OXFORD 3000 AND MORE…

Hello guys! Here you have a post about a bunch of different things. First of all, I have included  a link for you to check out IVOOX, the website Pedro suggested in class. This a place where you can find all kinds of podcasts about many topics. I am pretty sure you will find something that interests you!

Secondly, a little help with your vocabulary. You know how you´re always asking about the most important words in English…Well, here you have a LIST  with the words you need to know according to your level. It also comes with a little icon you can click on to listen to the standard British and American pronunciation. I know, you feel a little happier now…you´re welcome!

And last, but definitely not least, a link to JAN´S PERFORMANCE . Thank you everyone for such a lovely and magical evening. It wouldn´t have been possible without your participation!

Which witch?

You guys were terrific on Halloween! Here you have your  wicked, wicked tongue twisters. We sure had some fun, so thanks a lot!

 

 

 

Pronunciation of -ed in English

Hey guys, now that we have explained this in class, take a look at this video to remember the information even better! I hope it helps.

A few weeks ago Woodward English published this video in which they look at the 3 different ways of pronouncing the ending -ED at the end of regular verbs in English.

They go into detail about the rules necessary to know the correction pronunciation of any -ED ending: These rules are  for regular verbs in the past tense, for regular past participles and for adjectives that end in ED.

There is a special section about voiced and voiceless (or unvoiced) sounds in English.

You will also find the Woodward -ED Pronunciation chart where you will hear how each each word is said.

You can find more details about the correct pronunciation of ED at the end of words in English here.
Pronunciation of ED in English Game (20 questions).
Pronunciation of ED in English Game 2 (50 questions).

Sites to help you

LISTENING

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ : loads of materials to improve your skills including General & Business English, Grammar, Vocabulary &  Pronunciation and The Flatmates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/081222_download.shtml  (Downloads)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/ (Six-minute English: you can download the audios and the transcriptions.

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/ : Ir a “Our programs” (abajo a la derecha) y elegir el tema. Incluye transcripciones de los textos.

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts.htm: Podcasts en diferentes categorías: Elementary podcast, Themes, Stories and Poems, Professionals, Kids, & Science. Se pueden descargar tanto los audios como las transcripciones.

http://www.elllo.org : Diferentes tipos de listenings : Views, Mixer, Games, Step, & News.  Actividades variadas con cada listening: archivos de audio descargables, ejercicios de vocabulario, páginas para imprimir… Diferentes acentos.

http://www.esl-lab.com : Página web para comprensiones orales. Los audios vienen clasificados por niveles y tienen sus ejercicios correspondientes también.

http://www.manythings.org : Hacer clic en “Listening and Reading”. Diferentes secciones. Es interesante “Listen and read along” para mejorar la lectura.

http://www.listen-to-english.com/:  Podcasts. Ir a “Latest podcasts” a la derecha.

http://www.mansioningles.com/listening00.htm : Ejercicios de listening.

RADIO:

 http://www.vaughanradio.com/ : Emisora que retransmite desde España con una amplia programación para aprender inglés. Muchos programas son en inglés y en español.  Ir a “Vaugham radio en directo” (a la izquierda). Para ver la programación ir a “Programas” a la izquierda.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ : BBC radio (British English).

http://www.voanews.com/english/portal.cfm : Voice of America: Ir a “Learning English”.

www.npr.org  : Ir a “Listen” y luego se puede elegir entre “Hear continuous streams”, “Hear the latest show” o “Hear the latest news”. También se pueden descargar audios en“Podcasts”.

TELEVISION:

http://tvweb360.com/ : Se eligen los canales por idioma y por país. Ir a “Tv by language” y “TV by country”.

PRONUNCIATION / prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃ(ə)n/

http://www.fonetiks.org :

-Para oír como se pronuncia una palabra, hacer clic en “howjsay.com” (abajo a la izquierda).

-Para hacer dictados, hacer clic en “dictationsonline.com” . Clasificados por niveles (abajo a la    derecha).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/chart.shtml  : Para oir los “Sounds of English”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds: Para ver vídeos en los que se nos explica como se pronuncian cada uno de los sonidos ingleses.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/pronunciation/phonemic-chart: Aquí se puede descargar el “Phonemic Chart” para instalarlo en nuestro propio ordenador.

http://inogolo.com/pronunciation: Para la pronunciación de nombres propios (de personas y lugares).

VIDEO

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/video_and_audio : Breves vídeos sobre noticias de actualidad. Especialmente interesante es “One-minute World News”.

http://www.abcnews.go.com: Noticias de la cadena norteamericana ABC. Ir a “Video” y luego elegir la categoría: “Most popular / Money and business / Health…”

http://www.videojug.com: Vídeos de carácter informativo/divulgativo (“How to…” videos) sobre distintos temas de actualidad: salud, deporte, tecnología, etc.

http://www.5min.com: Videos educativos sobre diferentes categorías.

