EXCITING NEWS: OUR SCHOOL RADIO PROGRAMME ON IVOOX HAS BEEN REVIVED!

First of all, apologies for not having posted in a while: Things have been rather busy at school lately, but for a very good reason! We’ve been hard at work developing an exciting new project: our very own school radio station, as part of Radio na Biblio, a programme supported by the Consellería de Educación da Xunta de Galicia.

Over the past few months, I’ve been collaborating with fellow teachers and students to design, script and record podcasts that bring language learning to life. These tasks have allowed our learners to practise their English and other languages they study at school in creative ways, while developing valuable communication and teamwork skills.

The first series of podcasts my students recorded focuses on a highly relevant topic: household finances and how to save money. These episodes were researched and recorded by my C1 students, who tackled the challenge of speaking clearly and informatively about managing personal finances.

So, you can now listen to our programmes on iVoox! I hope you enjoy them and find them useful! Stay tuned for more content! 

ITip of MAY: SPEECHNOTES

This month I am going to present you with a great class working tool. Speechnotes is the perfect voice editor to move from voice-typing (dictation) to key-typing seamlessly and boost your pronunciation skills at the same time. You will love it thanks to its high level of accuracy, great features and ease of use. Luckily, it is free and needs no registration. It also allows you to edit speech results, which might also come in handy!

You can type at the speed of slow clear speech and even insert punctuation marks. How does it work? just speak into the mic to let Speechnotes transcribe for you and beware... if the notes make no sense, you might need to adjust your pronunciation a bit!

ITip OF JANUARY

Happy new year, everyone! Time flies, doesn't it? Here I am back again with a new ITip for the new year. Does anybody know the site dreamreader.net? I do think it is a great tool to practise pronunciation and intonation. It will allow you to do shadow reading at different levels and check your pronunciaton skills. It is definitely worth a try! I have just discovered it thanks to my colleague Cristina Cabal and am already crazy about it!

ITip of December

Voicepods is a service that makes it super simple for anyone to create realistic text to speech in 8 voices (male, female and different accents). It even allows you to take real control of what your voice will sound like, adding pauses, spelling out how great things are or creating emphasis. 

It is as easy as taking any written work and converting it to human-like audio. Using the handy voice control features will add the final touch!

I have already started using it in my classes. But it might also be a great tool for students to read-along and practice pronunciation and story telling. 

Give it a try! You´ll love it!

ITip OF NOVEMBER

Hi everyone,

It might be a bit too late in the month, but I didn't want to finish November without posting a new ITip. Time for pronunciation! Now that I'm teaching C1.2, I've noticed that many of my students have a good knowledge of grammar and even vocabulary, but when it comes to pronunciation they keep making mistakes that I wouldn't expect at this level. So, my new ITip is for those who are really worried about pronouncing correctly and let vowels follow their own way!

YouGlish uses the daddy of all video sites, YouTube, to let students practise pronunciation. It provides students with answers as it shows how English is spoken all around the world by real speakers and in a real context. It is simple and quite easy to use. Just have to type the word or even expression you want to learn and click on "Say it!"... and there it goes, hundreds or even thousands!!! of videos where you can hear both native and non native speakers in a wide variety of situations will pop up. Don't you think it is great?

I use it a lot in class to practise the pronunciation of difficult vocabulary and it works. It's fun, enjoyable and pretty practical!

WORDS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO PRONOUNCE

We had a great time in class last week working with the text on Unit 9 in our book and trying to find words that are difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers. Here is the result: 

chemistry, engineering, involves, apply, bakery, includes, injuries, society, essays, lecture, since, production, limes, manage, ceramics.

Can you pronunce the words correctly? Try and let us know! Remember that practice makes perfect!

ITip of April: HowToPronounce.com

Hi everybody,

spring is already here and it has brought us a new ITip: HowToPronounce.com. This website will allow students to practise their pronunciation in just one click. Type the word you want to listen, choose the language and click on the Pronounce button. You can hear the word as many times as you like:

The website will also allow you to record your own voice pronouncing the word, so I do think it is worth a try!

I hope you find it useful. Enjoy!!

LEARN ENGLISH CHOIR

I would like to remind everybody that singing is a very healthy activity. It uses your mind, your body and your heart. Besides, learning English through singing is also a way to improve pronunciation and increase your vocabulary. So, don't miss this great opportunity to reinforce what you are learning in class and join Bonnie Cooper, who directs the LEARN ENGLISH CHOIR every Tuesday at 20.00 at school.

Info: materlingua.wordpress.com

SOUNDS RIGHT

Sounds Right is the British Council first pronunciation chart for learners and teachers worldwide. This app is for your iPad and unfortunately it isn´t available for all smartphones yet. It is a very straightforward app but very helpful to learn English pronunciation. Besides, it´s been updated with iOS5 compatibility. You can read more about the app and read reviews on the itunes preview page.