¡¿Porqué no entiendo a los nativos?!

Youtube ahora está lleno de videos explicando porqué cuesta entender a los nativos, y es cierto, cuesta, no están porqué sí. Creo que no hay nadie que diga que les resulta fácil entender a los nativos, lo que es más, incluso profesores no nativos, con buen inglés les puede costar entenderlos. Es así. Lo he contrastado e incluso en el CEF, el famoso Common European Framework en nivel proficiency pone que no se tiene problema en entender ningún tipo de audio teniendo en cuenta que se puede necesitar una adaptación al acento o variedad. 

Vamos a analizar esto un poco algunas de las razones por las cuales cuesta tanto entender a los nativos de lengua inglesa, según mi experiencia conmigo misma y con mis alumnos (adultos).
Tal como vemos en el mindmap lo he clasificado en colores. Hay una parte en rosa de sonidos, pronunciación y fonética. Aquí englobamos:
1. el hecho que hablan muy rápido en comparación con la inmensa mayoría de audios a los que posiblemente hayáis estado expuestos. A mi modo de ver no es que os deberían haber puesto audios "nativos" de buenas a primeras pero es cierto que del aula a la realidad, hay un salto, incluso cuando se escuchan las noticias de la bbc, a veces!
2. las varias variedades del inglés (britanico, escocés, americano, de kenya, de Canadá, de India, de Sudafrica, etc). I dentro de estas variedades, la gran cantidad de acentos que hay. Muchos. Muchos acentos y cada acento pronuncia las vocales de manera ligermente (o no tant ligeramente) distinta.
3. el hecho que el inglés, comparado con otras lenguas latinas, no es silabico. qué significa esto? que en castellano, todas las silabas se pronuncian con similar longitud, todas "cuentan" por igual. El inglés se considera un idioma rítmico, las sílabas tónicas son claras (si sabéis distiguir el sonido vocal) y la mayoría de las otras o todas las otras son lo que llamámos debiles, suenan poco o casi nada y a menudo la vocal ha quedado reducida a un sonido neutro, la schwa. el catalan y el francés tienen algo muy similar pero no el castellano. Estas formas débiles... merecen 4 o 5 horas de clase sinó más!
4. los sonidos... hay sonidos que resultan muy parecidos pero distinguien palabras. Ejemplo hat and hut, heart and hurt and heard. Hay lo que llamamos minimal pairs, sonidos que se asimilan a otros cuando se encuentran seguidos, la pronunciación del -ed etc. Esto merece otras varias clases.
5. el connected speech. El hecho que unimos palabras y para un "untrained" ear, dos o más palabras parecen una sola ...en realidad son una sola secuencia de sonidos que si no se tienen un sólido conocimiento de gramatica y un amplio léxico pueden resultar incomprensibles (hasta que lo veis escrito!)y tambien entra aquí el tema de las contracciones!
6. la intrusive r, the w sound, the j sound that gets inserted between words sometimes. The typical examples for /r/ i law and order  suena como /loranode/ . Esto esta "connected" y con la r que en realidad no está! Como váis a entender si no os ayudan a pillar todo esto por más que sepáis las palabras?!
7. y todo está relacionado con el chunking ... e incluso collocations ---cosa que nos lleva a mi sección verde de Vocabulario (gramatica)

Aquí encontramos:
1. los famosos y nada amados phrasal verbs. Muchos y algunos nada intuitivos. Y si añadimos a esto al hecho que tendéis a pensar que una palabra = un significado, complica más las cosas que los aprendáis.Y los mismo con los modal verbs!
2. idioms y expresiones fijas, muchísimas y mucho más frecuentes que en español, me atrevería a decir.
3. el hecho que si no se tienen un buen conocimiento de vocabulario y gramática y a la vez de pronunciación, cuesta distinguir lo que sabéis de nombres de persona/lugar, palabras realmente nuevas para vosotros.

Hay pocas personas que al hablar a un no nativo tengan una consciencia de que para los no-nativos hay algunos de estos aspectos les puede resultar dificiles. No saben adaptar-se demasiado a menos que ellos mismos hayan estudiado a fondo lenguas estrangeras y aún así, hay un conocimiento pobre de gramática , a diferencia de aquí en España. No aprender "lengua inglesa" en el cole y por lo tanto no necesariamente saben qué es un phrasal verb y que para "ti" esto te resulta díficil.

