The English Blog

BBC Learning English: English at Work

English at Work is a BBC Learning English series which follows the fortunes Anna, a sales executive at Tip Top Trading, the fastest-growing company in the plastic fruit sector. Each episode features a recorded dialogue for which you can download the audio, and a PDF script. The series is also available as a podcast.

COMMENT
All the previous episodes are still available online (31 in all!), which makes this a great resource for anyone who wants to work on their listening skills while improving their business English vocabulary.

BBC Podcast: The English We Speak

The English We Speak is a weekly podcast from BBC Learning English which looks at a different everyday English phrase or piece of slang in a fun three-minute programme. You can subscribe to the podcast here.

COMMENT
Podcasts are a great way to improve your listening and vocabulary skills. I'm always encouraging my students to use them. You can find a list of English learning podcasts in the sidebar on the left.

BBC Learning English: Express English

Express English is a new course from BBC Learning English. Every week, people in London are asked questions on a specific topic. You can see their answers in a short video. You can also post your own answers to the questions on the BBC Learning English site. This week's questions: Have you ever had dancing lessons? When do you dance?

COMMENT
A good way to improve listening and writing skills.

LESSON IDEA
Show a video to students (earlier episodes are available on YouTube). Get them to answer the questions (and come up with more questions on the same topic).

22frames: Captioned Videos

The web offers a world of quality videos for our enjoyment and enlightenment. However, for learners of English some videos can be difficult to understand. Captioned videos are an answer. The problem is they are generally scattered and/or mixed with all other videos across the Internet. Until now, there was no central place to easily and reliably search for captioned videos across multiple video hosts. 22frames was built, in part, to provide such a place. 

Although not originally created with language learners in mind, 22frames now has an ESL section with videos which illustrate specific examples of idioms and slang.

 

COMMENTS
Opinions are divided as to whether captions are 'a good thing' or not for language learners, because, the argument goes, the tendency is to read the captions and not listen to what's being said. My own view is that if captions enable learners to enjoy DVDs or videos which they wouldn't otherwise understand, then that must be positive. In any case, you can usually turn them off if you want. On the other hand, watching DVDs or videos with foreign language subtitles is definitely not a good idea if you're trying to learn a language.

MORE VIDEO RESOURCES
Russell Stannard has an excellent screencast in which he reviews a number of ESL/ELT resources that have quizzes, subtitles or translations.

The PURE Lounge: Internet Radio Portal

The PURE Lounge is your passport to an entire world of sound. 1000’s of stations. English language. Foreign language. World music. World sport. Even natural sounds. The live and the recorded. The favourites you missed. Podcasts of anything... and everything. From the cool to the conventional to the crazy whatever your interest, hear it in your PURE Lounge now! (Source: www.thelounge.com)

COMMENTS
There are 62 BBC stations alone. I'm currently listening to Radio Cornwall.

British Council Elementary Podcasts

The British Council has started a new series of its Elementary Podcasts. These are an excellent way for you to practise your English language listening skills. You can listen on your computer, or download to your mp3 player. Each episode has got many activities that you can do on your computer while you listen, or print out and do when you want. Full transcripts are available.

COMMENT
This is a brilliant resource. Don't be put off by the presenters, who sound like they're auditioning for children's TV—these podcasts also contain unscripted interviews and would be suitable for learners at higher levels.

English Learning Website of the Year: EnglishCentral

COMMENTS
In my opinion, EnglishCentral was far and away the best new EFL/ESL site this year. Read my original review.

The Poetry Archive

The Poetry Archive is the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work. Enjoy listening to the voices of contemporary English-language poets and poets from the past (including Alfred, Lord Tennyson reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade"!)

A teachers' section has lesson plans and activities built around Poetry Archive recordings, while the students' section features a range of resources including background material on the poets and filmed interviews, which will help you understand the context for their work. A separate Children's Poetry Archive contains poems especially chosen for children.

