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FATHER CHRISTMAS wakes up on a COLD and FROSTY MORNING... - FUN SONG to practise Present Simple & Morning Routine

2/12/2018

8 Comments

 
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Practise the Simple Present tense with your students using a FAST FUN SONG song in a Christmas them and revising morning routine activities at the same time. It can be used as an ACTION-SONG and the students will love it!!
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Let me know in the comments how you get along with this.
Follow these tips and enjoy helping people learn English easily!!
Your English fluency teacher,
​
Susan

You can download the script to the song here:

father_christmas_wakes_up_on_a_cold_and_frosty_morning..._song.pdf
File Size: 62 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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How to GET STUDENTS to SPEAK ENGLISH while CORRECTING each other's EXERCISES staying FOCUSED & ENGAGED: how to kill 'three' birds with one stone!

17/10/2018

2 Comments

 
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Homework correction is always a boring activity:

- a chore for teachers at home which is of little benefit to students who will quickly look at the red annotations before putting it in their bag, mistakes forgotten in a few minutes;

- a bore for students if done in class: one student reads the answers while the others daydream and rarely pay attention.


So how to maximise the benefits of learning from one's mistakes?

For years I have been implementing correcting together on a 1-1 basis, having the student read aloud and making him note that there's a mistake but not telling him what it is, so he has to reflect and possibly discover the mistake for himself. This has a dual effect: practicing speaking by reading aloud and actively noticing mistakes so that they remain embedded in the student's memory rather that just a fleeting correction ready to be forgotten.

Implementing this in the larger context of a class is also possible.
​

In pairs the students swap their homework exercises and take turns in reading them to each other out loud. If they notice a mistake, they say so, show it to their partner and make the correction. In this manner they are again practising their speaking, paying attention to mistakes (usually easier to find in other people's work) and learning from this observation and correction. Finally, everyone is concentrated and engaged, nobody is daydreaming and everyone is focussed, thus maximising the benefits of lesson time.

The teacher goes around monitoring the pronunciation and corrections. Even though the teacher cannot be omnipresent, you will certainly have noticed that when a student makes a mistake out loud on the other side of the classroom, somehow you hear it because it irritates you. My students are always amazed that I catch out their mistakes when apparently I'm listening to others across the classroom.
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Try it out - it's good for speaking, grammar and an engaged class! Beneficial to all including the teacher, who has more lesson preparation time and less correction time available.
​
Let me know in the comments how you get along with this.
Follow these tips and enjoy helping people learn English easily!!
​Your English fluency teacher,
Susan
2 Comments

5 WAYS to MAKE English PRACTICE & REVISION Really EXCITING & FUN

23/7/2018

9 Comments

 
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It is no news that practising a language with games makes boring work much more fun and as a result much more effective, too. 

I am always trying to create opportunities to practise the language in a motivating manner and although I had already mentioned using random wheels such as those of Wheeldecide, I have recently been caught up in such a frenzy of wheel creation, inspired by the enthusiasm of my students of all levels & ages, that I thought I should share some of them here, in the hope of inspiring you to create more of these fun wheels.

1 - END OF YEAR REVISION
(or as a STARTER for the new school year)


The last days of school are always difficult to manage with everyone tired & looking forward to the holidays. So I devised a game with a wheel of random questions based on the content of the class book (in this case DIGITAL ENGLISH FILE ELEMENTARY & INTERMEDIATE) for my adult evening class students.

Easy to play: hit the wheel & take turns in answering the questions.


It was a great success with my normally not so easy to engage adults & at the end of the game everyone had practised speaking various times whilst revising a year's content. Would make a great starter revision activity at the beginning of the year, too.

Create your own wheel based on your classbook or wheeldecide.com or feel free to use mine:
2 - TENSE REVISION

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Combining two wheels can provide endless combinations of effective, fun learning.

Take my TENSE REVISION WHEEL and combine it with a wheel you make specific to vocabulary or expressions you are studying (for example a DAILY ROUTINE WHEEL). 

Then spin them both: get students to say (and perhaps write for consolidation) what comes out: 
SIMPLE PAST + GET UP = Yesterday I GOT UP late.
PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS + WAKE UP = I HAVE BEEN WAKING UP in the middle of the night recently.

As you can see, the game can be useful for all age-groups & ranges of ability.
3 - FREQUENCY ADVERBS & CHORES

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Similarly for elementary students needing to practise frequency adverbs & simple present tense, my 3 wheel game can be an effective way of repeating the sentence structures until they become second nature: 


Spin the SUBJECT PRONOUN WHEEL , FREQUENCY ADVERB WHEEL & CHORES WHEEL and say or write what appears paying attention to the third person:
He always sweeps the floor.
We never do the washing up.


Add a fourth wheel, the AFFIRMATIVE-NEGATIVE-QUESTION WHEEL, for a complete cycle of sentence structure training.
4 - GETTING TO KNOW YOU
​

This wheel can be made for various age groups & used at the beginning of the year as a class or even better in pairs (on tablet or mobile phone). I also used it at the end of my school year as a way of consolidating acquired knowledge with primary school children.
5 - VOCABULARY RECOGNITION IN PICTURE
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Choose a detailed picture (for children I like those for the Cambridge Starters exam - yle-starters-word-list-picture-book) and teach the vocabulary, verbs & expressions.

Then write them on a wheel, spin & have the children identify the various words & expressions but showing them to you in the picture.
Remember to click the option to make the wedges on the wheel disappear if you don't want to repeat them.

Let the WHEELDECIDE and have lots of fun!!

Please add any ideas of your own in the comments.

Follow these tips and enjoy helping people learn English easily!!

​
Your English fluency teacher,

Susan
9 Comments

SPEAKING GAMES:  revise VOCABULARY, VERBS, 3rd PERSON PRESENT, PRESENT CONTINUOUS & OTHER TENSES with SIMPLE REPETITIVE GAMES

28/1/2018

1 Comment

 
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SPEAKING IS NEVER PRACTISED ENOUGH at any level and one of the easiest ways to do so while also REVISING VOCABULARY and TENSES is to take a pack of flashcards such as JOBS to represent people, take a pack of VERBS such as CHORES around the house and get students to turn over one of each card creating very SIMPLE FUN SENTENCES:

Cards: BAKER / HOOVER the living room

Student 1:  WHERE DOES a baker WORK?
Student 2:  A baker WORKS in a bakery.
                     BUT the baker isn't working now.

Student 1:  WHAT's the baker DOING?
Student 2:  She's HOOVERING the living room.

Cards: DANCER / HANG the laundry

Student 1:  WHERE DOES a dancer WORK?
Student 2:  A dancer DANCES in a theatre.
                     BUT the dancer isn't dancing now.
Student 1:  WHAT's the dancer DOING?
Student 2:  He's HANGING the laundry.

As you can see, it's good to practise affirmatives, negatives, questions, continuous tenses etc.

Depending on which cards randomly appear, amusing sentences may be created.

You can practise other tenses, too:

Cards: BUTCHER / IRON the laundry

Student 1:  WHAT DID the baker DO yesterday?
Student 2:  He DIDN'T WORK in the bakery.
                   
 He IRONED the laundry.

Cards: POLICEMAN / MAKE the beds

Student 1:  WHAT HAS the chemist DONE today?
Student 2:  He HASN'T WORKED at the police station.
                    
 He HAS MADE the beds.

