Monthly Archives: September 2013

Downloading , Cutting or Editing Audio : Everything you need is here!

Audio, Create your own stuff, freeware, Resources, ,
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It is the beginning of the school year and there are some tools that I need to make sure are working properly. You know how everything works on the Internet. Some sites close down, others that promised to be free are now charging you and some others are still there but they don’t seem to work anymore.

Anticipating these problems that I may encounter, I am almost sure, one of these days when I am up to my eyes with work I have searched the net for some new tools that I know are working right now and therefore won’t let me down.

♥First of all, a much needed video downloader, free and easy to use. I never know when the already weak Internet connection in my school is going to crash.

The name of this site is CatchVideo.net and the only thing you need to do is paste the url, choose the format you want  -or even just download  the audio- and off you go! Your video is downloaded into your computer and ready to carry with you in you Flash drive. Here’s a snapshot

♥Still working and overused at home by both me and my children to download the audio from youtube is my Listentoyoutube.com. Post here

and then there this 123.apps which  is incredibly helpful when you need to cut or edit audio and  the audio of a video. It offers, “online”, everything you could possibly need  for free and you don’t even need to register.It offers six different audio or video related tools

♥Online Audio Cutter: It is an online application for cutting audio. It supports mp3 or other formats. If you open a video file, then the audio will be extracted. How do you cut the audio? Easy: 1.Open the file (video or audio), 2.adjust the interval and click Cut. 3.Save the track
There is also a Fade-in and Fade-out function, in case you need something a bit more sophisticated.

♥Online Audio Joiner: To join multiple audios into a single one. It supports all media formats and it can combine them, but it works better and faster with mp3 than with any other format.You can choose between the two modes of sound merger. If the “Crossfade” function is enabled, one track will gradually fade into another: the first track will gradually vanish, while the second will grow louder. This allows smooth transition when combining music tracks. Click here for more detailed information on how to merge audio

♥Online Voice Recorder: Records sound from a microphone. After the recording you can trim the sound and then download it.

♥Online Audio Converter. Converts audio into a wide range of major formats such as mp3, wav, ogg, m4a, m4r, flac… You can also convert several files at a time which will be compresses into a zip-archive to ease the download.

♥Online Audio Extractor: extracts the audio from videos and saves them as OGG, MP3, Wave or FLAC files.
To extract audio tracks from video files, just open video from your computer, select proper output format, and click the “Extract audio” button.
The application supports all major video formats (AVI, FLV, MP4, MPG, MOV, RM, 3GP, WMV, VOB and other).

♥Online Video Cutter: Once you have downloaded your video with CatchVideo.net you might need to cut the videos to remove an unwanted part. Well, this is just the tool you need. Open the application and just follow the instructions – It is fairly simple but I have to say that I have tried with a youtube video and it hasn’ t worked. Still, I think it is worth a try.

♥Online Video Converter : free tool that converts almost any media format to MP4, AVI, MPEG, FLV, 3GP. It also extracts sound from video and can correct video resolution

So, here you are! Honestly, this post is more for the sake of my memory than for any other reason. If… it can help anybody..it’s killing two birds with one stone!Keep posted!!!! 🙂

A word on Grammar: have and have got

A word on Grammar, , ,

Now , this is one of the most common mistakes in English. I have heard lots of students saying: I haven’t a dog, which I’m afraid is wrong. If you want to say that you have or don’t have something you can say “I haven’t got a dog” or” I don’t have a dog” and if the sentence is positive you should say “I have got a dog” or “I have a dog“. Same if you want to ask, both” Do you have a dog?” and “Have you got a dog?”are correct.

While it is true that there is a BBC radio show called “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue” the truth is that native speakers also make mistakes and this is only correct as long as it is considered an idiomatic expression.

While both forms are used to express possession ( I have/have got a car), relationships (I have/have got a brother), illnesses (I have/have got a headache), and characteristics (I have/have got long fair hair), there are some things to take into consideration when using them

♥The form “have got” is more British English and “Have” is more American

♥ The interrogative and negative forms for “I Have got two sisters” are “Have you got..?” and “I haven’t got…”

♥The interrogative and negative forms for “I have three sisters” are ” Do you have three sisters ” and ” I don’t have three sisters”

♥ The past of “have got” is “had” and the future is “will have”: “I have got a dog now but three years ago I had a cat and next year I’ll have a parrot”.

♥”Have ” is never contracted in the positive, while “have got” can be contracted.  I have a dog … I’ve got a dog

♥ Got-forms of “have” are not used in short answers or tags. “Have you got a dog? No, I haven’t/ You’ve got a brother, haven’t you?.

