda and when Marni starts her long-distance relationship with a guy she met online. My favorite episodes to act in were actually the ones where my attempts at romance were failing, and people liked those too.

And don’t forget the most popular of all pages on the site, our Turkrainian Wedding video.

I think it’s really great that this topic is so popular. I was just reading today about how you can get in trouble for kissing in public in India, so it’s kind of amazing that despite great cultral differences about love and dating, people from all over the world can relate to stories about it.

Since we added our user generated lessons feature about a year and a half ago, a lot of great teachers have posted some really cool stuff here on English, baby!. But one teacher stands out above the rest as the most frequent and most popular lesson creator. You may know her as nad1a but her real name is Nadeen. She lives in Bulgaria and recently answered some questions for us via email about making special lessons to match her students’ interests and using ESL resources on the Web.

Jason: How many languages do you speak and where did you learn them?

Nadeen: I speak 5 languages in total, at a different level, of course, but I guess I could get by just fine in any of them. These are English, Bulgarian, French, Greek and some Spanish. I am equally fluent in English and Bulgarian as I was born in Bulgaria but spent the most part of my life in the United States.

Jason: What’s a typical day in your class like?

Nadeen: The truth is that there is no ‘typical’ day in my class. I always try to bring some variety into the classroom so that people won’t get bored.

Most people don’t really study English for fun or because they like it, but they’re pressured by circumstances in one way or another. Children are forced by parents who are trying to equip their kids for their future education and careers. Adults are trying to land a better job, to upgrade their qualifications, or they are businessmen striving for better communication with their international partners etc. The only way to get them involved and grab their attention is to personalize the lesson.

I once had a teenage boy who hated having to learn English. I had to use the recommended grammar and vocabulary from his textbook to edit Internet articles and interviews and prepare exercises and activities centered around his own interests – hip-hop, soccer and graffiti. He was having fun and was learning English almost unaware of it.

Jason: Your English, baby! lessons are on all sorts of topics, from Beyonce to pronunciation. Where do you get the ideas for them? Which one do you think is your best?

Nadeen: Well, I won’t pretend to be some kind of genius here. It’s not like I make everything up by myself. I use various materials on the Internet or textbooks of my own. I get a lot of ideas from my interaction with my offline students. This may be a question I am asked, or an issue they show an interest in during the lesson, or a frequent mistake I notice. Sometimes I just come across something interesting on the Internet and decide to make a lesson out of it. So I elaborate on it, editing this material and adding my own touch to it, and share it on English, baby!

I can’t grade my own lessons and won’t be able to say which one is the best. I would say my favorite is “Learning languages: Myths and Truth”. It’s a fact that English baby members, though, seem to favor “The American Pronunciation of T“. It’s probably because most of them are fans of American English and it may also be something they’re lacking in their ESL classes.

Jason: What do you like about English, baby!? Do you use any other online English resources?

Nadeen: It’s a great place for both students and teachers. Students are exposed to real, natural English (which you are less likely to get from textbooks alone) in a wide range of contexts that they can relate to. Teachers can use lessons from the site pertinent to the material they cover in class to live up their lessons.

What most people seem to appreciate about English, baby!, however, is its being this huge social network, bringing people from all over the world together and giving people like Zeus and Kinski one more reason to be thankful for.

I also use VOA Special English, ESLdiscussions.com, esl-lab.com, UsingEnglish.com. I sometimes Google the topic or grammar point I want to cover and I accumulate material from different sites to use in the classroom or my individual lesson.

Jason: I looked at your photos and it looks like you have a son who plays some sports. How old is he? Do you think he could beat me in a challenge?

Nadeen: Yes, I have a 12-year-old son who is my pride and joy. His name is Roy. He plays for Olympiakos, a Greek soccer team. Right now he’s recovering from an injury on his knee and hasn’t been playing for a while, but when I asked him if he would play against you, he said: “Is he ready for that? Did you tell him this is European and not American football?”