Tag - Useful Tips

Entries feed - Comments feed

Thursday, November 21 2013

Des pages utiles pour le bac

Saturday, June 13 2009

Learning English during the summer !

Oui, oui vous avez bien lu. Ce n'est pas très populaire mais c'est un conseil pour les personnes malignes :)
intelligent_inside.jpeg

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.

magazinetodayinenglish-aout08.jpg


  • 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 !

Wednesday, September 3 2008

Summer reading and listening (2)

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

Continue reading...

Thursday, June 19 2008

Summer reading and listening(1)

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.

  • 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.