Esto nos lleva a una parte cultural en amarillo.
1. el sarcasmo e ironia - varía tambien entre paises anglofonos
2. esta falta de consciencia de otros idiomas y a menudo del suyo mismo
3. eufemismos,
4. referencias culurales que si no has crecido en un pais anglofono seguramente no tendrás - esto varía de sitio en sitio.
5. AS far a linguistic culture goes, en inglés se usan muchos adjetivos y adverbios, a diferencia del castellano, en nuestro día a día.

Speech in blue
Lo que llamamos fillers, hesitations, hedges, the use of vague language, false beginnings, etc- Todo esto va de algun modo relacionado con la pronunciación y el léxico y el ser capaces de identificar qué es qué, lo que no es necesariamente fácil a menos que hayáis educado a vuestras orejas a captar y "notice" y deducir qué es qué de manera casi automática, to work out whether xxx 's a grammatical word or just a filler (I am thinking of "kind of" as an example).

formality 
This idea that English is or sounds formal, it is true it can be formal, neutral or informal/colloquial and these spheres are usually signalled by language. require and need, alight and get off, board and get on, further and more, thank you and thanks, prior to and before... are just a few words that  show this formality. Length of sentences is another. The longer it is the more formal it is perceived, if the right language is used, needless to say.


Update: having said all this, I had this reverie while driving back home last night that learners find this difficult but it's partly due to the fact that teachers don't use this as rich language namely for practical reasons, namely for the expressions natives use are often with and among other native speakers in real conversations, Tradictionally we teachers have taught this language (idioms andphrasal verbs) out of a book, lists, fill in the gaps with the right preposition but some teachers use a very very limited number of these expressions. How are learners going to see the expressions in a real situation? HOw are learners' brains going to see the need to acquire them if learners are given and have easier to learn and remember cognates? HOw are learners going to understand native speakers if most of us are not natives and scaffold our teaching for learning-sake, or so we think.

Además... es mucho más rápido que el inglés que se usa en una clase de inglés.

and   http://fasteasyenglish.blogspot.com.es/

Judy Thomson - three secrest of spoken English - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcX2AwH3cG8

I'll expand on this as soon as I can
c

old ramblings to expand on

des 2009
stop thinking word by word in spanish. how the brain works. got to know when to translate and when not
tenses, associate tense and time expression helps, chunks. always or now? finished unfinished? when important?
what they (each) need to know. develop.

i check for confidence
fluency
range of verbs tenses and vocabulary
accuracy

strong or not too strong L2 influence

writing style

Nov 2009
i plan lessons tailored to my clients' employees' needs. they work in almost all the different departments of the organization, which has given me a fairly thourough knowledge of each department and unit. Most of my learners belong to the HR and some Accounts, a few from ICT among others
july 2010
I can be a language traning coach, i can help them with their fears, certain difficultuies are normal, it's reasonalbe to... part of the learning process, shouldnt be put off ...
typical mistakes, loose their fear, it's slow, it takes time to familiariase with a new accent, let alone if it's a brief encounter
dont know sth, just ask, humbleness gets u further than boasting or hidding ...
feb 2011
es normal que s'oblidin vocab si no l'usen
normal que no aprenguin tenses bé si es fan en un dia ..pimpam sense ferlos veure la diferencia de significats ben, tenen
spelling

Some now experience their lack of vocabulary in certain situations. We have spent two three four five years building their grammar with work-related content and examples, building their work-erlated vocabulary and now that they have achieved a decent command of this now, that thanks to having this ability they participate in meetings, courses, etc given in English now they have the need to communicate in more social way than just facilitators or meeting attendees. there are breaks there are parties to go to,
I was fully aware that they would need all that at some point.
there's was no point doing it until they themselves realised the need for that, which it would be when they were able to use english for work-related issues., which is the case now.

primer vols comunicar-te, és igual com per aixo aprendre les functional language is hard.


march 2011
I have this student who says is very keen but when it comes to actually showing up, she doesn't. Or is 15 or 20 minutes late. Then she gets distracted about what is on the table and anyone who passes by. Then starts talking about her latest hobby. I really try to carefully select topics which may be relavant to her and are related to her specific job, as she requested during her needs assessment chat but it's all either boring, or she doesnt want to talk about work or... there's always something to moan about.  I know it's not my lack of ability to choose material as i haven't got this problem with anyone else. Teaching one to one is indeed fulfilling - some may argue it's boring, but i disagree-  but some learners can make the trainers's life a bit hard at times!
Then there's this other learner who thinks speaks fairly good English when it's not the case and doesn't seem to get that she really does not. Hardly no progress.

