100 Ways to improve your English

A few weeks ago Jeffrey Hill, the person behind The English Blog, started a number of posts under the title 100 Ways to Improve Your English.

Originally, Jeffrey intended to "post each 'way' to the blog as I finish it", having published six posts so far:

no 1 way was on Twitter.
no 2 way was on Podcasts.
no 3 way was on Language Exchange sites.
no 4 way was on Listening to the radio.
no 5 way was on BBC Learning English.
no 6 way was on Vocabulary.

At this stage the series of posts stopped because Jeffrey came up with new plans, which you can read about here.

Listening test: Travel baggage free

Listen to a report on an ingenious idea on how to reduce the luggage we carry when travelling. Complete the blanks in the sentences with up to THREE WORDS.  Numbers count as one word. 0 is an example.

Source: Deep English

0 Example:
The best part of knowing English is that our foreign language skills and the experiences we acquire with it require no extra baggage.

1 These days airlines get money from us by ____________________ that used to be free, like checked baggage

2 During a recent trip to Indonesia, Saudi king Salman bin Abdul Aziz brought ____________________  of baggage with him.

3 On his trip to Africa in 2013 Obama travelled, he brought along 56 vehicles including 14 limousines and hundreds of ____________________ .

4 The ____________________  can hold up to 15 kilograms of personal belongings with room to spare.

5 To look like a regular traveller with a bag, you can _________________ off as soon as you board the plane.

6 Travel writer Jonathan Yevin used to tear out and _________________ the pages of his book as he read them.

7 An immigration officer asked Jonathan whether he was planning to run around ____________________ when he had to wash his clothes.

Learning English takes time and effort. For most of us, the payoff comes when we hit the road. And the best part is that our foreign language skills and the experiences we gain using those language skills require no extra baggage.
These days airlines squeeze us for more dollars by charging for things that used to be free, like checked baggage. But for some people, money is no object. During a recent trip to Indonesia, Saudi king Salman bin Abdul Aziz brought 506 tons of baggage with him. This included two Mercedes-Benz limos and two electric elevators. It wasn’t all personal baggage. He travelled with about 1,500 people, including 25 princes.
To be fair, the Saudi king is not alone in his extravagance. When Obama travelled to Africa in 2013, he brought along 56 vehicles including 14 limousines and hundreds of security personnel.
While kings and presidents don’t have to worry about baggage fees, more frugal travellers are looking for ways to avoid the extra costs of excessive baggage. You can now buy a jacket that has 14 large pockets to carry all your travel needs. The ‘Airport Jacket’ holds up to 15 kilograms of your personal belongings with room to spare. It allows you to avoid the hassle and cost of airline checked baggage fees. Of course, wearing your baggage is not the most comfortable or fashionable choice. For people who prefer not to look like a smuggler, it also transforms into a bag with a shoulder strap. As soon as you get on the plane and take the jacket off, you’re just a regular traveller with a bag.
There is an even easier way to get around airline baggage fees: carry nothing. Travel writer Jonathan Yevin spent a month traveling around Latin America with simply the clothes on his back, a toothbrush, a passport, a credit card, a small digital camera, and a cell phone. He also carried one book from which he tore the pages out as he read them and threw them away. Yevin says, “One of the best things about traveling is that you get to leave your home and all the stuff that drags you down.”
They say traveling light is the only way to fly. But it doesn’t come without problems. Jonathan’s lack of luggage looked suspicious when passing through immigration. One immigration agent asked him, “What about washing clothes? Are you gonna run around my country naked?”
Regardless of how you choose to travel, one thing is certain: the English skills you bring with you and the new experiences you get speaking to real people along the way are, without a doubt, baggage free.

KEY:
1 506 tons
2 charging for things
3 security personnel
4 airport jacket
5 take the jacket
6 throw away
7 his/the country naked

Talking point: Learning English

This week's talking point is learning English. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

What foreign languages have you studied?
What languages do you know at least a few words in? What can you say? How did you learn these words?
Why are you learning English?
How long have you been studying English for?
What English courses have you done before this one?
Why are you studying English at this school?
Have you ever been to an English-speaking country?
Can anyone in your family speak English really well?
How is your English in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar?
How is your English in terms of speaking, listening, writing and reading?
What can you do to improve these different aspects?
What do you really do to improve?
What opportunities do you have to practise/use English outside the class?
When was the first time you used English outside a classroom?
How successful were you?
What’s been your best moment as an English speaker so far?

