Open Dyslexic Fonts

1. Wikipedia Article on Dyslexia
2. Telegraph Article on Dyslexics in Britain
3. Open Dyslexic Free Fonts

If you want this on your word processor (like Microsoft Word) then you can follow these instructions.

• Download the Open Dyslexic Fonts (click here) 
• If you are using Windows, open the Open Dyslexic folder, select the 4 files and copy them. Then go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Fonts (if you can’t find Fonts, switch to ‘Classic View’). Now paste the 4 files into this folder. 
• If you open Microsoft Word, you should see the Open Dyslexic font as one of the options. 

If you want this on your iPhone or iPad, then follow this link.

If you want to put this on your computer, then follow these instructions.

Hope this helps some people.

Reading Exercises (Website Recommendation)

Nasreddin (Picture from Wikipedia)

Here is a piece of advice. Read something short and fun. Learning and language progress happens more often when you do a little bit regularly. It might feel good to do 4 hours of language study one night each week but you will learn more if you do just 30 minutes every day. 

This means that if you are trying to improve your reading you should be focusing on short reading passages.

Here are some great short stories with reading activities about a Turkish wise man called Nasreddin. (If you click on one of these, remember there are two more reading activities so click on ‘Next exercise’ at the bottom of the page.)

Nasreddin and the Pot

Nasreddin Goes Shopping

Nasreddin and the Beggar

Nasreddin and the Smell of Soup

Nasreddin the Ferry Man

Nasreddin's Visitors

As extra practice to help your English, when you finish exercises try to write one of the stories a few hours later and then compare the story you wrote with the story on the website.

These stories are for Lower Intermediate level students of English but there are more exercises for different levels:

Upper Beginner (2 stories)

Pre-Intermediate – Nasreddin (6 stories)

Intermediate – Urban Legends (5 stories)

Upper Intermediate (5 stories)

Advanced – Pulp Friction (1 story)

I love the Nasreddin stories. I think they are short, enjoyable and often educational. I hope you enjoy these.  This website, University of Victoria - English Language Centre Study Zone, is a great website with vocabulary and grammar exercises as well.  Very helpful to improve your English!

Want to Improve Your Reading? (Guest Post by Stephanie Furness-Barr)

This post is from a good friend and colleague of mine, Steph.  Steph is a fantastic teacher who works with me in Portsmouth, England (follow the link to see our school).  She is interested in getting her students to read as much as possible in English so here are a few pieces of advice and links from her.

One idea for improving your English (and your reading confidence) is to read English language newspapers / news websites for your country.

1. Choose an article you’re interested in. Read it a few times without a dictionary. Note words that help you understand the text better (not ALL words). Notice any grammar that is new or interesting to you.
2. Look up the same news item in your first language to check your understanding of the main points of the article. 

** Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything. Start with the question “What can I understand?” This positive thinking makes reading more rewarding. **

Here are some examples of English Language newspapers in different regions. (These links are for the nationalities we have at our school at the moment - this is not a complete list of all English language newspapers or websites)

Africa

All Africa, Reuters Africa

 Mali - Reuters Mali

Somalia - Somaliland Sun

Asia

China - China Daily, Xinhua (English)

Japan - The Japan Times

Kazakhstan - Tengri News

Korea - The Korea Herald, The Korea Times, The Chosun Ilbo

Taiwan - Taipei Times

Thailand - Thailand Times, Bangkok Post

Vietnam - Vietnam News, Thanh Nien News

Europe

Euronews

 The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) - The Baltic Times

Czech Republic - The Prague Post

France - The Connexion

Germany - The Local, Spiegel

Hungary - The Budapest Times

Italy - The Florentine, The American

Poland - The News

Russia - The Moscow Times

Spain - Costa News

Switzerland - The Local

Turkey - Hurriyet Daily News

Ukraine - The Ukraine Journal

The Middle East

Al Jazeera

Iraq -  Iraqi News

Jordan - The Jordan Times

Kurdistan -  Kurdistan World

Kuwait - Kuwait Times, Arab Times

Lebanon - The Daily Star

 Oman - Oman Observer

Qatar - Gulf Times 

Saudi Arabia - Saudi Gazette 

United Arab Emirates - Khaleej Times, Al Arabiya News

Yemen - Yemen Times

South America

Brazil - The Rio Times, Brazil Dispatch 

Chile - The Santiago Times

Colombia -  Colombia Reports

Venezuela - El Universal

Favourite Websites for English Practice, pt 2 (Reading)

