#english second language

[yeehawpim]

[intothestacks]

4 Tips on presenting to an ESL audience (from an ESL librarian)

1. Speak slowly, in short sentences, and pronounce each word carefully.

Speaking louder isn’t nearly as helpful as speaking slowly unless you know the ESL person is also hard of hearing.

2. Whenever possible, use written words on a whiteboard or PowerPoint presentation

Written words are often the strongest reference for learners of a new language.

3. Avoid using idioms, as they rarely translate with the same meaning into other languages.

An ESL person will also be less likely to know the meaning of English-specific idioms.

4. Avoid phrasal verbs.

E.g. “look up” or “look out”

in which the meaning is idiomatic and has little or no resemblance with that of the principal verb; instead, use one-word equivalents such as “search,” “careful,” etc.

[agendergenderqueermasculenbyguy]

I’m genuinely just curious about this

Also how many times did you pronounce/ sound out both words before you voted? hehehe

It would be nice if you reblog, no pressure tho :)

[dontforgetukraine]

The project Balakun, which matches Ukrainians learning English with fluent English speakers, has reached over 500 matches! Major congrats to them!

If you are unable to donate to any of the many fundraisers going on, but still want to help in some way, consider joining up with Balakun to become a mentor and join their ESL mission. Experiences from mentors can be found on their twitter.

BalakunUA, Website

[kylehighelf]

I’m not sure if I should try writing in my native language and translate it to English, because I try to write in English but it’s so dry.

[diamarch]

TOEFL Experience. Part III

Hello, everybody! I'm really glad you're still here :) Today I'm going to talk about the unofficial websites for complex (all sections) TOEFL preparation.

TST prep

Their Emergency Course (premium package) was my first purchase on my way to a pretty good TOEFL score. However, unfortunately, it is not the last or the best. Let me explain. Among the benefits I can name:

Structured and short information about all the content of the TOEFL test (paid, however, can be found in their YouTube videos for free);

Templates for speaking and writing sections for basic and advanced levels;

Practice tests with answers and their explanations (some of them in open access on YouTube in old videos);

Comprehensible design of the website and cool colors;

Examples of Q1 for the speaking section (for free);

Newsletters with special hacks and news from ETS (for free)

Josh's charisma (can be found everywhere :)). However, if you use this website with the materials from their YouTube channel, you will quickly realize that you've wasted your money. First, throughout all the videos, Josh McPhearson repeats that it's OK to pass the same test more than one time after, for example, two weeks. And that was a trap! I passed approximately two or three tests (in sum from the website and from the YouTube channel), trained some specific types of questions from reading and listening in the separate section on their website, and then I simply couldn't find the completely unfamiliar test, despite the fact that I was promised to have 6 complete practice tests in my package. So, the limited number of practice tests was an outrageous fact for me because it seemed like some of them were open-access on YouTube. Moreover, I think that this emergency course in general doesn't give you much more information about the test than their YouTube videos. So, basically, I paid mostly for templates, and that wasn't a rational decision, even if a 50% discount was taken into account. Don't be enchanted and blinded like me; use only their free materials. I didn't try their group classes and evaluations, but Emergency Course is 100% not worth your time and money.

2. Best My Test

Since I needed more practice and more tests, I started to search for other complex solutions where I could train all the TOEFL sections. I found this website, and after reading some articles about it, I began a free trial. It gives you an opportunity to pass the sample test, which is a shortened version of an actual test. After trying it, I was on cloud nine because it was exactly the thing that I was looking for.

First and foremost, the experience is not the same but really similar to the official TOEFL test. You can see the instructions, the buttons, the interface for recording your voice, the way the text in reading and questions to it are placed, the writing interface, which is also close to reality, and the most important is the timer. That was the core reason why I decided to pay for this.

Another benefit is, obviously, the availability of a huge number of practice tests with recorded statistics of your success in every section and question type (for reading and listening).

The theoretical materials are also included. It is especially useful when you see that some type of question is your weakness based on the statistics of your success. You catch it, jump into the corresponding lesson, learn some strategies, and train.