1.4.2009
No hi posaria la mà al foc que pel fet de tenir com a L1 una llengua rica (fonologicament, morfologicament, etc) faciliti l'aprenentatge d'altres menys riques.
Posaré l'exemple del català i castellà comparat amb l'anglès, que és el que conec millor. El català i castellà són morfologicament no són el que diríem "poc riques", conjuguem els verbs, no ens cal posar el subjecte, afegim un seguit de afixes per formar paraules, tenim els singulars i plurals i els gèneres,etc. L'anglès, parlant en general, no. I tot i això enc costa molt aprendre'l. O és el sistema, o el professorat o el fet que som molts a les aules - si ens limitem a escoles i instituts però no s'aconsegueix parlar bé.
Llavors també hi ha la qüestió de les vocals llargues i curtes, les i  i les o i les a per exemple no són com les nostres. Una altre cosa que els costa aprendre és que els adjectius (davant del nom) no es pluralitzin, la única terminació que s'han d'aprendre en present, la maleïda -s de 3a persona sg i no hi ha manera, i el "say me", ja a nivell sintactic?
Tornant al tema de la pronuncia, jo li dono molta importància, faig anglès a adults i sovint fem unitats de Business perquè han de fer presentacions i anar a reunions, ningú , ni els que es defensen bé en l'idioma sabia pronunciar 'procedures', pocs sabien dir bé 'decision' o 'measure', per dir-ne algunes., i no parlem de les -ed de passat (tots els profes estem farts de sentir luket oi?)  

Per la meva experiència crec que per arribar a un domini de l'idioma sí que cal passar una bona temporada llarga al país on es parla la llengua en qüestió amb la deguda bona predisposició, és clar. De tots és sabut els molts espanyols visquen a Anglaterra que viuen i surten tot junts i no s'esforcen gaire per entrar en contacte amb la cultura local de manera més directe - cosa que és complicada si no domines ja inicialment l'idioma cal dir..., els girs culturals, a percebre sons (s sorda s sonora, i llarga i curta,... ), el to de veu (aquí cridem molt en comparació amb Anglaterra o França per exemple), entens i respectes més paraules per trets culturals molt arrelats a la cultura (quan aquí no en són tant), i un llarg etc
O sigui en resum sí que la dificultat rau en els sistemes fonologics i morfosintactics. Aprenem segons el que tenim al cap, els nostres patrons i els nostres sistemes ja formats, a menys que el teu voltant t'ajudi a consolidar el que t'han intentat fer aprendre i no hi ha hagut manera amb els mètodes tradicionals a l'escola/institut. Us dono un exemple d'una alumne de nivell intermig "i put a little red" em vaig posar una mica vermella. Costa entendre que per això hi hagi una paraula (sonrojar-se, blush) i els és més fàcil traduir-ho paraula a paraula. En fin, uns en podria dir moltes com aquesta i gairebé tots degut a la morfosintaxi.
Però també hi influeix l'aspecte cultural, l'entorn i la societat que parla tal llengua. Pots tenir un anglès perfecte però si parles amb un fort accent espanyol i contestes tal com ho faries en una terrassa o a casa teva doncs hi ha una part de la llengua (i no l'estrictament gramatical) que no encaixa i pot arribar a portar a malentesos.
Salut

Spelling problems

For French and Arabic speakers specially:

If writing is a priority for you:
I have noticed that African francophones and Arabic speakers have difficulty spelling words correctly. Arabic is a very different language from English - treatment of vowels, sentence structure, etc. for example: some write somer for summer, or nait for night.
My assumption is that most of you have learned English at work, so you've heard (more than seen) English. This is normal, as English spelling and pronunciation are not intuitive in most cases.

An awareness of this will also help you pronounce better. If you pronounce better, people will find it easier to understand what you say, you'll feel more confident if they understand without having to repeat (much). In the same way, you'll understand native speakers a bit more easily (although this is not the solution to understanding native speakers!)

To solve this area of the learning process I recommend:

- paying careful attention to how words are spelled
- listening and reading at the same time, again paying close attention to what you hear and what you see.
- try to draw your own conclusions (I hear an u sound but there is oo on paper, for example).
- use dictations resources that I will suggest (englishclub, words in the news from bbc, voanews learning english, ted talks, videos from specific organisations and companies) where you can have access to the transcription so you can check your writing and compare sound and spelling.

