Why write?

Good question. Why do students hate writing?

• It takes time to learn how to do well.
• It's not something that comes easily to most people. We grow up learning how to talk, but we have to learn how to write. We can make sounds as soon as we're born, but we can't write anything until we have an idea of how language works, and we can make our hands and eyes work together.
• There's the idea that you can't take the mistake back. If you make a mistake when you speak, the mistakes only exist as long as other people remember it. When there's a mistake on paper, it's there, and feels more permanent.

If you hate writing, remember these ideas:

• Anthropologists think that humans have been using spoken communication for over 100,000 years, but we've only had writing for something like 6,000 years. It's not something that we just automatically DO. (Thank you, David Crystal.)
• Writing is hard for everyone. It's hard for native speakers of English, too.
• Avoiding things you hate doesn't make them easier to do. If you avoid writing, you're just making the problem worse.
• No amount of excuses will ever make writing go away. Even if you hate writing with a passion, complaining and moaning and whining and belly-aching and bitching and crying and sulking will never, ever make writing disappear.
• It's all right if you don't write as well as a native speaker does. You just need to know how to write to get what you need. (Remember the key: Language is a tool to get what you want.)
• Writing may not be spontaneous, but that's good, because it means that you have more time and opportunity to say exactly what you want.
• If you make a mistake when you're speaking, you can't take it back and make it perfect. When you write, you DO have a chance to fix what you created.

It's your choice.

New for 2011-2012...

The Tour de France finishes today, which means that the summer is almost over. And since the summer is almost over, that means that the school year's almost here, which means that teachers have to start planning and preparing for September. (Yeah, I know... depressing, isn't it?)

There are a couple of changes that I need to inform students about, so if you're going to be returning to class this fall, or would like to start classes this year, here's what you need to know.

a) Prices: Starting from September, the prices for classes are:

Classes via Skype: €19 per session.

Face-to-Face Classes: €22 per hour if we do them at Stop Spanglish.

Face-to-Face at Your Place:€27 per hour, minimum 90 minutes.

(If you sign up for Skype classes before August 25th, the price still stays at €15, but goes up in September.)

b) To make sure we all understand the same things about HOW we do the classes, Mar has graciously helped me create a Terms of Service agreement that every student will be required to sign before we start classes. Don't panic. It's basically a list of things that I owe you as a teacher and guidelines of how we're going to do business together. When you start classes and begin your training plan, you'll get a copy of this, personalized for you.

As always, if you have any questions, let me know!

Sound...NOT Spelling!

When students learn English pronunciation, it's sometimes hard for them to understand that sometimes there's no direct relationship between the way you pronounce a word and the way you spell it. This joke, which is currently circulating around Facebook, illustrates that problem perfectly: sometimes, it's easier to think of the sounds you need to create a word, rather than the letters.

Some doctor on TV this morning said that the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. So I looked around my house to see things I'd started and hadn't finished.
Then...I finished off a bottle of Vodka, a botle of Baileys, a bodle of wum, a pock of Prungles, an a boc a choclez. Yu haf no idr how bludy fablus I feeel now.
Plaese sned dhis orn to dem yu fee ar in ned ov iennr pisss lol lol

Cheers! Happy Friday, and if you drink, don't type.

Mobile phones in the classroom? The answer is yes!

Once upon a time, I hated it when students brought their cellphones to class. Ten years ago, if students brought their phones to class, it was only for two reasons: a) because they were scared of their manager and had a difficult job where they needed to be available all the time, whether they wanted to be or not; or, more likely b) because they really believed that a call from Mamá, saying, "Buy bread!" was more important than class time was.

Things have changed. First of all, not many companies are offering free classes to their students anymore. People who didn't behave themselves in classes have not been given more classes. (There's an economic crisis, dammit!) The best reason, though, is because phones can do so much more than they could in 2001. As a result, I want to learn some new things, too, especially how to welcome phones into the classroom. Here are three reasons to keep that phone on while you're learning.

Don't write it down - take a photo! Even the cheapest mobile phone now has a decent camera on it. If you find it hard to take notes AND take part in the class at the same time, use the camera on your phone to record what's being written on the board. (I do this a lot when we have a class with a lot of grammar, and there's something I want to remember.)

Keep track of your homework assignments and exam dates with a notes application. I use Evernote because I can link it in with Gmail, and it can use the camera's capabilities

Use an online dictionary like Dictionary.com, instead of a paper dictionary. I'm not sure if Oxford has any plans to release a free app of any of their dictionaries (wouldn't it be great to have the Advanced Learner's Dictionary for free on your iPhone and save €45?) but you can get Dictionary.com for free, and I'm sure that there are probably many other reference books available through Android and iPhone (I've got a Blackberry, which has lots of good stuff but not any of the big publishers. Not for free, anyway.)

Before I forget, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary is now available, totally free, through the Oxford University Press website.