READING

http://www.magatopia.com : Links a revistas en inglés. Por ejemplo ir a “news” para links a Newsweek, Time, International Herald Tribune…

http://www.onlinenewspapers.com : Links a las páginas webs de miles de periódicos.

MUSIC

http://www.subingles.com/: Canciones en inglés con su letra.  Ir a “Ejercicios” para rellenar huecos en la letra de algunas canciones.

DICTIONARIES

www.wordreference.com : Diccionario bilingüe y monolingüe.

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/?cc=es : Diccionario monolingüe Oxford.

http://www.ldoceonline.com/ : Diccionario monolingüe Longman.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ : Diccionario monolingüe Cambridge (con pronunciación).

http://www.macmillandictionary.com : Diccionario monolingüe MacMillan (con pronunciación).

VARIOS

typicallyspanish.com: Temas de la actualidad española en inglés.

ego4u.com : “English Grammar online for you”.

manythings.org : Diferentes secciones como “Reading (with MP3)”, “Listening and Speaking”…

FACEBOOK GROUPS

Hello guys and welcome to the 2012-2013 school year. I am sure it´s going to be full of excitement and lots of fun.

Let´s start with this post. I have found some groups through Facebook that can help you with your English. If you have a Facebook account,  check these out and see what you think. I am sure you´ll find them useful. Have fun!

• Learning English Is Fun [Word Of The Day]

• BBC Learning English

• English Online Academy

• Multimedia English

 

 

 

 

 

ACCENT ATTACK!

Just take a look at this website. It’s basically a giant database of different accents. You can search by language (in your case English), by region, by clicking on the map, even by gender (maybe you prefer listening to women, or men). It is a project of the linguistics program in the department of English, the college of arts and science’s technology across the curriculum program, and the center for history and new media at George Mason University, in Virginia, USA.

The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. Pay attention to the phonetic transcriptions since they will help you to internalize the symbols. 

 Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person’s linguistic background. When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker.

ENGLISH VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS

This is a beautiful video DDeubel has published in EFL Classroom. It gives us a great opportunity to revise the English vowels and diphthongs.

Suggested activity:
1) Watch the video and enjoy it. It has got a great visual power.
2) Try to identify the biggest number of words the voiceover says.
3) Watch the video again and read the words below, paying attention to their pronunciation and the vowel sounds.

http://static.ning.com/socialnetworkmain/widgets/video/flvplayer/flvplayer.swf?v=201201130009
Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Vowels
/ i: / me – tree – three – people – v
/ ɪ / ship – ticket – this – king – shilling
/ e / bed – pen – yes – well
/ æ / Paris – can – Spanish
/ ɑ: /past – dark – palm – car – hard
/ ɒ / knot – wash – song – from – rock – coffee
/ ɔ: / all – small – ball – morning
/ ʊ / full – look – good – foot – book
/ u: / who – move – noon – blue – two
/ ʌ / up – cup – sun – sum
/ ɜ: / her – Thursday – burn – work
/ ə / under – farther – a dress – servant – Saturday
/ eɪ / say – baby – train – plate – table – waiter

Dipthongs/ əʊ / no – smoke – motor – motel
/ aɪ /  ice – eye – side
/ aʊ / flower – cloud – hour – now
/ ɔɪ / boy – noise – boil – voice
/ ɪə / dear – clear – beer – ear
/ eə / chair – hair – care
(?) four – door – floor

 

Also, check out the BBC website for more pronunciation tips!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

AMERICAN ACCENT TRAINING

 

 

 

 

 

 

So… you know how we are always talking about phonetics in class… Well, I found this series of videos(12 of them) about the vocalic sounds in American English. If you have time, watch them all and practice these sounds. They show you how to position your lips and your tongue and they are quite illustrative. They also give you the different spellings for each sound. I am sure you’ll find this rather useful.

 

 

A USEFUL WEBSITE FOR ALL

JUST CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ACCESS HUNDREDS OF FREE EXERCISES.

THANKS ALFONSO!

LISTENING PRACTICE!!!!!!!!!

HEY GUYS,

CHECK OUT THIS WEBSITE http://www.eslall.com/learn_english_261.html

THEY HAVE MANY DIFFERENT AUDIO PIECES FOR YOU TO PRACTICE. YOU CAN ALSO CHECK YOUR ANSWERS.

AND IN THIS OTHER WEBSITE, http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# YOU CAN HAVE A LOOK AT THE DIFFERENT SOUNDS IN AMERICAN ENGLISH. IT INCLUDES DIAGRAMS, EXPLANATIONS AND EXAMPLES WITH DIFFERENT WORDS. IT’S REALLY COMPLETE.

HAPPY LISTENING!