Tag: aprender ingles

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13 PODCASTS FOR EVERY LEARNER OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND OR FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Using podcasts to learn

Dear students,

A few years ago I listed some of the podcasts I think students should be using to practice English listening and other skills. With the ebb and flow of technology  new podcasts have come up with new ideas and new presenters, so here’s an updated list of the podcasts

Please, remember:

Download the podcasts you enjoy

LISTEN TO THEM. Dammit!

So… without much ado, here’s my list of English Learning Podcasts (it’s not a comprehensive list, but it’s a good starting point):

  1. Believes Unasp Sabbath School Podcast – I had to start with my own podcast, of course. After all, I am the compiler of this list. A combination of bible study and English tips such as pronunciation and vocabulary delivered on a daily basis – available on any podcast platform. The motto is English and the Bible = Information and Transformation https://www.spreaker.com/show/believes-unasp-sabbath-school
English and the Bible = Information and Transformation

2.  6-Minute English podcast – produced by the BBC with 2 hosts always asking some challenging questions found in the news. It always presents some new vocabulary and context for its use.

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

3. 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/

4. 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

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

6. 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/

7. Inglés en la oficina -it’s a podcast series produced in Spain by Sandra and Colby with situations related to the office and work world. https://www.acast.com/inglsenlaoficina/english-podcast-36-problem-pairs

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ingles-en-la-oficina/id1074690749?mt=2

8.  Inglês Online Podcast – a podcast produced and hosted by Ana Luiza Bergamini, a Brazilian now living in London, with tips of idioms and phrasal verbs for Brazilian English learners – intermediate to advanced.

http://www.inglesonline.com.br/category/podcast-inglesonline/

9. Inglês Todos os Dias – it’s a podcast produced by an American family based in Brazil.  Tim and Tammy produce weekly short mini-podcasts with expressions and idioms that his students frequently confuse or ask about.

http://www.domineingles.com.br

10. 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/

11. Real Life English Podcast – Founded by three young passionate, world traveling, native speaking English teachers, RealLife is a community based learning portal whose mission is to inspire, empower, and connect the world through English, both online and in-person.  Oh Yeah!

http://reallifeglobal.com/radio-podcast/

12. 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

13. 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

Podcast Icons Stock Illustrations – 2,990 Podcast Icons Stock Illustrations, Vectors & Clipart - Dreamstime
Podcasts as learning tools

Happy Listening,

Mo

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Racism in my ELT Experience

Racism in Brazil shows its ugly face in some subtle ways – white people like me many times don’t even realize it. I grew up in a white family but at least one of my grandmothers was brown skinned (fruit of white and indigenous relations, I’m told) but she passed when I was seven and I don’t remember her very much. A cousin of mine married a black man back in the 60s and the family despite the initial shock welcomed them (to the best of my knowledge) and they had 3 children – with their own families today. My older brother sometimes would say that black people were lazy or something to that effect, but even he had a very close black friend (who also criticized black people – but that’s another whole story). My wife is light skinned but her father was black and her mother Italian – her siblings are darker than she is – so where does one’s race begin and another’s start? What color is one’s soul?

But talking to one of my students this morning I was made to think about my own experiences as a teacher regarding racism.

My niche market has been for the past 30 years in the business and corporate world, coaching and teaching executives and helping them to brush up their language skills and presentation skills, for example.

In all these years I can’t recall a time I taught a black person, not because of their color, but because of their absence in the corporate world I circulated in. I never had a chance to teach them.

When I had a language consultancy office back in the 90s we hired teachers and translators and 90% of them were white – it’s true but we did have an English black teacher (born in London to Brazilian parents). We also hired two Nigerian teachers and I can’t recall having problems with them due to racism from clients. Sometimes there would be academic or punctuality problems but nothing related to their race, methinks. (Or was the clients’ racism disguised in comments like ” they don’t have a clear accent”, “they’re usually late”, etc).

Now, black or white is a just a matter of skin pigmentation, but the fact that they are not selected to higher positions besides cleaning offices and being the kitchen help is quite disturbing. … Coming to think of it, even the waiters and waitresses working for the boards of directors at different companies and banks tended to be light skinned.

I’m told that in some countries just the fact that a person has one black ancestor (one drop of “black blood”) already makes them black, no matter their skin color. In Brazil that’s not so. Thanks to the miscegenation of races in our country you can find at least “50 shades” of blackness or “negritude”. One can be light-skinned with white facial features and straight hair and their sibling may be darker with curly hair and both although coming from the same social, economic, and educational background, may have had entirely different experiences with racism.