To illustrate the point, watch the Allegro Christmas ad.
Do you think this is a good way to study a foreign language?

Extensive listening: 4 reasons to learn a new language

English is fast becoming the world's universal language, and instant translation technology is improving every year. So why bother learning a foreign language? Linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shares four alluring benefits of learning an unfamiliar tongue.

You can read the full transcript here.

A tongue-twisting poem

Back in 1922 Dutch poet, traveller and teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité wrote a poem, The Chaos, to test a person’s English pronunciation.

For Gerard Nolst Trenit, only a true Englishman can pronounce all of the words in the poem, which contains around 800 bizarre irregularities in the English language.

Self-study activity:
Try to read the poem first without listening to the recording. Then listen to the recorded version to check how good your English pronunciation is. Finally, shadow-read the poem, that is, read the poem while listening to it at the same time.



Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rime with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth,

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.
Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Crevice and device and eerie.

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

Extensive listening: B Is for Book

B is for Book is a BBC documentary following a group of primary schoolchildren over the course of a year as they learn to read.

We can see how even at this early age, some children make a flying start, while others struggle even with the alphabet.

The film takes us into their home lives, where we find that some parents are strongly aspirational, tutoring children late into the night, while others speak English as a foreign language, if at all.

As the children master the basics, they discover the magical world of stories and look with fresh eyes at the world around them.

The film gives us privileged access to a profound process that all of us only ever do once in our lives.

Talking point: Learning English

This week's talking point is learning English. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• In how many languages can you have a basic conversation in (to order a meal or to greet people)?
• What languages do you have a good grasp of?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of learning a language using these methods?

being immersed in the language/culture

studying grammar and vocabulary

attending a language school

keeping in touch with people who speak the language through social media and new technology

• Do you know any other ways of learning a foreign language?
• Which ones have you personally tried?
• Which one has really worked for you?
• How often do you hear foreign languages where you live?
• How important do you think memory is to learn a foreign language?
• What do you want to be able to do with English?
• How far away from that objective are you at the moment?
• Do you ever review what you have learnt?
• How often do you watch or read things in English?
• How often do you communicate with native speakers?
• Do you keep a small notebook to note down and revise new expressions?
• Are you subscribed to any podcasts that you listen to while you are doing housework or travelling or waiting?
• What are you doing to learn English at the moment?
• Are you having any problems with English at the moment?
• Do you enjoy learning English?

To illustrate the topic you can watch this video about Memrise, a new system to learn a foreign language.

Comma Queen

Comma Queen is video series published by The New Yorker.

In 25 episodes Comma Queen (Mary Norris) explains a number of controversial and difficult grammar points. The series includes videos on “I vs me”, “which vs that”, "dangling participle", "singular their", "prepositions", "less vs fewer", "who vs whom", and so on. It also explains the correct use of punctuation.

The videos are concise, clear, and come complete with examples.



Mary Norris also delivered the talk The nit-picking glory of The New Yorker's Comma Queen at TED early this year.

You can read the full transcript here.



H/T to Lesson Plans Digger.

Talking point: Language learning

This week's talking point is languages. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

When did you start learning English?
How long was it before you could hold a conversation in English?
When did you first put your learning into practice?
Have you progressed as well as you expected?
Have you even been immersed in an English-speaking country?
How important is it to you to speak accurately?
What level of competence would you like to attain eventual?
In your experience, are native English speakers good at speaking second languages? Why / Why not?
Apart from English, what's an important second language in your country? Why is it important?
Do you speak this language? Is it widely spoken? Why / Why not?


Interaction
How can these factors have an impact on second language learning?

the right mentality

financial limitations

distractions

opportunities for interaction

first language interference

natural competence

the prestige of knowing a second language

To illustrate the topic you can listen to this BBC recording on the difficulties Britons have to speak foreign language and polyglot Susanna Zaraysky's opinion on how to best learn a foreign language.

Listening test: Canadian citizenship

Listen to this CBC radio programme on Canadian citizenship and choose the option A, B or C which best complete each sentence.


1. To get the Canadian citizenship, newcomers
A. are required to have lived in Canada for 4 years.
B. must be between 18 and 54.
C. must have a specific level of English.