A couple of months ago I posted about my favourite websites for listening activities for the Internet.  Already I have a lot more listening websites I want to suggest but today’s post, as I promised, is a suggestion of a few websites that would be useful if you wanted to improve your English through reading.

As I already posted, reading is a VERY valuable and useful activity in English (and any language you are studying).  It helps to improve our vocabulary and the more reading we do, the faster we become.  One of the problems with reading activities is that most people don’t enjoy reading a computer screen for long periods of time.

News & Online Newspapers

This is why short news articles are an obvious thing to recommend.  A free, commuter’s newspaper in Britain, the Metro, is also available online (commuter is a person who travels to work every day).   They have a website but if you want to feel like you are reading a newspaper then they have a virtual newspaper you can read as well.  For this service you need to provide an email address and then you will receive a free, virtual newspaper every week day.  The level of English is not too high but you will still get a lot of useful vocabulary. 

If you are more interested in business and finance then you might want to look at a website connected to the Metro newspaper, http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/.  You can read articles about various topics in the financial world and there are lots of comments about these articles which are perfect to see how people “talk” about these topics.  If you want to improve your financial/business English but you are at a lower level, the BBC and British Council have made a website for you, Business Magazine.  The articles are short and clear and each article has learning exercises connected to them as options for extra practice.

General Interest

If you don’t want to read a newspaper regularly, then you might want to go so the Wikipedia Simple English site.  I love Wikipedia and I think it is one of the most useful websites on the entire Internet.  Sometimes the articles are very complicated so for learners of English I recommend the Simple English site.  There are not as many articles as in the main Wikipedia English site, but there is a lot of information and it is designed for learners of the English language.

Extensive Reading

If you want to do more extensive reading (as I suggested last week) then I recommend these two websites; Lit2Go and LoudLit are both websites with classic English-speaking stories, such as work by Jane Austen or A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  The great thing about these websites is that you can listen to someone reading the stories while you follow (read) the story.

One more website that is certainly worth looking at is ESL Reading.  It has a variety of different reading materials as well as some learning activities.  I haven’t had much time to look at this site in detail yet but it looks good to me.

Please let me know what you think and, as always, any comments are welcome.

Gordon

Reading for Pleasure

This post was inspired by Jez Uden's British Council presentation on reading for pleasure.

Important Note: This is a long post but if you are learning English and you want to enjoy reading more and you want to improve your English, then this might help you a lot!  Keep reading, thanks.

So this week was going to be part 2 of Favourite Websites for English Practice, this time looking at reading, but I have postponed that until next week.

I was watching a British Council seminar last week and it started me thinking about reading for pleasure (if you are interested, here’s the link to Jez Uden’s presentation and his blog).  Personally, it is something I have to make myself do because I never feel that I have the time for it… but… when I do “get into a book” (really have an interest in the story) it is all I think about and I actually start fantasizing about the next opportunity I’ll get to pick up the book and continue the story.

I’ve recently got a Kindle and I love it and that has “re-sparked my interest” (re-started my interest) in reading.

But is this possible with another language?  Yes.  The problem that many people have is when they try to do too much when they pick up a book.  Think about how you read in your native language and think about these questions.

Is it a challenge?  No.

Why do we usually read a story in our native language?  For pleasure!

What do you do when you are reading a book which is difficult to follow and therefore uninteresting?  I usually abandon it and move on to something which is more fun.

