Idea — Informal register in writing shows through contractions, ellipsis, discourse markers (“anyway,” “so”), and first-person directness. Teaching register means comparing formal and informal versions of…
ReadIdea — Academic writing requires hedging — language that marks claims as tentative rather than absolute: “suggests,” “appears to,” “it is possible that.” Over-claiming is a…
ReadIdea — Different genres carry different expectations for structure, register, and purpose. Teaching learners to read genre before writing it reduces the “wrong shape” problem in…
ReadIdea — Authentic writing tasks — real emails, review posts, complaint letters — motivate because the audience is real. The writing must work, not just be…
ReadIdea — Error-coded feedback (WO = word order, T = tense, VF = verb form) returns responsibility for correction to the learner. Research (Ferris) suggests it…
ReadIdea — Untrained peer editors either praise everything or correct spelling. Trained peer editors follow a checklist: Is the aim clear? Does each paragraph develop one…
ReadIdea — Cohesion is achieved through reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical chains — not just “however” and “furthermore.” Over-teaching connectors creates mechanical, unnatural writing. Example…
ReadIdea — A paragraph works when its topic sentence signals what follows and every subsequent sentence develops that one idea. Teaching this explicitly reduces the “list…
ReadIdea — A model text shows learners what the target genre looks like — its structure, register, and key phrases. Guided writing uses the model as…
ReadIdea — Process writing treats writing as recursive, not linear: planning → drafting → revising → editing. Each stage is teachable, and each improves the final…
ReadMost of this site is reading. These two are writing — the only way to find out what your English actually does, and what your inner weather is actually like. Take one now, or skip and find them in the menu at any time.
A twenty-question encounter with how you actually think in English.
This is not a multiple-choice test. There are no gap-fills and no word banks. Those instruments measure recognition. This one measures production — the unruly, idiosyncratic act of putting thought into English under gentle pressure.
You will be asked about your dreams, your reading, your silences, your weather. Some prompts feel like journal entries. Some feel like riddles. Answer them as yourself — only as yourself.
Thirteen sideways questions about the architecture of your own experience.
“How are you?” produces “fine.” “What is wrong?” produces defence. So this asks neither. It asks about texture, temperature, containers, landscapes at 3 AM — sideways entry points that let you describe an inner state without having to expose a biography.
There is no timer and no right answer. The only thing measured is granularity: how finely you can name what is happening inside you. That skill is learnable, and it travels with you.