Famous English Speakers!

Just got back home from presenting some Cambridge ESOL certificates at the school where my daughters studied from when they were 3 years old before moving on to do Bachillerato when they were 16.

What memories!

I love going back there, especially when it's for an  event like this - presenting certificates that show how well students have done.

Colegio Sagrada Familia students with their 2011 certificates    

Every year I prepare a short presentation to start the ceremony - it's important for both students and parents to know exactly what the results mean.  To pass the Cambridge English: Key or Cambridge English: Preliminary exams, for example, students have to obtain an average total mark of 70% or more.  This. can come as a surprise in a country like Spain, where the pass mark is 5 (or 50%).

This year, I decided to include some videos of famous people talking English.

First, I showed them a youtube video of some false takes of football players trying to say a couple of sentences in English for an advert.

I think you will agree that at the time the videos was made, the players needed to think seriously about raising their level of English!

Then, I showed them some information about two famous Spanish people and how they had learnt English:

In 1992 Antonio Banderas made his Hollywood debut with Los reyes del mambo tocan canciones de amor (1992). Because he did not speak English at that time, his dialogue for the film was taught to him phonetically.

IMDB.com

Fernando Torres also revealed the method used by his two teachers to improve his English when he first moved to Liverpool from Madrid:

''One of the biggest problems I faced when I first moved here was the language barrier,' writes Torres in his autobiography El Nino.

Two people were vital during my first few days in the city: Rob and Alan, the English teachers Liverpool laid on for me.

'One of the things they used to make me do was ring people in response to adverts in the paper. You'd get on  the phone and ask about a puppy for sale, or that kitten being advertised, or the price of a second-hand car."

That's the first time I've heard of such a way of learning and practising English!  

And to finish, I showed the students a short excerpt from Shakira's speech to the Oxford Union.  I was very impressed by both her performance and her English!

Anyway, once again, congratulations to all the students who took and passed their exams in June.  I have set you a challenge - reaching Proficiency by 2018!  I hope some of you rise to that challenge - you are certainly well on your way!!!

Great source for examples of answering questions

I have spent most of the day looking at some different web tools and pages.  One of the things on my 'to do' list for this academic year is to start using some new tools and applications with my students.

I was revisiting a favourite of mine - Nik's Daily English Activities.

I mentioned Nik back in a post in January this year.  I had been watching a recording of a webinar Nik gave and had really enjoyed it.

Anyway, today, I clicked on Nik's link to VYou.  

First, I watched the questions asked by Oprah Winfrey, then I looked at some other questions and answers on the site.

I thought that it would be a great page to use with students preparing to take the Cambridge English: First, Advanced and Proficiency exams, in particular when preparing them for the first and final parts of the Speaking Tests.

For example, someone out there has set the following question:

If a book has been made into a movie, which do you prefer to do first, see the movie or read the book? Why?

http://www.odcpl.com/index.php?p=1_81_Books-into-Movies

As I write this post, 4 people have recorded their answer with a video camera.  You can watch them here.

I think that this and similar questions and answers could be a great source for discussion in (or outside) class.
Students could be asked to 'give marks' using the criteria that Speaking Examiners use:

- Grammar and Vocabulary
- Discourse Management
- Pronunciation

(It's a bit difficult to evaluate the answerers' interactive communication because they are monologues!!!)

And I also think that the site could provide us teachers with some interesting discussion and opinion questions to put to our students (or they could each choose a question to ask the teacher and/or their classmates!)

And if you're feeling brave, they could also record their own answers and share them!

(Note:  Some of the questions (and answers!) might not be suitable for sharing with your students, especially with teenagers, so I suggest you choose the ones you can use carefully! )

Zooming in on phrasal verbs (part 1)

The last two weeks have been very busy for me (and the rest of the Spanish seminar team).  I've been giving seminars focusing on various exams and different papers.

In the past ten days, I've been discussing the Cambridge English: Advanced Use of English paper with two different groups of teachers.  Thinking about how we can help our students do well in this Paper as well as how to widen their language resources generally, one area where they definitely need to devote themselves to and to dwell on is phrasal verbs.

The Use of English paper requires the candidate to display knowledge of the formulaic structures of language (e.g. collocations, idiom, etc.) which aid the development of naturalistic speed and fluency of language production. Candidates must also show an understanding of, and sensitivity to, precision in choice of words, grammatical accuracy.....

(Cambridge English: Advanced Use of English Paper Overview) 

http://cambridge-english-advanced.cambridgeesol.org/files/CAE_Use_of_English_paper_overview.pdf

I've mentioned English Profile to your before.  And I've also mentioned the English Vocabulary Profile. 

If you use the search tool to find the phrasal verbs which have been allocated to a particular level, the number of verbs assigned to the lower levels is considerably smaller than the higher levels.

At A1, there are four phrasal verbs listed:  come from, get up, go out, wake up.  All very much related to daily routines and personal information, as you would expect at this level.

At A2, 27 phrasal verbs are listed.  Go up to the next level, B1, and you find 135.

This number doubles when you search for phrasal verbs at B2:  277 new phrasal verbs appear.  Well, not all of these phrasal verbs are new, but a new meaning is added.  'get up' appears on the B2 list with the meaning 'stand up', as in the example:

The whole audience got up and started clapping.

Unfortunately, there is no general public access to the English Vocabulary Profile for the C levels, so I made this word cloud from the phrasal verbs listed under the preview version (for letters d, j and k only)

This revisiting words and phrasal verbs and expressions is a very important part of learning English.  It's an essential part of 'understanding of' and 'sensitivity to' 'precision in choice of words...'

In my next post, I will share some great resources for working on the area of phrasal verbs. 

So, I hope your week kicks off well and that nothing keeps you from deriving pleasure and enjoyment from your classes and life!!!