♥When we are talking about repeated states, got- forms are less often used. Compare
I have got a headache/ I sometimes have a headache

♥If “have ” expresses an action, then we need to use the form “have”:

I have a shower or I have dinner

♥We can use have (got) +infinitive to talk about obligation or certainty. The meaning is similar to Must
Sorry, I can’t leave. I’ve got to finish writing this essay first.
I don’t believe you. You’ve got to be kidding

Exercises here,and here

The Passive: Grammar and Exercises

Grammar and Exercises, , , , , , ,

Tired of always looking for exercises for different grammar points I have started putting together everything I need, related to a certain point of grammar, on the same page.

Today I have uploaded The Passive. On the same page  I have put together Grammar and Exercises for  pre-intermediate/intermediate  levels. Exercises cover  practice for:

♥ basic and more complex tenses,

♥ active to passive and the other way round,

♥ questions in passive sentences,

♥ sentences with two objects,

♥ the prepositions by and with,

♥ impersonal passive (it is said/believed) ,

♥ be supposed to

♥  have sth done

Hope it is as helpful to you as it is to me.Now, I can safely take them to the computer room, ask them to go to this url where they’ll find everything they need to work on. Very useful too, to do as homework or revise just before exams at their own pace.

Click  on the picture to give it a go

Below I have embedded A MentorMob Playlist with all the Grammar and Exercises already published. More will follow; I hope!

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

VOA Learning English: Interesting Site to Read and Listen to American English

American Cultural aspects, Audio, In the Computer Room, Listening, , , , ,

Voa Learning English really needs some serious exploring. Though I have to say that, in my opinion, the site is a bit of a mess, it could be a great help to some autonomous learners.

What does it offer? The site provides interesting articles based on news and information. The stories are read slowly, or at least at a slower speed and it allows you the possibility of reading the story and listening to the audio at the same time. The mp3 audio can be downloaded, which is also very helpful.

What about the level? Difficult to say  because although the stories are read quite slowly, the vocabulary is quite advanced. You’ll just have to try and see.

Stories are divided into Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 and very often there are exercises following the audio.

if you further explore the site, you will find a section “Learning English TV” with captioned videos that will allow you to watch a story while reading the rolling script.

But there are two sections that I absolutely adore that deal with idioms and expressions:

♥ Words and their Stories and English in a Minute where each week idioms and expressions that many learners of American English find difficult to understand are explained. Don’t miss them!

Another interesting feature in this site is that it has a built-in dictionary. You just have to click on any word to get its meaning. You really need to give a go to this interesting site, especially if you like reading the news and are interested in American English.

First Day : getting to know my students

Games, Speaking, , , ,

I’ve been teaching for a long, loooong time and one might expect I don’t have to suffer from first-class stress . But I’ve come to terms with myself and admitted  that no matter how long I’ve been in the business, it is always going  to feel like  having a bull ( past the butterfly feeling) in my stomach. So again, I’m hunting books ,posts, and the Internet for ideas to use on the first day  to get to know my students and to give them the first chance to use the language. These are the ones I’m considering  – in case you want to use them.

By the way, these are the ones I used last year if you want to have a look https://www.cristinacabal.com/?p=2694

♥Interviewing your partner: Tell students they are going to interview four or five people they don’t know in the class. Ask them to write three or four questions to ask these people. Once it is done, students get up and walk around the classroom.

♥Get to Know you Bingo: this one requires a bit of preparation but it’s not like you are already loaded with exams, is it? Let’s play bingo, then! Now, the first thing you need to do is prepare a bingo sheet with some questions ( a grid of  4×4 , for example). Make sure students know how to play bingo- this is quite  important, as you can guess. Students get up and walk around asking questions to everybody in the class but they have to have a different name for each grid. So if a student asks a question to a student and this student says “yes”, he should write the name of that student in the grid and move on; if the student says “no”, he can then ask this same student a new question. The first person to get a line down or across shouts “LINE” and the first person to fill in all the boxes with a name shouts  BINGO.

I would , of course, encourage follow-up questions  when checking,  with  the students providing the questions- of course.

♥Who Am I..? I love this game to introduce myself to my students. It is played in teams and there is a winner. If you have been reading me for some time you know I am very competitive; that must be the reason why I am definitely going to use this one this year. The game was written by Paul Adams  and here is the link

♥Five Questions. Divide the class in five groups and ask each group to write a question they would like to ask you. In turns, one member of each group comes up to the board and writes the question. The students decide if the question is correct in terms of tenses, spelling …etc. Finally, the student asks the question. Before you tell them, give the students the chance to guess your answer.

♥Writing Sample – I’m thinking it might be a good idea to use this warm-up after doing some oral practice. The idea is to ask students  to write a bit about themselves  to  get an idea of how advanced they are. Some ideas might be : Why are you learning English and why are you taking this course? or What’s your favourite hobby ?

Hope you can use some of these ideas!!!