Guess the accent

Do you remember the listening exercise we did about different accents? I’ve just come accross something I thought it might be useful and entertaining. This is the link.

ELLA: English Language Lab Asturias

I  strongly recommend a BLOG made by three teachers (and great friends) from EOI Luarca, EOI Mieres and EOI Oviedo. There you will find lots of things designed specifically for students of English at Schools of Languages. I don’t want you to waste your time reading this: Just go there and enjoy English!

The link is also available in the BLOGROLL.

The reason why English is sometimes difficult or how to improve your pronunciation

I definitely think that we are going to get it! Speaking English fluently and correctly will no longer be a problem for us.

I’ve just come across a very interesting post in a weblog for students of English. I highly recommend you read it. You’ll undesrtand why Spanish students of English say that native speakers of English “don´t pronounce all the words” and that it seems that “they swallow syllables and words” when talking. The reason is that English is a stressed-timed language, which basically means that not everything is pronounced with the same stress. If you read the article you’ll get a “more professional” explanation. But, do not forget the examples: listen to the sentences in the section How to Improve your Pronunciation and how they are read in two different ways. Everything will come clear to you!

Click here and have a good time improving your pronunciation.

Pronunciation games

Never again will you say that English is a difficult language! There are lots of web pages for us to improve our pronunciation and to have fun with it.

To practice the different phonemes, click here. And if you want to have a good time with stress , don’t forget to try the Stress Monsters game.

‘He who has two languages has two souls’…

I can’t remember who said that, but I think it’s true and that it is the main reason why we feel akward when we speak a foreign language. We feel self conscious when we hear ourselves uttering foreign sounds or using different intonations. We sound “different”, not ourselves and this can be a little bit embarrasing. But it is a feeling we have to fight if we want to speak other languages, communicate with people from other cultures and get to know them. It’s just a question of resorting to our sense of humour, of being able to laugh at ourselves, I think. We don’t have to be word-perfect, nobody is, not even native speakers so although I agree that we have to aim high in order to achieve results, there’s also the danger of aiming too high, unrealistically so, as this can only lead to failure …

I think that as with everything in life, practice makes perfect. The more you speak, the more confident you will feel, the more used you will get to yourself speaking English, to your “other soul” …

So, my advice is: relax, use your English as much as you can: read in English but read things you find interesting, listen to English, watch films or TV shows you like, speak in English, write in English (here in this blog for instance): do things you enjoy doing and do them in English, and don’t worry too much about getting a perfect accent or being totally accurate, after all you can have a successful Hollywood career without that!

clj

Public Speaking Skills

Speaking in English is, for most of us, one of the most demanding things. As advanced students of English you are expected to talk fluently and in such a way that not much effort is required from the listener to understand you.

You are expected to give clear, systematically developed descriptions and presentations, with appropriate highlighting of significant points, and relevant supporting detail. You are also expected to give clear, detailed descriptions and presentations on a wide range of subjects related to your field of interest, expanding and supporting ideas with subsidiary points and relevant examples.

When you are taking part in a conversation you are expected to communicate with some confidence on familiar routine and non-routine matters, to exchange, check and confirm information, deal with less routine situations and explain why something is a problem.

I understand that reading this can be distressing, but if we don’t set ourselves high standards we´ll never improve and, we want to improve, don’t we?

You can  download and print a PDF document which gives you ideas on how to prepare a short speech and a checklist of things to be taken into account.

PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS

This and that

What is listed below is a series of sites, not neccessarly connected with studying, but which can be useful just to enjoy English.

If you ever come across something useful, interesting or entertaining, do please tell us!
BBC: subscribe to it and get up-to-date news everyday.
Dave’s café: The Internet’s meeting place for both teachers and students of English around the world.
Guide to Grammar and Writing: Practice your grammar on line. It’s grammar but doesn’t look so.
Online English Grammar: Impossible to explain in a few words. Just try it, I’m sure you’ll find something useful.
Manythings: Vocabulary, grammar, proverbs, spelling, podcasts…
Englishlearner: Online English lessons and tests at all levels.

Correct pronunciation?

No doubt pronunciation is one of the most difficult things for Spanish learners of English. How can they possibly distinguish the vowels? It’s definitely hard but… IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING!

Visit this site, click on the different phonemes, pay attention and good luck!