USEFUL RESOURCES

Hello everyone,

These days I've been searching for resources for our virtual class. Sometimes I come across things I post on Google Classroom related to your lessons and sometimes I find more general things that I think you might find useful. 

I'll just post a couple of them which I will add to the PADLET wall you will find on the side bar on the right of the blog. This can serve as a reminder for you to use the useful links there too.

I'm aware many of you have less time than they used to at the moment, but others have more spare time than usual. So just in case you find it useful. Those of you who don't have time now, can always explore it whenever you want in the future. So here are some useful links:

The following are great resources for improving your writing skills and learning vocabulary:

This one is a great site to improve your reading and listening skills.
They are classified according to level and you can both read and listen to the texts before completing the multiple choice tests that are proposed. 

I hope you find them useful.

Take lots of care and stay safe

VOSCREEN

How can I improve my listening skills?

This is probably one of the most often asked questions by students.

My answer is always the same: Practice. There is no other secret to it, there's no magic formula.

So the point is to practice as much as you can while you enjoy.

I've found a nice application which might help you improve little by little while having fun.

Its name is VOSCREEN and it is free, although you need to sign up. This app allows you to test your listening skills while you listen to short video clips from films, series, songs ...

You will be asked to choose the best translation (if you set the language to Spanish) or the best rephrasing (if you set the language to English) of the phrase/extract you hear in the short clip to check your comprehension.

You will listen to real English in all the videos but you can choose the level of difficulty, the grammar structure you want to appear in the clip or even the number of words of the phrase you will hear.

You can use it on your computer, your tablet or even on your mobile phone.

I hope you find it useful. If you try it, let me know how it went.

BITS - ELL

Dear students,

I'm posting a link one of your classmates shared with me in the class (Thank you, María, this website is a gem!).

BITS is an interesting site loaded with useful reading and listening material. You can find plenty of books to read and listen to but you must be aware they are unabridged. So this can be specially useful for upper-intermediate/advanced students.

Intermediate students can also find other useful resources. I definitely recommend exploring the site.

Got any useful links to share too? Post them in the comments! Cheers! 

6 MINUTE ENGLISH PODCAST - THE FUTURE OF FOOD

After dealing with the topic of food and cooking in the class I thought you might be interested in listening to the following podcast:

This episode deals with the future of food, but if you want to improve your listening skills, listening to this podcast regularly might be a good way. The BBC offers other podcasts specifically designed for students of English but you can also find podcasts for many different kinds of audience, they cover any and every topic under the sun.

What is great about podcasts is that you can download them to your computer or your mobile phone,  and then listen to them whenever you want. So you can easily fit them into your busy schedule. What's more, if you choose a topic you are interested in, you will probably find it engaging and will be looking forward to the next episode. You will be learning and having fun at the same time. So why not give it a try?

Click here for a good selection of podcasts for native speakers.

GUESS MY ACCENT GAME (B2.2)

Here's a challenge for you, how many accents can you identify?

You can test yourselves by playing the following game:

GUESS MY ACCENT

 The aim of the game is to guess as many accents as you can. It follows a day out in a new town, and the different people you will meet will be asked for directions on how to get to certain places. You must listen to their answer and try to identify their accent.

ENJOY!

LUKE'S ENGLISH PODCAST - NARRATIVE TENSES (INTERMEDIO 1)

Dear students,

Here's a fun way to revise what you learnt in the class: enjoy Luke's English podcast episode about narrative tenses. Listen to his clear explanations and examples about the verb forms you should use when telling a story.

In his podcast Luke explores countless topics adding his personal touch of humour. He will help you understand English better while having fun. It's not surprising Luke's podcast is a favourite amongst students of English all around the world.

Listening to podcasts is a fun and effective way of improving you listening skills. Check my older post about podcasts if  you still don't know what a podcast is.

TED TALKS

Dear students,

What did you think about the 30-day challenges we discussed in class? Did you consider trying them after reading the text about Matt Cutts? He certainly found them really useful to make his life move forward.  Would you like to listen to him telling you about them and how they enriched his life? Here’s a link to his talk about 30-day challenges.

Matt’s talk is one of the many interesting and inspiring talks you can watch on TED talks website.  TED TALKS are relatively short videos from some of the most engaging speakers around the world. They cover an endless range of topics. They started as a conference about Technology, Entertaiment and Design (TED) but now you can find a talk about almost any subject under the sun.

They can be specially useful for students of English as you can watch them with subtitles. There are more than a thousand talks so you will always find one interesting for you. TED talks are a great way to learn English while you learn something new about another topic.

As you will find so many to choose from, it might be a good idea to start by watching the most popular ones. You can find them on this playlist.

You will also find other playlists (collections of related talks) sorted by topic on the TED website. Choose a subject you are interested in and get inspired!

LYRICS TRAINING

Dear students,

Here’s a link for those of you who missed the last class and would like to listen to the song we played and worked with.

(I'm posting Pink and Nate Ruess's live performance of the song at the 2014 Grammy's Awards too)

Lyrics Training is a fun website where you will be able to improve your English while listening to your favourite music. It will help you improve your ability to understand English through the lyrics of songs. Choose a song, select a game mode (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Expert), watch the clip, and fill in the gaps in the lyrics.

Enjoy it!

PODCASTS

Are you looking for a new way to improve your understanding of spoken English?

Podcasts are a great and fun way to do so.

What’s  a podcast?

Many of you will already be familiar with them. For those of you who haven’t heard about podcasts before let me explain briefly.

Podcasts are digital audio or video files or recordings, usually part of a themed series, that can be downloaded from a website to a media player or computer. They are available online and once you download them you can listen to them wherever and whenever you want.

You can download them to your computer, your mp-3 player or your phone. After you download them you can listen to a podcast in the gym, when you go for a run, while you’re doing housework, on the bus, train or in your car... so they are very convenient.

With a little dedication, English language podcasts will help you quickly improve your listening skills and proficiency. One perk (benefit) is that podcasts often have transcripts (a written version of the audio). This means that you can listen and read at the same time, or look at a transcript if one part of a podcast confuses you.

Some of them are specially made for students of English as a foreign language so you can find one appropriate to your level and listen to skilled speakers who will teach you useful vocabulary in a fun way. Others are produced for a native audience, so you will be able to listen to authentic English.

If you would like to try listening to one, here’s a link to an example about the topic we’ve been dealing with in the class: The weather. The podcast is called 6 MinuteVocabulary and you will find it on the BBC Radio website. You will find some other podcasts there designed for students of English too. I'll also keep on posting other suggestions during the year.

There are podcasts about any subject under the sun. So find the one you are interested in and enjoy your learning!