REsources
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/
news in English. all the  current affair news come with the transcription. slow and clear and real English. Listen and read carefully a piece of news a few times, then use the audio as a dictation and check.
This website also allows you to double click on any word and you get the MerriamWebster dictionary definition (monolingual).
sometimes you have the transcription on the video, like in Karaokes. Remember, pay careful attention to writing and pronunciation.

https://www.englishclub.com/listening/dictation.htm
explore, easy and intuitive.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/
website is no longer updated. However, there is still all the old material available. Short, very short newsarticles and if you go to box "downloads" on the right hand side of "news stories" . Right click on the "Reports" link to listen to the audio.
Video stories, videos and transcript, and vocabulary, clearly pronounced by the presenter/reader.

http://www.ted.com/
Presentations, with transcripts in different languages, with and without subtitles while you listen. super useful, reliable subtiltles. Use them to compare words and pronunciation. Repeat and repeat.
for example, if you want to hear various presentations on Africa - in general - type it in the search engine and choose. Should you prefer to find out more about the Middle East, go ahead, too. Intuitive.

I'll try to prepare a sort of tutorial to show you how to use these website but workload and not having the tools and software in my PC may delay this (webcast?)

I hope you find this useful.

The more I spend helping adults improve their English, the more I realise that standard book syllabus is not essential. Just deal with needs as they come up. Dealing with their own mistakes and questions feels a lot more rewarding to them than sticking to a carefully planned lesson. Most just want a sympathetic teacher or native speaker to identify and notice words and expressions from and to listen to.
Now that I am planning to overcome a fear and I'll be paying someone to help me, I realise that that's what I a doing with my students.

connected speech and more

http://elt-resourceful.com/2012/10/24/helping-students-with-connected-speech/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-2

online games

lots online games
look childish but repetetive and ok

http://www.eslgamesplus.com/present-perfect-vs-past-tenses-rally/ 

In any teacher trainer workshop or webinar when asked for ideas on a given picture, a given quote, etc there will be a constant flow of ideas coming in from keen teachers willing to have their say, often ideas are mediocre at most compared to what the speaker will enlighten us with but it's ideas, it's a willingness to participating
Put the same situation into a classroom and ideas, the same method, the same show a photo and elicit ideas technique and students go quiet.

Upper-intermediate/Advanced lesson:

Procrastination
film-english-com
+ video from "Tales from mere existence in youtube"

teach v/n/person who...
vocabulary:
get things done
get down to doing
...avoding doing... pattern
(maybe contrast avoid with help and prevent?)
 since I am...
get expressions in the video (youtube) - notice - meaning - classify

L1 and non-native teachers

There seems to be little controversy nowadays about the use of students L1 when common in the class. I've always been a supporter of this as it speeds up the process of understanding rules and creating equivalences when things work out differently in the L1 and target language. Again, this is for adults who have studied English all their lives and they can't seem to get through the stage of only using the present continuous and still get the stay instead of be.
This really makes the process quicker and it sheds light on them.


As a non-native speaker teacher, you
- can better empathise with your learners
- have a clearer idea of what can be tricky for them to learn because you may have gone through a similar process
- know more than one set of grammar rules and find it easier to find examples and provide explanations
- ...

... expand later

cambridge english teacher has a great webinar given by Sylvana Richardson which will resonate with many of you, non-native teachers. Check it out if you have a spare hour.

I became a teacher because...

I became a teacher ...
for selfish reasons.

How can a teacher be selfish?
As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted my job to have an ever-lasting positive impact on the "receiver's" life. I've wanted it to stay with the person so they can benefit from what I do. And the truth is that much as teaching has its challenges, involves a good deal of frustration sometimes, it also involves a great sense of worthiness, satisfaction and fulfilment.
I like it when I can help others with whatever knowledge I have. I wonder what that says about me.

Beginners

To Frustrated teachers
You think you're not measuring up?
you're a bit dissatisfied with your teaching method?
Slow learners? or wrong method?

Before you flog yourself for not succeeding in getting them to learn what you want them to learn and how you want them to learn it, speak to your students, get their feedback. The odds are that you'll feel uplifted by what they say about you. They want results, if there are results, if they feel they are making progress they are likely to be happy with your performance even if they and you think you can perform better.
Try not to be too tough on your teaching skills, on yourself. 

