weekly posts on literature, languages, and learning
The Weekend Listener is an eclectic weekly list of noteworthy podcasts and radio recordings, old and new, curated for your listening pleasure. Posts in this series are published on Fridays – please search the website for the previous instalments. LANGUAGE As It Happens | Swearing feels good - it’s also good for you Where the …
The Weekend Listener is an eclectic weekly list of noteworthy podcasts and radio recordings, old and new, curated for your listening pleasure. Posts in this series are published on Fridays – please search the website for the previous instalments. LANGUAGE Lexicon Valley: Why Do Languages Have Gender Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com In my …
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the most important poets of the 18th and the early 19th century. He was a close friend of another very influential English poet, William Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy - so close that he chose to move to the Lake District to live near them. The two Lake Poets …
Beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reassess one’s priorities and set personal goals for the coming twelve months. I’ve been doing my New Year’s resolutions for many years, always writing them down on the first page of my annual planner. Looking back, most of my past resolutions were quite unrealistic (lose …
Continue reading "New Year’s resolutions for language learners"
Some find them outdated and archaic, but they are still very much around, and just won't go away: Latin abbreviations in English! While most of them tend to be used in formal, academic writing, a number of them feature in everyday spoken language, as well: a.m. and p.m. in reference to time, AD when talking …
Working with students, I’ve realised many of them struggle with tasks connected with art. They are often reluctant to approach the subject because they don’t know much about the history of art, or they feel they lack relevant vocabulary. As they tell me, they wouldn’t know how to describe a painting even if they had …
Being both a teacher and a learner, I know how tricky it can be to find enough time to work on improving your language skills. We all have busy schedules, with different tasks and obligations vying for our attention. And even when we don’t, there’s the laziness that often prevents us from getting any effective …
Podcasts are a very simple and easily accessible tool that can do wonders for your language learning. Now that almost everyone has a smartphone and access to the internet, there's also access to a vast array of audio resources for your listening pleasure. As the whole idea of podcasting may sound a bit too abstract, …
Continue reading "Using podcasts in English language learning"
There are all kinds of dictionaries available on the market nowadays: monolingual, bilingual, as well as more specialised ones limited to particular lexical segments, such as different dictionaries of technical terms, synonyms, idioms, phrasal verbs etc. I'm often asked by my students, beginners especially, which of those they should buy; and whether they actually need …
Instead of strictly following a pre-defined syllabus, the content of tuition and the pace of work are determined according to the student's individual needs. Instead of teaching a lot of language theory, the emphasis is on the practical use of language and the development of communicative skills. Instead of working with large groups and doing …
Continue reading "Language coaching: a different approach to language teaching"
grammaticus 