What Other Teachers Are Saying

Diana Tower

English Teacher

Hi Ola,

I have to say that I am absolutely... positively... blown away by the Simple Present Stories and Exercises book. What an amazing resource. Not only is the content high quality, so is the look and feel. It's beautiful!

You explain the grammar so clearly and provide so many examples and practice exercises that students will truly understand the grammar inside and out, backwards and forwards.

I got more and more excited as I scrolled through the pages and was eager to read the story that demonstrates the grammar. The story about Jack was interesting, fun, and clearly demonstrates the grammar.

I thought that it stopped there but then you provide 4 MORE STORIES for the present simple! I couldn't believe it. You truly over-deliver and this was only ONE of the books!

The entire course covers all 4 simple tenses and I am sure it provides learners with a solid understanding of the grammar. Not to mention providing teachers with an interesting and FUN approach to grammar!

Will you be writing more books to cover all the grammar tenses? I hope so! I can honestly say that it would be one of the best grammar courses out there!!

I can't stop reading them Ola! Seriously, they are awesome.

They are simple, but FUNNY. I actually laughed out loud!

This is the first time I've ever laughed when reading ESL stories in simple tenses.

Diana Tower

Jude Pedersen

ESL Teacher/Tutor

Denmark

While on the internet searching for activities for my ESL students, I came across the REALLY LEARN ENGLISH website. I had been looking for new and interesting ways to cover grammar concepts.

After using some of the sample materials, I decided to buy all of the materials, and I LOVE them!!

The explanations are simple and clear, which helps avoid any confusion on the part of the student. There are plenty of opportunities for students to practice the grammar as it gets presented, and then there are funny stories and more exercises to follow.

I think that showing how grammar works through a story is an excellent approach. I also like the fact that the materials are divided into levels as well as grammar points. This way, if there is a specific area a student is weak on, we just use those materials.

On the first day that I tried out the materials with a private student, at the end of the lesson she smiled and said "It was good today."

Thanks for making these materials available and affordable.

Tim Williams

English Teacher

California, United States

I received the materials. They are excellent. I have been teaching and working in education for the past 45 years. Without question, your materials are outstanding and very user friendly. I especially appreciate your explanations, examples, and presentation of subject matter that is easy to follow and just right for the many different levels of students I work with in my English classes.

I just wish I had your materials when I began teaching my first English classes. I am sure that my students will also enjoy the material. Although this school year is just about to end, I look forward to the start of a new year in August.

Please keep me on your mailing list. Please advise me if you continue to develop additional materials. Again, I want to extend a big "THANKS" for developing so many outstanding materials that I can begin using in my class tomorrow.

Keep up the great work!!!

Juliette Appleman

from Connecticut Teachers Tutoring Association/Speak Listen English

I used Really Learn English's, English Short Stories packet with my student.

It was a great resource for both of us. It has not only reading sections, but writing, fill-in-the-blank, and essay questions as well, which allows the student and teacher to cover reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. It was a good challenge and practice for my mid-level ESL student.

We both had fun reading it and had even laughed! It got him thinking, and provided a nice basis for our tutoring sessions. It also saved me prep time for the sessions we used it in because we used it a section at a time. I recommend this resource to all instructors of ESL.

Jorge Lozoya Chavez

English for Work Training, Coordinator Teacher

Tijuana, BC, Mexico

Breda O'Reilly

English Teacher

Perth, Western Australia

I bought the full package of Really Learn English materials, and they are most useful to me.

I teach a class of up to 16 migrants once a week on Fridays. The materials are the perfect level for the group I have. That is, the first class I take which is Pre-Intermediate level. I can hardly believe how perfect these materials are for this group of migrants.

The first edition of the Emma and Jerry stories is fantastic for Term 1. By Terms 3 and 4 the students are ready for the second edition of the Emma and Jerry stories. I have found that while using the second edition of these stories that each of the stories lasts for two lessons because the book contains so many wonderful activities to do.

The students love the stories especially when they have a surprise ending, and they are fun. When the students laugh at the right time, I know that they understand the story.

Of course, we have the Human Rights stories which are also wonderful. And then we have the stories about famous people.

Another thing that is special about the Really Learn English books compared to other books is that the stories are about the two same people, Emma and Jerry, so the students get to know them well and they wonder what Emma and Jerry are going to do this time!