Now think about some possible answers for why we read in a second language.

Is it a challenge?  Yes.

Why do we read a story in a second language (English, for example)?  It is not available in my native language / I want to improve my English reading skills / I want to improve my English vocabulary

What do you do when you are reading a book which is difficult to follow and therefore uninteresting?  I usually keep reading it and finish it but it was difficult / I give up trying to read the book and feel depressed because I my English was not good enough to finish the story and enjoy it.

Do you see the difference?  You are focusing on trying to finish the book, learning vocabulary, improve your reading skills, etc. but you are not reading for pleasure and you probably feel disappointed if you don’t finish the book.  If you finish a boring book then you have done well… but then how do you feel about reading in English?  Your experience was negative.

So, how can you change this?

Cambridge English Readers!  These are original (new) and adapted (already famous) stories for learners of English.  There are lots of different levels and the brilliant thing is they use high-frequency words a lot (high frequency words = words used a lot in English).

So what level should you use?

Well actually, you should NOT try to challenge yourself with a high level book!  The goal here is to enjoy using the English you already have, not improve it (don’t worry, it will improve naturally if you do this).  So really you want to have a book where you already know all the words (or at least 99.9% of them).

So what is your level?

Upper Intermediate, B1, Elementary, Advanced, Proficient, C2, Pre-Advanced, Beginner, IELTS 6.5, IELTS 5.0, TOEFL 103, etc, etc, etc.; what do all these names and grades mean?  What IS your level?  Well, Cambridge has a test for you to know what level of English book is appropriate for you.  Don’t worry if they suggest a level lower that you expect – remember, the goal is to have something that is easy to read. :-)  Just click on the link to go straight to the free level test.

And then?

Choose a book and start reading.  Maybe try to get a group of friends to join you.  You can all buy one book and then swap them around.  This means if you are reading a book you don’t really enjoy, you won’t have it for long.  Reading is something we usually do alone, but that doesn't mean you can't make it social.  If you have a group of friends who want to improve their English, try forming a book club (practise your speaking skills, perhaps!). :-)

And then?

Let me know how it goes! Post your reviews here on this blog if you want.

But Gordon, I don't have time to read a book!
Are you sure about that?  I never feel I have time to do anything but when I start reading a book and really get into the story I suddenly realize I have more time for it than I thought.

But don't worry.  These Cambridge readers also come with audio CDs if you want.  An audiobook to listen to instead of read.  On the way to school, work, at the gym, on the bus or train or even plane.  There are lots of opportunities.  For another opinion about audiobooks, take a look a Warren Ediger's recent blogpost about them.

As always, I look forward to your comments,

Gordon

Digital Literacy a.k.a. English Skills for the Internet

First of all, “a.k.a.” means “Also Known As”. So, for example, my father’s name is Geoffrey a.k.a. Geoff. Or my father’s name is Geoff a.k.a. Dad.

Okay, so I was watching a lecture about useful websites for teachers to use in class with young learners. The lecturer, Nik Peachey, talked about “Digital Literacy”, which means the English reading skills we need to use the Internet.

I immediately thought about all of you. Do you feel that you have the skills needed to use the Internet effectively in English? Did you learn these skills in a classroom, or by yourself? How easy is it for you to use the internet in English?

What do I mean by “effectively”? Well, let’s think of a Google search; “teaching” for example. There are 267 million results! How do you decide what is a useful “hit” and what is useless? (A “hit” is like a result.) It should need only a few seconds to skim read the list of results and decide if any might be useful. Can you do this in English?

If you click on a link and go to a page, you need to look at what the subject of the webpage is and decide if it will be useful. Again, this should only take you a few seconds. Can you do this in English?

These are specific skills to skim read a LOT of different summaries and make a quick decision about what is useful to you and what is not. If you spend a lot of time on websites which don’t have the information you want then you are wasting time and you probably lack some good English digital literacy skills.

