Category: Podcasts

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Could you say that again, please?

This morning, my student Alice arrived all upset because she’d been stuck in traffic for nearly two hours and had missed 90% of her class. But despite all the rush she brought up a very pertinent question:

She asked: “How can I improve my listening?”

Could you please repeat that?She’s just returned from a week’s vacation in New York City and told me she had not had any significant listening problems – of course most of the time she’d been meeting up with fellow Brazilian friends and speaking Portuguese – but when she is watching her favorite TV series – Homeland or Scandal, for example, she misses much of what they say. Even the subtitles are too fast. So, how can she improve her listening to better understand native natural speech?

Firstly, in some cases, the dialogues in TV series are not THAT natural. A quick search on the speech speed used in TV series brought me this info:

*Fans of writer-producer Shonda Rhimes are already used to the blazing speed with which her characters must deliver their lines, but her prime time dramas “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” have nothing on “Scandal” when it comes to the sheer volume of words spoken per second.

Homeland in fast speech track
Homeland in fast speech track
Am I talking too fast?
Am I talking too fast?

Just ask lead actress Kerry Washington.

“In some ways I feel like doing David Mamet on Broadway was the perfect training for doing television with Shonda Rhimes, because they’re two immensely talented, prolific writers who value the English language, who require a real commitment to language,” she says. “Their work is so athletic – in film and in television. The physical requirements are so great.”

Asked why she demands that her “Scandal” cast rapid-fire their lines, Rhimes said the approach serves several purposes.

“Part of ‘Scandal’s’ pace was born of me not wanting actors to linger in the moments, in the sense of it’s a world in which everyone is really incredibly busy, and there’s no time to feel your feelings,” said Rhimes. “So part of it was that. Part of it was that I wrote a pilot that was, like, 75 pages long.”

Her co-producer Betsy Beers says: “It’s funny how much you can get in if you talk really, really fast.”

 Adds co-star Columbus Short: “The amazing thing about this show is really, speaking that fast in the dialogue, it’s remarkable how the emotion hasn’t gotten lost.”

Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2012/11/why-is-the-dialogue-so-fast-in-abcs-scandal/#Kta2bugSQKDAuzId.99

So how could my students improve their listening comprehension?

It’s an easy-peasy answer: by listening lots and lots of English.

I notice in my own self-taught French lessons – I’m on a pre-intermediate level in Voltaire’s language – when I listen to tv shows, news, series and/or podcasts in French on a more regular basis, let us say, Monday through Friday for at least 15 minutes – my listening improves for the next time I’ll be listening to something in that language.

So my advice pearls would be:

  1. Make listening a fun daily habit – no point in torturing yourself listening to things you find boring. Documentaries have a slower paced narration but if you don’t like watching them try a cartoon, a soap, a movie, whatever appeals to you.
  2. Take advantage of “convenient” moments. Stuck in traffic? what’s the point in listening to the traffic reporter hovering over your head saying that there is a huge traffic congestion. Listen to your new target language.
  3. Listen to native English speakers (or any other native speakers of the language you want to learn). Use podcasts – tonnes of different ideas and interests. Try Online radio.
  4. Listen to non-native English speakers. Yes, that’s right. In today’s world you’ll come across people from around the around using English to communicate. That’s what you need, isn’t it?

Since you are so excited about developing your listening skills please  find below some more podcasts developed with the English language learner in mind

1.  6 Minute English podcast – produced by the BBC with 2 hosts always asking some challenging question found in the news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/

2. All Ears English podcast – 2 chicks always teaching some cultural and language point in the English spoken in the US. Beware: one of them slurs and speakstoofastasifshecouldntbotherwhethershesunderstoodornot.
http://allearsenglish.com/

3. Aprende Inglés con la Mansión del Inglés – 2 dudes (one from Belfast and another from London) host the show with good humor and focus on a teaching point. Emphasis on Spanish speakers http://www.inglespodcast.com

