Skype is a really e-ffective way to learn English and here's why.
It's very time effective - you don't have to travel to and from a lesson which can often mean a one hour lesson takes up half a day.
It is realistic to have more, short lessons such as 30 mins so you can learn every day if you want.
Lesson times can be very flexible to suit your diary.
With a camera, you still keep important visual contact.
With the chat facility, you and the teacher can write words as the same time as talking. You can also save these comments as revision notes - that's really useful.
You and the teacher can look at other websites and documents at the same time and discuss them, so lessons are always interesting.
When I first started I wasn't sure if I would like it but now I'm really pleased I did. Why not give it go!
With a free trial lesson, you've nothing to lose and you can talk to a native Englishman in the comfort of your own home.
Email me now to arrange a free lesson: georgesandford2@gmail.com
Many thanks George
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tense Town map
Hi everybody, I’ve been busy again and this year as well as phrasal verbs, I’ve been working on tenses and I think I have something rather special! - Tenses on a map.
The Sandford Tense Town map© uniquely shows all English tenses and conditionals on one page in an amazingly clear way. It can be used to learn and understand tenses and help people to use them correctly.
The Sandford Tense Town Map is a flexible and easy to use English grammar aid for teachers and students. Tenses are shown as a street plan with conditionals as metro lines. Due to this great design, tenses and conditionals can be learnt really quickly.
It’s useful for teachers and students alike and can work from Pre-intermediate to Upper-intermediate levels.
But that’s not all!
The map is supported by a one page, colour coded table showing all tense uses with specific examples. Then, there are four more tables to be used for practice exercises.
But that’s still not all!!
Also included are Tense Town Cards cut up exercises, featuring tenses, places, actions and emotions to use individually or in groups making learning and using tenses great fun.
Finally, the package comes with a set of exercises for self tuition or teacher led activity.
Learning tenses and conditionals never needs to be boring or difficult again!
This design has been used with students to great effect.
You too can now benefit. With secure PayPal payment, this product can be emailed immediately.
Total package: Tense Town colour map, Colour coded Tense table, plus four extra black and white tables for learning exercises, Tense Town paper cut out cards and a set of 10 easy to follow exercise activities!
Total great value price: just 5 Euros or 20PLN! To order, send an email to Praskipublishing@yahoo.com
The map has been created in PowerPoint and other materials in Word so you can print it and work with it right away. Purchase authorises you to make copies for personal or teaching purposes but not for resale. Fully rights owned by Praski Publishing©
The Sandford Tense Town map© uniquely shows all English tenses and conditionals on one page in an amazingly clear way. It can be used to learn and understand tenses and help people to use them correctly.
The Sandford Tense Town Map is a flexible and easy to use English grammar aid for teachers and students. Tenses are shown as a street plan with conditionals as metro lines. Due to this great design, tenses and conditionals can be learnt really quickly.
It’s useful for teachers and students alike and can work from Pre-intermediate to Upper-intermediate levels.
But that’s not all!
The map is supported by a one page, colour coded table showing all tense uses with specific examples. Then, there are four more tables to be used for practice exercises.
But that’s still not all!!
Also included are Tense Town Cards cut up exercises, featuring tenses, places, actions and emotions to use individually or in groups making learning and using tenses great fun.
Finally, the package comes with a set of exercises for self tuition or teacher led activity.
Learning tenses and conditionals never needs to be boring or difficult again!
This design has been used with students to great effect.
You too can now benefit. With secure PayPal payment, this product can be emailed immediately.
Total package: Tense Town colour map, Colour coded Tense table, plus four extra black and white tables for learning exercises, Tense Town paper cut out cards and a set of 10 easy to follow exercise activities!
Total great value price: just 5 Euros or 20PLN! To order, send an email to Praskipublishing@yahoo.com
The map has been created in PowerPoint and other materials in Word so you can print it and work with it right away. Purchase authorises you to make copies for personal or teaching purposes but not for resale. Fully rights owned by Praski Publishing©
Friday, March 27, 2009
Words are thoughts
One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching and training is that almost every day I learn something new or get a new idea, usually from the students. Whilst recently proof reading an Estate Management assignment, I noted a phrase, ‘weakest chain of assumptions.’ I noted it down and the client asked if it was wrong. ‘No, just interesting.’ I replied. ‘But what can you do with it? He continued. ‘I don’t know - yet.’ I have a collection of such phrases; some lead to projects and models, others to nothing.
Today, I was doing a lesson on anxiety with an advanced group. We collected a basket of words relating to the subject such as worried, upset, concerned, fretful, edgy, etc. One student said, ‘This is a bit depressing, perhaps we should balance it with some words about calmness.’ We did, and collected calm, easy, peaceful and tranquil. The students noticed that their negative feelings list was twice as long as their positive one. This was not down to any language deficiency as my list was the same.
