Category Archives: Reading

Improving your Pronunciation by Reading Along

Reading, Resources, , ,

I am one of those teachers who thinks pronunciation can be easily improved if you are
really determined to work on it. Contrary to what most people think, improving your pronunciation takes little  time and little effort although  it needs some  motivation. If you really want to improve, there are some sites that can help you if you just dedicate a little time and effort to this task. And the good news is that you can do it at home, without a teacher guiding you.

Reading along is an exercise I frequently practise with my students.
I normally choose texts from Listen a Minute .com because they are short ( 1 minute) and not too difficult. I like to do this practice at the beginning of the lesson because I think it is a good exercise to get them into English  quickly and without much effort.

We always follow the same steps.

♥Students listen to the text three times. The first time they  silently follow the text. The second time students read along  but in a low voice because at this stage they still need to hear the audio. Before playing the audio a third time  I point out some difficult words and make sure they pronounce them in the correct way.

♥ I split the text into two and ask students in pairs to read their part to their partner. I encourage them to correct their partner’s mistakes.

♥ Finally, I ask students to read aloud  one sentence each.

All in all it shouldn’t take more than 10  minutes.

Today, looking for something completely different on youtube I came accross this channel  which is also very good practice for the students to do at home to improve their pronunciation, though I would suggest it is for more intermediate or advanced students

The channel on youtube is called WaysandHow and it also has its own website where you can see and read  hundreds of  tutorials and tips on various aspects of life, including education. What is good about this site is that it is  beautifully subtitled and read at a good pace, so students can follow and read along. A nice way to improve pronunciation and also your vocabulary.

Have a look at this video -there are plenty to choose from and on a variety of issues- and see if it works for you! Hope it does!!

Reading Comprehension: Pre-Teaching Vocabulary

General, Reading, Vocabulary, Vocabulary Games, , ,

All my lessons last 90 minutes and even though I like to think that students don’t normally get tired or bored, changing gears several times during the 90 minutes is quite important to maintain their level of attention. In this sense, fortunately, teaching a language is not the same as teaching some other subjects where the range of activities you can do is a bit more restricted.
When it comes to Reading Comprehension there are some activities I have tried over the years that seem to have worked pretty well. This week I am planning to use a different activity with my intermediate groups to pre -teach the vocabulary in the Reading Activity, which I would like to share with you. It will require that they leave their seats and walk around the class, talking to their classmates. I’m sure they will appreciate the opportunity to move their legs.
Steps.
Step 1. Decide the vocabulary you want to teach (that goes without saying, doesn’t it?)
Step 2. Prepare two sets of cards. One card contains the word and part of speech you want to teach and the other card contains the definition.
Step 3. Students stand up and find their partner ( I have large groups so it’s going to take a while).
Step 4. Students sit down with their partner and write a sentence containing their word.
Step 5. Students read their sentences and explain the meaning of the word /expression being studied.
Note: I have very large groups, like  thirty students  per class but I never know how many  will be attending on a particular day. For this kind of activities I need to make sure I have cards for all the students. So, if I run out of words to pre-teach, I’ll prepare some cards containing the phonetics for the targeted words.

Thanks for reading!

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Nice stuff to use for evaluating compulsory reading

Reading, Writing, ,

I am a bookworm and have been so for a long, long time. Not a single day in my life goes by without reading. I like to discover my own books. I don’t want to be talked about endlessly about how good a book is, I’ll for sure end up not reading it ( this has just happened to me with the Grey’s series).  I like books that lure me in immediately.  Books that enable me to forget I have to cook my children’s dinner. Books I can’t put down. Books that even when I turn over the last page, its characters stay with me for a while, characters that have lunch with me and make me wish they had been real.

I feel that everyone has to choose their own books. That’s maybe why I keep putting off asking my students to read their compulsory reading books, normally adaptations from the classics which never come up to anybody’s expectations. I’d rather go to the school library with my students and ask them to select a book of their liking.

This term I have decided to use these cards to work with their compulsory readings. If you go through them, you’ll realize that most of the cards encourage creative thinking or reading with a purpose.  I don’t know who created them as I found them on Pinterest and the link leads to a google docs account with no name. So, I apologize for not giving you credit if you are the owner and I thank you for this wonderful material.

Ready-To-Go Lessons:Breaking News English

Audio, Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing skill, , , , ,

I cannot believe I have never posted about Breaking News English. I have been a subscriber for a long, long time. But, you know, sometimes   the things you are more familiar with are the things you more tend to forget to highlight but the site is incredibly helpful.

♥Breaking News English mainly helps you improve listening and reading but also if you read along it’ll help you with your pronunciation.
♥It has more than 1,500 lesson plans based on current events and news.

♥These lesson plans are very useful for the teacher as this site provides warmers, pre, while and after reading/listening activities, discussion ideas, writing suggestions and even homework activities, all related to the news story. There is an MP3 listening you can download or listen online.

Wanna someone to read your slides?

Audio, Create your own stuff, Reading, Slides, Writing skill

welcome Helloslide.com.

So often , especially when giving a long presentation with slides where I need to  first type and then read and explain what I have written I have wished for someone to read and/or explain  it for me( call me lazy but my voice demands a rest after maybe four hours speaking maybe non-stop.

HelloSlide transforms your slides into a rich audiovisual format, recreating the experience of a live lecture. Simply upload your presentation, type the speech for each slide, and HelloSlide automagically generates the audio.

HelloSlide gives more exposure to your presentations, making them searchable, editable, and available in 20 different languages.

It’s simple to get started:

  1. Upload a PDF of your presentation to our website.
  2. Type the speech for each slide using our editor.
  3. Press play to hear your presentation.

My first experience with HelloSlide has been this PowerPoint Presentation on A For and Against Essay though first I had to convert the ppt file into pdf. I did it using this wonderful online converter http://es.pdf24.org/onlineConverter.html

Have a look now at my HelloSlide and tell me what you think. I like it when the robot says my name at the end (ha, ha) .