COMMENTS
I wouldn't say that I was a poetry lover, but this site might just turn me into one. A fantastic resource for teachers and students alike.

FOOTNOTE
I heard about The Poetry Archive while listening to the excellent BBC Radio 4 programme about the project this morning. It's available on the BBC iPlayer for another seven days.

Audio: Copenhagen According To Dr Seuss

I heard Marcus Brigstocke's Dr Seuss-style take on events at the Copenhagen summit on The Now Show podcast and thought it was hilarious. Someone must have thought the same, because they've put it on YouTube.

TRANSCRIPT
The delegates came and the delegates sat
And they talked and they talked till their bums all went flat
Then a delegate said of the country he knew
"We must do something quick but just what should we do?"
So they sat again thinking and there they stayed seated
Sitting and thinking "the planet's been heated"
"I think" said a delegate there from Peru
"That we all must agree on some things we could do
Like reducing emissions at least CO2"
So they nodded and noted then vetoed and voted
And one of them stood up and suddenly quoted
"It's the science you see, that's the thing that must guide us
When the leaders all get here they're certain to chide us"
So they sat again thinking about what to think
Then decided to ponder what colour of ink
To use on the paper when they’d all agreed
To be selfless not greedy McGreedy McGreed
"But how do we choose just what colour to use?"
Said a delegate there who'd been having a snooze
"We need clear binding targets definitive action
We must all agree clearly without more distraction"
So they sat again thinking of targets for ink
But the ink in their thinking had started to stink
And they started to think that the ink was a kink
In the thinking about real things they should think
"If ze climate needs mending then zis is our chance"
Said the nuclear delegate sent there by France
"We need to agree on one thing to agree on
Something we all want a fixed guarantee on"
"Yes" said another who thought this made sense
Some value for carbon in dollars or pence
But the mention of money and thoughts of expense
Had stifled the progress and things became tense
The fella from China with a smile on his face
Said "Who put the carbon there in the first place?"
"Wasn't us" said the U.S then Europe did too
Then a silence descended and no words were spoken
Till a delegate stood up, voice nervous and broken
"Is there nothing upon which we all can decide?
Because on Wednesday my chicken laid eggs that were fried"
"We all like a sing song" said the bloke from Down Under
But then the great hall was all shouting and thunder
Policemen had entered and were wearing protesters
Who they'd beaten and flattened like bloodied sou'westers
The police had decided to downplay this crime
With prevention detention and beatings in rhyme
The Greenies who'd shouted and asked for a decision
Were now being battered with lethal precision
All sick of inaction and fed up of waiting
All tired of the endless debated placating
They'd risen up grating berating and hating
So the police had commenced the related abating
Ban Ki-moon put his head in another man's lap
And was last heard muttering something like "crap"
But the chap next to him said "It's more like it's poo"
So the great hall debated not what they should do
But how to decide between crap cack and poo
"It is poo" "It is cack" "It is crap" "We agree"
Which was written and labelled as document three
"I think if we all find one thing we agree on
Then maybe Brazil might be left with a tree on"
So they sat again thinking of trees and Brazil
And of glaciers which had retreated uphill
And they thought of the poor folks whose homes were in flood
But less of the protesters covered in blood
They pondered the species so nearly extinct
It's as if they all thought that these things might be linked
"We need a solution we need action please"
Said a lady who'd come from the sinking Maldives
The others all nodded and said it was fact
That the time must be now not to talk but to act
Then Obama arrived and said most rhetorical
"Action is action and not metaphorical"
"Wow" they all thought "he must mean arregorical [sic]"
"I love it when Barack goes all oratorical"
"But the problem I have is that Congress won’t pass it
"Bugger" said Ban Ki then "sorry" then "arse it"
Then Brown said "I've got it now how does this strike you?
It's simpler when voters already dislike you"
He suggested the EU should lead from the front
So The Mail and The Telegraph  called him something very unpleasant indeed
So the delegates stared at the text with red marks on
Ignoring the gales of laughter from Clarkson
No-one was satisfied nobody won
Except the morons convinced it was really the sun
And they blew it and wasted the greatest of chances
Instead they all frolicked in diplomat dances
And decided decisively right there and then
That the best way to solve it's to meet up again
And decide on a future that's greener and greater
Not with action right now but with something else later