We all realised that this was what was in our heads and that it was much easier to find negatives.
To take the idea a stage further, if words equal thoughts and 75% of your stock of words are negative, this is likely to influence your outlook on life. Perhaps we then find all the things that are wrong where we can use and reinforce our negative repertoire. Therefore, if you want to change your perspective, change your vocabulary and learn more positive words. Then finally, look for opportunities to use your positive vocabulary and change your reality.
What a great surprise and wonderful revelation for today!
Today, I was doing a lesson on anxiety with an advanced group. We collected a basket of words relating to the subject such as worried, upset, concerned, fretful, edgy, etc. One student said, ‘This is a bit depressing, perhaps we should balance it with some words about calmness.’ We did, and collected calm, easy, peaceful and tranquil. The students noticed that their negative feelings list was twice as long as their positive one. This was not down to any language deficiency as my list was the same.
We all realised that this was what was in our heads and that it was much easier to find negatives.
To take the idea a stage further, if words equal thoughts and 75% of your stock of words are negative, this is likely to influence your outlook on life. Perhaps we then find all the things that are wrong where we can use and reinforce our negative repertoire. Therefore, if you want to change your perspective, change your vocabulary and learn more positive words. Then finally, look for opportunities to use your positive vocabulary and change your reality.
What a great surprise and wonderful revelation for today!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Parachutes!
I have been recently writing articles in http://www.hronline.com.pl/
They are related to Human Resources issues but might provide some useful business English and ideas generally.
If you have been affected by the credit crunch and your job is at risk, this parachute strategy is well worth following. Check out your list of contacts, go and talk to them, find out what's happening. Start manufacturin your own new job. That's how the parachute method works. Good luck!
Have you checked your parachutes lately?
Some estimates suggest that over the next year, as many as 50 million people worldwide will be on the receiving end of outplacement, downsizing, natural wastage and call it what you will. That’s a lot of people looking for work. The ones who gain re-employment will have to be smarter than average to find opportunities in a depressed labour market. Companies will want to do their best to ease the transition for displaced workers, but how best can they do this?
During the 80’s in the UK, I was Personnel Manager of a government organisation destined for closure. I needed to find another job and a friend recommended the strangely titled but highly inspirational, ‘What color is your parachute?’ by Richard Nelson Bolles. It was about job hunting but completely original in its approach. With creativity, imagination and networking, it showed how people could manufacture their own jobs through dialogue with employers. In so doing, job hunters could take control of their destiny and build their own parachute for a soft landing.
As the world spins into freefall, individuals need to start making parachutes quickly and responsible companies can show them how. Organisations planning labour force reductions can help their employees but it will take more than a simple ‘re-jigging the CV’ course. What is needed are imaginative outplacement programmes that will enable staff to take a dynamic and courageous approach to job hunting, rebuild damaged self-esteem and confidence and above all, ensure a safe landing in their next field of work.
Glossary
On the receiving end - a victim of something
Natural wastage - not filling a post when the job holder leaves
Destined - certain to happen, fated
Parachute - (spadochron)
Dialogue - a conversational approach
Freefall - a rapid, out of control fall
Re-jigging - altering
They are related to Human Resources issues but might provide some useful business English and ideas generally.
If you have been affected by the credit crunch and your job is at risk, this parachute strategy is well worth following. Check out your list of contacts, go and talk to them, find out what's happening. Start manufacturin your own new job. That's how the parachute method works. Good luck!
Have you checked your parachutes lately?
Some estimates suggest that over the next year, as many as 50 million people worldwide will be on the receiving end of outplacement, downsizing, natural wastage and call it what you will. That’s a lot of people looking for work. The ones who gain re-employment will have to be smarter than average to find opportunities in a depressed labour market. Companies will want to do their best to ease the transition for displaced workers, but how best can they do this?
During the 80’s in the UK, I was Personnel Manager of a government organisation destined for closure. I needed to find another job and a friend recommended the strangely titled but highly inspirational, ‘What color is your parachute?’ by Richard Nelson Bolles. It was about job hunting but completely original in its approach. With creativity, imagination and networking, it showed how people could manufacture their own jobs through dialogue with employers. In so doing, job hunters could take control of their destiny and build their own parachute for a soft landing.
As the world spins into freefall, individuals need to start making parachutes quickly and responsible companies can show them how. Organisations planning labour force reductions can help their employees but it will take more than a simple ‘re-jigging the CV’ course. What is needed are imaginative outplacement programmes that will enable staff to take a dynamic and courageous approach to job hunting, rebuild damaged self-esteem and confidence and above all, ensure a safe landing in their next field of work.