Cards: HOUSEWIFE / DO the gardening

Student 1:  WHAT IS the housewife GOING TO DO?
Student 2:  He ISN'T GOING TO WORK in the house.
                    
 She'S GOING TO DO the gardening.

The OBJECTIVE is to help students make sentences speaking and PRACTISE THROUGH REPETITION rather than through grammatical explanations.  Using the language is the best way for students to learn it.

You can also introduce frequency adverbs with a dice
to add fun and practise.

Please write any other ideas you may have in the comments box below.

A FUN ALTERNATIVE is to SPIN the WHEELS below to create RANDOM sentences.  
​(Make your own wheels at Wheeldecide.com)

I hope these ideas were useful for you!

Susan
1 Comment

TOONTASTIC for GETTING STUDENTS TO SPEAK ENGLISH creating cartoons

23/1/2018

20 Comments

 

thereby unleashing their creativity, hiding their shyness to speak English behind the characters of the cartoon.

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Image credit:  https://toontastic.withgoogle.com
Hi teachers and language students! Have you ever heard of TOONTASTIC?

Today I'm really excited to present to you TOONTASTIC, which I discovered very recently. It's an excellent app that you download on your phone. You then ask students to prepare, either spontaneously or with a script, a small sketch in which they take advantage of all the fun activities that are available on this to create a short story.

It's very exciting, very easy to use, can be used offline as well and I'd like to give you some examples of what some of my students created in the video below.

The very young students under age six need a lot of help with laying out the story and practising what to say before recording the one-minute scenes but older students are able to do it all by themselves. I also use this with some high school students and they can explain a scientific experiment, a historical event or represent a topic, as some 10-year olds did recently, by inventing a sketch on bullying which was very effective to convey an important message.
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Image credit:  https://toontastic.withgoogle.com
There are three possibilities: a 3-scene sketch called Short Story, a 5-part sketch called Classic Story or a 5-part Science Report. The students can use the characters proposed as they stand, customise them changing their colours, adding photos of the students' faces on them or drawing the characters themselves. For language learning purposes I ask them not to waste time on changing the characters because our objective is practising the English language.

There are various settings to ignite the students' imaginations and in each setting many exciting things happen such as the cannonball shooting out when ignited, the volcano exploding when touched, the cable-car starting and stopping, doors opening and closing, all activated by the students touching various parts of the settings. The characters themselves also have exciting surprises such a those whose parachute opens, those whose tongue licks out unexpectedly and so on.

As you can see, it's a very flexible app that can be used by all ages and what's exciting is that even shy students can speak because they hide behind the character and it really gets people talking. So the most interesting characteristic of this application is that we're getting students to finally speak and speak spontaneously. That's why I don't correct every mistake they make because it's better for them to become confident making a few mistakes than correcting every grammar point and then being shy to speak.

So I definitely recommend TOONTASTIC. Have fun with it, try it out and as you can see, at the end it really turns out like a real film: they also show who made it which makes it a little more fun and realistic - directed by... starring... etc.

Please write your experiences with the app in the comments below. It will be really interesting to hear all the different ways you use this app.

Hoping to have shared some useful information.

Your fluency teacher,

Susan

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Images credit:  https://toontastic.withgoogle.com
20 Comments

TOP TIPS for IMPROVING your ENGLISH with FREE GRADED READERS + AUDIO

18/1/2018

23 Comments

 
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Today I'm here to talk to you about how graded readers can improve your English.

Now I know you are always very busy and that reading is something you can't do whilst you're doing other activities.

However, there is a fantastic website which I'd like to recommend to you because you can download an e-book absolutely free and you can download the audio accompanying it. That means you use the audios whilst you're driving to work and you have the PDF or even mobi for kindle or epub for Apple devices so that you can read them, too.

You can read these books and whilst you're listening or you can listen and read separately but

the fact that you're using your ears to listen and
your eyes to read

these are two senses which will help you consolidate the expressions such as phrasal verbs, vocabulary, the idioms and the grammatical construction of a sentence.

This means you won't have to use traditional text-books to practice your English because you'll be picking it up very naturally as if you were in full immersion. That's why I recommend you read a lot but these books are especially good because they are graded according to levels and this means you'll start with a low level and you won't have the frustration that it's too difficult for you.

Then as you improve, as you experience success, you'll be motivated to go to the next level and if you do it very gradually you'll notice the improvement very, very quickly and English will become very natural for you.
It'll actually be very good if you sometimes stop an audio and then just repeat it with the same intonation and so also improve your fluency.

The website is called https://english-e-reader.net and these are graded readers. You can download them or read them online for FREE.

The website is divided into elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced. These adapted books are one of the best and most interesting ways to increase your vocabulary and improve all your English skills quickly and easily.

There is a very wide choice of books of all kinds from classics to quite modern books so you can really choose anything. Every book will show you the book cover, give you a small description of what the story is about, tell you how many total words there are and how many unique words. It'll also give you a few words that you may not know.

What's exciting is that you can also download the mp3 versions so that you get them all. I think it's quite exciting actually because you can also have the audios to listen to when you don't have time to read. That way you make sure you are 'reading' a little every day but also practicing your listening skills.

There are lots of audiobooks on the web but very often they've been it read by volunteers and they're not a very professional nor particularly exciting. Instead these are really read by professional actors in an exciting way with background music to give the atmosphere just like in films.

That's why I recommend this website rather than other ones because at NO COST you have a really professional audio.

I suggest you use this website so that you can improve your English by practicing daily listening, reading or listening and reading together.

Tell me if this suggestion was useful to you and I'd love you to comment in the box below how you get along with them.
​

Your fluency teacher,
Susan
23 Comments

EMPOWER your ENGLISH LEARNING with REPETITIVE CHANTS - LEARN SENTENCE STRUCTURES  NATURALLY...– beginner/intermediate / advanced / children / teens / adults

15/1/2018

20 Comments

 
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Chants are a very repetitive way of embedding expressions in the brain so that they become second-nature and just 'sound right' without having to resort to learning grammar rules and translating from one's own language with the inevitable often horrific results.

I have been setting expressions to music and rhythmic chants for decades with excellent results. 

What did you do today? is an action song for kids, 
which, through repetition, teaches the question form in the past simple tense, the answer with relative prepositions, shop vocabulary, infinitive of purpose and prepositions with transport.

The idea is that you fix these expressions through repetitive chants so that they flow from your mouth spontaneously when you are speaking, without having to think.

After having written and recorded a video of the song I realised it contradicts my lessons on the Present Perfect Tense always being used with 'today', 'this week' etc. and according to the grammar books you shouldn't use 'today' with the Simple Past Tense. This proves that a language is alive and more flexible than the rigid rules of a grammar book because the sentence is completely natural and widely used. The explanation lies in the fact that this question is asked at the end of the day when the events have already taken place and therefore are considered to be in a period which is completely finished, therefore using the Simple Past Tense despite the word 'today'.

I hope you have fun with this repetitive chant.

You can download the worksheet to the song below. 
Hope it's useful!
Susan
what_did_you_do_today__action_song_for_kids_-_chant.pdf
File Size: 79 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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The 3 PECULIARITIES of a BRITISH CHRISTMAS

31/12/2017

1 Comment

 
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Do you know the three peculiarities of the British Christmas?

Every Christmas celebration in the world has its own traditions and the British Christmas has three peculiarities.