2. In Ermias Yoseph’s opinion, meeting the requirements is hard for immigrants because
A. a large number of them are not educated.
B. of their age.
C. they are living in difficult conditions.

3. In the past, immigrants
A. didn’t have to prove their knowledge of English.
B. didn’t have to do any tests.
C. had to prove their knowledge of Canadian culture.

4. Ermias Yoseph says that
A. some immigrants will never meet the requirements.
B. the requirements are fair.
C. the requirements don’t make any sense.

5. Ermias Yoseph also says that some immigrants
A. are making a great effort to learn.
B. can’t find work because they don’t have the citizenship.
C. don’t have the time to attend school.

Every year, about 170,000 immigrants to Canada become citizens. But becoming a citizen has become increasingly difficult. In 2010, the federal government changed the citizenship test, requiring a higher score to pass and making the questions more challenging. Then, in November of 2012, the rules were changed again so that newcomers between 18 and 54 must prove they have a Canadian Language Benchmark score of four before they can apply for citizenship. In this interview, Terry MacLeod interviews Ermias Yoseph of Welcome Place about how these changes are affecting newcomers in Manitoba.
How hard is it for newcomers to reach this benchmark level of four?
Considering the background where most of these refugees come from it’s very hard because most of our clients because of unfortunate circumstances did not have an opportunity to go to school or to get a formal education and now to require them to obtain a benchmark level of four and above is very hard for them.
How did it work before these rules came into effect?
Before these rules came into effect you didn’t have to have a required benchmark level as long as you have adequate knowledge of Canadian history and you are able to communicate in English you can and then as long as you’ve lived for about three years in Canada, you are able to apply. It was not mandatory to have a benchmark level of four and above.
Is it fair though to expect people to have a certain level of English in order to function in Canadian society?
I understand the reasoning behind this requirement. It’s a to allow or to assist newcomer families, including refugee newcomers, to be able to communicate effectively or to be able to find work easily. But it should also be understood that most of these refugees did not have a formal education. Some of them never went to school in their lives. So it’s very difficult for them to attain that. Some may not ever, may never be able to attain the benchmark level four, so considering those facts, I don’t think it’s fair for refugee families.
Now the government says the rules are in place because better English leads to greater work success for newcomers. Are these rules encouraging people to work harder because they aim for a benchmark level of four, and therefore they say, I’m going to get that, I’m going to work really hard?
Some of these people actually from the time they arrived in Canada, they’ve been attending school. They realize that it’s important for them to know the language or to have the language skills in order to be successful at work. They’ve been attending school, I know …, they’ve been attending school since they came to Canada, they’ve been working, they know that it helps but the same time, it’s also bringing some obstacles for them to be able to apply for Canadian citizenship but it’s an ongoing problem. 

KEY:
1C 2A 3C 4A 5A

How did English evolve?

What is the difference between "a hearty welcome" and "a cordial reception"? In a brief, action-packed history of the English language, Kate Gardoqui explains why these semantically equal phrases evoke such different images.

Drop by Ted-Ed and go over the Think section of this lesson to do a comprehension check based on the video. You can also click on the Dig Deeper section to get to know further resources to explore the topic with.



