In the hunt for perfection
This is a compilation of my ideas and experience on how adults learn English and the odd explanation on tricky areas. Hope it's useful.
Thursday, 15 December 2022
using L1 in class
Tuesday, 8 March 2022
accents
Thursday, 25 March 2021
wonderful pronunciation websites
https://elc.polyu.edu.hk/sounds/lesson3.htm
https://pronunciationstudio.com/uh-vowel-sound/
Thursday, 11 March 2021
More TED talks about English
https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_curzan_what_makes_a_word_real
words, dictionaries
Friday, 5 March 2021
random thoughts
Two weeks ago I went back to teacher development workshops. Oh man, how much I missed those 1-hour, 90-minute talks where you listen to other fellow teachers explains tools they use and to listen about TELF. I lost touch with it when Anna got pregnant with her first child, when all the workshops we went to felt pretty irrelevant except those that IH gave on Fridays, paying. I've also found out about Wordwall which immedately became part of my repository of resources to use in class and outside class.
No only have I attended this handlful of webinars but also been doing a digial-course creation course. Can't say it was easy but I have enjoyed looking at what each click involves.
Webinars all the time, online. Just wonderful. Consequently, this has led me to actually get round to learning how to use all the Microsoft Office 365 package at last. also, this has created the need for a community. I miss Thomas and see how he teachers. He's always been more organised and "systematic" than I have and I am jealous.
On a different note, these few weeks there've been a few clicking moments about French-speaker issues with EFL that might make it easier to teach them. I love it when this happens! Also, I've learned that I've got to find a better way to teach them the present perfect, at low levels.
Monday, 23 November 2020
dictations online - check it out
https://www.cristinacabal.com/?p=7747 dictations
https://www.thoughtco.com/english-dictations-1211740 https://www.bing.com/search?q=dictation+in+english+for+beginners&FORM=R5FD6&ntref=1Friday, 14 August 2020
Depende for Spanish / Catalan speakers.
Subject
(aux (not)) verb + Verb +
on + noun /pronoun
(+
on) + wh- question element (SVO)
(…) the brackets means that the bit in () is
optional -fine if you put it, fine if you don't.
|
Tuesday, 4 August 2020
My students so far today
Another student online: when asked how are you? he says "I am blessed and you" no punctuation marks, by the way. Apparently he's heard it many times. videos about how to answer the question in what I called "international English" instead of this "culturally charged" reply, influenced by their country socialising questions, where religion plays a bigger role than in our more secular Europe.
An near-B1 who wants to be C1 in about 6 weeks.
Monday, 3 August 2020
how to study phrasal verbs- draft
What to look at in order to learn and teach PV more rationally and hopefully more effectively.
subject person or thing
object? separable or not?
with or without preposition- put this up vs put me up, put up with this. and order
meanings, order, and always be very open to other meanings, whether it is is Brit, or Am English and variations.
if what you think you know doesn't fit the context, always check. --> dictionary skills -->how to find the right translation (words and translations, more than words as meaning)
multiple ways to learn them:
by topic - learn them in that context, in that order you see them
by preposotion /adverb, without a context other than examples and explanation
by verb
Thursday, 30 July 2020
off
I have two days free next week meaning two days off.
free in Spanish means libre, like not in captivity; it also means free of charge, without paying.
We use tener un día libre, meaning not to work. so here is the misunderstanding.
Once told that the equivalent expression is take a day off, take a week off, or maybe be off two days, she struggled to understand the idea of off as in not working!
Welcome to English
off is not used just as turn on / turn off
food is off
you are off food
you are off = leave
you are off = you are not working (on a specific day)
time off= free time
take time off= stop working (doing sth for a while)
sth came off = desprenderse
the bomb/ alarm went off = sonó se disparó.
go off to ..= leave for..
head off = leave
etc.
subject person or thing?
what verb does it go with?
context?
Crazy English!
Tuesday, 28 July 2020
understanding, fluency, sounds, pronunciation- draft
futurelearn.com has a great course: English Pronunciation in a global World.
word order and sentence structure
Their brain uses whatever pattern it has and whatever is simpler to retrieve.
ensenyar angles avui en dia a adults que han estudiat anglès tota la vida és desensenyar el que saben o creuen saber - desensenyar mal habits de parla i escriptura.
- a.I usually go b.
