Dear readers I’m so excited !! My blog has been shortlisted by the prestigious organization The British Council as this month’s Best Teaching Blog. The blog with the most likes becomes the winner of that month . 
If you think my blog deserves the award, please 1. Follow this link to their facebook , http://on.fb.me/18IoiqX 2. Scroll down the page ( a lot , sorry) to find my article (picture below), published on February 1st at 4 p.m. 3.Click I Like. 
I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed !! thanks in advance!
Improving your Pronunciation by Reading Along
I am one of those teachers who thinks pronunciation can be easily 
improved if you are
really determined to work on it. Contrary to what most people think, improving your pronunciation takes little time and little effort although it needs some motivation. If you really want to improve, there are some sites that can help you if you just dedicate a little time and effort to this task. And the good news is that you can do it at home, without a teacher guiding you.
Reading along is an exercise I frequently practise with my students.
I normally choose texts from Listen a Minute .com because they are short ( 1 minute) and not too difficult. I like to do this practice at the beginning of the lesson because I think it is a good exercise to get them into English quickly and without much effort.
We always follow the same steps.
♥Students listen to the text three times. The first time they silently follow the text. The second time students read along but in a low voice because at this stage they still need to hear the audio. Before playing the audio a third time I point out some difficult words and make sure they pronounce them in the correct way.
♥ I split the text into two and ask students in pairs to read their part to their partner. I encourage them to correct their partner’s mistakes.
♥ Finally, I ask students to read aloud one sentence each.
All in all it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.
Today, looking for something completely different on youtube I came accross this channel which is also very good practice for the students to do at home to improve their pronunciation, though I would suggest it is for more intermediate or advanced students
The channel on youtube is called WaysandHow and it also has
its own website where you can see and read hundreds of tutorials and tips on various aspects of life, including education. What is good about this site is that it is beautifully subtitled and read at a good pace, so students can follow and read along. A nice way to improve pronunciation and also your vocabulary.
Have a look at this video -there are plenty to choose from and on a variety of issues- and see if it works for you! Hope it does!!
Word of the Day: It rocks!!!!!
So you want to sound like a native speaker???Tough mission though not impossible.
I should say that when I first started learning English ,I was always advised not to use slang when speaking a foreign language . And though ,at that time, I didn’t give much thought to my teacher’s suggestion, I need to say here that were it not for the fact that I would see myself as an oldish person ,I would give the same advice to you. So, I’m just going to close my mouth and let you make your own decisions.
It rocks!!!I am sure you’ve heard this expression lots of times and didn’t have a clue about its meaning. Well, here I am to let you know!
If you say it rocks ... you mean it’s cool, awesome, great, fabulous,you love it….etc
So if you say You rock! It means you’re fabulous!
Brad Pitt?? he rocks!!!
Tips to Score a Good Mark in the Oral Exam
A Guess the Word Game to Practise Relative Sentences and Paraphrasing
What do you normally do when you are talking to a person in English and you don’t know the word? I guess you don’t tell the person ” OK, right, hold on! I am going to look it up on my mobile phone”. You might be tempted to do it, but know that the person you are talking to might lose interest in what you are saying.
So, the thing to do would be Paraphrasing.
How do we paraphrase?? There are some expressions you can use
It’s A KIND OF house
It’s THE OPPOSITE OF lazy
It’s LIKE cleaning but… trying to explain what you want to say but using other words you know. That’s calle
It’s SIMILAR TO book but..
FOR EXAMPLE, you do this when
It’s A SYNONYM OF..
It’s A PERSON/SOMEBODY WHO…
It’s a THING/SOMETHING WHICH…
It’s SOMEWHERE/A PLACE WHERE
It can also help to say “ It’s a noun, or an adjective…. “ If it’s an expression, you can also say “ It’s an expression and there are three words in it”
Right, now we are ready to play the game. It’s called WHAT’S THE WORD?
How we play the game:
- Divide the class into two teams
- Ask a member of Team A to sit on chair with his back to the whiteboard.
- Display the first word on the screen
- The members of the team have two minutes to describe the word but they cannot use any parts of the words on the screen. For example if it is “teacher” they cannot use the word “teach”.The aim is for the student to guess as many words as possible in one minute. Every word in black scores one point , the ones in red score two points.
- Then, it is the other team’s turn to choose someone to take the hot seat.
- Needless to say, you keep the score on the board for everybody to see. Have fun!!!