English Learning

Hi everyone

I just wanted to leave a message here to let you know that those of you who want to sit the exam are signed up and ready to go!

Now, all you need to do is practice, practice, practice these last few weeks.

Here’s a list of things to do:

• go to flo-joe (see the links on the side) and start doing the exercises there.
• If you’ve already done the exercises, get the ‘success’ version for about as much as a new book would cost
• Listen to splendid speaking (also in the links)
• Listen to and read the news on the BBC (see links again). You will be expanding your vocabulary and getting important exercise. If you take notes as well, then even better!
• Open a springdoo account and send me an audio mail. It can be of part 2, or you can choose to talk about anything you want. I promise to surprise you with my comments
• write, write, write! There are lots of tasks you can do in the workbook and of course in the exam book as well. You can also look at writing on flo-joe and see some examples and how they were corrected
• Now, I hope the success will be yours!

Look at the map and let us know the places you’ve been to. Leave a comment telling the others about it.

Where all have you been?

Hi everyone

I think we got off to a great start yesterday.

Since it’s important to get lots of practice in the different areas, I’m going to leave tasks here to do alongside the homework for extra practice.

One of the things you can do is, of course, use flo-joe, which I’ve mentioned before. It’s possible to also pay a small price (about the same amount as a book) and subscribe to the 10 week premium version. Here you have new materials and you can also write and get feedback. Even without the premium version, you can see a text with feedback about what all is good and what needs to be changed. There is also flo-joe radio, which not only gives you listening practice, it also gives you advice on the different papers. If you need help navigating, just leave a message and I’ll help you out. And remember the splendid-speaking site I’ve also left for you.

I’ve also set up a site where you can practice your speaking. It’s called Chinswing and you can get to it here. It’s very easy to use if you have a microphone, either built in or separate to your computer. Please leave a message!
On the right under flickr you can find pictures to use to talk about, you can do tasks from your exam book, but you can also leave friendly messages – it doesn’t have to be all work!

And if you want to practice your speaking but don’t want everyone to hear it, you can use springdoo.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to send a video of yourself. You can just talk

Belinda was busy during the holidays. She had a baby!

Belinda, maybe you can give us all the details here?

Watch and enjoy

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Q-2TAfM3Fg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Now what do you think the headmaster would write in a letter to the parents?
Can you write a letter and send it to me or post it as a comment?

Hi everyone

Quite a few of you were missing the last two lessons. We were just moving forwards in the book and completed unit 12.

Since I’m sure you  will want to work on your English in the summer holiday, I suggest you work in the book. After the holiday we will work on the speaking section and we will be working with CAE 5

If you want, you can work with another book such as book 4 or book 6.

I’ve also  got a couple of sites for you to use if you feel like it.  If you do use any of the sites listed, then it would be useful to write a short review of how useful you think they are. You can do this in the comments section.  If you want to try writing a post, let me know and I’ll invite you to be an author

Keep an eye here since I will be adding more during the summer. I’ll try to add something every other week.

Now for a couple of links (also on the side)

This one looks useful, and you can keep track of your progress. If you are interested in using this as part of the course, let me know:    http://wordchamp.com/lingua2/Splash.do 

This is one that helps you expand and practise your vocabulary. I particularly liked MIND the GAP, but there is a lot more:  http://wordlearner.com/ 

Here is one more for now. This one is especially for reading skills. It leads you to better and faster reading, improves your vocabulary, and you can also listen to and/or watch the news reels. If you go to this site regularly, I garantee that  your English will improve. Let me know what you think if you try it: http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/home.html

That’s all for the moment, but please take the time and leave a message.

After such a long time, it’s definitely high time to reactivate this blog. I hope to make a useful tool for you to use during the last few weeks of the course as well as during the summer.

Now, here are a few things you can do.

1.  Go to the links and click here on http://www.flo-joe.com/cae/students/index.htm. This is a site that should help you prepare for the CAE exam. Look around at what all is available. Leave a comment and let everyone know what you find particularly useful.

2.  Go to another link, splendid-speaking, and look through the different posts. It is real language learners who have volunteered to speak and be recorded. In return they get detailed feedback, helping them and those who are also preparing for speaking exams or trying to develop their speaking skills. I will be refering to this site in future. Your job – listen to one session and leave a comment about what you think. By the way, if you are interested in volunteering to take part, let me know and I can put you in contact with Peter Trevis. He’s always looking for new volunteers.

3. Watch the video below. Leave a comment about why you think this child is leaving home, where you think he is going, etc. Have you ever wanted to just run away? Have you ever wanted to do it as an adult? Any other comments about it?

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/v-t7JFb8DhA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I hope you had a great day off!

  As I informed you before, my mother, Dorothea, is coming to visit the class.

It would be great if you could ask her a question here and next week she will answer them.  All you  need to do is use the comments button next to the subject line of this post.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to class, we went over the gerunds and infinitives again, looked at time expressions (many of which you wil find in the reading task set for this week) and discussed time. Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to do the listening here, but maybe some day…!

Basically the homework is to finish unit 4 in both books. If you are pressed for time ( another time expression meaning you don’t have much), then you can spread it out a bit.  the writing task is an article on page 71 at the bottom (see also the corresponding note on page 69).

Now I wish you all a relaxing week and not too much work.

So that you have a bit of input on what a review should look like, I’m giving you some advice and language here.

First, introduce the book, film or whatever

Then summarize what it is about

Finally, give your opinion / recommendation

The language is often neutral to slightly informal.

Use of vocabulary is expressive: marvelous actors, exceptional acting, a fascinating story, incredible scenery, full of suspence, romantic, miserable acting, a weak storyline, hardly worth seeing, I can highly recommend it, etc.

I’d like to share some of the reviews here so others from the class can comment on them.