Glossary
On the receiving end - a victim of something
Natural wastage - not filling a post when the job holder leaves
Destined - certain to happen, fated
Parachute - (spadochron)
Dialogue - a conversational approach
Freefall - a rapid, out of control fall
Re-jigging - altering
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Seven habits of highly effective learners
I recently wrote this for a company called Advanced Corporate Training. They liked it, I hope you will too.
A man called Stephen Covey wrote a bestseller called, ‘The Seven habits of Highly Effective people.’ It made me consider what habits successful language learners have, so I have come up with some suggestions.
LOVE! Good language learners love to learn and are very open minded. They are equally at home with business or general English. They are keen to learn more about culture and traditions and recognise the importance of contextualizing language.
ENQUIRE. Good learners ask questions persistently. When a new word is acquired, they ask supplementary questions to understand how and where to use it. This is essential in order to avoid problems caused by learning new vocabulary but using it inappropriately.
ACCEPT. They accept mistakes and do not punish themselves if they make them. They are not defeatist but pragmatic, accepting that some things take longer to learn than others. Fear of making mistakes is a major barrier to progress and this can even happen to more advanced learners who have learnt to speak well and avoid more complicated forms to ensure perfection.
RECYCLE. When good learners get a new grammar skill or word they try to incorporate it into their conversation and recycle it straight away. This is a really useful thing to do. The more immediately new learning is recycled, the better the chances are that it will be retained.
NEXT STEP. Effective learners see a clear path of progress. They set targets and milestones such as exams or work goals. This way, they are not learning aimlessly but with a purpose and a deadline.
EXTRA Organised! Effective language learners are well organised. They always make notes in lessons, are systematic, keep their work in order and know where to find it. This organisation extends to their mind and they have often developed methods for accessing information in their memory too.
REGULAR. The key to language learning is regular work as often as possible. It is important to build learning into your daily routine even if it’s 10 minutes reading. Short, high frequency inputs are better than doing a lot of work in one day and then nothing for a month. Regular review of the well organised notes helps too!
So now you know what it takes to be a highly effective LEARNER! How many of the habits describe you?
Find words or phrase in the text that mean the following:
1) Enthusiastic
2) With determination
3) Additional
4) Not in the correct way
5) Realistic
6) Kept
7) Interim goal
8) Without purpose or direction
9) Learn every day
10) Often
Answers
1) Keen
2) Persitently
3) Supplementary
4) In appropriately
5) Pragmatic
6) Retained
7) Milestone
8) Aimless(ly)
9) Build learning into your daily routine
10) High frequency
A man called Stephen Covey wrote a bestseller called, ‘The Seven habits of Highly Effective people.’ It made me consider what habits successful language learners have, so I have come up with some suggestions.
LOVE! Good language learners love to learn and are very open minded. They are equally at home with business or general English. They are keen to learn more about culture and traditions and recognise the importance of contextualizing language.
ENQUIRE. Good learners ask questions persistently. When a new word is acquired, they ask supplementary questions to understand how and where to use it. This is essential in order to avoid problems caused by learning new vocabulary but using it inappropriately.
ACCEPT. They accept mistakes and do not punish themselves if they make them. They are not defeatist but pragmatic, accepting that some things take longer to learn than others. Fear of making mistakes is a major barrier to progress and this can even happen to more advanced learners who have learnt to speak well and avoid more complicated forms to ensure perfection.
RECYCLE. When good learners get a new grammar skill or word they try to incorporate it into their conversation and recycle it straight away. This is a really useful thing to do. The more immediately new learning is recycled, the better the chances are that it will be retained.
NEXT STEP. Effective learners see a clear path of progress. They set targets and milestones such as exams or work goals. This way, they are not learning aimlessly but with a purpose and a deadline.
EXTRA Organised! Effective language learners are well organised. They always make notes in lessons, are systematic, keep their work in order and know where to find it. This organisation extends to their mind and they have often developed methods for accessing information in their memory too.
REGULAR. The key to language learning is regular work as often as possible. It is important to build learning into your daily routine even if it’s 10 minutes reading. Short, high frequency inputs are better than doing a lot of work in one day and then nothing for a month. Regular review of the well organised notes helps too!
So now you know what it takes to be a highly effective LEARNER! How many of the habits describe you?
Find words or phrase in the text that mean the following:
1) Enthusiastic
2) With determination
3) Additional
4) Not in the correct way
5) Realistic
6) Kept
7) Interim goal
8) Without purpose or direction
9) Learn every day
10) Often
Answers
1) Keen
2) Persitently
3) Supplementary
4) In appropriately
5) Pragmatic
6) Retained
7) Milestone
8) Aimless(ly)
9) Build learning into your daily routine
10) High frequency
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The answer is right under your nose!
I have been working with a group of people studing Estate Management in English. It's at Master's level and to be honest, it tests me to the limit so it's quite a challenge to do it as a second language.