NPR Radio Show: Translating Business Jargon

This year might go down in the history books as the year of mind-numbing business jargon. Terms like "seizing up of credit markets" and "we can't roll our commercial paper" were commonplace. Understand it or not, that jargon had an impact on the lives of everyday citizens. This NPR show takes a humorous look at some of the worst examples of credit crunch jargon.

Interactive World Leader Photo Gallery

The New Yorker has an interactive photo gallery featuring portraits by Platon of world leaders, with commentary by the photographer. Most of the photos were taken in September, when nearly all the world’s leaders were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations.

Three notable absentees from the gallery are Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Hu Jintao. According to Platon, Sarkozy behaved aggressively towards him and refused to have his portrait taken, saying "Je déteste le photo [sic]". You can hear an NPR interview with the photographer below:

COMMENT
Sarkozy can be very rude, even in public. He famously said to a man who refused to shake his hand, "Casse-toi, pauvre con!" (Get lost, you jerk!)

People Hear with Their Skin As Well As Their Ears

Scientific American reports on a new study which shows that the skin could help us hear by 'feeling' sounds.

The act of hearing is a group effort for the human body's organs, involving the ears, the eyes and also, according to the results of a new study, the skin.

In 1976 scientists discovered the importance of the eyes to our sense of hearing by demonstrating that the eyes could fool the ears in a peculiar phenomenon named the McGurk effect. When participants watched a video in which a person was saying "ga" but the audio was playing "ba," people thought they heard a completely different sound—"da." Now, by mixing audio with the tactile sense of airflow, researchers have found that our perception of certain sounds relies, in part, on being able to feel these sounds. The study was published November 26 in Nature. Full article >>

COMMENTS
A fascinating piece of research. I wonder if it could have any implications for language learning.

English for Journalists

BBC Learning English has teamed up with the BBC College of Journalism to provide three modules with vocabulary development activities in the field of journalism. The modules are part of a course designed to help non-native speakers of English to learn useful vocabulary and structures associated with journalism. They also provide reading and listening practice around particular vocabulary topics. The first three modules cover vocabulary connected with conflict and the language of reporting elections.

The modules open in a pop-up window but you can also download a printable copy in PDF form. 

COMMENT
Yet another great resource from the excellent BBC Learning English site, which just seems to get better and better. If I were a learner of English, this would definitely be top of my list of sites to visit regularly (along with The English Blog, of course!)

Radio Programme: Fry's English Delight

A new series of Fry's English Delight has started on BBC Radio 4 in which Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language. 

In the first episode, Stephen examines how 'wrong' English can become right English. For example, nowadays, more people use the word 'wireless' in a computer context than in a radio one. With help from a lexicographer, an educationalist, a Times sub-editor and a judge, Stephen examines the way in which usage changes language. He applauds the council leader who claimed the services provided by her local authority should be seen as strawberry-flavoured and castigates attempts at banning government jargon like step change and synergie. Banning words is fruitless; he favours blue sky thinking, and strawberry flavouring.

COMMENTS
It's a pity the programme's not available as a podcast.

LINKS

• Official Stephen Fry Website

• Stephen Fry on Twitter (707,403 followers and counting)

BBC Radio's World News For Children

World News For Children is a  four-minute weekday news bulletin for 7-14 year olds. You can listen on the site, download the audio file, or subscribe to the podcast. Accompanying scripts are available on the BBC World Class website—bbc.co.uk/worldclass.

COMMENTS
Although these news bulletins are aimed at children, they are perfect for older English learners, especially as the script is available. Teachers can use the script to prepare comprehension quizzes, gap fill exercises, etc. Definitely one of best listening resources I've come across in a while.