The first one is Christmas cards: we hang our Christmas cards around the house on a string with tiny pegs because we tend to send a lot of Christmas cards, but really hundreds... I used to prepare about a hundred hand-painted Christmas cards and I used to write the address on each envelope by hand, the sender, then I'd choose a pretty stamp, which is very hard to get nowadays and I'd write a personal note inside each card after which I would send the 100 cards.

However, the English peculiarity is that we don't only send cards to friends and relations who live far away but we also send cards to our neighbours and we generally put them in the post. This gives a lot of work to the postal services and that's why most Christmas cards should be sent by the beginning of December to make sure they arrive on time.

So this is the first peculiarity: sending Christmas cards even to your colleagues, even to your neighbors but all through the post.

Then another peculiarity is our Christmas cake. Now every country has a different kind of cake to celebrate Christmas; for example the Germans will have the Christstollen and the Italians will have the Panettone or the Pandoro and the British have a Christmas cake but particularly the traditional Christmas Pudding at the end of the meal on Christmas Day.

Now what's peculiar about it? Well, it's really made many, many months in advance. Most of my friends prepare it around August and then once it's made with all the different dried fruits and a little bit of brandy it's cooked for many many hours. Depending on whether you cook it in the pressure cooker, because it's steamed, or else traditionally in a pot, it'll take quite a few hours to cook. In fact, on Christmas Day it's then steamed once more to revive it. When it's cooked we don't put it in the freezer and we don't put it in the fridge, we put it in a cupboard and about once a month we douse some brandy over it which will help it mature and will help it also be preserved with the alcohol.

Some people say that brandy is a very good preservative and that Admiral Nelson's body, when he was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805,was apparently preserved completely immersed in a cask of brandy on board until they reached land.

On Christmas Day we pour a little bit more brandy on it then we light it flambé and then we eat a piece which is very, very rich so you only need a small slice otherwise you'll have difficulty digesting it, as happened to someone I know when he got indigestion and had a terrible temperature the next day!

Therefore,
peculiarity N°.1: lots and lots of Christmas cards; peculiarity N°.2: this cake which is pre-prepared really a long time in advance and
peculiarity N°.3: is the Christmas cracker, which some children think is a giant sweet. Well, no it looks like a sweet but it isn't.

Every family will place a Christmas cracker next to their plates and generally, just before the meal, they will hold the cracker with the person next to them and pull it. Inside there's a little piece like a paper stick and this crosses over in the middle inside the cracker so that when you pull it it goes crack - that's why it's called the cracker. You crack open the cracker and inside you'll find a small present just like those in Easter eggs, that means of no value, then you'll find a joke which will make you laugh and finally you'll find a paper crown.

Now what I find particularly peculiar is that everyone, not only children and grannies, but also your doctor, your teacher, the police inspector, everyone will spend Christmas Day eating with this crown on their head, which I think looks a little bit ridiculous but that's a tradition in England. Very often they're all different colours.

These are three peculiarities of a British Christmas.

What about you?

Are there any peculiarities of Christmas in your country?

I'd really enjoy reading about them in the comments below, so please put down any peculiarities of Christmas in your country. Looking forward to hearing about them,

Best wishes for A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!

Susan

1 Comment

​Susan's OUT-OF-THE-ORDINARY CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES for practising English ESL

10/11/2017

24 Comments

 
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Every Christmas we teachers rack our brains to think of new as well as traditional activities to do with our students as the festive season nears.

Over the years I have started preparing children as early as the end of October so as to be sure they knew their Christmas carols and plays off by heart.

However, as a teacher, repeating activities year in, year out, can become less stimulating over time.  Therefore I have explored other ideas suggested to me and decided to adapt Christmas activities to learn more language useful to us throughout the year as well as listening comprehension and speaking skills.

I have now compiled a small E-Book of my more successful OUT-OF-THE-ORDINARY CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES in the hope of being able to stimulate other teachers who may want to deviate from their usual Christmas activities.

Looking forward to any feedback regarding these activities and hoping you may want to contribute with more of your own in the comments below.

​Susan's OUT-OF-THE-ORDINARY CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES for practising English ESL can be downloaded here.

Wishing your creative Christmas endeavours bring fruitful progress to your students...

Have a wonderful festive season!

Susan
24 Comments

The Importance of Using Textbooks Written by Native Speakers

30/10/2017

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Was your textbook in English written by a native speaker?

Today I'd like to talk to you about the importance of a book being written by a native speaker if you have to learn English or other subjects in the English language.

I was in the Netherlands for a few days and I was sitting on a bus when the girl next to me pulled out her English-language textbook. She was going to university and she was revising. On the first page of her open book it said 'Present Time' and all the exercises were referring to the Present Tense so I thought it was unusual.

Then and as she flicked through the book she got to the page where it said the 'Past Time' and again I was quite surprised because in English we don't say 'Present Time' and 'Past Time' but we say present tense and past tense - I didn't see the cover of the book but I presume that it was written by a Dutch person because in other languages they do speak about 'time' but in British English we say “tense” so this brings me to the subject which I've been thinking about for a long time.

I've been teaching for about 40 years now and very often students will come to me with their book. It may not necessarily be an English language learning book, it could be an English literature textbook, a history book, a philosophy book, a university text on architecture but in any case a textbook that has been written by a non-native speaker.

Now I know that non-native speakers have a lot of advantages because they can teach people remembering the difficulties they went through, so I'm not against non-native speakers but I do find that when I read a textbook which was written by a non-native there may not be actual mistakes but the words just don't flow – they don't sound natural and you often lose the information in the flowery language.

In the past at least three English literature books which I read, written by Italian non-native speakers, were correct grammatically and very fluent; however they just didn't sound English because English native speakers, when they talk about history or literature, are very concise: they give the information, they don't go round in circles, while in other languages, the Latin-based languages for example, they tend to be very flowery, they don't go straight to the point.

So when I was reading these books, trying to help my students, I realized that had they been written in another language it would have been fine but the English just don't do that, the English go straight to the point in textbooks (they are not like descriptive novels).

The other day an architecture student had to summarize a 15 page article by a Portuguese author written in English. I tried reading it myself and it was almost impossible to separate the information from all the beautiful flowery descriptive language. This is probably perfectly acceptable in Portuguese but made the task daunting.

I've also noticed that some English language learning textbooks have two authors of their own country plus one who is an English native speaker. The impression I have there is that the book was actually written by the non-native speakers and then probably given to the native speaker to check for mistakes. Now I don't know whether the native speaker reads every single line or whether he just browses through it but those are the books where I find there are no mistakes however that they just don't sound as if they were written by a native speaker therefore that name doesn't really count as an author.

In my opinion, if you have a choice, buy books written by native speakers. Then if your school sets books which were not written by native speakers, why not ask them and find out if it's possible to have a different kind of textbook.

The book I was looking at two days ago on the bus, the one which said present time and past time didn't actually have any other mistakes, it was explaining the grammar very well but the actual title was wrong so I do believe in using language learning textbooks being written by native speakers even if non-native speakers are equally good, if not better than native speakers, at explaining the language because they've been through the learning process while native speakers haven't, so non-natives can maybe relate better to students.

Therefore, non-native speakers are a very valid choice if they're explaining things to you but maybe not such a good choice when writing textbooks.
I hope you find this advice useful.