I go usually c. usually I go
answers: 1a 2a 3a 4a 5b
Monday, 27 July 2020
reading to improve your fluency
1. Read out loud - (en veu alta, en voz alta, en voix haut)
Another "read out loud" thing you can do is to read out loud the exercises you've done in class, once you know the exercises are correct.
2. Google and other phonetic transcription software
type or paste sentence, or short text on a website with audio /play software and listen and copy. Record yourself reading sentences and see that the more times you say them, the easier it gets to ge your mouth and tongue to produce initially-strange-sounding syllables and words :-)
3. graded readers
- if you are doing verbs from your grammar book, try and identify
them in the text, classify its use (is it present continuous with future
reference, or is it a temporary action?, if it is future: will, going to
or present continuous, why did the author use “going to” instead of
“will”… ) Write your ideas down, on post its and when we have a tutorial
class, we can expand on that.
- Gerunds and infinitives. Want to do, start Ving, like Ving, force
me to, … what verbs need to and what verbs need -ing?
- Prepositions after verbs (and note that if a preposition is
followed by a verb, this needs to be in –ing.
- collocations: words which tend to appear with other certain words. (ejemplo en castellano:
matar el hambre o apagar la sed, verdad que nunca decimos apagar el
hambre?) This is a collocation.
- Verb tenses and their corresponding time references: “ago”always
goes with past simple, “now” goes with present simple and continuous,
“recently” tends to go with present perfect but not present simple, “for”
and “since” go with present perfect (in general)…
- phrasal verbs
- question formation. How are questions made?
- Countable and uncountable nouns and some/any, much/many,
few/little…
- comparisons, reported speech, conditionals, passives… (for level 3
–6)
- etc
Watch this video to find out what this is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnNf_z4LQ7A - a teacher I've just found and it's short and straight to the point. and google for others :-)
Friday, 24 July 2020
culture and hand gestures and face expressions -draft
Wednesday, 22 July 2020
Is this useful? please feel free to share your experience learning English as an adult
specially if you've tried to learn English when younger, not very successfully. This is the profile of learners I have.
Friday, 27 January 2017
ted talks about english
patricia ryan : don't insist on english https://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_ryan_ideas_in_all_languages_not_just_english#t-98197
Judy thomson - the secrets...
Great 5 first minutes - ability to learn sounds, acquire lg as an adult, ages, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti_gFEe1XNY
how to talk like a native speaker, marc green cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge7c7otG2mk
learn a language? speak it as if you're playing a video game marianna pascal cool.
Thursday, 29 December 2016
When you've been learning English all your life, you've been exposed to a lot of English, you can get by in many situatuions but you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over, even when a teacher, a friend, an online tutorial has told you that that is wrong.
- it's important to know that xxx is wrong. If you don't know you won't fix it
- you must become aware of it when you are about to say it / have just said it.
- remember the right way to say it (if you know / remember) and self-correct. and repeat-
it's important to make the association between the wrong and the right thing to say (whether it's pronounciation, a phrase, ...)- hear yourself say it right (aware that that's the equivalent to your xxx) , so say it out loud, hear yourself say the word / phrase.
some things are hard to unlearn but by repeating it the right way, you're telling the brain to stop using the "old" wrong form.
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
mischivous / haitch or aitch ? http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11642588
confusing english pronunciation http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150605-your-language-is-sinful
20 most confusing words in english pronunciation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CBLBr2o60
macmillan phonetics
john wells phonetics and pronunciation blog http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com.es/2010/12/comment-is-free.html
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
and for French speakers learning English:
- Lisez les conseils: http://www.anglaiscours.fr/conseils-pour-ameliorer-son-anglais + https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz3efoLoIqr81a0PDpu_pU5DXyhkATaUU
- Soyez curieux. Familiarisez-vous avec le site web. Cherchez d’autre materiel sur autres sites par example.
- Familiarisez-vous avec la formation d’une frase anglaise, la fonction et utilisation des auxiliaires. Si vous avez les bases solides, tous les autres niveaux vont etres plus faciles à suivre. http://www.anglaiscours.fr/construire-phrases-anglais.html
- Annotez votre vocabulaire, lisez ce que vous faites souvent (révision espacée ci-desous). Ecoutez tout ce que voyez ou cherchez. La prononciation et l’orthograph sont un nightmare, alors faites attention!! http://www.anglaiscours.fr/memoriser-rapidement-du-vocabulaire-grace-au-systeme-de-repetition-espacee.html