I am going to start with a challenge. I want you to imagine each of these two scenes in as much detail as you can.
Scene number one: "They gave us a hearty welcome."
Well, who are the people who are giving a hearty welcome? What are they wearing? What are they drinking?
OK, scene two: "They gave us a cordial reception."
How are these people standing? What expressions are on their faces? What are they wearing and drinking?
Fix these pictures in your mind's eye and then jot down a sentence or two to describe them. We'll come back to them later.
Now on to our story. In the year 400 C.E. the Celts in Britain were ruled by Romans. This had one benefit for the Celts: the Romans protected them from the barbarian Saxon tribes of Northern Europe. But then the Roman Empire began to crumble, and the Romans withdrew from Britain. With the Romans gone, the Germanic tribes, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians quickly sailed across the water, did away with the Celts, and formed kingdoms in the British Isles.
For several centuries, these tribes lived in Britain, and their Germanic language, Anglo Saxon, became the common language, what we call Old English. Although modern English speakers may think Old English sounds like a different language, if you look and listen closely, you'll find many words that are recognizable.
For example, here is what the Lord's Prayer looks like in Old English. At first glance, it may look unfamiliar, but update the spelling a bit, and you'll see many common English words.
So the centuries passed with Britain happily speaking Old English, but in the 700's, a series of Viking invasions began, which continued until a treaty split the island in half. On one side were the Saxons. On the other side were the Danes who spoke a language called Old Norse.
As Saxons fell in love with their cute Danish neighbors and marriages blurred the boundaries, Old Norse mixed with Old English, and many Old Norse words like freckle, leg, root, skin, and want are still a part of our language.
300 years later, in 1066, the Norman conquest brought war again to the British Isles. The Normans were Vikings who settled in France. They had abandoned the Viking language and culture in favor of a French lifestyle, but they still fought like Vikings. They placed a Norman king on the English throne and for three centuries, French was the language of the British royalty.
Society in Britain came to have two levels: French-speaking aristocracy and Old English-speaking peasants. The French also brought many Roman Catholic clergymen with them who added Latin words to the mix.
Old English adapted and grew as thousands of words flowed in, many having to do with government, law, and aristocracy. Words like council, marriage, sovereign, govern, damage, and parliament.
As the language expanded, English speakers quickly realized what to do if they wanted to sound sophisticated: they would use words that had come from French or Latin. Anglo Saxon words seemed so plain like the Anglo Saxon peasants who spoke them.
Let's go back to the two sentences you thought about earlier. When you pictured the hearty welcome, did you see an earthy scene with relatives hugging and talking loudly? Were they drinking beer? Were they wearing lumberjack shirts and jeans?
And what about the cordial reception? I bet you pictured a far more classy and refined crowd. Blazers and skirts, wine and caviar.
Why is this? How is it that phrases that are considered just about synonymous by the dictionary can evoke such different pictures and feelings? "Hearty" and "welcome" are both Saxon words. "Cordial" and "reception" come from French. The connotation of nobility and authority has persisted around words of French origin. And the connotation of peasantry, real people, salt of the Earth, has persisted around Saxon words. Even if you never heard this history before, the memory of it persists in the feelings evoked by the words you speak.
On some level, it's a story you already knew because whether we realize it consciously or only subconsciously, our history lives in the words we speak and hear.

Why is English Spelling So Weird

A few days ago Larry Ferlazzo posted this Arika Okrent video on English spelling.

You can also find out more about English spelling by reading David Crystal's article on The Guardian.



It starts back around the year 600 A.D. when Christian missionaries arrived in England with their Roman alphabet. They found the Anglo-Saxons, who spoke a Germanic language, with different kinds of sounds like "th" and "x" that Latin didn't have. So scribes came up with their own ways to write them. Over a long time everyone finally settled on "gh" for the "x". But there's no "x" in thought… anymore!
The pronunciation changed. Over hundreds of years "x" turned to "f", in words like cough and enough or disappeared entirely in words like though or thought. As those changes were getting underway, the printing press was invented and that was great for the spread of written English, but unfortunately it was also great for the spread of the spellings that printers had decided on before the pronunciation changes already in progress were complete.
Other pronunciation changes that happened over this time period were the loss of certain sounds at the beginning of words, and an almost complete overhaul of the entire vowel system of English known as the great vowel shift.
As if that wasn't complicated enough, the French-speaking Normans had taken over in 1066, and French was the language of educated culture, courts and universities in England for a few hundred years. Those years left their mark on English vocabulary and spelling. So for the most part, the answer to "why do we spell it that way" is either "because we used to pronounce it that way" or "because that's how they did it in French."  But sometimes we can't blame either of those things.
In the late 1500s, English spelling had stabilized well enough, but some renaissance scholars who were all fired up about classical Latin and Greek decided not to leave well enough alone. They thought the glory of the ancient world should be better reflected in the current one. They decided words like receipt, salmon, indict, and debt, needed to put their Latin roots on better display, so they purposely added letters that no one had ever pronounced in English. They also found ways to connect words to their Greek roots and give them a fancier, classical look to replace homelier, but more sensible spellings.
And sometimes the classical craze went a little too far. The word island, for example, came from an Old English word iglund. It didn't come from Latin at all. And people were happily pronouncing it and writing it as iland until someone picked up an "s" from the Latin insula and stuck it where it was never meant to be.
Finally, we have a whole bunch of words that we simply borrowed from other languages as is, including another later wave of French words that we left in their original spellings. English loves to borrow from everywhere. Sometimes we borrow from languages that bring their own silent letters and spelling issues, and they then become our spelling issues too. And sometimes, we borrow the same word from two different places.
That's what happened with colonel. We borrowed it from French, along with a lot of other military vocabulary, in the 1500s. Back then they said it and spelled it as coronel. Later English scholars stared translating old Italian military treatises, where it was colonello. Time goes by, and wouldn't you know it, people are spelling it the Italian way and pronouncing it the French way. Meanwhile, the French switched over to colonel in spelling AND pronunciation. How boring is that?
So there's a lot of blame to go around for the spelling situation we find ourselves in. You might not find any comfort in that the next time English sneaks up on you with another crazy spelling prank, but try not to get too mad at English. It's not an arbitrary meanie. It’s just a victim of a complicated history.