Susan

Check out my YouTube video:

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Do you want some TOP TIPS ON HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH CORRECTLY WITHOUT TRANSLATING?

28/8/2017

1 Comment

 
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Well, my theory is that it's best to learn to speak English, or any language if it comes to that, naturally. Therefore it's fine to learn grammar and vocabulary in the traditional way but that won't really help you speak it naturally. 

You have to think of languages as a puzzle. Every language has its verbs, subjects, objects, prepositions, adverbs, adjectives etc. but every language has a different combination of these. If you can think of language like Lego pieces - some languages will, for example, have the adjective before the noun and others will have it after the noun, so learning all these things individually doesn't really help you to speak naturally and correctly. 

So what's the best way to learn to speak naturally and as a result also write naturally? Well, the best way is to think of these puzzle pieces in bigger chunks, learn them and then put the bigger puzzle pieces together and that will help you speak more naturally. 

Now, of course, you need to practice this. Practicing anything is the best way: so if you want to remember that an adjective goes before the noun, as it does in English, you have to remember the structure and practice it in many, many ways: you can say, “my sister has long curly hair, my son has short curly hair, my brother has short wavy hair" and if you repeat the structure in various contexts, slowly, slowly you'll get better at it. The important thing is to repeat the longer structure, the longer puzzle piece and then put the puzzle pieces together. 

So the trick is to take chunks, complete chunks which you can pick up from books, audios podcasts, films, anywhere - you can notice notice them even in your traditional books, the ones that you've been studying; you can notice that there are pieces we fit together and then you have to practice them all the time in your daily life. For example, you know that TO is usually connected to movement so you can say, “I'm going TO the supermarket, I'm going TO work, I'm going TO church, I'm going TO hospital” and if you practice it enough “ going TO will become second nature. Of course you have to remember the exceptions, such as “going HOME” which doesn't have the preposition 'TO'. 

The best is actually if you can personalize it and make it something that is important to you and therefore you'll remember it. For example you could pick your daily routine to practise using “go TO” and start off with: "in the morning I go TO work but on the way I take the children TO school then when I return HOME I go TO the gym - so if you are putting it into a personalised context it's that much easier to remember and much more meaningful. 

So try it out and let me know how you get on. 

I hope you find this advice useful. 
Susan
1 Comment

USE CHUNKS - it's NOT ONLY A QUESTION OF FLUENCY but also USING NATURAL LANGUAGE

9/7/2017

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International venues are the perfect place for you to practise your English & for me to discover mistakes which I can teach my students to avoid.

Today I'm at the European Inline Speedskating Championships in Portugal & the speaker is doing an excellent job of introducing the skaters and cheering them on, giving us the results in a variety of languages, the main one obviously being English.

He speaks it very fluently and comprehensibly but makes mistakes because he sometimes thinks in his own language and uses the wrong collocations. As we were leaving the track, for example, he kindly wished us, "Make a good lunch!" Now MAKE LUNCH means to prepare it whilst he almost certainly meant, "Have a good lunch", because HAVE LUNCH means to enjoy lunch. So it's very important to learn chunks of language to sound as natural as possible.

Chunks can also be longer groups of words which are always used together. When you read, listen to native speakers and watch films, observe the sentences which are used repeatedly together and learn to use them so you sound natural. Chunks are like Lego pieces of different colours, sizes & lengths. You can build them together in various combinations but you will always sound more natural than if you translate.

Take my word for it, use chunks to sound more natural!

I hope these tips were useful for you!

Write some chunks in the comments box below for others to learn.

Your English fluency guide,

Susan


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THE KEY TO SUCCESS in REACHING YOUR GOALS to IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH

5/7/2017

0 Comments

 
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Now I'm not asking you to give up your life, as my daughter did, to improve your English...

You have a series of goals in mind in your life: they may seem far-fetched and impossible to reach. Don't let anyone tell you you can't reach your dreams!

I know there are many motivators out there who will tell you you can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it. I know you are sceptical but I have real proof of it in my own family!

I am a teacher and meet many students who progress in their school career and start giving up their passions because school has gradually become too demanding. It is true that school becomes demanding depending on the one you have chosen but it is such a pity to give up your passions - those are the ones that give you joy in life!!

My 18-year-old daughter is no genius, but a hard-working student and athlete who has very high standards for herself. Her life at high school consisted in 6 days of lessons from 8-1pm, a short break for lunch with a regenerating 20 minute power nap before getting to her books for homework & studying from 2.30 - 6pm. Intense sports training from 6.30-8.30 pm and after dinner more studying or up at 5am to finish off studying for a test.

Result: last Friday she took her final oral high school leaving diploma exam, hopped on a plane to Portugal to race with her national team in the European Inline Speedskating Championships and ended up with a GOLD MEDAL becoming European Champion in that particular race.

She is only one example of success when you really believe in something: another top student of mine has always fitted her acting & journalism passions into her intense study timetable, another is a European Karate Champion - I've said it before: where there's a will there's a way.

What does all this have to do with language learning?

CONSTANT REGULAR PRACTICE is THE KEY TO REACHING YOUR GOALS and you should never listen to others who will tell you it's impossible: you aim for it, keep your goal well in front of your eyes and 'go for it'!

I know non-native speakers of English who aimed at honing their accent to a point where I can no longer hear they are not native - they aimed at the near impossible and reached their goal.

So now I'm not asking you to give up your life, as my daughter did, to improve your English, but I am asking you to make a small, constant, regular effort to do a little everyday, always: read a book in English for 15 mins, sing a song, write your shopping list in English, speak to yourself in the car, keep a diary with a few lines on how you spent the day, listen to a podcast you're interested in. Do it everyday and you too will reach your goal and improve your English!

Remember - a little every day!

Write in the comments box below what you did to improve your English today.

Your English fluency guide,

Susan

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The BENEFITS of FULL‐IMMERSION Right From The Start

28/6/2017

32 Comments

 
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What’s the best way to learn a language?
There are many methods and theories but let’s look at the way we learn our native language.

A baby is born without being programmed for any particular language and this baby spends the first year of its life sleeping and listening. Gradually it listens more and it sleeps less; finally it starts trying to repeat the sounds it hears. After about a year and seven months a baby can usually say its first complete sentence.

Now a baby doesn’t study grammar – all it does is listen. Around the age of three it has acquired sufficient vocabulary and sentence structure to speak correctly in the language of its surroundings – in the language of its family. In fact if each parent speaks a different language to the baby, the child will learn both languages and will speak to each parent in their own language. I speak from experience as I myself grew up bilingual and my children have been speaking Italian to their father but English to me since birth.

Babies don’t study any formal grammar but they study vocabulary and expressions by association. They associate a sound, a word, with an object. So babies learn the language directly by listening and they pick up vocabulary and grammatical structures in context. Babies only learn in context, by associating images, objects, situations, and people with the language they hear.

This is the reason it is fundamental to speak to your students in English from the first day you meet them. The more they listen to you speaking, the more they’ll pick up and memorise even subconsciously.

I’ve been teaching myself Spanish mainly by listening to audios and travelling. Last week I texted a friend that my daughter had won a gold medal and I first wrote ‘ganado’ but it just didn’t ‘sound’ right. I then opted for ‘conseguido’ which sounded correct and a moment later I was congratulated for her having ‘conseguido’ (won) this medal. I had never studied this verb before but I had somehow absorbed it – listening gives you ‘a feel for the language’!