Zero Chillz on Twitter | Different shades of black, Black girl aesthetic, Black is beautiful
Different shades of black

On a brighter note, people know that money is color blind and Brazilians have been discovering that dark-skinned fellow men and women can also spend money in services and goods.

But we still are far from Martin Luther King Jr’s dream when he declared: “let us judge one another on the content of our character rather than the color of our skin” .

Happy Teachings,

Cheers,

Mo

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How’s English teaching changed over the last 30 years?

Wow. A landmark. 30 years of Teaching English and Spanish as foreign languages. And counting. But honestly speaking, English has always taken the lion’s share of my teaching hours.

Out of those years, over 25 have been teaching one on one so I can say a thing or two about changes in language teaching in this segment.

1. Accessibility: when I started teaching cable tv was limited. Students could watch videos of movies in English but subtitled in Portuguese. No radio programs in English…lots of English songs but how could they understand what was being sung? Limited access to lyrics. Now they have all the English speaking world at the touch of a button on their cellphone.

2. Technology – when I started teaching I not even had a cassette player and the school followed their own coursebook without cassettes. If I wanted to play a song I had to take my portable turntable and vinyl record. From cassette – to CDs and we moved up from VHS – to DVD’s and now to streaming and millions of channels on YouTube. Not to mention the hundreds of language learning apps.

3. Pedagogy – teachers were the reference in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary. If the teacher didn’t know it how could a simple student know that word? From teacher-centered the language courses have moved on to a learner-centered approach (at least in speech). Learners can do way more than what their teachers might tell them to do (well, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it).

4. Resources – from coursebooks and the occasional imported magazine or newspaper now we all have Doctor Google. There are loads of apps for students to practice vocabulary, pronunciation, even using AI for actual conversation. They can record themselves and self evaluate their progress.

5. Creativity – that’s changed but still the same if you get my gist – I mean, we teachers have always had to resort to creativity from role playing to imaginary conversations to using tv commercials recorded on a VHS tape as part of our class material.

Despite all the improvements in pedagogy and technology some things still continue wearily unchanged.

Many students still think that a native teacher is better than a teacher who HAD to learn the language as they are doing now. After all, if the teacher says, “come, come, it’s not that difficult”, they can always argue, “not for you”. Still language schools give priority to a teaching candidate who’s spent 2 years washing dishes or cleaning houses abroad over a local language college graduate.

Many students also think grammar should be taught first even though they hate it… so it must be good like the bitter taste of medicine, right? Still controversies over teaching pronunciation and cultural values of the English speaking countries. Even those who defend the teaching of a global English accept the fact that some parameters must be defined, otherwise the English someone is learning in Indonesia might be incomprehensible to someone learning it in Ecuador.

The future will present even more changes, but some things I’m sure will remain the same: the importance of knowledgeable, committed and caring teachers working along students who have developed or discovered their own motivation.

Here’s to 30 more years of teaching!

Cheers,

Mo

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Os 10 mandamentos de reuniões (ou aulas) com o Zoom

Zoom Images, Stock Photos & Vectors | Shutterstock Achei interessante o desafio: Agora que todo mundo está no Zoom:
Os 10 mandamentos de reuniões com o Zoom
1. Não gritarás no microfone;
2. Silenciarás o microfone até o momento em que precisares falar;
3. Não ficarás mastigando comida ou chiclete diante da câmera durante a reunião;
4. Não ficarás repetindo a mesma pergunta “se estão ouvindo-te”. O ícone do teu microfone serve para te informar;
5. Não utilizarás o microfone do teu computador, mas sim o aparelho de headset para evitar os ecos do inimigo;
6. Colocarás tua câmera à altura dos teus olhos. Tuas narinas não precisam ser inspecionadas;
7. Desligarás o video antes de ausentar-te de diante da câmera;
8. Não participarás da reunião sem estares vestindo a parte da baixo das tuas roupas;
9. Não ignorarás tua postura para melhor concentração, sentado é melhor do que deitado;
10. Não marcarás reunião desnecessária, ou sem preparo de uma agenda.
É isso.
Cheers,
Mo
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Carta aberta para mim mesmo no meu primeiro dia como professor

mo-first-teacher-edited (2)
Alguns dos meus primeiros alunos no Instituto Roosevelt em São Paulo em 1986

Ah se eu soubesse naquela época o que eu sei hoje…

Carta aberta para o Moacir em 1985

Olá Moacir,

Sei que você é um tanto tímido e às vezes se sente um peixe fora d’água em certos lugares e ocasiões. Isso também acontecerá com você depois dos 50 anos. Portanto, vai se acostumando aí.