Reading test: Learning a language, 10 things you need to know

For this week's reading test we are going to use The Guardian article Learning a language -10 things you need to know, which we will use to practise the heading matching kind of task.

Read the article and match headings A-L with their corresponding paragraph 1-9. 0 is an example. There are two headings you do not need to use.

Learning a language -10 things you need to know
Thinking about learning a foreign language? Our multilingual experts share their tips.

0. Example J
You have decided to learn another language. Now what? On our recent live chat our panellists first piece of advice was to ask yourself: what do you want to achieve and by when? Donavan Whyte, vice president of enterprise and education at Rosetta Stone, says: “Language learning is best when broken down into manageable goals that are achievable over a few months. This is far more motivating and realistic.” You might be feeling wildly optimistic when you start but aiming to be fluent is not necessarily the best idea. Phil McGowan, director at Verbmaps, recommends making these goals tangible and specific: “Why not set yourself a target of being able to read a newspaper article in the target language without having to look up any words in the dictionary?”
1.
It might sound obvious, but recognising exactly why you want to learn a language is really important. Alex Rawlings, a language teacher now learning his 13th language, says: “Motivation is usually the first thing to go, especially among students who are teaching themselves.” To keep the momentum going he suggests writing down 10 reasons you are learning a language and sticking it to the front of the file you are using: “I turn to these in times of self-doubt.”
2.
Often the discussion around how to learn a language slides into a debate about so-called traditional v tech approaches. For Aaron Ralby, director of Linguisticator, this debate misses the point: “The question is not so much about online v offline or app v book. Rather it should be how can we assemble the necessary elements of language for a particular objective, present them in a user-friendly way, and provide a means for students to understand those elements.” When signing up to a particular method or approach, think about the substance behind the style or technology. “Ultimately,” he says, “the learning takes place inside you rather that outside, regardless of whether it’s a computer or book or a teacher in front of you.”
3.
For many of our panellists, reading was not only great for making progress, but one of the most rewarding aspects of the learning experience. Alex Rawlings explains that reading for pleasure “exposes you to all sorts of vocabulary that you won’t find in day-to-day life, and normalises otherwise baffling and complicated grammatical structures. The first book you ever finish in a foreign language is a monumental achievement that you’ll remember for a long time.”
4.
Memorising lists of vocabulary can be challenging, not to mention potentially dull. Ed Cooke, co-founder and chief executive of Memrise, believes that association is key to retaining new words: “A great way to build vocabulary is to make sure the lists you’re learning come from situations or texts that you have experienced yourself, so that the content is always relevant and connects to background experience.”
5.
You are a monolingual adult: have you missed the language boat? Ralby argues “a key language myth is that it’s harder as an adult”. Adults and children may learn in different ways but that shouldn’t deter you from committing to learning another language. “Languages are simultaneously organic and systematic. As children we learn languages organically and instinctively; as adults we can learn them systematically.” If you’re still not convinced of your chances, Ralby suggests drawing inspiration from early philologists and founders of linguistics who “learned dozens of languages to encyclopaedic levels as adults”.
6.
Speaking your first language may be second nature, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you understand it well. Kerstin Hammes, editor of the Fluent Language Blog, believes you can’t make good progress in a second language until you understand your own. “I think understanding your native language and just generally how language works is so essential before you launch yourself at a bunch of foreign phrases.”
7.
Different approaches may be necessary at different stages of the learning process. Once you have reached a certain level of proficiency and can say quite a bit, fairly accurately, Rebecca Braun, senior lecturer in German studies at Lancaster University, says it is typical to feel a slowing down in progress. “Translation,” she says, “is such an important exercise for helping you get over a certain plateau that you will reach as a language learner ... Translation exercises don’t allow you to paraphrase and force the learner on to the next level.”.
8.
Many of the panellists were cautious of the F-word. Hammes argues not only is it difficult to define what fluency is, but “as a goal it is so much bigger than it deserves to be. Language learning never stops because it’s culture learning, personal growth and endless improvement. I believe that this is where learners go wrong”.
9.
It may not be an option for everyone but Braun reminds us that “if you are serious about learning the language and getting direct pleasure from what you have learned, you need to go to where that language is spoken”. Travel and living abroad can complement learning in the classroom: “The books and verb charts may be the easiest way to ensure you expose yourself to the language at home, but the people and the culture will far outclass them once you get to the country where your language is spoken.”