As a result the best way to learn a foreign language is first and foremost by LISTENING in order to associate an object or a picture with the word, an expression in context. The brain must connect the word or expression with its meaning without translating. This ASSOCIATION is very easy for the brain whilst translating makes it work twice as hard.

The brain already has its image bank – all it needs to do is associate various ‘synonyms’ (even in various languages) to it.

Instead translating is like putting the words of languages into separate drawers – the brain has to open two drawers, find the puzzle pieces in each language and put them together. Sometimes it picks the wrong pieces and horrific translations result!

Look at what happened when a clothing company consulted a dictionary without the help of an expert: Made in Turkey became Made in the bird you roast for Christmas.

Or when someone confused the Latin-American Spanish for Pope with potato and the Pope was greeted with Welcome Potato!

Ironically you have to know a language to use a dictionary correctly.

I always speak English with my students directly from the start – which means that I adapt my language to their level and if they are complete beginners I will speak very slowly and clearly using very simple language with gestures and pictures. This makes both teaching and learning very arduous at the beginning but if the students understand that they need to be patient and persist, they will reap the benefits.

This is no easy feat: a few years ago I had an evening course of complete beginners including 2 retired couples. I only spoke English and we slowly progressed. They seemed to be very unhappy that I insisted on speaking only English to them. Halfway through the course the two elderly couples left on a three-week cruise through the Mediterranean missing quite a few lessons. On their return they told me that they had been the only ones of their group to communicate in rudimentary English on their holiday but what had surprised them most was that they were able to understand. They completed the course with a renewed attitude, to my great satisfaction.

When I teach beginner adults in a class, my very first lesson deals with getting to know each other so we discuss in very simple sentences who they are, where they live, what their jobs and hobbies are, their families… Then towards the end of the lesson I write a paragraph on the board which acts as a scaffold for their oral introduction to the rest of the class. One by one the students speak reading the sentences and filling in the gaps appropriately according to their personal situation. They leave the lesson feeling it was very difficult and tiring but they had already managed to speak about themselves in English and that was a great satisfaction. One should always try to end a lesson on a high note so students feel satisfied despite their difficulties.

When I teach, speaking only English to my students, I aim at teaching them specific language and expressions, but I inevitably use daily language that I had not intended teaching formally. As a consequence I find my younger students in particular using expressions I had not planned such as, “I have an itch!”, “It’s itchy!”, “You’ve got a terrible cough!”, “Bless you!” when they sneeze, “Oopsy daisy!” (a typical British expression for when something falls down accidentally), “Really?!” when they tell me something interesting - even if they speak to me in their mother-tongue, I always reply in English. Depending on their age and proficiency I allow myself to understand them in their own language or insist they express themselves in English. So children and adults pick up the language you don’t realise you are using.

The same goes for texting: When I text with my students in English I sometimes use expressions they don’t know, so they will text back asking, “What does I’ll let you know mean? What is ASAP? My students are picking up language they would not necessarily learn in class but only in daily
Picking up the language in context gives you expressions, phrasal verbs without having to memorise them and think – they just come naturally.

My sister-in-law came to my evening classes after a long day’s work. She always asked if she could only sit and listen because she could no longer concentrate. She was not particularly talented nor motivated, nor did she study at home. Despite this she told me that on one holiday with her friends who spoke no English, she managed to solve various problems at the hotel – the words just came out and she had no idea how. This is an example of the power of the brain to absorb language…

Not only language but also people are associated with language - my school students are so used to associating me with English that if I meet them outside the classroom context, in the corridor, at the supermarket, they will still speak to me in English – it’s just natural for them. They don’t even dream of speaking to me in their native language.

When you learn a language you should associate an expression or a word with an object or a situation. You learn these associations in chunks – by doing so its not necessary to learn the grammar in the formal sense because you pick it up and embed it in your brain just as it stands and over time you will put these pieces like a puzzle together and form correct sentences.

That’s why its important to surround yourself with the language – set your computer, mobile phone and social network settings into the language you are learning. Read, listen and watch as much as you can – immerse yourself fully in the language even if you can’t travel there. Some social networks also connect you to people who want to exchange conversation with you if you speak to them in the language they are studying.

Full-immersion is fundamental to language learning and if you can’t go there you must surround yourself with it here.
Check out more EFL talks like this one in 

EFL talks - The Companion Guide: 
Teachers Teaching Teachers
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HOW do CHILDREN LEARN A LANGUAGE so easily? The SECRET to FLUENCY!! - Student learning tips

25/6/2017

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What's the best way to learn a language? 
How do children learn a language?

Last summer I was on holiday at an international campsite in Croatia watching children and listening to how they interact with each other. There were children from Germany, Italy, Croatia, from all over the world and they were all talking to each other while playing together.

How do they do that? They listen to each other and repeat. That's also how they learn their own language.

When children are born they grow up listening to their parents and to their friends for about two years before they actually start repeating. Then they start saying words and sentences but they don't study grammar, they don't study how to read or write until they're much older. They do, however, have an enthusiasm for copying what the others say, copying the good language and the bad language.

So what's the easiest way to learn a language? Listen, listen, listen, listen and repeat - even if you don't understand. Listen and repeat! Slowly you'll pick it up, you'll understand from context and you'll be able to use the language correctly without studying the grammar. You'll be able to pronounce it correctly if you've been copying the pronunciation you hear rather than how you remember the words are written.

So listen and repeat! Listening comes way before speaking and there are a myriad of possibilities to listen to & repeat authentic language on the internet nowadays!

Try listening to and repeating what native speakers say on the VOSCREEN.com website – fun, excellent for listening practice, comprehension and pronunciation practice:
  • listen until you think you can repeat what they said (repeat! Not translate!)
  • check the subtitle to compare with what you said
  • don’t worry about the terrible Google translator translation – we are practising comprehension of the words in English and pronunciation – not translation!
  • Repeat what you hear (not what you read!!)
  • Continue with next 5 seconds film
  • Practice, practice, practice.

These are just a few tips to help you along with your fluency.

Please write in the comments box below how you find this method works for you.

​If you want MORE SPECIFIC SPEAKING PRACTICE, download my 10-Minute-A-Day FREE FLUENCY TRAINER on-the-go Exercises to experience the benefit it has on your fluency and confidence in English! Follow these tips and enjoy learning English easily!!

Your English fluency teacher,

Susan
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IMPROVE your ENGLISH by THINKING in ENGLISH! But how…?

23/6/2017

5 Comments

 
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Why is thinking in English really important?

I've always stressed that listening is the first thing to help you learn English naturally with all its expressions, grammar, collocations and phrasal verbs. The more you listen, the better you'll be able to absorb all the grammatical structures. On the other hand, you also need to practice speaking.

All this can only be done if you're thinking in English. How can you think in English?

It's not as difficult as it seems: you have to incorporate it into your daily life and the best way is to talk to yourself. So if you're alone, it's no difficult feat; of course, if you're in company, it's a little harder.

I have tested it on myself: I have taught myself a little Spanish and I always practiced when I was driving.

What you have to do is to literally speak to yourself - you see a pedestrian who is crossing the road in the wrong place and you think, “Well, couldn't he have gone on the zebra crossing?”, that is, if your level of English is at least pre-intermediate, but you can also say, “Oh look at that man: he's not on the zebra crossing!” That's for beginners or for people who have less experience learning English. What you have to do is to use the little language you do know and say it out loud to practice your speaking & pronunciation - at the same time, you'll inevitably be thinking in the language.