What I do with false beginners is book work plus writing and speaking practice that involves them and their family, friends or colleagues to get them to use the phrases seen. And get them to take one step further. We're doing Jobs, ask them what the people in the photos studied to become xyz and see how much they retain, show analogies with endings as a secondary (or terciary) objective, as an awareness-raising goal.

Ideas with readers:
Readers reading seem to be a task they enjoy. Read at home (listen and read with audio available), go through vocab they lookeed up at home in class, read in class,choose scenes and perform, put illustrations in order (negotiate, discuss),
favorite character, why? describe
favourite scene, why?
summary of book/chapters
author
time it was set in
test their new vocabulary
chronology of events
translate paragraphrs
...

How to improve your listening skills

 How to improve your listening skills (and oral production).  -written three years ago or + I am actually transfering stuff from my howadultslearn wiki onto the blog here.

A lot of students see themselves to be familiar with grammar but they feel stuck with listening, understanding skils. It's a very tricky area. Understanding oral production can be very hard, it's not easy. After a certain age, our phonological system stops being able to produce new sounds (new to our existing sounds). That makes the listening and the production of certain sounds hard, which also has an impact on our listening understanding skills. It's not quick. Yet, it's not only that. The way I see it, if you lack a good grasp of grammar, clearly understanding the difference between tenses so as to get the right idea (ie finished or unfinished), a wide range of vocabulary of the topic you are spoken about and an awareness of connected speech, weak forms, etc it's going to be hard to truely achieve this level of understanding students aim to. I am not saying it's impossible to achieve, I am a non-native speaker myself. Improving your listening, as students says, is achieveable but often slow and it requires training and help in most cases. On top of that there's the primary or secondary school background, a lot of students in Spain have a not nice aftertaste of their school year as far as English goes and they are a bit stuck, blocked more than unable to understand.
So get reading, get listening, get someone to help you polish up and listen out for little sounds that make a world of a difference in the sentence, learn the connectors and conjuctions, not just the key words that help you interpret the general idea but they show you the flow of the utterance. You won't understand if you dont know the language or the grammar, you'll think you understand cos you make two and two together out of the key words you do catch. Make a bigger effort and analyse the whole sentence without being obssessed with it as probably there's no need for it!

See below:

I know of a website which teaches English in Spanish: (i'll translate that shortly): here is a part of a contribution i made to it. This is a bit of a piece of advice for those who find understanding oral production hard:

Al fin y al cabo todos tus seguidores ya tienen la base que les dejaron los profes de rpimaria y secundaria. Creo que es muy indicado explicar conceptos, compararlos.

Hay que entender que para...por ejemplo, listening, para mejorar el listening skill hay que aceptar que es un proceso lento, que require de tener consciencia de los sonidos y de las diferencias entre sonidos, que si no se tiene el vocabulario es normal no entender, y que el cerebro os dará la palabra más parecida que sepáis a lo que oigáis (hoy por ejemplo he hecho un listening con una alumna donde aparecía la palabra "strains" que no conocía y ella ha pensado en "strange"...solo hay un sonido distinto y entendia lo que sabía, no lo que no sabía) ; y que es muy bueno entender la relación entre palabras para captar lo que resulta dificil de captar (weak forms)(pronunciación), aprender vocabulario no palabra a palabra sino en collocations

How to gain fluency

 How to gain fluency -- written three years ago

What do they need to be fluent in another language? The one million dollar question many would like answered. Doing so is not as easy as providing an answer to it. We teachers have reeled off ways and tools and methods, etc that should and would help students gain fluency. Haven't we? But do they? Well yes. But it takes a while.
We have all said that it's as little difficult as trying not to think in your own language and translating word by word! No need to say that in the first place would be having vocabulary enough and the speed to retrieve and use this when you need it. And if they are not quick enough to use what they know you know, having enough strategies, resources to keep speaking coherently while they are digging for the right expression/word. Yes! expression: it's much effective to learn in chunks. I always tell them to try no to learn one word at a time, but the word with the preposition it goes with or the word it usually goes with, ...i'll give you examples later.
In my opinion, unless they have an ok command of the language, exposure to real life, authentic and native speed delivery is usually frustrating! Exposure to stuff they feel you understand most of it, it's pointless to have lots of native input if they have no idea of the words used, pronunciation and the effect of mispronunciation!
It's true that much as pronunciation is important we will all agree that it's not a matter of sounding like a native speaker, as long as what they produce is understandable, it should be fine! there's really no need to speak native-like! specially if they communicate with other non-native speakers. Plus students would certainly agree that it's a lot more encouraging if you speak to other learners with slightly higher levels than you.