Obviously, there are some things you still shouldn't do with a phone. You won't be permitted to bring any kind of telephone into an official exam, such as First or TOEFL, and it would be very unwise to do that with a school exam. Turn the settings to SILENT so that you don't disturb anyone, don't take phone calls in class (if you need to take a phone call, let your teacher know before class starts and be subtle about learning) and be careful how much texting you do in class. After all, you ARE in class for a reason!

No one gives you the title.

One of the reasons why exams like TOEFL and First are so appealing is that you GET something at the end of the process. You study, you do the exam and, if you do it well, you get a piece of paper at the end. Congratulations! You are now "X".

That may be why it's hard to study English when you don't have a clear goal. You can study English and say you're studying English, and there's nothing wrong with that. It seems more REAL, however, if you have something in mind.

Here's a thought: What about studying English so that you can say, with confidence, "I am an English speaker"?

Go ahead. Try it. I am an English speaker. I am an English speaker. I am an English speaker.

I have no authority to tell you whether you ARE an English speaker or not. Only you can do that. Cambridge can't do it. ETS, the people who offer the TOEFL exam, can't do that. They can give you a piece of paper that estimates your level once you're done the exam. But they have no way of knowing what you're going to do with that English once the exam is done.

No one gives you the title of "English speaker". Only you can do that for yourself.

New website!

So....I've finally gotten organized and have set up a little website to advertise Stop Spanglish's services. It's not much...YET. I still have to figure out what I want to do with the content and the organization, so it's still pretty basic. The full website should be up and going by September.

How NOT to learn English - the video

How not to learn English. I couldn't have said it better myself...

What to do about place names

I've seen this sign around Madrid for several years now, and it never fails to bother me. Why? "Gran Vía Street" is redundant. A "Vía" is a kind of street, so it doesn't make any sense to say it twice.

Generally speaking, you do not need to translate place names. The Plaza Mayor is the Plaza Mayor. Cibeles is Cibeles, not Cibelle Place. If an English speaker asks for directions, say the name in Spanish. That's what's printed on the maps the Tourism Office gives out.

What level are you? And how do you know?

Six or seven years ago, when I was teaching at AXA Insurance, one of my students had to hire an administrative assistant with a "good" level of English. Problem was, when he had to do the job interview, he found that most of the candidates spoke a little bit of English, but not much. They'd have enough English to survive in a bar or supermarket, but not much beyond that.

"Well," I said, "what do you mean by 'good' English?"

"Good!" he shouted. "You know, good, as in...good?"

"You need a better description than 'good'," I said. "Everyone thinks they speak 'good' English, the same way they think they make a 'good' tortilla española, or that their mother is a 'good' person."

The problem with words like "good" (as I've said before) is that it's an extremely useless and inaccurate word. That's a problem for managers, who may need employees with specific English skills, or for job candidates, who want to show how much better their English is. For more people, however, that's a problem. If they haven't done any kind of English exam, such as the First or TOEFL, how can they show what they can do?

Here's one way. If, in the past few years, you've had to use an English textbook, take a look at the back. There should be a code listed on the back with a letter (A, B or C) and a number (either 1 or 2.) That code will tell you where you are, more or less, on the European Common Framework of Languages - the EU system of showing where students are, depending on what they can do.

This description, from the Oxford University Press, gives a pretty basic background into the history of the Common Language Framework, and how it works for all languages, not just English. (So if you're also studying French, German, Italian or any EU language, there'll probably be a similar code on your materials.) To make the description even more basic, here's a quick summary.

If you're A1, you're a total beginner. You had little or no previous knowledge of the language before you began taking classes.

If you're A2, you're more than a beginner. You can talk about yourself, you can ask for basic products and services and you can have simple conversations.

If you're A2/B1, you can speak more or less clearly about yourself, but having a detailed conversation may give you trouble. You might have one specific skill, such as listening or writing, that gives you trouble. If you're in Spain, you know that you have enough language, but you know that you don't have enough English to survive in an English-speaking country

If you're B2, your skills are advanced enough that you could survive in an English-speaking job, or with an English-speaking family, without too much trouble. You might not have enough language to do anything really complicated, like negotiate, but you could present an opinion about a topic, solve a problem with a friend or co-worker, and listen to a short lecture or radio show without too much trouble. (This is the level of competence that you need to pass the First Certificate.)

If you're functioning at the C1 level, you're doing pretty good! You've probably spent a lot of time with native English speakers, or you've lived in an English-speaking country. Watching movies or reading books might take you longer than it would for an average native English speaker, but you're comfortable in most social situations; you have enough language to find a solution to a detailed problem, and you could probably read a longer magazine article or take part in a university class without too much trouble.

If you've worked your way up to the C2 level...congratulations! You're practically the same as a native speaker of English! Now, no one's going to confuse you with a native speaker, but you can probably do most of the things that a native speaker could do without too much trouble.

Obviously, this is a HUGE simplification of the system, and if you'd like a more detailed idea of what people can do at each level, the Association of Language Teachers of Europe Can-Do Document has a much better description than the one I've provided here.

So give yourself a grade -- it's much better than simply saying "I'm good"!