Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 27 October 2009
Today I want to focus on three BBC podcasts targeted at English language learners.
6 Minute English aims to teach useful English language for everyday situations. The podcast is updated every Wednesday and each episode is about 6 minutes long.
Talk About English helps you to improve your vocabulary, grammar and listening. Each episode is about 11 [...]
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 25 October 2009
Here’s a rather fun site, English Online, by the British Council in China. Though designed for Chinese speakers (the site is bilingual), I think it would be interesting and useful for other learners of English too. I especially like the Exams & Work, and Games sections.
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 23 October 2009
English Club is a self-study site that was recommended to me today by a colleague. There are lots of free lessons on all the four skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing), as well as Grammar and Vocabulary. You’ll also find games, quizzes, videos and even chat rooms where you can chat with other English learners online.
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 10 October 2009
Here’s a great series of video English lessons. Choose the category you want from the column on the right. Here’s one to start you off:
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 19 August 2009
Here’s a funny series of videos for those of you who find idioms fascinating. After watching the latest video, you can submit a paragraph using the idiom and The Teacher will post his favourites.
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 7 August 2009
Here’s a tip for those of you using online dictionaries. What do you do if you can’t spell the word? Well, you can try using the wildcard asterisk (*).
For example, you want to spell “archaeology” but only know that it begins with “arc-”. Type “arc*” into the dictionary search box, and you’ll find all the [...]
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 8 March 2009
The Macmillan English Dictionary is now online! I like the fact that each dictionary entry is linked to its thesaurus entry (just click on the red and white ‘T’) – great when you’re writing essays. Also, you can listen to all of the entries being read aloud. While I like the LDOCE very much, their [...]
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 16 May 2007
Mark is an English language teacher in Taiwan who’s learning Chinese (Mandarin). Recently, he blogged about a good way he’s found for learning languages. See his post here.
The trick is to use those short periods of time you have everyday when you can’t do much anyway (such as when you’re travelling to school). I think [...]
Posted by: Hsiao-yun on: 14 May 2007
A really good way to improve your English faster is to use a monolingual dictionary (i.e. an English-English dictionary). If you are reading on or near your computer, you could consider using an online English-English dictionary.
My favourite online dictionary is the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (follow the link, then click on the logo [...]
