Catch Stressed Words to Improve Listening
If you have problems in understanding what people say in your listening, either in face-to-face conversations or when listening to recorded material, why not try using word stresses to help you.
Author: Marc
You Still Haven’t Updated the Blog Yet
The adverbs ‘still’ and ‘yet’ are similar in some cases but also very different. For Japanese learners of English they can translate to the same word, and this can cause difficulty. You’re still here? You haven’t given up yet? Read on.
Links: Sites for Extensive Reading
What is Extensive Reading? It’s the kind of reading you do where you choose the things you read, not your teacher, and you decide how quickly to move on. Here are a collection of sites for Extensive Reading:
English for Activists
Sometimes you need to use English for a problem. A lot of the time the problems you need to deal with are small. Unfortunately, sometimes they are large problems. When your problems are so large that you want to do something to solve them, you might need to use English. It is, for better or … [Read more…]
Highlight Speech
In today’s podcast I talk about how you can highlight your speech, in much the same way as you could by making written words bold, italicised or by highlighting text.
Links
Phil Wade’s 10-Minute Intro site is great for Business English teachers, which most freelancers are, naturally. You should give it a look. There is a great Dogme book and an interesting Sustainability one which is essential for those jumping in to freelance/agency teaching.
Audio Diaries Give You Speaking Practice
The other day I was teaching an upper-intermediate student who had difficulties presenting her ideas about a process. She said she finds writing much easier than speaking. “You should start an audio diary,” I suggested. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Links
I know that I haven’t put up a podcast in a while; I am working on something that I hope is really cool. In the meantime, here is an interesting podcast for intermediate speakers and higher. I particularly recommend it for TOEFL or IELTS students but anybody who likes philosophy or thoughts about life should … [Read more…]
How to Test Your Progress
There are so many different standardised tests available to test your English skills: the Cambridge certificates, TOEIC, TOEFL, IELTS, BULATS and, here in Japan, the Eiken/STEP test. For a lot of people, these tests are pointless. If you need the certificate to get a job or a college place, go for it. If not, read … [Read more…]
Answering Questions With Questions
One of the first things students are taught when they are learning writing skills is not to answer questions with further questions. In conversations, however, it does happen.