Great help with listening and employment English

Elllo.org (yes, with three L's) has started something new and interesting - a Flash game that helps you practice your English listening skills and your problem-solving skills.

Here's a great listening exercise that helps you think and practice your "employment English."

Great listening practice this summer...

As a Canadian, one of the things I love about the European Union is that it motivates countries and organizations to work together. To give you an example: take a look at NORTH BY SOUTHWEST, a new radio documentary series that the British Council and Radio Nacional de España are collaborating on.

I especially like the episode about bilingual education - there's some good stuff to think about in there.

Looking for listening practice?

Since next week is going to be a little quieter, I thought I'd start looking for different websites for different....well, stuff. And in the course of researching information about Moodle, I found ELLLO, where you can practise with recordings of people from all over the world, speaking in English.

Very cool. Plus it's a Creative Commons website, which means you're free to download and practise however you want.

Communication isn't just about talking.

Me: What do you want to focus on? Where do you need the most help?"
Student: "I really need to improve my spoken English."

This is a common request, but in my experience, it's only half the problem. Yes, it's important to know that you have to make people understand you. Communicating your message is only 50% of what communication is.

When you speak with people in English, how much do you listen? Do you try to listen actively and show the other person that you're mentally connected to what they're saying?

When you speak in English, do you practice your listening with the other person (or people) you're talking to? Or do you focus on how you're going to say the next thing you want to say?

To be a good speaker, it's fundamental to be a good listener.

"WHEN WE WERE NEARLY YOUNG": Mavis Gallant's short story about Madrid

Canadian novelist Mavis Gallant has lived in Europe since the 1950s, and is famous for her ability to observe and provide incredible detail in her stories. In 1960, she turned her focus on Madrid, in a short story called "When We Were Nearly Young." This a very perceptive view of what "typical" Spanish people were like back then...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/11/12/071112on_audio_nelson

Thanks to Middlebury College's Lena Santillana for this!

Okay, THIS is seriously cool.

I love the Massachusetts Institute of Technology! Not only are they one of the best schools in the States...a lot of their past courses are now available free, gratis and open...online!

Check this one out:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-223-listening-speaking-and-pronunciation-fall-2004/#description

This is a great course for those of you who want to practice your listening and speaking skills for TOEFL...

Note-Taking for TOEFL: 9 November 2010

It's a fact: Students who learn how to take effective, comprehensive notes have a better chance of scoring higher on the TOEFL iBT exam. But how do you manage all that information that comes at you? How do you practice and use the transition vocabulary that shows you how the information is organized? What are the best ways of keeping track of the most important points, so that you can use them on the tasks?

If the TOEFL iBT has got you worried, we have the solution. On Tuesday, November 9th, STOP SPANGLISH will be holding its Introduction to Note-Taking for TOEFL workshop.

In five hours, you'll learn the techniques which will get you through the exam and teach you how to deal with what you'll read and hear:
º Mental warm-ups: How to anticipate what's coming at you
º Ten efficient ways to practice your listening skills
º How to listen for important information - and eliminate what doesn't matter
º The five most effective ways of organizing notes
º Refine your notes to score high on the speaking and writing papers

Cost: €129 (€99 for current STOP SPANGLISH students)
Time: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
REGISTER BEFORE 1 NOVEMBER AND RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF "THE ENGLISH LEARNER NOTEBOOK"!

Remember: Failing to prepare is the same as preparing to fail. Don't let it happen to you!

America's first Muslim college

There's an interesting feature today on VOAnews.com about the first American Muslim college. For those of you who are thinking about studying in the United States, it's worth remembering that many of the colleges and universities which are famous internationally were started by different churches; Harvard, for example, was started by well-off Protestants who settled in the Boston area and wanted a high-level university for their children.

You can listen to (and read) the feature here:
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Americas-First-Muslim-College-Opens-this-Fall-99831529.html

The feature contains some ideas and vocabulary that you might find useful for the listening part of the TOEFL - especially those "not in classroom" discussions that you are tested on.

Listening practice for all you cycling fans!

I have to admit that BICYCLING magazine is not necessarily my favourite magazine about cycling. They recycle articles a little too frequently, and they're extremely biased towards Lance Armstrong (which means that you don't get to hear about other great American riders.)

One positive thing about BICYCLING, however, is that they've recently re-designed their website and added more features like video interviews. Here's an interview with Jens Voight, the German cyclist from the Saxo Bank team. This interview is easy to understand, since Jens's first language isn't English, but at the same time, he speaks really good English, so the interview isn't boring.

http://video.bicycling.com/video/Part-1-Jens-Voigt-Sits-Down-Wit

Enjoy!

Five for free!

Not taking an English class this summer? Not sure how to practice in your spare time?

Here are five ideas that Paloma, Alicia, Concha, Vero and I came up with in class on Monday morning:

Send a company an e-mail. Pick a hotel, a famous British restaurant and an American department store, and ask them questions. You don't have to ask for really complicated information; you could write to ask about prices, opening hours, locations...

Listen to a podcast. If you use iTunes, go to the iTunes store and look up the subject "English language podcast" or "ESL podcast." I just did this, and I got a dozen different downloadable podcasts, all of which were free.

Learn a complete CD of music by heart. Personal suggestions: Amy Winehouse's "Black in Black" (OK, you may not like her, personally, but the songs are easy to sing); soundtracks to musicals like "Hairspray" or "Chicago" (be sure to write down and practice the phrasal verbs and set phrases you hear!). Try to avoid techno-pop or anything like New Order - yes, the songs are fun, but they don't make any sense!

Get a penfriend, or find someone you can practice your written English with! Try these sites:
http://www.englishjet.com/english_courses_files/people.htm
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/meeting/index.pl
http://esl-group.com/list1f.html

Speaking of penfriends...here's a free online reading comprehension exercise you can try: http://esl.about.com/od/beginningreadingskills/a/pen_pal.htm

Help tourists who are lost around Madrid. This is helpful for both you and the tourist: The tourist doesn't have to feel ashamed about not speaking enough Spanish to find where he or she wants to go, and you get five minutes of free English practice! But be reasonable; don't harrass the tourist too much or insist that he talk to you for, like, an hour or something.

There are lots of free websites with exercises and advice. My personal favourites include www.esl.about.com (the pen friends exercise above is from there), the BBC World Service Learning English site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml - check out the photo page that has a picture taken in Toledo!) and www.dictionary.com - especially useful if you want to learn more about the vocabulary you learned in class this year.

Good luck!

Football English

World Cup time is almost here!!

Want an easy way to practice your English listening? BBC Five Live Radio is going to be broadcasting EVERY (yup, all of them!) match of the World Cup, live from South Africa.

You can hear the games for free (in English) by clicking on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/fivelive

BBC Words in the News

Hi everyone...

Sorry to make this a short, quick message, but I'm just checking in between classes. I'll have more information for you tonight (including a quick lesson on past simple and present perfect by talking about the life of actress Lynn Redgrave, who has died today at the age of 67.)

In the meantime, I wanted to share a very useful and informative website with you.

Three times a week, the BBC World Service has a new Words in the News story, which allows you to listen and read to a BBC news story while learning new vocabulary. It doesn't take much time to do - you can listen and read two or three times in five minutes. Plus, if you'd like extra practice with your pronunciation (especially with stressed and unstressed syllables), try reading the words out loud at the same time you listen to them. You'll be amazed at how your listening comprehension improves after two or three weeks!

This week's Words in the News story is about racism in Tintin comics:

http://tinyurl.com/crklkh

Enjoy!