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| Vol II Issue 6, November 2005 |
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Without music life would be a mistake
These are the words of the famous German Philosopher Frederik Nietzsche, and as a specialist in pronunciation and Accent Reduction for non-native English speakers, I can attest to this regarding the English language. English is a musical language, as is Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, and many other languages. The trick to speaking English with clarity and impact, is understanding the melody and rhythm that is specific to English, but differs in other languages. Therefore, without the music of the English language, pronunciation is a mistake.
If English were a two-man band, it would be made up of a drum and a
saxophone. Firstly, English is a swinging language, more like a jazz or
rock group than a classical orchestra. English sounds are big, loud, and
emphatic, and our melody is bold and dance-worthy.
I hear complaints from my students time and time again that they are
always asked to repeat themselves, and even when they do, the listener still has difficulty understanding. Where does this come from? There are three major components that make up an accent: Sounds (consonants and vowels), Rhythm (stressed and unstressed words), and Intonation (the rise and fall of pitch in a sentence).
Full Story >>>
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Beginner's Games 1 features 5 of our most popular games plus 5 bonus activities!
Learn More >>> |
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| Activities for Beginner ESL Students |
Our newest book, Beginners Activities Book 1 is a collection of tested ESL Activities for beginners, including some of the most popular Activities from our online store.
12 Beginners Activities and Free Bonus ESL Game
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| FREE STORYBOOK SAMPLER |
 
The Mystery of the Secret Code -- FREE sampler
The Mystery of the Secret Code is a complete package for ESL Teachers, including a Storybook, Workbook and Teachers Guide. Suitable for children age 6 - 9 years.
The FULL Version Includes:
Children's ESL Storybook - 27 pages - On a visit to Gold Island, two teens learn about the romantic history of the island, reputed to be a pirate hideout. In their search for gold, they find a map, and a secret code. Is the map authentic, and do they find gold?
Children's ESL Workbook - 30 pages - The Secret Code Workbook promotes creative writing through brainstorming solutions to problems, sequencing events and writing a plan before writing a paragraph. Strategies for writing topic sentences and final paragraph sentences are provided. Vocabulary is reinforced with word Bingo games and crossword puzzles.
ESL Teachers Guide - 15 pages - Answers to all exercises, Complete instructions for the teacher and a glossary.
Try out our FREE sampler >>>
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| Becoming A Better Teacher |
One book I did find that I recommend is Teaching Secrets, by veteran teacher Christine Morrison, who has spent 30 years in the classroom and seen every imaginable classroom situation possible. Christine's book, Teaching Secrets, is well worth a read for any new or experienced teacher, is learn more at her website >>> .
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| LEWL in the Philippines |
Here we are at a crater lake outside of Manila. Our trip was very successful and we connected with some wonderful people and firmed up a joint venture. Stay turned for more!
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| Who is the Happiest? -- FREE Activity! |
Australians are the happiest people in the world. This is according to a new survey from the market research company GfK NOP. Interviewers asked 30,000 people in 30 different countries about their levels of happiness. Forty-six percent of Australians said they were "very happy". Following them was the USA (40 percent), Egypt (36 percent), India (34 percent) and the UK and Canada (32 percent). Hungary finished top of the "miserable" list. Thirty-five percent of its citizens said they were "very unhappy". Second most miserable were Russians, at 30 percent.
1. HAPPY ME: Are you happy today? Have you been happy recently? Walk around the classroom and talk with other students about how happy they are. When you have finished, sit with your partner(s) and talk about who was happy and who was not so happy.
2. HAPPINESS: What makes you happy? What affects your quality of life? Look at the items below and rank them in order of what makes you most happy.
___ Hiking
___ Good health
___ Money
___ Owning your own home
___ Sunshine |
___ Things (cars, clothes, gadgets, etc.)
___ A happy marriage / relationship
___ Children
___ Watching television
___ Exercise |
3. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words are most interesting and which are most boring.
Australians / happy people / market research / being miserable / Hungary / Russians / money / teenagers / financial security / happy marriages / cars
Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.
