The English Blog

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.

Video: Stephen Fry on Language

This is an excerpt from one of Stephen Fry's podcasts, which has been animated by Matt Rogers of Rogers Creations. Click here to listen to the complete episode.

COMMENT
If you found that interesting, you should enjoy this sketch featuring Fry and Hugh Laurie (aka Dr House!)

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.

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. 

More or Less Christmas Quiz 2008

I always hated maths at school but as I've grown older I've come to appreciate how useful a knowledge of numbers can be. So I was pleased to discover More or Less, a BBC podcast which looks at the way in which numbers, statistics and figures guide our lives. It's become a regular on my iPod.

This week's edition has a Christmas Quiz which could easily be used in the classroom. Just put your students into groups and ask them to solve the puzzles. This activity should give rise to a lot of discussion. 

Links

• Subscribe to "More or Less" Podcast

• "More or Less" website

• Open University "More or Less" website

Grammar Grater Podcast

Grammar Grater is a weekly podcast from Minnesota Public Radio about English words, grammar and usage for the Information Age. Here's their description:

Because we live in a time of e-mail, blogs, instant messaging, even online product reviews—everybody's a writer. And with the global nature of communication, there's not a single style guide everyone uses. To help sort through some of the confusion, host Luke Taylor and the Grammatis Personae Players (Cory Busse, Bridget Murphy, Julia Schrenkler and John Ryan) take linguistic bugbears and put 'em through the Grammar Grater.

Comments: The podcasts are lively and quite short (around the five-minute mark). The archive contains 76 programmes covering many tricky grammar and vocabulary points. Transcripts are provided, so Grammar Grater would be suitable for Intermediate learners and above. 

Verdict: Definitely one to subscribe to (or should that be 'to which to subscribe'?!)

Grammar Girl Podcast

 

Grammar Girl is a an Internet success story. Created by Mignon Fogarty in 2006, the podcasts have been downloaded over 13 million times and Mignon has not only appeared on Oprah but also featured in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. There's even a book. Here's what the website says:

Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Whether English is your first language or second language, Grammar Girl’s punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer.

Comments
I've listened to the podcasts (OK, not all 148 episodes) and am reading the book. I can recommend both. Mignon Fogarty certainly has the knack of making grammar fun.

Podictionary - the podcast for word lovers

 

Five days a week Charles Hodgson produces Podictionary - "the podcast for word lovers" - in which he recounts the surprising histories of words you thought you knew. 

Not only is Podictionary an audio word-a-day, but as the number of words grows in the Podictionary archive (over 900 and counting) the website is becoming an on-line audio etymology reference.

You can listen to the podcasts on the website, download them or subscribe using iTunes (or another podcatcher). Transcripts of each episode are available on the site.

• See the full word list.

Tip: Most of the podcasts are short (3-4 minutes), so you might prefer to subscribe to the weekly version featuring 5 podcasts.

Verdict: Podictionary is a fascinating resource for all logophiles (word lovers!) and could also be useful for advanced learners of English (the transcripts are an added bonus).

Culips Podcast

Culips is a relatively new ESL podcast, which I've only just come across. The podcasts are produced by a team of podcasters based in Montreal, Canada.

They have different podcast styles. The first is the Close Up podcast, which looks at one conversation. These podcasts have recurring characters and talk about vocabulary, expressions, idioms, slang and grammar. 

In the shorter Catch Word podcast, they look at just one word and discuss its meanings and uses. 

Finally, there's a podcast devoted to users' questions. It’s called Curious Questions. You can send your questions to questions@culips.com.

There are some additional resources, called Lipservice, that go along with each podcast. These include transcripts, extra material and quizzes to test your comprehension.

Verdict: The podcasts are professionally produced and would be suitable for intermediate level and above. If you want to take advantage of all the extra resources, you'd better be quick because "In the future our Lipservice will be accessed through membership fees or by purchasing individual Lipservice materials."

And if you're in Montreal (and over 18), why not go along to tonight's Culips Christmas party?

 

Advanced English grammar video lessons

Chalk ‘n’ Talk is a new series of video lessons exploring advanced English grammar topics.

These videos were made by Brian Rhodes, an English teacher from Canada. Brian says, “These lessons are dedicated to my past and present students who enjoy analyzing and studying English grammar. Lots of students would rather just ‘use’ the language, but some like to know the why’s and how’s of English.” 

You can find the video lessons on Business English Pod or YouTube.