The students also love the challenges of the activities – comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and story writing and get stuck into them with joy! Other books do not offer the wonderful variety of activities that Really Learn English does.

The full package also contains many other stories. So, I'm very lucky because I have a great choice of stories. I actually need 40 stories a year for Pre-intermediate and 40 stories for Conversation class. Some of the other stories are just fantastic for it. I love using the Dialogues books – Past, Present and Future with the Conversation Class.

In summary, these stories and activities are ongoing and will provide me with many lessons for a long time. I think they have given the students a love of reading. As I said, they love learning new things to do from all the activities offered. They have become very good listeners so that they can answer questions correctly. They have a lot more confidence in their reading and pronunciation – which is the hardest part for most of them!

Jennifer Nascimento

English Teacher

United States, Arizona

I can say confidently that this material is incredibly effective for teaching and learning the time tenses.

Why do I recommend Really Learn English's complete time tense set?

1. The books give more than just grammar, they review spelling, important notes, common verb collocations, and other useful vocabulary too!
2. Each story comes with exercises and practice to do before you read (to get you ready and thinking about the story and grammar), as well as follow-up to check overall understanding.
3. Bonus books include 20+ sample dialogues for each tense group to follow along with real conversations utilizing the grammar.
4. These books will help you understand the differences between confusing tenses (present perfect and past perfect for example) with situations that are easily understood.
5. The books are thorough and complete! There isn't just 1 or 2 stories examples, there are at least 5 different, interesting stories in each book. That's a lot of language practice!

TEACHERS, these books are also an excellent resource for your classroom. They can be used as lesson plans with reading and listening/speaking practice (if students read aloud), and can provide so much more than grammar review. Save time and energy, and get these products into your curriculum.

Jennifer Nascimento

Martins Jayeoba

English Teacher

Ekiti State, Nigeria

I find your site very useful. I am a teacher of English. I teach in the rural area of Ekiti State, Nigeria. I got very useful materials to teach word stress in English from your site. In view of this, I wish to acknowledge you for the great and good work you have done and are still doing. You have been a blessing to me. I shall contact you from time to time. I studied English in Nigeria. You have done a lot to educate me, even though I am an expert in this field, but you have really blessed me. Thank you so much.

Sincerely,
Martins Jayeoba

Adi Ornan

Private ESL Tutor

Israel

Dear Ola,

As a private tutor for ESL students in various ages, I was looking for quality materials in English that will be comprehensive, educational but also fun. I am so glad that I found Really Learn English since it gave me all I was looking for and much more.

I have purchased the full package and I am using it all the time. The explanations are clear and the stories and activities greatly help me. I also like to say thank you for Ola's help and quick response when I had a technical problem. I highly recommend it :)

Adi Ornan
Private ESL Tutor
Israel

Lola Westermann Leigue

Private ESL Tutor

Bolivia

I am a happy client. I am very pleased with the material and its order.

As a private teacher what I do is to start by teaching the present, future and past tenses and some vocabulary in parallel, so what I really liked about your materials is that it makes my work a whole lot easier, since in one only lesson you get to teach grammar, reading, comprehension and so on in a very organized and logical way. Not mentioning how practical the exercises are.

So please keep up with such an amazing job. I will definitely recommend you guys.

Fotini Sagmatpoulou

English Teacher

Greece

The material has helped me so much, it's incredible!! Congratulations!!!

I am an English teacher in Greece and I mainly use the stories to teach grammar. The students like them and find them funny.

I believe that teaching boring grammar through stories makes the lesson more fun and keeps my students interested.

Plus they learn through context and not dry sentences, which I find challenging.

Lourdes Najera

Online ESL Teacher

Philippines

Hello Ola,

I sincerely appreciate your personalized replies despite how busy you might be. 

I checked the proficiency level links and I find them really useful for higher levels.

I also received in a separate email some freebies on Helping Verb Lessons. Wow! It's a like a treat. 

It feels like I have joined such a wonderful community with great support system. 

I have a lot of students who actually want me to teach them directly, but I'm kind of hesitant because I don't have my own materials to use and I have no time to create my own lesson plans.

Your materials give me the confidence to embark on my own as a private tutor/teacher because now I have found a wide array of materials I could rely on,  whatever student level I may have in the future. 

