Hi! My name is Eugenia Novokshanova, and I am an Associate Professor of English and ESL at Georgia State University. I have been teaching ESL and Freshman Composition courses for more than twenty years. I got my MS in teaching English and German in 1998 in Russia. I came to the U.S. in 2000 and have been teaching at Perimeter College at GSU since January 2002. When I was learning English (my left-brained nature), I asked a lot of why questions, but all my teachers where just saying: “Don’t try to understand it. Just repeat it.” And so I did at the time (I was an A student and always listened to my teachers:D). Fortunately, this didn’t work for me when I grew older. I searched for and found my answers, so I saw the logic and beauty of the English grammar!
I would love to hear from you — contact me at enovokshanova1@gsu.edu.
My Core Beliefs
Learn Grammar Most Relevant In Writing
You open a textbook and see pages of content, from nouns to verb tenses. You keep reading explanations and doing exercises, but in the end you still don’t understand how to put it all together in a sentence. Does it sound familiar? On this website, I focus only on the parts of grammar that you can apply in writing. Does that mean you don’t have to study any grammar? Unfortunately no. But all the grammatical concepts you will read on these pages make more sense than doing sentence-level exercises because you learn from great examples and apply critical thinking skills to analyze each unique sentence.
Study Great Examples
But language is abstract after all — how can you make it more specific so that you can dissect a sentence and then, using logic, put it together like pieces of the puzzle? For this purpose, I suggest you use great examples from classical literature. One advantage of analyzing classical readings is that the language is real and has not been adapted for ESL learners. So, while purposefully analyzing sentence structures, you will unconsciously acquire the correct English so that you can gain better results in a more interactive and fun environment.
What I Value
- Personal drive and integrity
- Curiosity and readiness to consider new ideas
- Persistence and enthusiasm