Templates and explanations for speaking and writing can be found. Moreover, the evaluations of your speaking and writing by humans and AI are included in the Custom and Premium packages. From my own experience, AI evaluations are pretty accurate, as they rated my speaking at 21 points and I gained 22. And writing reviews from experts was also full of insights and powerful advice. +/- There are also vocabulary and grammar materials, but I didn't have much time, so for me, these materials were uneffective. And finally, maybe for some readers, the textual form of theoretical material will not be comfortable, so I consider this aspect of Best My Test a disadvantage. However, they already made videos for certain lessons. Overall, Best My Test was a treasure for me, without any doubt. I regret that I found it too late (it was 2 weeks before my exam).

As you can see, these websites cause lots of strong feelings in me; however, I appreciate both of them because I have learned not only how to take TOEFL but also have seen a real picture of our world. The beautiful, loud, and charismatic is often empty. And the real treasure is often much cheaper and kept silent. Stay tunned :)

[idgseeds]

ESL-Now Available On All Platforms. All Beats Produced By @juicedaproducer. Music created By @idgseeds .

[intothestacks]

Cool Board Games for Your Library

Rory's Story Cubes – $18 CAD

Type: Dice Game  Players: 1-12 (2-4 ideal) Mechanics: Dice Rolling, Pattern Recognition Playtime: 20 min Age: 4+ Skills You Practice: Cooperation, Storytelling, Imagination, Pattern Recognition

There are various expansion packs (I’d highly recommend the Actions pack for ESL language practice). The expansion packs include Fantasia, Mystery, Heroes, Voyages, Astro, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Looney Tunes among others.

Why it’d be good for a library collection:

Popular topics

Family-friendly

Simple gameplay

Award-winner

Small storage space

Variable player size

Cheap

Great for use in programming with ESL patrons

[miaqc1]

All my podfics

[kylehighelf]

I want to write in English again. It’s been years since I wrote a fanfiction. Always got embarrassed by my grammar and writing skills because its not my native language. I hope I don’t get bullied.

[carleypie]

@geekgirles

Shout out to the fic writers who write in English even though it's not their native language. Whether you just started and are using Google Translate more often than not, or you've been doing it for years and still translating sayings from your native tongue word for word that don't make much sense in English.

Your addition to the fandom is important and unique purple prose would be missed without your input. Don't give up even if you're unhappy with your progression. Remember that your writing is better today than it was yesterday, and that it'll be better tomorrow than it was today.

[flumet]

Esl struggles: I almost fucking googled "How to make a shot wound hurt less"...

Because I got a shot recently and my arm hurts

[wildwolf-fandoms]

English be like:

"They finnaly arrived to the smell of the blood of the hounds of house of Hell."

[shoujothoughts]

Okay, so I teach ESL to a number of students who are Chinese, and this whole post is just FASCINATING to me on a multitude of levels.

I understand in theory just how different Chinese and English are, but this post lays elements out so eloquently and clearly!

all right guys, let’s have a conversation about linguistic register, Lan Wangji, and I guess Wei Wuxian can come too

(and I do genuinely mean conversation, I’d love to hear other people’s input on this, because I did just write a long-ass post about the subjectivity of interpretation in translations)

So when I started interacting with the fandom and reading people’s fics, I got really confused by the way some folks were writing dialogue for Lan Wangji; he often sounded super awkward, spoke in fragments, and sometimes exclusively in third person. To be fair, all of those are elements of his speech at various times, but like, seeing it in English-language material felt like a really heavy-handed way of rendering it in translation?

I guess when you use third person within the first three episodes of the show, it makes a pretty big impression on the audience

This is not at all intended to be a criticism of people who are 1000% writing and creating wonderful work, which is more than I can say for myself, but I want to poke and prod and tease at some linguistic nuance here.

Take a deep breath, grab a pot of tea (this’ll take more than a cup), because we’re going to take the scenic route on this one–

Keep reading

[satoksa]

This week was a pretty shitty week as a whole, but it ended on a good note. I've been teaching lessons unsupervised this week and I got stuck with a new class. The class I have is mostly young women, and not chatty ones. Breaking the cultural barrier is hard enough with men, but with women it's even worse. Getting them to respond to questions, interact with me in the typical Teacher-Student way isn't easy.

But today I broke through. Today I made them laugh. I made some shitty joke about not wearing a belt because my pants I have today aren't falling down and they laughed at me. From that point forward they answered my questions, responded to my instructions and all round just worked with me instead of giving me absolutely nothing to work with.

Shitty week and I'm glad it's over, but today ended on a positive note. Next week should go much more smoothly.