More later...

And how do you evaluate speaking?
- with the range of structure and vocabulary they use now as opposed to xyz ago.You can record conversations and months later record a similar one and compare. Alternatively, take notes of the students strengths and weaknesses.
- how quickly they understand what's being said/asked and if they respond accordingly
- how fluent they've become
- what mistakes have been addressed/ corrected
- how much self-correction there is / awareness of mistakes, confidence.


how to become more fluent:
- speak more, listen to real english, meet native speakers and good users (and get corrected). listen and write to help you remember things. take a notebook with you to write down words.
-listen to what native do..: insert expressions, stress words / patterns..
-think in english
-speak to yourself in english
-read out loud
-the more vocab you know and pronounce correctly (therefore can identify at normal speed delivery) the more quickly you'll learn it. the more confident they'll get and as a result eventually more fluent.
-have very clear patterns of use of confusing words (ie. manage to / sth)
-dictations and write expressions they hear.

What linguists and experts and many others often say that the ability to improve your skills at speaking a certain language is gained by speaking may be true for some but I'd dare to say that with the right feedback and corrections and motivation from the teacher (to me, there's nothing like having a teacher up to a certain level). Correction and understanding why structures are the way they are, having the right word or expression for the right context so as long as there is relevant previous exposure to English and correction, in this case ... Many adults want to know and understand their mistakes, both those accuracy- and fluency-oriented students.
Yet some learn to speak by taking a very active role in listening. (it worked well as just by listening for contexts in which a certain word that caught their attention - even if they had never came across the word or expression - you learned it. From my experience, those accuracy-oriented students find dictations a good way of learning to speak, reading out loud may be too, although i am in the process of testing this.

It also helps being familiar with sth, I think it's important to develop an awareness of the process, first being made aware of words, discourse markers, etc, knowing sth exists or sth is said this way or that, and being reminded of it (often). Then identifying it in a utterance, spotting it again and again (as a word, an expression, a phrasal verb..) and associating this words with a meaning according to context (be quick enough to put together the words and the meaning according to where it appears in and the final stages of learning (and at last acquiring it hopefully) using it, and being corrected if not used appropiately.

Lesson of the day for me...as the teacher.
Once again life tells me you can't judge a horse by its teeth. People who seem to be in two different worlds might be closer than you judge them to be.

IATEFL British Council

I have to teach someone who writes like English sounds. He is a spear of Arabic.
ai houp tu si you sun - I hope to see you soon
trai it mor - try it more
samar - summer

Maybe work on your handwriting from Collins will help--not sure it will, having taken a look at the book now.

I'll try writing what he wrote in correct spelling, so that he identifies what he says and hears with the correct spellins.
I will also help him identify patterns of pronunciation.
I'll suggest reading and listening at the same time, with my help first and on his own.

I'll have to find out how to do this because it's going to be a huge challenge.
Any ideas?

Most books are made for people learning english from scratch
yet the reality is that most people have studied english in the past, are somehow familiar with things they can't use and ask the teacher about this when it¡s just another level, usually higher.
how do you deal with this situation?...
(cambridge stepteach talk thornbury)

Connectors advanced levels

advice: http://elblogdelingles.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/4-consejos-para-reescribir-con-exito.html

http://www.eslflow.com/transitionalconnectingandlinkingwords.html            lots lots lots of links!!!!

http://esl.about.com/od/writingadvanced/a/wc_opposition.htm                    + other links

http://www.xtec.cat/~ogodoy/sac/rephrasing/rephrexercises.htm                  click on exercises on the left

http://www.agendaweb.org/grammar/conjunctions-english-exercises.html    lots of links
http://www.agendaweb.org/grammar/conjunctions-connectors-exercises.html  (easy)

exercise online
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2163
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=5348
http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-2/exercise-english-91807.php

CAE level material

http://www.flo-joe.com/cae/students/writing/linking/                   4 exercises CAE level

http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/grammar/4g67-linking-words.php

http://www.learn-english-today.com/lessons/lesson_contents/exercises/linking-words-ex.htm

Create your own lessons with videos from youtube and ted through    http://ed.ted.com/

Sign up, create your own lessons (watch tutorial). I have created a few ones but I don't quite like some of the tools there, but it looks cool and if you have a clear idea of what you aim at and have watched the video a few times, it's pretty straightforward.