4. HAPPY: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word "happy". Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.
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THANKS!
Many thanks to for this great activity. If you haven't been to Sean's site you should! |
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Got an Idea? |
| Let us know -- send your article or idea, feedback, suggestions to info@efl-esl.com |
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| ESL Curriculum |
ESL Curriculum CDs are designed for Language Schools teaching with students 13 years and older. These textbooks are in use in The Czech Republic, Brazil, Ukraine, El Salvador and India.
Each Textbook Set contains 3 books -- A Student Reader, Student Workbook and Teacher's Guide.
Highlights:
- Print as many copies as you require
- Suitable for students age 13 and older
- Thoroughly tested and used over a period of 10 years
- Vocabulary and Grammar presented in a structured Incremental sequence
- Customized for your school
What you Get
Student Reader -- Presents the basic content plus many role-plays and other conversational activities. It can be re-used by many different classes.
Student Workbook -- Provides written exercises, word Bingo games, crossword puzzles, a glossary and many conversational activities for students to work in small groups and record their answers.
Teachers Guide -- includes the Oral Questions for each lesson, answers to all the exercises, and many additional interactive activities.
Levels, Organization and Content
Our ESL textbooks are divided into four modules, Beginners, High Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced. In response to feed back from our client schools, we have divided each Module into 2 Parts (Part 1 and Part 2).
Each Part has 20 lessons, with a Student Reader, Student Workbook and Teacher's Guide.
Each Module (containing Part 1 and Part 2) is 40 lessons, and 2 Student Readers, 2 Student Workbooks and 2 Teacher's Guides.
Learn More..
Module 1 -- Parts 1 & 2 -- Beginners
Module 2 -- Parts 1 & 2
-- High Beginners
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| ESL Exams: A Teacher's Guide |
by: Keith Taylor
It's the end of another class, and one student has stayed behind. No problem, you think, maybe an easy grammar question, or a comment on how they enjoyed the class (or not!)... or maybe it's a question about an ESL exam. "What's the difference between TOEFL and TOEIC?" "Should I take the FCE?" "Who recognizes IELTS?" So if you don't know your BEC from your KET, or your CAE from your CELS, here's a brief guide to the most popular ESL exams.
ESL exams fall broadly into three main categories: General English, Business English and Academic English.
Full Article >>>
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| From our ESL Forum |
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Guten Abend! I am writing from Germany where I'm volunteering to teach an adult ESL class. I have 14 adult students right now. Whew! The range of skills is wide. I'm looking forward to finding ideas on how to deal with real beginners and more intermediate learners in the same class. My students speak many different languages. Luckily, I found a decent text to use to focus on conversational skills and competencies so I'm happy about that. I'm also happy to see just how much info I can find on the web.
My students are sure that they need to learn grammar and I find it a boring subject to teach. When I use a grammar book they want to work at it but it doesn't improve their English. How can I present it in an interesting way that will improve their spoken and written English?
Are there any ideas out there?
I tried something new the other day and it was great fun. I displayed a picture for all the class to see. We brainstormed some ideas about what was happening in the picture and what might be going to happen.
When the class was ready, I had them tell a story about the picture, one sentence at a time. I wrote their story on the board until we got to the part about what might happen next. At that point I had each student write their own ending to the story.
This was followed by having them share their endings. They all went home laughing that day.
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| ESL Activities! |
| Beginners Activities
ESL Bingo
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Intermediate Activities
Mystery of the lady who Knew too Much |
Advanced Activities
Caribbean Mystery Cruise |
| MORE Beginners ESL Activities and Games >>> |
More Intermediate Activities and Games >>> |
More Advanced Activities and Games >>> |
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Beginners Games -- Book 1
Our latest book, Beginners ESL GAMES is a collection of tested ESL games for beginners, including the most popular and best selling ESL games from our online store. DETAILS >>>
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Resource Center
ESL for CHILDREN
Visit our sister site for ESL materials for teaching children age 8 - 12.
Children's Storybooks
ESL Curriculum
Tested in the classroom!
http://efl-esl.com/esl-curriculum/index.html
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