I always recommend incorporating it into daily life. I often send my students out of the lesson saying, “Okay, now open the door, close the door.”

As you're walking towards your car you can think, “Hmmm, where are my keys? I'm putting my hand into my pocket; I'm pulling out my keys; I'm putting the key into the .... “ Not everyone will know the word 'lock' - 'to unlock the car' but you make a mental note, “Okay, I don't know the word for that thing with which I open my car.” When you have time, you can either google the word on your smartphone or when you get home you can look it up in the dictionary.

Not knowing a word mustn't worry you. You have to just carry on and say, “Okay, so I'm opening the door; I'm pulling the door; I'm getting into the car; I'm closing the door; now I'm turning on the engine and so on.” Speak to yourself during any of your daily activities - when you get out of bed: “I'm going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth”.

Use any activity where you can speak to yourself out loud. If you're speaking out loud you're sure that you're thinking in that language and don't be deterred by any vocabulary you don't know.

Simplify - use simple words to express things and make a mental note of the words you can't think of. Then check them and if you do this regularly - you don't need to do it all day but regularly every day, regularly in any case - you'll see that your pronunciation will improve and also that you'll be thinking in English.

Thinking in English is one of the first steps to improving it, to making the language become yours, to make the language become part of your being. That's when you start really improving because if you can listen a lot, speak a lot and think a lot, you're already on the way to raising the level of your English or any language if it comes to that.

So don't forget: think in English... speak out loud... you'll notice the dramatic improvements within a couple of days.

Hope you implement this advice!

Please write in the comments box below how you feel after trying it out for a week or two!

Looking forward to your comments,

Your English fluency guide,

Susan
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How I TURNED COMMUTING TIME into QUALITY TIME for LANGUAGE LEARNING and MUCH MORE...

16/6/2017

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My personal experience...

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So many students complain that they'd like to practice their English but they don't have enough time.

Other high-performing businessmen and athletes manage to squeeze in a lot of activities into one day. What's their secret?

How do you spend your commuting time? Is your commuting time WASTED time or GAINED time?

When my son was only three years old I chose to send my children to a very good school which was about half an hour's drive from where we lived. Now many people I know criticized that choice, saying that we would have been wasting our time two hours a day because it was a 30-minute drive one way and that was only one of the many disadvantages. In reality it turned out to be gained time because, on the two laps with my children in the car, going to and returning from school, when they were young, we sang songs, spoke to each other, told each other stories, practiced various languages and as they grew we also did spelling as well as times tables but what was most important is that we spoke to each other about our concerns, our worries and in particular, any questions about life they had we discussed: the existence or not of Father Christmas, human reproduction, smoking, drugs and all things which were concerning them as they grew up.

In that commuting time I managed to also teach them what I thought were the values of life so we built a really deep relationship through commuting and talking together - we were strapped in the car, we couldn't escape from each other and we really got to know each other; I got to trust them and they got to trust me. It bonded our relationship and I know that if we hadn't had this commuting time we wouldn't have built such a strong relationship because I would have done my own thing in the house, with all my household duties, whilst they would have gone to play and it wouldn't have been such an opportunity - so if you use this commuting time wisely, it is only gained time.

Not only was it quality time when we were together, but on the journeys where I was alone, on the way to pick the children up or coming back from having dropped them off, I used the time to discover the joys of audiobooks. I had really never used audiobooks and that's when I started discovering how exciting they are! Then I started learning Spanish and realized the advantages of language learning in the car, so for me commuting does not only have the disadvantage of the hassle - sometimes I'm stuck in a queue - commuting isn't only something negative, it's something positive.

So that's why you, who I'm sure are very busy, as I always have been, can take advantage for your language learning too because you can listen to podcasts, you can sing songs in English, you can listen to various audio books in the language you're studying and take advantage of audio courses where you listen, where you repeat and even if you don't want to do any of that, you can just talk to yourself in the language you're studying - for most of you that'll be English: talking to yourself will help your jaw get used to forming the words in the language you want to become fluent in and, best of all, nobody can laugh at your mistakes! As a result you'll feel very confident and the more you talk to yourself in this language, even if you're making mistakes, it doesn't matter, you improve your fluency.

That's why I think that taking advantage of commuting time means that when you get home you've done your daily dose of teaching yourself a language or practicing it and then when you're home you can dedicate your time to relaxing, doing sports, spending time with your family and that's very important, to have the feeling that you've done something for yourself, without stealing time from the things that you love, which are not necessarily language learning. This is why I've developed this course where you can, while you're in the car, listen, repeat and practice your fluency, practice your listening comprehension and practice your grammar because the exercises, over the weeks, gradually revise the grammar from easy to difficult including phrasal verbs and typical expressions.

These are all things that you can do, in particular, in the car whilst you're commuting - I recommend you don't just use the time for listening to music and chatting to your friends on the phone but actually as a kind of training for yourself. Now take advantage of it, see the positive side of it! I teach a lot of doctors; I teach a lot of people who are really, really busy and don't have much time but do commute. These courses are especially useful for people who have a very busy schedule so if you think that you'd be interested, download these courses I developed especially for you busy people - try them out. It's only ten minutes a day every day and you can listen, repeat and practice all your skills - the only skill that isn't really contemplated is writing but that you can practice in the comments box here below. This course was actually conceived for listening and repeating; so download it - the first week is absolutely free – if you find it's useful then you can go on my website and check out if you want to buy one or more weeks of the subsequent course.

Turn commuting time into GAINED TIME and enrich your life!

I hope you found these tips useful,

your fluency guide,

​Susan

P.S. Check out my podcasts to download & listen to whilst commuting if you have no time to watch my videos!
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How about answering some exciting WOULD YOU RATHER… questions? - Susan’s Conversation Tips

13/6/2017

1 Comment

 

Answer my questions motivating your choices!!

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Stimulating students to speak is always a challenge.
Would you rather... questions give students two specific choices to discuss and they can give their personal opinion moving on to the next question but it can also be subject of debate in class – each standing for their own opinion and trying to convince the others...


Do you know the meaning of WOULD YOU RATHER...?
Would you rather means would you prefer... and I have five exciting would you rather questions for you to give you some food for thought: Now, I'd like you to write the answers to these questions in the comments box below because it's exciting to hear all your different opinions.

1. Would you rather work for yourself or for an employer? Would you prefer to be an entrepreneur or would you prefer to work for someone else? Personally I don't enjoy working for an employer because I'm a very independent person and I like to do my own thing so that's my answer... but what about yours?

2. Would you rather spend the night in a luxury hotel or camping surrounded by beautiful scenery?
So spend the night in a luxury hotel or would you rather go camping and be surrounded by absolutely beautiful scenery? Would you rather stay in a luxury hotel or camping? Well, my answer to that one is I love nature so I have no doubt that I would enjoy camping in most beautiful scenery.

3. Would you rather win an Olympic Gold Medal or win the Nobel Peace Prize? Now that's a difficult one because both are really exciting but personally maybe I'd like to impact the world with peace and therefore win the Nobel Peace Prize even though a gold medal sounds really exciting at the Olympic Games. What about you? Write your opinion in the comments box.