4. Business English Q&A  –
 US-born Ryan now living and working in Germany develops a great series of interviews with successful English language learners from different parts of the world trying to discover the common traits, tips and techniques to assist in learning a foreign language more effectively.

http://www.businessenglishqanda.com/

5. English Harmony Podcast – prepared by Robby, a non-native English speaker with tips on how to learn English more effectively.
http://englishharmony.com/english-harmony-podcast/

6. Real Life English podcast – a group of young teachers from the US, Australia and some other beaches I can’t remember they try to encourage students (female students, mostly) to learn and practice English. First produced in Belo Horizonte, Brazil now they’ve spread to Chile. Oh, yeahhh.
http://reallifeeng.libsyn.com/

7. English Experts Podcast – Produced by non-native English speakers focuses on the common needs of Brazilian English learners.
https://archive.org/details/EnglishExperts-Podcast

8. ESL Podcast – The host for the podcast is Dr. Jeff McQuillan, directly from sunny Los Angeles, and he helps read the scripts and provides explanations for them.

https://www.eslpod.com/website/

9. Luke’s English Podcast – produced and hosted by Luke from England – it’s a very good way to expose yourself to British English. But it requires a little patience usually no shorter than 45 minutes.
http://teacherluke.co.uk/

10. Richard Vaughan Live podcast – controversial Texas-born Richard Vaughan has painstakingly been trying to teach English to Spaniards. His ramblings are quite entertaining. I love the episodes when he loses his temper with some of his on-air students.

http://www.ivoox.com/podcast-richard-vaughan-live_sq_f180769_1.html

11. VOA’s Learning English Podcast –
dating back to their shortwave transmissions even before the Internet, VOA has been my companion with good quality of listening content on American history, words and news.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/podcast/0.html

 

Phew, I think that will keep you busy until next year.

I’m sure this will help you out. And if you feel you still need to improve your listening comprehension repeat steps 1-3 as many times as necessary.

Cheers and happy listening.

Mo

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Can’t you see their special needs?

As I was listening to the latest podcast of the Teflologists  I came across the topic of students with special needs. (Podcast by Teflology
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-teflology-podcast/id897413013?mt…)

Interestingly enough, in all my 25 plus years of teaching I’ve just come across a blind student once. It was back in 1993 and we were a group of young teachers trying to make our language consultancy firm take off. Our office was very well located near the financial center of São Paulo and in the building where we rented 2 office rooms, there were several mid-sized companies and consultancies. One day my partner told me that Roberto Carlos’s son had an office in our building and asked if I could be his teacher. In case you don’t know, Roberto Carlos has been the king of Brazil’s pop romantic music for over 50 years. I said “of course, I’d love to”, jumping at the opportunity of meeting someone related to someone famous. Got my book, notes and also a magazine with lots of pictures to start off the class.
After the initial greetings, I asked him to look at a picture and describe it to me, as a warm-up activity. He said: “Sorry, I can’t.  I’m blind.”
Wah-wah-waaaaaahhhh.…. How could I have missed it? The blind one had actually been me.
And this morning it got me thinking about the lack of materials and articles for teachers to work with special needs students. Could I teach a blind or deaf person? I don’t think I’d have any problems with a person unable to walk or someone with no arms. Even though considering my thick skull I’d probably ask them to go to the blackboard and write something. (Chuckles).

“Take the example of Carlos (age 15), a refugee from Central America. He is not learning English as quickly as his teachers think he should be. He has been in Canada for two years and is falling far behind in his studies.
Is it because he:
has a language disorder?
is depressed over his brother’s death?
is developmentally delayed?
does not want to be in Canada?
is finding it difficult to learn English?
has limited literacy skills in his first language?
left school in his native country when he was 10 years old?
has a learning disability?
has not made the adjustment to living in Canada?
Or is it a combination of the above?
Students like Carlos raise questions about how we identify,
assess, and provide program support for ESL students with
special needs. There are no ready-made answers. There is no
single professional who can answer all of these questions.”*
I believe these questions will help any teacher identify his students’ needs and seek help whenever necessary.
Happy Teaching,
Cheers,
Mo
*Excerpted from ESL Learners With Special Needs In British Columbia:
Identification, Assessment, and Programming Prepared for
The British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills, and Training
February 1998
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Is time money? So invest it wisely!

