New York vs. Paris.

I'm back!

This year I'm teaching 1st and 2nd years of Advanced English, so there will be a lot of oral-expression oral-comprehension activities.

We're going to begin with something easy this time. This is a video about the differences between New York and Paris -- can you add information about your own city?



Ps. Tony Miotto is a Motion Designer and Art Director from France. You can check out his work here: http://tonymiotto.com/

Pronunciation: don't panic!

Pronouncing English well is quite difficult, especially for Spanish speakers. Sometimes the spelling of words has nothing to do with how they sound. There is a famous joke that says that the word "fish" could actually be written like "ghoti". Here's how:

"gh" would sound like an /f/ (as in "laugh")

"o" would sound like /i/ (as in "women")

"ti" would sound like /sh/ (as in "dictation")

So, yes. Pronouncing English can be hard. Fortunately there are lots of websites these days that can be of help. Here are some of my favourites:

http://howjsay.com is a nice and easy to use pronunciation dictionary.

http://www.forvo.com/ is great for all kinds of words, but especially for proper nouns like names of surames, cities or words that aren't usually in the dictionary. 

http://www.shiporsheep.com/ is great for contrasting pairs of phonemes (sounds), which will help you notice the difference between different sounds. This will definitely make you pronounce things better.

BBC Learning English has a great section for pronunciation. It has got videos, quizzes and radio programmes, so it is very useful and complete.

But the most important thing is to listen to a lot of English and never be afraid to make a mistake!

Update: You can learn the different phonemic symbols through this interactive chart at www.englishclub.com

Visiting Aranjuez

We are also preparing a visit to Aranjuez for next month. I like this video particularly because it is very easy to follow and the vocabulary is not too difficult. The speaker mentions a few dates --what are they related to?

15th century
18th century
19th century

1535
1561
1717



You can  find more videos about Spain on the Spanish Tourist Office Offcial Channel . Enjoy!

A trip to El Escorial

We are preparing a visit to El Escorial next month. It takes a lot of work since the students need to research all the monuments and write texts about it, but all that effort really pays off. Here is one of the videos we have seen in class:



Rick Steves is famous in the US for his travel show on APT (American Public Television). He has taught at the university, worked as a tour guide and written travel books. There are plenty of other travel videos from Rick Steves here: http://www.youtube.com/user/RickSteves?feature=watch

Giving directions

picture by Ramon Cutanda, Flickr


We've been reviewing how to give directions today in class. I stumbled upon this fantastic site from the BBC World Service that sums up all the points really well. It's got listening and vocabulary exercises as well as the language you'll need  --go check it out!


Giving directions



Ps. The video we watched about Stockholm belongs to this Youtube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/PandaCruises

As I said, it's a very nice way of seeing the actual experience of a tourist on a cruise tour and see some Baltic highlights :-).

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart is one of the most famous short stories by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. In 1953, Columbia Pictures adapted the story into a very scary animated film. There are many versions on Youtube, but I chose this one because it is subtitled in Spanish :-)

I think it is a great way to celebrate Halloween!

News resources for intermediate students

We have been discussing today a few resources for reading news that you can use if you are at an intermediate level (I will update this  if I find more)

Onestopenglish.com Monthly topical news lessons from The Guardian.  These are reading exercises based on news adapted from the UK newspaper The Guardian. They have three different levels: elementary, intermediate, and upper intermediate. There are teacher's notes and answers.

Inside Out e-lessons offers a weekly reading e-lesson, which is often based on current news as well. The level is different every week, and it ranges from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate so be careful. There are teacher notes, answers and a glossary.

Despite the old-fashioned design, http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ has very complete lessons based on current events, complete with an MP3 file that you can use for listening practice.

That's all for now! Again, I'll update this if I find more info.