A - Be prepared to go back in progress
B - Find opportunities to practise the language
C- Focus on exactly what you want to learn 
D - Ignore stereotypes 
E - It’s not only about the second language
F - Never ending process
G - Read as a hobby
H - Relate what your study to your own experience
I - Remind yourself of what is driving you to learn English
J - Set realistic, specific objectives  Example 0
K - Set up study groups to develop fluency
L - What to do when you hit a wall in your progress

 

Photo: Holger Burmeister / Alamy in The Guardian

Key:

A - Be prepared to go back in progress
B - Find opportunities to practise the language – 9
C- Focus on exactly what you want to learn – 2
D - Ignore stereotypes – 5
E - It’s not only about the second language – 6
F - Never ending process – 8
G - Read as a hobby – 3
H - Relate what your study to your own experience – 4
I - Remind yourself of what is driving you to learn English - 1
J - Set realistic, specific objectives – 0 Example
K - Set up study groups to develop fluency
L - What to do when you hit a wall in your progress – 7

Madrid Teacher: The best way to teach English

After 87 weeks publishing Madrid Teacher videos on a weekly basis, the series comes to an end. There are not more videos available as far as I know, so this is it for Madrid Teacher.

I have meant to leave the video on English learning until the very end, so after so many weeks keeping us company, here's the last piece of advice from these teachers. We'll miss you, guys.



What do you reckon the best way to learn a language… what do you think the… best thing you can do to learn a language is?
I think the… the main thing is students have to study. They have to dedicate some time to go into a class, or having a teacher or something and, besides that, just study. Two or three hours a week.
Yeah, there’s definitely a relationship between the amount of time you put in, and what you learn.
To be honest, I disagree. I think that the most important approach is, of course, the amount of time you put in, but I would say that studying… would be less effective than beginning initially with the language as it is naturally used. Listen to it as frequently as you can and speak it.
Well that’s what I mean. I mean, if you’re listening to it, you’re studying it. I mean…
Not necessarily.
...if you’re watching movies, watching TV series…
Yeah, I’m talking about films and music.
...listening to podcasts; I mean, you could be doing all that sort of thing.
I agree.
But, it’s a mass of noise to begin with.
Yeah, but…yeah. I mean, there’s two types of listening you can do. I… From my opinion listening is the most important thing, but there’s two types. Listening to stuff at your level… or slightly above or slightly below, which is good for, you know, understanding… and general listening like what you were talking about.
Listening to natural English, normal English. I think that’s good because it gets you… gives you an ear for the language. And it’s…
Yeah I think it’s kind of a roundabout way to go through things if you… for instance with English, if you start listening to “what is” for a long time so you understand it, and then all of a sudden you start hearing “what’s”. I mean, you could… one might say that you’ve wasted your time looking about… looking… listening to “what is”.
Yeah.
With natural English, you’re right it’s a mass of noise, but it begins to sort itself out, especially if you’re supplementing with vocabulary and reading.
Right. And you have to vocabulary, and grammar, and other things.
The best way to learn vocabulary is reading.
It’s not just one thing.
No, of course.
It’s a lot of different things.
Well I think… people tend to think grammar is a lot more important than it is. I think you can strip grammar down to its basics, it’s… there’s a few structures that are useful and if you learn them you can generate more language, but I don’t think you should be overly obsessed with grammar.
I think they need to be more obsessed with vocabulary. They need to…
Yeah. Without words you can’t say anything.
Right. And that’s…
Basic verbs, expressions, and vocabulary. That’s another interesting point, you know, I think you need to learn vocab. in… in… in expressions, rather than just individual isolated words.
Right, in chunks.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there are obviously some words, you know, like “pen, paper”, that you can learn individually, but, most vocabulary is more useful if you learn it as an expression, you know, er, “have a bath”, “have a shower”, “have a drink”…
Yeah.
Rather than just, “drink”.
That’s when you’ll be able to communicate and express yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah, but the…but the main point here is with vocabulary. They need to spend some time memorizing it.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And… students tend not to do this. I mean, they’ll spend more time with the grammar than with the vocabulary, at least here in Spain.
There are some… there are some words and expressions that you have to make a conscious effort to learn. But I… I’ve found that, with French and Spanish there are some words that I’ve found easy to remember. I don’t know why. But there are other words where you have to… you have to find a way to remember them. I used to draw pictures and things like that.
Yeah, there’s got to be something, some kind of drawn out repetition. If it… if it’s writing it down and referring to it every once and a while on an index card or a notebook, if it’s pictures like you say… You know, rarely you get this groundbreaking experience where you can associate a memory to a word. More often it’s the mundane… studying.
You’ve got to study, yeah.

