What You Say in English!

In the first episode, I wanted to cover some of the basic concepts to understand the type of feedback I give to my students. I will cover other ideas as what we look at when we analyze grammar in speaking in the broader concept of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

Useful resources:

• The CEFR (The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
• The ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and its leve...

In this episode, I'll introduce you to the concept of Discourse and how it can help you keep your speech coherent and unified. It's something very extensive, as it touches other areas such as grammar, vocabulary, and even pronunciation. I've tried to keep it as simple as possible but retaining the necessary terminology that will help you identify the elements you need to improve on your speaking.

In this episode, I discuss some important aspects of pronunciation that teachers should consider when giving feedback on pronunciation. I explain why intelligibility is more important than accent, as well as what specific phonological elements are crucial to sound clear and understandable to other speakers and trust me, it's not precisely to sound like a native speaker.

I used two segments to illustrate the concept of intelligibili...

In today’s episode, Daniel Goodson joins us to talk about how much he loves learning languages. We discussed what he loves about learning English, what he finds difficult, and, most of all, what he does to improve. I believe he’s a great example of self-determination and motivation to learn English. We spoke about a lot of things, from accents, receptive and productive skills, code-switching and many more things.

Daniel manages the...

Telling stories is usually considered a great skill in your own language. When you know how to captivate your audience with anecdotes, people will probably say that you have a great talent: you have a way with words! In this episode, I'm using an anecdote told by the famous Hollywood actor, Will Smith, when he visited the British talk show "The Graham Norton Show". I will explain the different parts that make up an anecdote (Abstra...

This time, I'm using two recordings from the fantastic Facebook group Canguro English. Just like in Masters of English, learners from around the world connect and help each other, and most of the time with the guidance of the administrators of the group, to improve their English. The two people I have today are Juan Aguilar, who expressed his desire to be more fluent and Mike Pinargote, a 24-real-old man from Ecuador, who showed gr...

In today's episode, an English teacher originally from Madagascar but living in South Africa, Jenny Nadia, gives us excellent examples of great conversational skills. You can tell by the natural way in which she uses English that she's constantly surrounded by English speakers. Her variety of English is quite interesting to analyze because of all the features that are common in many regions of Africa, in terms of grammar and pronun...

In today’s episode, we’re going to listen to three incredible people. First, a message from Ahmad (Senegal), who sent his support and encouraging words. If it wasn’t for this kind of feedback, I wouldn’t be able to continue doing this podcast. Also, we have someone a girl from Saudi Arabia: Aysha. She shows good speaking skills but gives an opportunity to see what a missed opportunity is when other more complex structures could be ...

Have you heard about the IELTS test? As takeIELTS.net is a sponsor of this podcast, I decided to do a mock speaking with Aisha, from Oman, and give her feedback on her performance. If you still don't know anything about the test and how important it is internationally, I suggest you should head over to ielts.org to find out more about it. The speaking component of the IELTS is quite simple in its structure, but you do have to show ...

Last week, I did a mock speaking with a girl from Oman, Aisha, in which she demonstrated some good skills but still needed some help to extend her responses. This week, I'm coming with some great advice from TakeIELTS.net to make the most of the time you have to show what you do in English. I will guide you through the speaking component and tell you what you should and shouldn't do to get the band score you need. Preparation is ke...

In today's episode, I try to take a deeper look into what people think fluency is, and I question what our conception is for that term. From the get-go, I can say that it's a very tricky term to define and I also believe that it shouldn't be considered as a goal in language proficiency. I open the debate as to what other aspects of English language learning are truly important, in my opinion, and what really counts when it comes to...

For this week, I am reacting to Pasquale Cangiano, one of the administrators of the Facebook group Canguro English. He's a 47-year-old Italian man who has many things to say about learning English. The best part is that he's not an English teacher, but he has come to the same conclusion as many English teachers: learning a language is about how much you enjoy the process. The whole conversation between Pasquale and Christian Saunde...

In today's episode, I take some time to look at factors that people don't usually consider when learning English. I covered aspects like social distance, following Schumann's acculturation model, or the idea that proximity to the culture of the second language will benefit your learning process. Also, I talk about age differences and try to debunk some myths about how younger and older learn a second language. And finally, I cover ...

What is it that some people do to learn a language effectively that others don't? In this episode, I talk about what research says about the strategies that Good Language Learners (GLL) do that you may wish to incorporate into your own learning journey. Neil Naiman and other researchers give us 6 strategies that you can start including in your own learning: 1) Finding a learning style that suits you, 2) Involving yourself in the la...

In this episode, I close 2020 on a high note. Valerio is an English learner with a passion for languages. I've seen how he strives for perfection in everything he shares with the MAOFEN Facebook group. Despite having some hesitation, he manages to communicate his ideas quite clearly. He still needs to brush up his grammatical control and use the correct tenses, but he compensates marvelously with his vocabulary use, and the natural...