Daily Lessons / blog posts

“I just need to speak more.” 

I hear that a lot.

My reply, “No, you don’t.” Read More >

I have a friend in Prague who teaches people how to quit smoking. 

“How did you quit?” I asked him one day.

“I read a book,” he told me.  Read More >

“What are doing in Bansko?” asked a Bulgarian student with a surprised look on his face. 

“Working and skiing,” I replied. 

And when I’m neither working nor skiing, I’m travelling.  Read More >

Yesterday I taught you the difference between “original” and “traditions.” 

If you write a song, it’s an original song: there’s no other song like it in the world — it’s unique. 

If you use your grandmother’s recipe to bake a pie, it’s a traditional dish in your family.  Read More >

I travel a lot.

And everywhere I go in Europe I see this mistake:

Here it is again Read More >

A reader from the former USSR writes: 

“Before I thought that school methods are only used in USSR, but now I see this is a worldwide problem.”

When I was a kid in the ‘80s, if you wanted to reject a classmate’s idea and do it with style, you questioned the origin of that idea.  Read More >

In the future, will the robots take your job?

Will they take my job?

That’s the big topic this winter. Read More >

Before there was Friends…

Before there was The Simpsons

Even before there was Dallas… Read More >

I just checked yesterday’s Vit V comments on my blog. 

Did you see it?

Yesterday’s Vitamin V got a 3.7 rating! Read More >

STUDENT: I want you to correct my mistakes.
MR. VIG: Unfortunately, that doesn’t work.
STUDENT: But I do a lot of mistakes.
MR. VIG: Make… You MAKE a lot of mistakes.
STUDENT: Yes. That’s right. So please correct me when I do a mistake. 

Students always ask me to correct them. 

When I tell them it doesn’t work they look at me like I’m telling them the earth is flat.  Read More >