People you should be following, pt 3 (YouTube)

I don’t have lots of knowledge ‘when it comes to’ YouTube. When it comes to Twitter or blogs I feel much more confident but when it comes to YouTube, I still feel that I’m not really using that resource as much as I could be. By the way, the previous sentence is not very good because it has too much repetition of the phrase ‘when it comes to...’ but hopefully my repetition (see my earlier blogpost) will help you remember this phrase for you to use in the future! ;-)

A big, big thank you to Marcelo Mendes for recommending most of these channels! I highly recommend you explore his website. He is very generous with his time and obviously enjoys learning and helping other people to learn as well.

Two Great YouTube Channels

The Daily English Show amazes me – there is obviously a lot of work that makes this channel! On their blog, they say they are the world’s first daily online English language show. These videos come from New Zealand, which is great because it is very important to get used to listening to lots of different accents in English. This channel has been producing videos for over 5 years! What I really love about this channel is that the videos are about interesting things – I’m watching and learning from their New Zealand Summer Tour. Also, the English is clear and you can read the transcript of every video on the blog.

Try this video, and see the transcript here.

Next, EnglishClub.com is a huge resource for English learners and teachers but EnglishClub is also on YouTube and there is one specific series that I find very interesting – The Learning English Video Project. This project visits school and language institutes to ask learners and teachers about their experiences, goals, problems, solutions and achievements as well as getting tips and advice from them.

Like the Daily English Show, I love these videos because they are really interesting. Again, visit the website for the transcripts and lots of other things to help you when you are listening to the videos.  The project covers the UK, Brazil, China, Spain, America, Romania and Morocco.

Try this first video from Granada, Spain.

A Couple of Other Useful Channels

Daily Dose of English is a channel that provides short videos describing a few English phrases (usually with a common word or topic). There are now enough ‘doses’ (or videos) for one every day for 5 months. However, it is a good idea to watch one or two, take notes, write some example sentences to help you remember and then watch the same video again a week later. How much do you remember?

You can go to the website for transcripts and to download the mp3s. Unfortunately there are advertisements on the website but this is still a good resource.

By the way, a “dose” of something, refers to ‘a small amount of something that you take regularly’. This word is usually used to talk about medicine but we use it for metaphors and other phrases sometimes as well.

Use Phrasal Verbs is another channel of short videos by Linguaspectrum (who makes the Daily Dose of English videos as well). Each video talks about one specific phrasal verb. There is a website as well but I think it is quite confusing to navigate (meaning that it is not easy to understand where to find the information you want).

I like these two channels, Daily Dose of English and Use Phrasal Verbs, because you learn useful vocabulary and phrases but more important than that, you will get at least 5 or 10 minutes of listening practice (actually more than 10 minutes if you watch the videos more than once, which you should do if you really want to remember anything),

Next time I will look at websites you should be following with RSS – and if you don’t know what RSS is, I’ll explain it!

RSS - We see this sign on many websites, but
what does it mean and how can we use it?

People you should be following, pt 2 (Facebook)

Facebook can provide you with lots of help with your English! Most people reading this probably have a Facebook account and if you are serious about learning English then Facebook can definitely help you.

First of all, put your Facebook in English! From experience, I know you will quickly learn some new and useful vocabulary. Just go to Account>Account Settings>Language.

However, Facebook can help you much more than that. There are lots of organizations, websites, teachers and groups on Facebook that have lots to teach and share with you. Here are a few suggestions:

Pages for Lessons & Activities

The Facebook pages for Flo-Joe PET (Preliminary English), Flo-Joe FCE (First Certificate), Flo-Joe CAE (Advanced English) and Flo-Joe CPE (Proficiency English) are well-organized and always have something new on them. They are great ways to get daily advice and lessons in preparation for the Cambridge exams. You will receive daily information with new vocabulary and providing mini-tests so that you are improving your English every day!