4. Would you rather have your 1st child when you are 18 or 40 years old? Now I didn't really plan on having children that late but it so happens that I was closer to 40 than to 18 when I had my children and despite it not being a choice, it turned out to be very good for me because it gave me plenty of time to do all the traveling that I really loved and then it rejuvenated me because I had to face all the challenges of bringing up two young children at not such a young age so I wouldn't recommend 40 but if it so happens, don't worry about it because it can be really exciting and rejuvenating. What about you? What's your opinion?

5. Would you rather your kids wore a school uniform or clothes of their own choice? Would you rather they had the possibility to choose their own clothes every morning? School uniform or your own clothes? Well, I went to school in Britain and of course there we all have a school uniform so I didn't even think about it but then later my children wore their own clothes to primary school so when the school implemented a uniform at middle school we weren't too happy about it. However, it did work out to be very practical because you got up in the morning and didn't worry about what you were going to wear; you always knew that you had the school uniform to wear so it wasted less time in choice it also reduced our wardrobe. A uniform does have the effect that there are no comparisons: “look what I'm wearing”, “mine is nicer than yours” and so on, as can happen in some schools. So I suppose a school uniform is not a bad choice after all.

Now what are your opinions on these would you rather questions? I'm looking forward to reading your answers in the comments below.
I hope you find these questions stimulating.
Susan


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10-minute-a-day FAST FLUENCY TRAINER on-the-go:   Why I decided to develop this course and its REVIEWS

3/6/2017

10 Comments

 

Please leave your REVIEW in the COMMENTS below...

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I wonder if you are like me….

There are so many things that interest me… books, art, music, creative activities, sport…
and so I promise myself every week that I’ll find time to read a little, do daily exercise, both to improve my physical and mental health but then…
- I want to do my best in my job so I spend a lot of time reading up on the latest developments, I take courses to update my professional skills…
- I have a family that needs my attention and with whom I want to spend quality time…
- a household that needs managing and taking care of...

… and so the days slide by and weeks turn into months and before I know it another year has passed without doing anything for me personally, something I believe I need.

This is the reason I decided to develop this course for you, my Fast Fluency Trainer.  The idea behind it was to give people the possibility to train their fluency, their speaking skills, while commuting, going for a walk or doing household chores.  

The beauty of it lies not only in being able to practise without taking away time from all your other activities but it gives you the possibility to speak in private, without feeling that someone is listening and judging you.  This gives you the feeling of freedom to make mistakes and experiment with your mouth the different sounds you can make at different speeds, because language can sometimes be a tongue twister and your mouth needs to be exercised.

If you practise just 10 minutes a day for 7 days I promise you will feel the language flow easily from your mouth and you will be excited to feel this improvement not only in how easily you speak but also to how well you express yourself naturally without too many grammatical mistakes.

So take on the challenge right now - what have you got to lose?

Download my FAST FLUENCY TRAINER exercises onto your phone and start listening and repeating them!

… and don’t forget to let me know if you found them helpful by adding your comment below!

Follow the path to fluency & have a great day!

Your English fluency guide,

Susan
Dana writes: 
I have just tried the fast training for fluency... it's miraculous!!!  
At the end of the listening I could say the text fluently and without any mistake!  That's great I'm training my muscles!  Thanks Susan, this is really a good exercise!
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STOP TRANSLATING!!!  DESCRIBE, DEFINE and EXPLAIN the meaning IN CONTEXT! - Susan’s Student Tips

26/4/2017

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​Did you know that TRANSLATING is very BAD FOR your FLUENCY and generally for learning to speak English well?   Now why is that?  
 
Well, translating is really, really bad for your fluency because in other languages or in every language, actually, the WORDS are PUT TOGETHER in DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS so no language will have the same combination of words to express an idea, to express the concepts and therefore translating makes no sense because you will have the exact meaning very often word for word but when you want to reuse that expression, you'll put together the words that you have in your mind, you'll translate them and not necessarily put them together in the correct order.
 
So what does that mean?  Let me give you an example:   for years I've been fighting a problem that many of my students have when they talk or write about themselves and the typical phrase they say is:  "my family is composed of four members" or "my family consists of four people", in any case always wrong compositions of words, so what should one really say?
 
One should really say "there are four people in my family" that's what a native speaker would say or "there are four of us in my family" or "my family is made up of four people".  The other words are technically and grammatically correct but no native speaker would say them so it makes no sense to use words that don't sound natural, that no native speaker would say.  That's why translating is really, really bad and the only way to overcome this is to IMMERSE yourself IN THE LANGUAGE, first of all but secondly to make sure that you USE DEFINITIONS RATHER THAN TRANSLATIONS that so when you don't know what something means, look it up in the dictionary of the same language you are studying, for example English-English and look for the definition or ask a person what it means by explaining it to you, defining it so at that point you'll have the expression embedded in your mind in the correct format and you won't make a mistake - you'll just learn" there are four people in my family" or "there are four of us in my family" and you won't even think of using any other expression. 
 
Translating should be used at a very, very high level when you are really advanced to understand abstract concepts which are not so easy to define so I'm not saying that translating is absolutely wrong but certainly it should be used for the very occasional word which doesn't fit in any context that you can define and understand, so practically very rarely.
 
Another example I can give you is that there was an expression when I moved to Germany which I presumed meant something and I never ever translated it because it fitted into every context really, really well.  However, after three years this word didn't fit into that particular context, so I looked it up in the dictionary and what I had interpreted as its meaning was ninety percent of the time correct but there was a ten percent possibility of using a meaning which was similar to that one but not identical and that's where I needed to use the dictionary because it didn't make any sense to me.   In any case, that took place three years after having heard and used this expression perfectly correctly in all contexts.  
 
So FORGET TRANSLATING!   Try and immerse yourself in the language, listen to a programme, sing songs but also looking at the lyrics so you pick up what I call blocks or chunks of language.  It's the chunks you have to learn in the correct sequence of words and then you won't make any mistakes because you'll be saying the complete chunk correctly just very naturally the same way as any native speaker would do so. 
 
Therefore that's what I recommend:  don't translate, pick up the language by listening, repeating, absorbing the language just as children would do; children absorb the language without translating - they just pick it up from the context.  Follow my advice and improve your English!
 
I hope you find this useful.
Susan
 
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HOUSEHOLD CHORES Lesson:  an ACTION SONG, a CARD GAME and a FILM with QUESTIONS

27/2/2017

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The ONLY WAY to BECOME FLUENT in A LANGUAGE is BY USING IT.  I have therefore created A SONG TO MEMORISE EXPRESSIONS regarding housework, A CARD GAME TO CONSOLIDATE these expressions and A FILM WITH QUESTIONS TO TEST how well they have been retained.

  • So to start with, for the younger ones the expressions are introduced with an ACTION-SONG.
 
  • I then usually get them to play SNAP with CHORES CARDS seeing if they can think of a complete sentence using this expression, perhaps adding a little fun by ringing a bell for the first person who can think of a sentence.  (Get students to draw pictures to illustrate the CHORES CARDS)
 
  • or PRACTISING NATURAL SENTENCES with SPECIAL custom-made DICE.
 
  • Every time they turn a card they have to throw one or more dice and create sentences accordingly.  
 
  • Finally I show them a film with questions to verify how many of the expressions they remember.  The film is about a boy voluntarily carrying out a lot of household chores for a specific reason.  It’s very touching.
 