The first lesson examines the use of perfect tenses in both the simple and continuous aspect - past, present and future forms. In grammatical terms, perfect tenses are used to refer to completed or finished events.

Comments: There are plenty of English video lessons on YouTube and to be honest most of them are rubbish. However, the first episode of Chalk 'n' Talk (the expression refers to what teachers do when they haven't got all those fancy audio-visual aids) is quite promising. I can imagine more advanced students would get something from it. Unfortunately, there's a problem with the synchronisation between the picture and the sound. Let's hope they get that sorted for future lessons. 

A Way with Words

I'm a big fan of podcasts and subscribe to a dozen or so using i-Tunes which I then listen to on my iPod Nano. I'm always on the lookout for new podcasts, so I was pleased to discover A Way with Words.

On the air since 1998, A Way with Words is a lively hour-long public radio show about language about the English language. Author Martha Barnette and dictionary editor Grant Barrett take calls about slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well. If you don't have an hour to spare, try a mini-cast, a five-minute 'webisode'.

You can listen to the current show and previous ones on the Way with Words site, where you'll also find summaries of each episode. Alternatively, you can download episodes or subscribe using iTunes or another podcatcher. The Way with Words site also features a discussion forum and an excellent list of reference resources. For shows recorded prior to August 2007, consult the archives, which go back to August 2006.

Comment: It's a delight to spend an hour or so in the company of two hosts whose love of words is matched by their enthusiasm and erudition.

EnglishPod relaunched

I believe that podcasts (done properly) are a great way to learn English. One of my favourite podcasts was EnglishPod and I was disappointed when it went offline a few months ago. The good news is that it's back in a revamped form. The bad news is that they're starting from scratch and the old episodes are no longer available.

Currently there are just three lessons at Elementary level on offer but 3 other channels are listed: Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate and Advanced and I imagine more lessons will be added soon.

The lessons follow the same format as before. During the course of a 10-minute podcast, the two presenters introduce a dialogue and then discuss language points and explain the vocabulary. They call this 'the lexical approach'. There's plenty of repetition of the key language items and if I were a learner of English, I'd think I'd find this an invaluable resource for improving listening and vocabulary skills.

If you sign up, you get free access to all areas of the site until February 1st 2009 and this includes transcripts, pronunciation and vocabulary exercises. No doubt there'll then be a subscription-based Premium version for users who want all the extras. For the time being, however, this is a great opportunity to try out one of the best online English-learning sites for free. 

I do have a couple of quibbles, however. Firstly, it doesn't seem to be possible to subscribe to the podcasts with iTunes, which was the case before. And secondly, although they say in the introductory podcast that you'll be learning English with native speakers, the two presenters are, in fact, non-native speakers. One is Egyptian and the other from Ecuador originally. Their English is perfect but they do both have slight accents. 

Breaking News English

Breaking News English offers ready-to-use EFL/ESL lesson plans in Word and PDF, graded news articles, listening, podcast, and communicative activities. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news and a new lesson is added every three days. Listening files can be downloaded in mp3 format or subscribed to via a podcast.

I first wrote about Breaking News English back in January 2005 and it's still going strong with an archive of over 1,000 current events lessons which you can search by theme. It's run by Sean Banville, who deserves a medal for consistency.

Sean has two other sites which are worth a mention:

• ESL Discussions.com: Over 12,000 conversation questions, hundreds of Word and PDF handouts. Controversial and everyday discussion topics. For speaking practice in and out of class.
• Famous People Lessons.com - ESL/EFL lessons using biographies and profiles of over 150 famous people from sports, politics, popular culture, movies and more. Free Word and PDF downloads plus MP3 listening.

Professional English Online

Professional English Online is an impressive new site for Business English teachers from Cambridge University Press. Click on the image below to see details of the content. Note that you have to register (don't worry, it's free) to access all the Resources. I particulary recommend the Activities which feature complete PDF lesson plans based on video or audio material from the Internet.

Langaugecaster: English through soccer

The new football season has started! In America they call it soccer, to distinguish it from American football. The accepted origin of the word "soccer" is that it's a contraction of the word "Association" with reference to "Association Football", its official name. The Football Association was formed in England in October 1863 and standardised the rules of the game.

Anyway, that's enough history. If you're a football fan, you should love Languagecaster.com, which provides soccer news for English language learners, a free weekly podcast with transcripts, worksheets, vocabulary lists and a great page of links. The idea behind the site is simple. By listening, reading and writing about something you enjoy - football - you can improve your English language skills. For more football vocabulary check out the BBC's Learning English site.