The EnglishClub.com page is another well-organized page that is updated regularly (meaning there is new content posted regularly). ‘Liking’ this page will ‘keep you up-to-date’ (give you new, regular information) with all the latest lessons and activities.

I’ve mentioned PhraseMix before (you will see mini PhraseMix lessons on the right column of this blog) but there is also PhraseMix on Facebook. If you ‘like’ this then you will see the daily English phrase on in your News Feed each day.

I love the BBC! They provide SO much for learners of English. You can see it all and ‘keep up-to-date’ with everything they are producing for free to help learners of English improve. Just like the BBC Learning English page to get started.

The Speaking English Podcast page is something I found recently but it looks like a great resource for listening. There are over 160 short videos (2-4 minutes long) focusing on pronunciation and spoken English in general. As I mentioned, it looks like a great little resource for your listening skills and to improve pronunciation in difficult areas.

You can also ‘keep up with’ (meaning to follow) this blog on the Understanding How We Learn Page. ;-)

Pages for English Discussion

The English Speaking Club connects you with over 45,000 people interested in improving their English. There are lots of discussions with learners around the world. You can join, learn from others and teach others as well and perhaps make a few new, international friends.

Learn English as Second Language is a smaller group, about 5000 people, but it also has a community of friendly people wanting to use their English with anybody and everybody.

Other Pages

These are some pages of people/organizations I recommended in my previous Twitter article: Spotlight Radio, Voice of America, Learn Pre-Intermediate English as a Foreign Language, Intermediate English as a Foreign Language, Advanced Learners of EFL/ESL.

In the next 'following' article I will give a few recommendations for English on YouTube.  Let me know what you think and feel free to make some more suggestions!

People you should be following, pt 1 (Twitter)

This is the first of a few posts I will make to give you some recommendations about sites and people on the Internet that can help you to improve your English.

If you are learning English I'm sure you know there is a LOT of information on the internet to help you.  Unfortunately there is usually too much information on the internet and it is difficult to know what to follow.

These are some recommendations for learners who use Twitter.  I think these people produce useful and interesting things for English language learners which can really help you to improve your English.

@EFLintermediate & @EFLadvanced – Two great feeds for a wide variety of useful content, depending on your level.

@englishwithjo – I’ve got to thank a former student of mine, Bengü, for telling me about this resource.  This tweeter provides simple explanations and gapfills on Twitter.  Jo looks like an excellent resource to follow.

@eslpod - ESL Podcast's Twitter feed.  Lots of free material for listening and they will tell you when there is something new to listen to.  I’ve talked about ESLPod before, read my previous post to learn more.

@InglesenLomas – A great person to follow who provides lots of useful links for learning English, especially around songs and singing.

@LearnEnglish_BC – A great person to follow for new information and activities from the British Council for all learners of English.

@ListenandWrite – Improve your listening skills with this website.  By following the feed, you will not miss anything new.

@myenglishexam – This is the twitter account for a brilliant website for Cambridge exam preparation, Flo-Joe.  You will receive daily tweets that often give links to short 2 or 3 minute exercises to help you prepare for your big exams.

@SpotlightRadio – Spotlight Radio is a great listening resource for lower-level learners.  Here they will tell you when there is something new to listen to.  (To learn more about Spotlight, read my previous post)

@SuccEng – I’ve recommended Warren Ediger’s website in a previous post and this is another opportunity to stay connected with his clear explanations and practical suggestions for better English.

@VOALearnEnglish – Thanks to Marcelo for recommending this tweet account.  It connects to the Voice Of America Facebook page as well as the website.  Lots of good reading and listening materials.

@ykarabatov - Yuri Karabatov has tweeted on lots of useful websites and gives a lot of useful, sensible information about learning a language.  Take a look through his tweets and I'm sure you will find something useful for you!

If you follow any of these or you already follow some of them, then please leave a comment with your opinions.  If you have any more suggestions, please give them below.

Next: FACEBOOK.  Everybody uses is, so who can you “like” on Facebook to help you with your English? Well first of all, you could click 'Like' below to start following me. :-)