Sally Teacher

Each week at Languagelab we will review one good English practice website that may complement your English studies with us. Each review will focus on two questions.

What are the key features of the site?
How can Languagelab students benefit from this site?

This week’s English practice website is www.englishpage.com

What are the key features of this site?

The weekly lesson – just as the name suggests this link will take you to a mini tutorial with exercises on a grammar topic that changes every week.
The grammar book – an interactive grammar book. Click on this link for an alphabetically ordered index of grammar topics. Choose a grammar topic and you will find links to tutorials and practice exercises.
Vocabulary – follow this link to find vocabulary lists grouped by topic. Each topic contains a list of words and their definitions as well as some exercises you can do to help you use the vocabulary.
The English reading room – this page offers a comprehensive selection of English reading materials. You can choose from a selection of newspapers, magazines, books and reference books.
The Listening Lounge – a collection of online English listening resources. It includes radio stations as well as links to the latest stories about your favourite topics.
Irregular verbs – an index of the most commonly used irregular verbs. Click on a word to get links to dictionaries which describe its meaning.

How can Languagelab students benefit from this site?

The weekly lesson – make a commitment to check this link once a week. Read the tutorials and try the practice exercises. Bring any of your doubts or questions to the Grammar House.
The grammar book – go to the page and look at the topics. Do you see something that you have always wanted to know? This is your opportunity to learn more. Do the tutorials and practice questions and as always, bring your doubts and questions to the Grammar House for supplementary live explanations.
Vocabulary – Choose a topic and study the words. Do the practice exercises immediately. Come back the next day and try doing the practice exercises without studying the word list. How many did you remember? Keep coming back every few days until you can complete the exercises with ease. When you are confident that you know all the words try to expand your vocabulary even further by creating lists of synonyms and antonyms.
The English reading room – find a newspaper that you like and read a little everyday. Select stories that interest you to bring into Languagelab and discuss with our very own journalist Lane Jarman. Or find a short story from one of the many free online novels and ask Millie Eames to use it for one of her book club discussions.
The listening lounge – find a radio station that you like and have it on in the background while you are at home. Listening to English everyday will help you to expand your vocabulary and maybe even improve your pronunciation. Warning! Listening to online radio can use up a lot of bandwidth. Make sure that you check your download allowances before listening to internet radio.
Irregular verbs – choose seven verbs per week from the list (one for each day) and memorize both their simple past and past participle forms. Or pick one of the five irregular verb sets of flashcards and spend five minutes a day practicing the set until you know it off by heart.

The new and improved ‘Conversations’ will have a Fast Food restaurant and a fine dining restaurant combined. Millie will continue to manage the cafe at the new food complex and she will also take her waitresses with her, so don’t worry she will continue making her famous pastries and you will still get the best cup of coffee in town !

See you at ‘Conversations’ !

Meet Millie Eames and the most comfortable place to speak English on the Internet

Something that many language students find difficult to master is the art of
‘small talk.’
In class we often practice talking about ‘important’ topics, such as politics, science, music and culture.
Or we practice more functional language, like checking into a hotel, making a complaint or going to the bank.
One thing that is often not covered is the small talk that happens constantly throughout our daily lives.

This is where Millie Eames, LanguagLab’s resident café owner and
manager can help you. Millie’s café is just like a real life café. It’s a place where you can go to listen to music, catch up
with friends and socialise just like you would in a café in your own country. The big difference is that everyone speaks in English.

Here’s a hint for those of you who are shy about speaking in English. Try going to the cafe and just listening to what people are
talking about. Make a list of the things that Millie says when she is greeting people and the questions she uses to start conversations.
Then, when you’re feeling more confident try using some of the expressions and questions yourself. You’ll find yourself chatting like a local in no time at all.

Click on the following links to download some helpful reference sheets that you can use if you’re not sure what to say to Millie when you meet her.

Elementary reference sheet for Millie
Intermediate reference sheet for Millie
Advanced reference sheet for Millie

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