Mas preste atenção numa coisa: a sua escolha profissional para fazer Letras e ser professor não foi um acidente não. O seu professor no primeiro ano colegial (o curso vai mudar de nome depois mas não melhorar na qualidade ), o Valdir, Sabe quem é, né? Ele viu em você um grande potencial para idiomas, no caso dele, inglês. Também tem o irmão Santiago, da igreja – aquele motorista de táxi (um fuscão verde), ele te convidou para ensinar a lição da escola sabatina para jovens e adultos quando você tinha 15 anos, e Deus abriu as portas.

Claro, você vai ter medo. Às vezes, alguns alunos vão saber mais do que você, uns de fato, outros se achando (risos). Mas você vai inspirá-los a continuar aprendendo e desenvolvendo suas habilidades linguísticas.

Logo mais você vai ser convidado para dar aulas na escola adventista da Alvorada na Lapa, estando ainda no seu segundo ano da faculdade e sem ter a menor  ideia de como lidar com alunos entre 5 e 17 anos. Principalmente os alunos da 7a. e 8a. séries vão lhe dar muita dor de cabeça, provocar, ridicularizar, chacotear, até mesmo jogar apagador em você quando der as costas pra eles. Por falta de apoio, orientação e experiência você vai fracassar e desistir do ensino. Mas alguns anos depois vai cruzar com alguns dos alunos e eles vão te agradecer pelas aulas e pelo gosto pela língua inglesa.

Você vai buscar trabalho como funcionário público da Caixa Econômica Federal, ganhando o dobro do que ganharia dando aulas, sem falar na estabilidade e carreira vitalícia, mas vai continuar insatisfeito. Vai voltar a dar algumas aulas à noite – como bico – mas logo descobrirá que ensinar é o que vc gosta mesmo de fazer.

Ao pedir demissão do emprego estável e sólido vai se aventurar pelo mundo dando aula de inglês em escolas de idiomas e empresas. Terá que acordar bem cedo (5 da matina) a fim de atravessar São Paulo de ônibus e metrô desde a Freguesia do Ó até Santo Amaro e São Bernardo para dar uma ou duas aulas em empresas. Vai passar os intervalos procurando uma sombra para sentar e esperar a próxima aula, já que a distância impede voltar para casa. A sua última aula vai terminar às 10:45 da noite e mais uma hora e meia de viagem para voltar para casa. Mas ânimo, trabalhar com o que você ama não vai te deixar doente. Continue aprendendo e crescendo. Vai chegar o dia que vc poderá escolher os horários que quer trabalhar e até mesmo trabalhar via video – como se fosse televisão… chique hein?

Busque sempre o profissionalismo ao lidar com seus alunos e clientes. Sim, você poderá se socializar com eles, mas lembre-se de que o seu trabalho é de ser o professor e não o coleguinha deles.

Não se deixe abater se alguém lhe desprezar por ser “apenas” um professor, ou porque você não é nativo de país de língua inglesa, ou porque você nunca viajou para fora do estado de São Paulo.

Mais alguns anos e você terá o privilégio de visitar e lecionar em diferentes países. Você será convidado para pregar em inglês num igreja da Cidade do Cabo, na África do Sul. Você será chamado de Program Director numa escola nos EUA, dará aulas na York College em Ontário no Canadá e aulas na Irlanda (depois você olha no mapa para ver onde fica, tá?). Você vai viajar até a China falando inglês e espanhol. Dá pra acreditar?

Sim, Deus fará coisas maravilhosas por você que cresceu usando chinelos de dedo e shorts feitos em casa (sem nem mesmo ter cuecas). Vai demorar ainda uns 20 anos mas você vai alcançar o topo da sua carreira, até mesmo ser convidado para palestrar em conferências sobre o ensino da língua inglesa, em países como a Costa Rica, Canada e EUA.

Não me pergunte como, você vai descobrir aos poucos. Continue aprendendo, crescendo, fazendo o seu melhor e a recompensa virá em diferentes formas.

Gosto muito de você. Se cuide, viu?

Abraços,

Moacir

Mo and Shakespeare
Ensinando inglês através da Bíblia no Unasp SP em companhia de Shakespeare