The results are surprising:  students are constantly engaged, having fun and learning a lot! 
 
I hope you find this useful. 
Please leave any comments below and if you like this blog, please subscribe for more updates.
Susan

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SOCIAL MEDIA Lesson:  A DISCUSSION followed by A FILM WITH QUESTIONS

24/2/2017

66 Comments

 
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Image Credit: Author: Rafi License: Royalty-free, Free for personal and commercial use
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GETTING TEENAGERS INVOLVED in English LESSONS is a difficult task since this is an age when many lack motivation for things which they are relatively interested in.  In fact my best students are the ones who love watching YouTubers in English, listen & sing songs in English and are generally active on social networks with people they ‘meet’ from around the globe.
 
So this lesson on Social Media worked surprisingly well in my class of 13 year-old teenagers, some of whom do not usually like participating actively in English conversation.

  • so to start with, I divided the class into groups of 4-5 students and gave each group a pack of excellent Nomination-Cards by Tekhnologic, which have the function of obliging every member of the group to speak when called upon at random by the card that was picked.  This made sure that even the shy and reticent had to participate and it really worked.
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https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/nomination-cards-giving-students-a-chance-to-speak/
  • I then gave them a series of questions on social media to discuss which went down well since they enjoyed the topic.
 
  • Finally we watched a film simulating social media for which I had created questions which stop during the film and have to be answered for the film to continue. 
 
The students participated actively and it was an overall successful lesson.  Try it out for yourselves!
 
I hope you find this useful. 
Please leave any comments below and if you like this blog, please subscribe for more updates.
 
Susan
social_media_-_can_i_be_your_friend__questions_to_discuss.docx
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nomination-cards_tekhnologic.pdf
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The PROVEN VALUE of GAMES & SONGS for LEARNING ENGLISH due to their REPETITIVE NATURE which favours memorisation.

21/2/2017

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How can we GET STUDENTS to LEARN A LANGUAGE BY USING IT so that they BECOME CONFIDENT and FLUENT?
 
First of all LEARNING has to be FUN for younger students and at least ENJOYABLE for adults.

  • so to start with, for the younger ones ACTION-SONGS represent a fun, repetitive and meaningful way to learn natural expressions easily.

  • once the expressions have been introduced, by action songs, flashcards or other means in the case of adults, I usually get them to play SNAP with the cards seeing if they can think of a complete sentence using this expression, perhaps adding a little fun by ringing a bell for the first person who can think of a sentence.

  • but the MOST INTERESTING repetitive FACTOR which HELPS the STUDENTS CREATE and PRACTISE NATURAL SENTENCES is the introduction of SPECIAL custom-made DICE with the language you would like them to practise.

  • Every time they turn a card they have to throw one or more dice and create sentences accordingly.   As you can see from the picture, it’s very easy even for beginners or younger students to form sentences and the constant repetition helps them instill the grammatical structure naturally so they get a feel for the language just as a native learner does as he’s growing up.
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  • Custom-made dice I have been using are:
  • Subject pronouns
  • Frequency adverbs
  • Time expressions
  • Expressions for Present Perfect (already, just…)
  • Expressions for Simple Past (yesterday, ago…)
  • Clock faces for learning to the time
  • + affirmative, - negative, ? question to practise all forms
  • Object pronouns
  • Possessive adjectives
You can make the dice on the following website:  http://www.toolsforeducators.com/dice/
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The results are amazing because they not only create sentences easily but also practise the use of the 3rd person and consequently have to remember the addition of the ‘s’. 
 
The games I have been using recently are a complete success in the amount of fun the students have not only playing but managing to create a lot of correct sentences with the pronouns I, he & she, the frequency adverbs and a time expression.  I have introduced affirmative, negative & question dice for older and more proficient students.  I recommend trying it out for yourselves!
 
Check out my latest Household Chores Routine Song for some language to make playing cards with, as well as my recent Morning, Afternoon, Sports & Clothes Routine Songs
 
I hope you find this useful. 
Please leave any comments below and if you like this blog, please subscribe for more updates.
 
Susan
chores_routine_song.docx
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sports_routine_song.docx
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clothes_routine_song.docx
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morning_routine_song.docx
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The POWER of REPETITIVE ACTION-SONGS, STUDENT-MADE FLASHCARDS and a BELL

13/2/2017

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LEARNING A LANGUAGE BY USING IT is really the only way to become confident and fluent – so ACTION-SONGS represent a fun, repetitive and meaningful way to learn natural expressions easily.  Even adults enjoy them if they can overcome the feeling that they are too old for this kind of activity.
 
As a follow-up to the latest new ACTION songs I created a couple of weeks ago, I decided to involve my students in creating flashcards for the expressions so as to consolidate them in their minds.  They subsequently played SNAP with the cards with the added fun of a bell when they could think of a complete sentence using this expression.  The results were amazing because they not only created sentences about themselves but also about their family members, resulting in the use of the 3rd person and consequently having to remember the addition of the ‘s’. 
 
The games were a complete success in the amount of fun they had not only playing but managing to create a lot of correct sentences with the pronouns I, he & she.  I recommend trying it out for yourselves!

See my ACTION-SONGS on my YouTube Channel.

For example:
MORNING ROUTINE song for kids
AFTERNOON / EVENING ROUTINE song for kids
SPORTS Routine Song for kids 
CLOTHES Routine Song for kids 
PREPOSITION Chant
DAILY ROUTINE Song

DIRECTIONS Chant

I hope you find this useful. 
​
Please leave any comments below and if you like this blog, please subscribe for more updates.

Susan
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LEARNING the MORNING & AFTERNOON ROUTINES easily with a REPETITIVE SONG, great ACTIONS and CONSOLIDATED with a DRAWING!

7/2/2017

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Years of experience teaching students of all ages and levels, I find recurring basic mistakes even in fluent adult speakers such as “I’m sorry I didn’t make my homeworks .”  My quest is therefore to instill a natural feeling for the correct language by creating ACTION SONGS which should be so repetitive that students will come out with the correct expressions naturally, like a native would.  Obviously the best starting point is with children.
 
I have therefore created various new ACTION songs, the first two of which I’d like to share here, apologising for my terrible singing voice on the videos but the objective is to teach language and get the students to learn spontaneously having fun.
 
There is nothing new in the words of these action songs compared to already existing versions except that I get them to shout out the previously sung actions after each line of the song so as to revise the words and pronunciation, fixing them in their minds.
 
The final step is to get them to draw the pictures of the actions they have just learnt, thus consolidating the expressions.
 
I hope you find this useful. 
Please leave any comments below and if you like this blog, please subscribe for more updates.
​

Susan

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morning_routine_song.docx
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afternoon_routine_song.docx
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    My name is Susan Brodar, born in London into a multilingual family and brought up bilingual English / Italian.

    I went to school in London until 15 when we moved to Germany where I finished my British education at Munich International School. I started teaching Italian at evening classes aged only 17 and studied Mass Communications and Journalism at Munich University.

    I continued teaching parallel to interpreting at trade fairs and business meetings as well doing translations. After working at the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade for a year I married my Italian globetrotting companion in 1983 and we set up our home near Venice, Italy where we continue to live with our two teenaged children.

    Having taken my British High School-leaving ‘A’ Level exams in English, Italian, French & German I am completely fluent in all four languages and am taking a DELE certification in Spanish to complement them.

    ENGLISH (native)
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