You can be assured I'll be your frequent customer from now on :-)

I've been looking for these kinds of materials for a long time. I am home.

I am truly grateful.

Alexandra K.

English Learner

Israel

Alexandra's feedback after reading English Short Stories for Beginners, Level 2 (Translated into English, since Alexandra is only a beginner, and couldn't say all of this in English):

These stories are just right for beginners!

All of the words are simple, and can be read according to their spelling. (Now, that's important since I find general English spelling very complicated for students!)

The book has humor and surprises, which makes it more fun to read.

Also, the word count in every story turned it into a game.

Every time I wanted to read more words. Overall I've read over 2000 words! That's a lot!

I warmly recommend the stories to others who are just starting out!

I very much enjoyed studying these books.

From my own experience (and I think most will agree with me), studying a new language is hard and boring. So people drop out in the first stages, before they start to succeed.

With these stories, I always felt like I'm in a game. It made the hard work easier.

These books are not magic. You still have to work. But you enjoy the work.

I now read better, and know many new words. Moreover, I'm no longer afraid to read.

Before doing the books, the tenses were just a big confusion in my head. Now I see their logic.

I warmly recommend these materials.

Alyona Gromysheva

English Learner

Russia

I’m not a teacher. I work at the University as an Organizational Support Specialist (I support the staff at my Department).

I need your eBooks for myself, as I still have some problems with the correct usage of verb tense forms. I also teach my daughter with them.

These eBooks are amazing! I have looked for such kinds of materials with stories in different verb tense forms for ages!

Anthony Lopez

English Teacher

Portugal

Dear Ola,

Your materials are outstanding – very effective and easy to teach. I must say, the REALLY LEARN ENGLISH website is the jewel in the crown.

I had been using 3 other good ESL website. In comparison, I think the language used here is very simplified for my students.

I love teaching through stories. I write my own. But now due to time constrains I started looking for alternatives. And so, while searching on the internet, I bumped into your website – so glad I did.

At first I took the advantage of trying out some of your free lessons and stories. I couldn't stop looking for more. Without a second thought I bought the whole package and I don't regret I made that choice – good value for money.

Your stories together with the grammar tenses are absolutely brilliant – very entertaining. My students just love it. The simple descriptive language makes it easy to understand and visualize the stories. It has also helped me to fine tune my teaching approach.

Please do not stop creating new materials, especially your stories.

Also I must thank you for your follow-ups and prompt responses to all my queries. You have been very kind and helpful.

I would by far recommend your materials to any teachers and students.

Great work and Thanks a Million!

Anthony Lopez
ESL Teacher (Asia)

Sherry Olson

English Teacher

Spain

Hello Ola,

I have downloaded your Short Stories and have begun to use them in my EFL classes in Spain.

My students love them! I use them with students of all ages and levels.

The Short Stories have become one of my favorite resources.

The stories and activities are ideal! congratulations!

They save other teachers a great deal of time and are interesting for the students at the same time.

Thank you for sharing them with busy teachers!!!!!

Family Cosyn

English Learner

United States

I'm writing to thank you for your wonderful materials.

I've been teaching my mother English (she is Korean, 83 year-old) for years without much success, until I found your website, which I loved instantly, especially your short stories and grammar exercises.

After reading stories and doing exercises from your program, my mother, who almost gave up learning English, started actually speaking! It was almost like a miracle, as she said she had no hope and would never be able to understand and speak English.

Her speaking English, and more importantly, her building self-confidence is much needed, because my parents recently immigrated to the USA. My mother has been feeling frustrated in the foreign soil of America, where she has no friends and she doesn't understand the language.

That's why her speech feels like a miracle for me. She is now so happy to be able to study English and is more eager to speak and study. My father, who was an English professor in Korea, is content too.

Lena K.

English Teacher

Armenia

I like it very much and the students too. They are teenagers.

This is a very good story for their age. Funny and full of nice expressions and words.

We had a lot of fun!

I myself have always been looking for such easy books, and there are not so many of them. So this one of yours is a success.

Carlota D.

English Teacher

The Philippines

Wow, this book is amazing!

Presented in an easy and understandable fashion, the storybook can surely capture the interest of young learners, thereby making English learning fun and easy.

The workbook also contains highly effective exercises for students to work on.