They have to produce regular assignments which we go through together and often this is a long and painful process for all of us. Basically because when a sentence is not good English, we have to be clear about the intention and that takes time to clarify.
Anyway, the main point is that these people work really hard and long hours and no sooner is one piece of work finished than the next assignment looms.
We noticed that each time, we were starting from the same starting position and the same mistakes were being repeated. This was down to correction without sufficient review and reflection.
So now we have a plan!
It's something I'm now doing with a number of people with written work.
After having produced a piece of work, simply take a copy. Then correct the copy with the teacher's input to arrive at a perfect copy. Now you have two copies; the faulty and the perfect.
Now the student can continue to make copies and corrections of the original imperfect version. This helps to reinforce the learning and get maximum value from one exercise and the teacher should need to make progressively fewer corrections.
If you've already thought of this, great! I can't think why it's taken me so long to do something quite obvious but often we miss things that are right under our nose!
They have to produce regular assignments which we go through together and often this is a long and painful process for all of us. Basically because when a sentence is not good English, we have to be clear about the intention and that takes time to clarify.
Anyway, the main point is that these people work really hard and long hours and no sooner is one piece of work finished than the next assignment looms.
We noticed that each time, we were starting from the same starting position and the same mistakes were being repeated. This was down to correction without sufficient review and reflection.
So now we have a plan!
It's something I'm now doing with a number of people with written work.
After having produced a piece of work, simply take a copy. Then correct the copy with the teacher's input to arrive at a perfect copy. Now you have two copies; the faulty and the perfect.
Now the student can continue to make copies and corrections of the original imperfect version. This helps to reinforce the learning and get maximum value from one exercise and the teacher should need to make progressively fewer corrections.
If you've already thought of this, great! I can't think why it's taken me so long to do something quite obvious but often we miss things that are right under our nose!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
This time - it's personal
A colleague recently ran a teacher training session on personalising lessons. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but I gave the subject some thought. Actually, I realised that I wasn’t sure how not to personalise a lesson as no two groups or people are the same.
I find it really important to get to know people to understand not only their interests but also how they prefer to learn. From the learner’s perspective, self-knowledge is important too, particularly with regard to issues like sensory preferences:
For example,do you take in and process information visually, auditorily or through movement, shape and space?
Also, do you tend to chunk up or down? In other words, are you a big picture person who fills in the detail afterwards or do you need to build the big picture from the detail?
Do you like pictures and diagrams or lists and tables? (Artistic or logic preferences)
By being aware of these factors, you can modify new information to your way of thinking, making it easier to absorb and retain. (With practice, you can use all of these factors but that’s another story)
Now, when I really thought hard about the subject, I realised the task was not for the teacher to personalise the lesson but for the learner! A good example is someone that I’ve been working with on tenses and conditionals. She finds that relating it to her own family really fixes the ideas for her; so for example, we have a future continuous statement:
‘By 2020, I will have been brining up my children for 15 years.’
And, a second conditional,
‘If I had another child, I would like it be a girl.’
As these are very strong emotional connections they are easily remembered and form a strong anchor from which to make other sentences of the same structure. I would strongly recommend that grammar is learnt through the creation of personally meaningful examples rather than the standard textbook approach of abstract sentences with no context or relevance to the learner.
A final thought for personalising lessons is to encourage students to design them and decide on content themselves. To guide someone, you don’t have to walk in front.
I find it really important to get to know people to understand not only their interests but also how they prefer to learn. From the learner’s perspective, self-knowledge is important too, particularly with regard to issues like sensory preferences:
For example,do you take in and process information visually, auditorily or through movement, shape and space?
Also, do you tend to chunk up or down? In other words, are you a big picture person who fills in the detail afterwards or do you need to build the big picture from the detail?
Do you like pictures and diagrams or lists and tables? (Artistic or logic preferences)
By being aware of these factors, you can modify new information to your way of thinking, making it easier to absorb and retain. (With practice, you can use all of these factors but that’s another story)
Now, when I really thought hard about the subject, I realised the task was not for the teacher to personalise the lesson but for the learner! A good example is someone that I’ve been working with on tenses and conditionals. She finds that relating it to her own family really fixes the ideas for her; so for example, we have a future continuous statement:
‘By 2020, I will have been brining up my children for 15 years.’
And, a second conditional,
‘If I had another child, I would like it be a girl.’
As these are very strong emotional connections they are easily remembered and form a strong anchor from which to make other sentences of the same structure. I would strongly recommend that grammar is learnt through the creation of personally meaningful examples rather than the standard textbook approach of abstract sentences with no context or relevance to the learner.
A final thought for personalising lessons is to encourage students to design them and decide on content themselves. To guide someone, you don’t have to walk in front.
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