Listen and improve your English! – audio podcasts

February 24, 2008

From Wikipedia: “A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players and personal computers.”

This English as a Second Language (ESL) podcast is an audio podcast free of charge. It offers a collection of MP3 files, you can listen to directly on there web page www.eslpod.com (not at HL) or download to listen on your mp3 player.

I really like listening to this audio because it offers a wide range of subjects and stress the learning aspect. Usually you here the articles several time at different speed. A host gives explanations for new phrases and uses them in different contexts.

Another freely available audio podcast I can recommend is the Business English Podcast (BEP). As the name implies it focus more on business topics, but nevertheless is well done. The presentation style is similar to the ESL pod, but in addition there is even space to answer questions.

Both podcasts are surrounded with additional material you can pay money for, if you want.
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Death by Powerpoint

February 10, 2008

I searched www.youtube.com for this phrase. First this real funny presentation came out covering a lot of bad examples.

You can have more serious advices as well. Please add, if you find other interesting ones. I guess, the videos will not work at HL.


What was it like?

January 8, 2008

How did your evening activity go? (informal)
okay
really nice
really interesting
quite interesting
great
light movie
excellent
boring
relaxing
deeply impressed
overwhelming
moving (from move and emotional)
intense
exciting
fun
I like it
I didn’t like it


Introductions

December 2, 2007

Here the typical questions with possible answers.

How do you do (a signal only, no question)

  • How do you do
  • Pleased/Good/Nice to meet you
  • Hello
  • Nice meeting you
  • It’s a pleasure to meet you
  • It’s a real pleasure to meet you

What do you do? (profession)

  • I’m a …
  • I work in …

What are you doing? (now)

  • I’m working on a new project…
  • I’m writing…

How is it going?
How are you doing?

Fine, thank you.