We live in times when it’s almost a status symbol to say we don’t have time. We’re constantly in a rush. Sometimes it feels we’re running like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland: “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late for a very important date”!

Invest your time wisely
Invest your time wisely

This week, a student of mine, Rodrigo, was saying that to his defense he hadn’t had time to do his homework. He has 2 young daughters and a wife to care for at home. And his work is very demanding.

It sounded as if I gave him homework as a form of punishment. Actually, I couldn’t care less about it. Do it. Don’t do it. I won’t be any wiser because of that.

The only reasons I give students homework is to give them direction to review what was seen in class, to practice reading and writing and to expand vocabulary.

I asked Rodrigo: “Ok, let’s have a math class (incorporating other subjects to English): how many hours do we have in a week?”

After fumbling a little  – 24 hours in a day – 7 days in a week … and spilling some zeros on the floor, we settled at 168 hours a week. He has 1 hour of English class per week.

“Ok,” he said. “But I have to sleep”. “Right”, I said. “So let’s be very optimistic and say you sleep 8 hours a night – in a week? 56 hours – that still leaves you with 112 hours to expose yourself to English”.

In a year? 8760 hours – if he never misses a class he’ll have had 52 hours worth of  English classes. Will that be enough for any student to gain fluency?

You know the answer. So dear students, if you want to learn you will have to devise your own ways to better use your time – be creative, think out of the box.

Rodrigo likes football/soccer – great hobby – listen to podcasts about it. Read a news article online every day about the British League, translate one paragraph from the sports section in his local newspaper into English, etc.

The secret is not setting aside some crumbs of minutes to “STUDY ENGLISH” but to incorporate English in your everyday life.

Cheers,

Mo

Invest your time wisely
Invest your time wisely
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7 Podcasts every ESL Teacher needs to know

Having upgraded my iPhone 5s to an iPhone 6, I was afraid I’d lost all my files including all my list of podcasts -but, God bless the iCloud team. Everything was backed up and recoverable.

But after procrastinating for a few weeks I’ve finally come round to listing the podcasts which might be interesting to all ESL/EFL teachers and students as well.

1. KKLC ELT Podcast  there are only 5 episodes available dating back to 2013 but still relevant dealing with learning styles or language and technology.  http://www.kkcl.org.uk/category/podcast/

2. Masters of Tesol – Andrew Bailey introduces tough topics on language teaching – the latest episode tries to show how to teach English intonation. https://mastersoftesol.wordpress.com/category/podcast/

3. The History of English podcast  an in-depth study on the origins of the English language  dating back to when everybody spoke Latin – http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

4. Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing- always useful tips to help students  http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl

5. TEFLology – three self-appointed Teflologists discussing TEFL – discussing all TEFL issues and news plus interviews on different TEFL themes. http://teflology.libsyn.com/

6. Edgycation – two funny teachers discussing all things ESL/EFL – unfortunately the series ended in 2013 – but most of the topics discussed are still relevant today. http://edgycation.org/

7. ESL Teacher Talk – great podcast series for ESL teachers – ended in 2010 but still great talk and input on all things ESL. http://www.eslteachertalk.com/

There you have it… hours of great teacher training material within your reach.

Hope you enjoy these podcasts. Although some are no longer produced they are not gone.

Ok, I confess. I just wanted to share with you guys that I’ve got a brand new iPhone 6 as a wedding anniversary gift from my Sweeheart – woohoo – but these podcasts are quite useful and will provide you with many hours of information and education.

Cheers,

Mo