Madrid Teacher: Spelling minister

A group of Madrid teachers get together to discuss the problems the English language poses for both non-native and native speakers.



I, I was reading recently that they want to change English exams and actually not give you negative marks for having spelling mistakes because it's not as important as knowing the actual English. It’s good and bad, spelling is quite difficult in English I think a lot of things are spelled quite differently to the way we say them, but it’s really important at the same time.
That's a big change in education because I remember when I was a kid, I mean, the weekly spelling test was a big source of stress and the best speller in the class was kind of a hero, you know, even spelling bees…
Yeah.
They were really smug.
Yeah, very smug. But really this is sort of interesting.
Yeah, yeah well I guess we're in a technology age now so we've got the f7 button to do the spelling grammar checks, so they say well these days you can kind of press that and do that.
One of the problems is that kids when they’re writing like SMS messages, you know, they, they use all these abbreviations and they don't know how to write the real word.
Yeah.
And on top of it most young people don't read so you know they watch movies or whatever and they don’t do enough reading.
Yeah, it’s true.
I find, I mean, I’m not as good as spelling now as I was when I was a kid…
No, neither am I.
… I don’t have, I don’t have the weekly spelling drill…
Yeah, exactly.
… and you know, you grow up, then I don’t know if you learn other languages you start to get confused with the one m in accommodate or two, I’m not sure, because, you know, it’s slightly different.
Yeah, sometimes your visual memory fails you so you write it one way, your writing might be correct
but you think… this is not right.
Hang on a second. That doesn’t look right!
Then you have to ask the students. It’s okay?
Google it, Google it, that’s what I do. I just Google everything.
I think it’s really important that children, everybody continues to spell things properly because even if you look at it from the angle that English is the international language if you like, everyone, if every native person changes the spelling or disregards the spelling, how can anyone else learn a foreign language?
And there will be anarchy.
It’s impossible, totally impossible, you know.
Yeah.
Does anyone know any memory aids with spelling? I remember i before e except c…
Yeah, that’s what I remember.
… except when there’s neighbouring…
They are like little tricks people learn.
The problem with English, though, is so often they have the rules, but the rules aren’t really rules, are just trends [Yeah.], so you have the general rule and then you have a hundred exceptions.
This occurs, yes.

Dig into English

This is the way  Ben, the person behind Dig into English, introduces the site:

"Dig into English is a website and a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners of English. It will help you improve your vocabulary and grammar knowledge by listening to natural, everyday English.

Whether you are taking classes or learning English all by yourself, Dig into English can help you.

The free podcast episodes and the free PDF scripts will help you get used to hearing and reading English.

If you listen often, you will become more comfortable when understanding or speaking English because you will learn many new words and expressions. The best part is that you will have a lot of fun!"

I also have to add that Dig into English will help us to get familiar with Australian English.

Reading test -Wanting it enough: why motivation is the key to language learning

We are using the article Guardian article Wanting it enough why motivation is the key to language learning for this week's reading test. We'll be practising the typical multiple-choice reading comprehension task.

Read Alison Mackey's article by clicking here or on the link above. Then go over questions 1-7 and choose the option a, b or c that best completes the sentence or answers the question. 0 is an example.