I highly recommend it to English teachers and students alike.

Breda O'Reilly

English Teacher

Perth, Western Australia

In August of 2012, I was asked to help out as a volunteer at the Edmund Rice Migrant Centre in Mirrabooka by teaching English to Migrants.

At first I was just replacing someone who needed two months off. In the end this person decided not to come back, so I was invited to come to the Migrant Centre once a week.

The Migrant Centre does not have a lot of resources, so I had to look for resources myself. I have students from at least nine different countries!

I was delighted to discover "Really Learn English" on the internet.

The stories have been just great. They are not too long. The migrants love the unexpected endings.

At the beginning it took us two lessons to get through the stories!

After 12 weeks of lessons, the students can now read and discuss the stories as well as do the worksheets all in one lesson.

The worksheets are a fabulous resource.

My next great discovery was the grammar resources – English Plural Nouns and the English Helping Verbs course. I couldn't believe there were 15 lessons in the English Helping Verbs course. Everything was a great value for money.

We are now up to the stage where we can do both a reading lesson and worksheets as well as a grammar lesson!

Thank you Ola for such wonderful productions. I will certainly tell others about them.

I'm looking forward to going through the list of resources you sent in your most recent email.

Once again congratulations on producing such wonderful resources.

Deena Epstein

English Teacher

Israel

Ola,

I have been using your Really Learn English program and associated "tips" that come with it.

I am teaching Israeli adults and children to speak English. Some of these students have very little command of English while others are more fluent.

Your prepositions booklet is pure genius.

While teaching prepositions using other methods I have had less than stellar success. The students I have taught using this booklet have "gotten it" so much more quickly. You have the ability to cut to the core of teaching English to non-native speakers. This is a gift.

I also have used your dialogues, having the students read them aloud in order to hear the correct use of tenses. The students have increased their verbal language ability quite a bit and are looking forward to using more of them.

I also want to thank you for responding to "special requests" for more information on a particular subject.

I am looking forward to receiving more materials from your program.

Vanessa

English Teacher

Spain

Hi Ola,

So far we have completed Stories 1 and 2. The students enjoy reading about Emma and Jerry.

For us, the workbook is very helpful. In particular, they really need to practice forming questions, negative sentences and positive sentences as they are instructed in the workbook.

I also like the Essay Writing section, as it uses thought-provoking questions to give them an opportunity to synthesize everything we've been learning.

Thank you for providing us with these very useful materials.

John G.

English Teacher and Learner

Vietnam

Ola,

I have to admit that your course materials are splendid and certainly great.

I have yet to complete all your materials, but so far I have no complaints.

I am sure that by the time I'm done with your materials, my English would have improved by leaps and bounds.

Please keep me in the loop on any new materials as well as updates.

Juan R.

English Teacher

Guatemala

Hello, Dear Ola Zur!

I have been enjoying the Short Stories and workbook. Also, I am using them with my students. They are very happy and found the stories very useful for our process of learning.

Thank you very much again for your excellent materials.

My students say hello to you from Guatemala Central America.

Amalia

English Teacher

Italy

I did the first story and it worked out very well.

The person I used it with isn't interested in reading articles from magazines... She says they're too difficult and gives up easily.

But she enjoyed the story about the gift because it was short and at her level.

She did all the exercises as well!

Thanks for the helping verb course! It's a life saver!

Emi

English Learner

Japan

Hello,

I just would like to say "thank you" to you. I have just started your amazing workbooks and sheets. I'm so happy that I could meet such a great English study tool!

Thank you soooo much!

Jana Seckarova

English Teacher

Slovakia

I’m a teacher from Slovakia. I have used some of your free material that I have downloaded. I found your website by mistake, but when I have checked your eBooks, I fell in love with all of them.

We don’t have anything similar in my country, and actually we do not use these kinds of materials in our classes. So I’m the first, and children love them, and actually even parents are happy that the children can read.

With your eBooks I can check the children's understanding by using the questions in the eBooks rather than translation to our mother language.

Michael T.

English Learner

The stories are interesting and made me learn and have fun at the same time.

The exercises make you practice English easily, and this helps remember how to use English correctly.

Alice L.

English Learner

I do love the stories.

They are so interesting that I can't wait to find out what are happening next.

I am looking forward to having some more short stories.