I'll be using this blog to keep in touch with BVIS (HCMC)'s EAL students. I'm new to blogging so I'm learning as I go along! Here's my first post - hope you like it!
Mr Duff
5 great
websites to improve your English
Knowing what a word
means is one thing; being able to use it in the right way is something else
altogether. Often the most helpful thing is seeing example sentences, which is
what this awesome, free software gives you – lots of examples of how native speakers
use the word you’ve chosen, divided by sentence type.
Not sure about the
difference between a sweatshirt and a hoodie? Want to boost your word power
with some fun, free activities? This great website has loads of really useful vocabulary,
help with clear pronunciation models and activities to test your understanding.
Learn English to
groovy beats. This is a superb idea supported by software that works very well.
Basically, you listen to your favourite tunes and when prompted, add the
missing words to the lyrics; the music will ‘pause’ while you enter these and
won’t let you continue until you get it right. Of course if you get stuck, you
can get help, but be careful- the more help you get, the lower your score will
be at the end. Each track can be played at different levels of difficulty so
it’s easy to tailor the activity to the level of challenge you want. Very
addictive and great for listening and vocabulary.
This excellent piece
of free software works in a similar way to the lyrics training website, but
uses newspaper articles rather than songs as the basis for its dictation
exercises. Choose from ‘full mode’ (writing everything you hear), ‘quick mode’
(you only have to provide the first letter) or ‘blank mode’ (you provide
selected missing words). If you sign up and get a log in (it’s free), you can keep
a track of how fast and accurate you are as the software will track your
performance over time. Again, you can choose the level of difficulty that’s
right for you and challenge yourself to hit new targets.
There are lots of
uses for this website and a lot of it is aimed at teachers, rather than
students, but for self-study I think the ‘Monthly topical news lessons’ are
absolutely brilliant. Each article comes with a selection of reading and
vocabulary activities you can print - with answer keys- and is available at
three levels – elementary, intermediate and advanced. New articles are added
every month and the old ones are available for one year after they are
published. Great stuff.
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