General

Not a popular topic for a post but a very useful one for smart people ! Noone can start a new school year easily after a total interruption of two months. So here is a list of easy-to-follow tips to go on learning English. ;)

First of all, if you have grammar problems, the best thing is to buy a "cahier de vacances" 3ème or seconde and work through the chapters you aren't familiar with. Check for examples : articles, tenses, the passive voice, relatives, and quantifiers (some,any, few, many, much, etc.) or work with Anglais Facile.com

Then if you have difficulties understanding a written text, well, you need to read more. Several possibilities there: either you make a few photocopies of your current textbook and you study them by trying to answer the 5 basic questions (who, what, where, when, why ) or you can read real texts (see here and there for more advice. You can also buy magazines in English like Today or Vocable, they often have a summer issue packed with games and attractive articles.

if you want to train your ears (améliorer votre compréhension orale), you need to listen to English more often. Listen to simple news bulletins in English, to President Obama's speeches here. You can practice your intonation with the transcript and improve your general pronunciation.
You can also try and translate the lyrics of your favourite British and American songs. Be careful though of vulgar words and oral structures.

When you read, you can check the pronunciation of a word with howjsay.com.

Practice English with an American film or TV series on DVD or on TV or on the Internet, try it in the original version with English subtitles. You can easily find scripts on the Internet as well on Scriptorama for example.
To practice speaking is more difficult, unless you meet tourists but you can practice speaking with your friends for 15-30 minutes for fun.

Anyway, whatever you choose, do something concerning English during the holidays !

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Thursday, September 11 2008

9/11 - Seven years later.

By Evelyne Vittoz on Thursday, September 11 2008, 10:31

Today is the tragic anniversary of this terrorist attack on New York and I feel obliged to make a note about this since several French stars have lately publicly doubted the official accounts about that tragic day.
For example, read the Daily Telegraph to learn about Marion Cotillard's March statements (= déclarations). She also doubted that Man ever set foot on the moon ! The "La Mome" actress may have drunk too much champagne for her Oscar....
Lately a French comedian, Jean-Marie Bigard who is not well-known abroad also questioned the truth about these terrorist attacks. Please dear actors and actresses, do your job, make movies and don't venture into politics when you are obviously not ready for it !

The BBC wrote a very clear recapitulatory article about this tragic event today. Read it to know more.

Here a photo from the National Geographic magazine showing the skyline behind the Empire State Building just after the attacks and later when the Twin Towers collapsed:

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Wednesday, September 3 2008

Summer reading and listening (2)

By Evelyne Vittoz on Wednesday, September 3 2008, 18:03

As promised even if it's a bit late....

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Thursday, June 19 2008

Summer reading and listening(1)

By Evelyne Vittoz on Thursday, June 19 2008, 17:19

Useful Tips

I advise my pupils to read during the summer holidays ... Why ? Because reading will help them learn new vocabulary and structures and improve their reading speed . And this is vital for their exams, for their mastery of English, for their enjoyment of English.

Now what can you read to improve your English ?

You can read websites about your favorite hobbies. Just make a Google search and bookmark the sites you like. Be careful though, some websites are not reliable (fiables) and some Google searches produce strange results.

Don't blame me for what you get and use caution on the Internet!

The easiest way can be to read and study the lyrics of your favourite songs :for example, "Chasing Pavements" by Adele is quite nice.

Check it here.

You can offer or read a translation of your favourite songs on La Coccinelle

You can also read a short story (une nouvelle) in English for instance Death by Scrabble, Tone or The Star on East of the Web

If you are interested in the news, you can check out Time for Kids

ou CBBC Newsround

which are very interesting for teenagers learning English particularly in 3ème-seconde-1ère.

For older students, try Teen Ink, Youth Outlook, Teen Voices

Obviously you can also read real books written in English for young people.

Some titles in the next post. :)

But you also need to listen to English.

I'll advise Lyrics training for listening to songs :

http://lyricstraining.com/

Don't forget to write down and learn the words you don't know.

For more serious subjects, Breaking News English is a good resource (Six levels of difficulty- lots of practice for reading and listening!)

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

As the BBC world news in one minute :

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/international

or the CNN students news archive (they don't publish anything new during the summer):

http://edition.cnn.com/specials/student-news-transcripts

and of course watching movies and Tv series with subtitles or not in English! :)

Tell us your tips and ideas in the comments.

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The Grand Opening

By Evelyne Vittoz on Thursday, June 19 2008, 16:00

I opened this blog because I want to give as much advice as I can to my pupils about English learning. I hope it will be useful and pleasant to read. ;)

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English In BDP - Your teacher's blog.

Des pages utiles pour le bac

Advice for training your ear

Learning English during the summer !

9/11 - Seven years later.

Summer reading and listening (2)

Summer reading and listening(1)

The Grand Opening

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