For English paper piecing, you take a piece of card stock thickness paper, and put a piece of fabric on it. You then wrap the edges of the fabric around the card stock (thread to hold in place). I'm working on hexagons, so I have this fabric hexagons with paper hiding in the middle. I then take 2 hexagons, put them on top of each other, and sew a side of them together (fabric only). You open them up, and now 2 hexagons are attached, yay. The paper stays in and gives it thickness and holds it shape.
"Normal" paper piecing, you have a piece of paper (and this one you want to be more lightweight) with a design printed on it. It usually has numbers. I pin a piece of fabric over the #1 section. I then take the fabric I want for the next section, and I put it on top of the #1 fabric. I sew along the line on the paper. Then I iron fabric 2 open. Then I put fabric 3 on top, sew along the connecting line, iron, and tada. This one you're building a quilt block on the paper, backwards.
Did that make sense? :mrgreen: