So, you’ve done all the listening exercises in your textbook, workbook and on my website 😉 but still, you feel you really need to go the extra mile?
Here you are two wonderful websites where you can find tons of Listening exercises to practise before the exam.
1. ESOL COURSES.Choose your level and then choose the skill you want to practise; they are all great!
2. ESL Lounge Students:on this site, you can also practise all skills. Scroll down the page and on the right sidebar, choose the skill you want to practise and your level.
Do you know the difference between these three seemingly identical terms?
Let’s start by stating the obvious, all of them are related to “teaching”; but is there a difference between them? Indeed there is, as otherwise I wouldn’t be bothering you with this issue and well you know it! 🙂
Alright, let’s get down to the point. I know you’re all on tenterhooks and I don’t want to see you suffer.
At school, there are teachers. At university , there are lecturers and professors.
♥A lecturer is a university teacher who has just started teaching at college or university. Lecturers do not have tenures ( permanent position) and they are at an early stage of their careers.
Some words that collocate with lecturer are:
I was a junior lecturer in Spanish at Oxford University when I was in my 30s
♥A professor, on the other hand, is the principal teacher in a department and he usually has a doctorate degree. When he first gets his doctorate degree, he becomes an assistant professor and teaches for 5 or 6 years. Then, he is given tenure and becomes an associate professor and finally he can promote to become a full professor. So, professor is the highest rank an academic can get.
Some words that collocate with professor are
I spent a year as a visiting professor at Oviedo University. He is a distinguised professor of history.
To finish, I would remind you that teachers give lessons and lecturers and professors give lectures.
In this post you’ll find some material to practise describing two pictures about Houses/Rooms in a House. There is some useful vocabulary and expressions as well as two different sets of pictures with some questions that might give you some ideas of what you need to talk about in this part of the exam. Remember that you’ll need to practise describing , comparing and giving opinion . Download the pdfhere
Isn’t that what everybody would like? Isn’t it a good reason to read every day? In this post I am sharing with you a wonderful tool that is basically a newsreader with wonderful customizable features. The idea is to encourage students to read every day the things they like to read about.
The benefits of reading when learning a language are many and nobody can deny that. When you read you:
– acquire new vocabulary in a natural way
-learn to infer meanings
-learn to punctuate
-write better
-speak better
– learn the grammar in context
We, as teachers, tend to ask our students to read mainly graded books or the texts in their textbook. We certainly feel confident our students won’t be struggling to understand or won’t get demotivated because they cannot easily grasp the meaning of the words.
On the other hand, I firmly believe we need to show our students how to develop strategies to encourage autonomous learning. It is essential if we want our students to keep improving when the course finishes.
Whenever a student asks me, “Are there any compulsory books to read this term?” I never fail to remember the 50 or 60 books I had to read if I wanted to have a chance at passing some certain subjects at university. I used to be keen on reading but having to compulsorily read, I would say “swallow” those books chosen by somebody else turned me, for some years, into someone who would refrain from getting close to a bookshop, let alone a library.
For this reason, I never choose the books my students have to read. We go to the school library together and choose the ones they find most appealing from their level section. I encourage them to read regularly, every day if possible, and not to use the dictionary every single time they don’t know a word, as this would discourage them. Instead, I ask them to try to guess the meaning and only use the dictionary if it blocks comprehension or it appears frequently in the book.
Reading books is Ok, but what about magazines, blogs, newspapers… In this post, I would like to share with you a tool to motivate students to read every day and the key to motivation is READING WHAT THEY LIKE.
The tool I use is called FEEDLY . It ‘s for me the best way to organise and read my favourite sites on the Internet. It’s mainly a newsreader and it’s highly addictive. Everything on the same place with a very nice layout. Imagine Feedly as a newspaper with only the news you are interested in. You feed Feedly with online sites that interest you.In this sense I recommend my students to feed it with a variety of sites including news, fashion, cooking, IT, learning languages …etc and why not, gossip.
Feedly is customizable and the only thing you need to do is Click on Add content, paste the url of the blog or site you want to have in your newspaper. Can I suggest you try adding this blogand this other one🙂 to get started?
If you want to know more about how Feedly works, here is a very visual tutorialhere .
Are there any sites or blogs you would recommend? Please, let me know
Hopefully, at the end of this lesson you’ll have learnt useful vocabulary to talk about a city/town/ village you like, you’ll be able to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of living in the city or the countryside and you’ll be able to understand people talking about it.
What’s your hometown like?
Are you happy with the city/town/village you live in? What are some of the pros and cons?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in the coutryside or in a town
These are some common questions in oral exams. Before reading any further, think about how you coud best answer these questions. Try really hard. Imagine you’re taking the real test.
Ok! Now!!! Do you have all the words you need or, are there things you couldn’t say because you didn’t have the right words? If this is the case, then go on reading, this post is for you.
Below you’ll find some ideas to help you get started.
Now, watch these two short videos and answer the questions below. The first one is about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a big city and the second about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small town ( could also be applied to living in the countryside)
Video 1. Advantages and disadvantages of living in a big city
Speaker 1. What’s the disadvantage he mentions?
Speaker 2. What are the disadvantages he mentions?
Speaker 3. What is, in his opinion, the main advantage? What two disadvantages does he mention?
Speaker 4. What’s the huge advantage cities have compared to rural areas?
Speaker 5. What’s, according to this speaker, the main advantage?
♥By the way, do you know the difference between a city and a town???
A city is larger than a town and it has a cathedral 🙂 , at least in the UK
Now, do you think you can describe your hometown? Can you talk about your favourite city? Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a city or in the countryside? Hope you can!
In this post you’ll find some material to practise describing two pictures about 
Useful Expressions:
Some ideas to help you:
Some ideas to help you:
