Languagelab.com Blog

BESIG, the Business English Special Interest Group of IATEFL are having a conference this week in Poland and our own Shiv Rajendran is there representing Languagelab.com.

He is going to talk about Business English in English City, have you ever been to a Business English class with Jazz Quinzet or Alastair Twine?

The conference is in Poznan and Shiv has told me it’s a nice city and he is looking forward to meeting all the people he has met already through Twitter!  He will also be meeting some of our students who live in Poznan for the first time.

There is some information on one of our Business English City People below, Jazz Quinzet.  If you would like to meet her come and visit her in English City.

See you soon !

Jessie Teacher

Today at English City, Annamaria one of Languagelab’s  German students will open her first photography exhibition.

The artist will be talking about her pictures and answering questions about them.  This is your opportunity to see some wonderful pictures and discuss them with the help of a very enthusiastic photographer.

In Germany Annamaria is  a physician, working for a foundation which manages mutiple sclerosis projects, but in English City she is a budding photographer waiting to show other students and citizens of English City her great work !

Hope you have a chance to visit the exhibition !

Jessie Teacher

EFL stands for ‘English as a Foreign Language’ and it refers to how you learn and are taught English when it is not your mother tongue.

If you want to learn English and don’t know where to start, you can order a book by going to http://www.eflbooks.co.uk/.  Most of these books have been designed for teachers.  They give guidance to teachers and give them material with which they can teach you.

This is not always helpful for a student. If you are a student, then you should look for a book with a CD-ROM for listening practice, an answer key and a work book for extra practice.  Visit this site, where the books have been categorised, depending on what you want them for, whether it is for exam practice or for improving your vocabulary.

My favourite, all round book is ‘Cutting Edge’ but if you are a student who wants to improve your grammar then go to ‘Inside Out.’

If you are not sure what level to choose then always go for ‘pre-intermediate’ because that usually covers important, easy-to-understand areas.

Happy reading and to practice what you have learned in these coursebooks come and visit Languagelab.

Are you interested in journalism? Would you like the chance to ask a BBC journalist from the UK questions about his job? What is it like to travel around the world and write exciting stories?

Come and join us at 7:30pm UK time (11:30am PDT) at the Theatre in English City.

It will be a fun evening and a chance to practice your English with other students and teachers.

See you there,

Jessie Teacher !

This Tuesday at 5pm PDT (1am UK time) Shiv Rajendran our co-founder at Languagelab will be presenting to an audience of educators at ISTE Island.

ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and is a collaboration of educators from all over the world interested in advancing
the use of technology in education.

This presentation is to give an insight on what works and what doesn´t when thinking about virtual worlds and education.  The presentation will focus on what Languagelab has learned in 4 years of teaching in Second Life.

The presentation will be at http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/204/46/23.

Enjoy the presentation!

Have you ever wondered if learning on-line is good for you?

Do you think that learning on-line is as good as or better than learning in a classroom?

What about ‘blended learning’ where you learn on-line and face to face?

A recent 12 year study by the Department of Education in the USA has shown that learning on-line is not only effective but also better than traditional face to face teaching.

Barbara Means, the study’s lead author says:

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that on-line learning today is not just better than nothing- it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction”

The study showed that only learning on-line only was better than only having face to face classes , but the best way to learn was a combination of face to face and on-line,  a blended learning  approach.

There were some very interesting key points like:
·  Students who took all or part of their class on-line performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

· Instruction combining on-line and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely on-line instruction.

· On-line learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.

· Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for on-line learning

Click here to read the full report.

In other words if a student is studying at a local ESL school and comes to practice in English City every week they will perform better than students who online learn online or only learn face to face.

What do you think of art and techology? Do you think that it will change art forever?

I have found a great video from TED and it shows you how art can be be physically created by your body and displayed using technology.

The shapes the people create in the video are great fun. The voice recoginition is very accurate and fascinating and makes me think of what we will be able to do in Virtual Worlds in the future.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to speak in a virtual world and the text just appear like a subtitle underneath your avatar !

Well I hope you enjoy the video and it inspires you to make some art of your own !

Hi Languagelab students,

My friend sent me a funny clip yesterday…. Take a look:

I thought that Mary Poppins was kind and friendly? Hmmm….

What adjectives could you use to describe this clip?
Do you remember anything about the original Mary Poppins film?

See you soon and don’t be scared !

Jessie Teacher

The past simple describes a complete event that took place in the past. If a verb is irregular, the past simple is a different word with different spelling. Some examples of this include run (run becomes ran) and get (get becomes got).  If a verb ends in ‘ed’ in the past simple then it is a regular verb.

Sometimes it may be a little difficult to pronounce regular, past simple verbs, which is quite understandable when you realise that there are three ways of pronouncing the ‘ed.’  You can pronounce it with ‘t,’ ‘d’ or ‘id.’

Here is a rule to help you along the way:

The only time you add a syllable is when the base form of the verb ends with a -t or -d:
start à started [star tid]     fold à folded [fol did]

The final sound is changed to t      Final sound is changed to d
when the last sound of verb is:     when the last sound of verb is:
k, ck, ch, sh, s, x, p, f              m, n, l, z, b, g, r, v
talk à talked [talkt]                     blame à blamed [blamd]
check à checked [chekt]               plan à planned [pland]
search à searched [searcht]                 pull à pulled [puld]

Next week, we’ll be making our way back to vocabulary.

Nouns and Verbs ending in /s/

Observing the spelling of a word might help you improve your pronunciation of the word.  For example, the endings -s and -es are pronounced as /s/– /z/, or as an extra syllable /iz/  at the end of third person singular verbs and plural nouns. The pronunciation depends on the final sound of the simple form of the verb or noun.

Here are some examples of verbs and their pronunciation:

slice   —-  slices (c = /s/)

lose    —-  loses (s = /z/)

wash    —-  washes

watch   —-  watches

judge   —-  judges

relax   —-  relaxes (x = /ks/ )

Here are some nouns:

price    —- prices (c= /s/)

size     —- sizes

dish     —- dishes

garage   —- garages (ge = /zh/

inch     —- inches

language —- languages.

Next week we’ll look at a rule for the pronunciation of ‘ed.’