Example:
0 Which sentence is true, according to the text?
a) Learning a foreign language after childhood is virtually impossible.
b) Finding the right motivation is the best way to learn a foreign language.
c) Falling in love is the best way of learning a foreign language.

1 Having to pass a test in your academic or professional life…
a) is not a real motivating factor to learn a language.
b) is an intrinsically motivating factor for some people.
c) is a good reason as any other to learn a language.

2 Professors Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert found out that…
a) intrinsic motivation and integrative motivation are the same thing.
b) motivation might not be enough to learn a new language.
c) practical reasons to learn also have powerful results in the learning process.

3 If we follow Professor Zoltán Dörnyei’s theory, our level of proficiency in a new language…
a) may get worse as time goes by.
b) will always get better.
c) will depend on the people you know.

4 Which sentence is true, according to the text?
a) Communication is a key factor in language learning.
b) Having high self-esteem is a key factor in language learning.
c) Students who devise a good training plan for their learning process are more likely to succeed.

5 Which sentence is true, according to the text?
a) Some people are lacking in natural ability to learn a language.
b) Some people’s feelings towards the new language make it hard for them to learn.
c) It is not uncommon for learners to sound like native speakers.

6 Which sentence is true, according to the text?
a) Students who poor memory can’t learn a language.
b) Aptitude skills on their own won’t bring success.
c) A teacher who caters for your interests and abilities is essential.

7 Which sentence is true, according to the text?
a) We are all genetically prepared to learn a new language well.
b) Learning a new language well is not within everybody’s reach.
c) The true reasons why some people learn a new language well are unknown.

Photograph: Michael Regan/The Fa/Getty Images

Key:
1C 2B 3A 4A 5A 6B 7B

Madrid Teacher: Accent attack

In this week's Madrid Teacher series, two teachers discuss the variety of English accents. Their conversation gives us an opportunity to go over some of the features of spoken English.

First of all, watch the video through to get the general ideal of the conversation.

Now watch the video again, and pay attention to these characteristics of spoken English:

Use of so as a connector.
Showing agreement with the speaker: Definitely; Absolutely; Of course
Showing the speaker that you are paying attention: Ok; Y’all, yeah.
Use of actually to introduce a piece of surprising information
Fillers to gain thinking time: erm
Using vague language: kind of, sort of
False starts: Do you... can you...
Use of say with the meaning of 'for example'.
Use of really for emphasis.
Use of like as a linking word.



So, recently I’ve been watching this series called Friday Night Lights...
I’ve never seen it...
No? It’s about a high school football team, but it’s not about football, it’s about everyday life around football. But it’s based in Texas. And before watching the series, I didn’t use to think that I liked the Texas, Texan accent, but now I like it. It’s catchy, you can see that if you lived there you’d be able to catch that accent.
Definitely.
Actually, when I was younger, 100 years ago, erm, we lived, when I was a child, we lived along the Texas border…
OK.
…and before that, for example, I always used to think it was horrible hearing people say “y’all”...
Y’all, yeah.
But I realised that I picked up on that Texan, sort of, southern “y’all”.
Twang.
Absolutely. And so it was actually really hard to get rid of it.
Yeah.
And it just kind of, it just sort of, grabs you and then you have that accent. And then later it can sort of go away.
They say “y’all” in other parts of the United States, don’t they?
Yeah, they do. Also, for example, in Louisiana…
Yeah, in the south.
Yeah, it’s more the southern accent.
Yeah, the southern. So, what else do you think about accents? Do you, can you, for example, identify the difference, say, in different places in England, the north, south, Wales, Scotland…
Yeah, I’d say so.
Can you?
Er, yeah. Because I know people from all over the world, and so when I hear an accent I think about those people, so I associate the sound. So that’s how it works, how I do it, how I can tell the difference between the north of England and the south, or London.
Because I think a lot of times there are different accents. But if, for example, someone really doesn’t know someone from the United States, they have an idea that all American accents are the same…
Of course, of course, no, they’re very different.
… and that all British accents are the same, even though…
Well, even as an American, when you hear a South African accent or an Australian accent, Irish, Scottish, all those different… It’s English, but it’s a different accent. Can you place that? Can you place the location?
That’s interesting. Some, yes. But others… So, for example, what about someone... Because I think we all know someone who has lived in several places. And maybe they have, like, a little bit of an American accent, and a Scottish accent.
A mix. Keep it interesting.