If you are reading a big article, like on Wikipedia, then it is important to know which links might give you more important information, and which links will give you more useless information.

We spend so many hours on the internet (probably too many). Nevertheless, this is an important part of English reading in today’s world.

What do you think? As always, I look forward to your opinions.

Gordon

P.S. Why am I looking at things for teaching young learners? Well, my new position in Argentina is completely with teenagers. I’m not teaching ANY adults at the moment.

Tenses

I have a love/hate relationship with tenses. As a learner of Spanish, I feel great when I can use and understand them well, but I hate them when I don’t understand them or misunderstand them. They can REALLY change the meaning of a sentence. 

Consider this example;

"I get so much work from my boss. I will kill him!"

"I got so much work from my boss. I killed him!"

Obviously these are very different sentences but they look similar.

So how do you work on this part of English? Is it a problem for you?

Well, one solution I am starting to think about is reading fiction. I’m reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at the moment (a brilliant book, by the way!) and I noticed something in the writing. It is very common in English speaking fiction novels that the story is written in the past tense. What people say can be any tense, but when the story is being told, the tenses are in the past.

Here is an example from a short story. (Hotel Says Goodbye to Clean Couple)

When Theodore asked the couple what the problem was, they said that their bedding was filthy and they wanted it replaced. The couple could not identify any specific “filth” on the bedding. The wife just said, “We’re paying good money to stay here. How dare you doubt us? We know the filth is there. That’s all the proof you need.” Theodore called room service, and the bedding was replaced immediately.

Do you see the difference?

Here is the story;

When Theodore asked the couple what the problem was, they said that their bedding was filthy and they wanted it replaced. The couple could not identify any specific “filth” on the bedding. The wife just said, “We’re paying good money to stay here. How dare you doubt us? We know the filth is there. That’s all the proof you need.” Theodore called room service, and the bedding was replaced immediately.

Here is what the characters are saying;

When Theodore asked the couple what the problem was, they said that their bedding was filthy and they wanted it replaced. The couple could not identify any specific “filth” on the bedding. The wife just said, “We’re paying good money to stay here. How dare you doubt us? We know the filth is there. That’s all the proof you need.” Theodore called room service, and the bedding was replaced immediately.

If you are having problems with your tenses, then I don’t think this will fix them, but reading a few short stories in English (maybe from children’s books – that’s what I do for my Spanish) might at least make you notice the tenses a bit more. It will also give you lots of repetition. We need lots of repetition to really learn something, so repeat and repeat and repeat is never a bad thing!

Also, please remember that this rule of past tense in stories is only a general rule and you will find plenty of stories that do not follow this rule. (Even on the same website that I found the first story; Sara went Shopping)

As always, I look forward to your opinions. :-)

Gordon

P.S. The website I got these stories from is a great website with lots of short stories specifically for English Language Learners. The website has mp3s of all the stories, so you can read and listen to all the stories. It also has exercises related to the stories; crosswords, vocabulary exercises, yes/no questions, etc. Brilliant! Just go to http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/

Reading: The Boring Part of Learning English?

Reading in another language is boring and it takes a lot of time!

Well, that is how I felt at secondary school learning French and German. Using a dictionary to find every word I didn’t understand and trying to translate word for word – at the end, I would understand almost nothing. Now that is exactly how I would NOT teach reading and how I do NOT read or learn Spanish.

So that is why I like this little cartoon I found.  Today we read more than in the past. We have text messages and emails, we are on the internet everyday reading the news or a blog or our wall on Facebook. But I think we also read less. Twitter is limited to 140 characters (characters = letters or numbers), and nearly the same for text messages. My posts on Facebook are usually shorter than a ‘tweet’ (the noun and verb for Twitter). A lot of my emails are only one or two paragraphs.

But I think that is perfect for English learning. Short pieces of reading which are not very difficult, just a little difficult, or we could say, ‘challenging’.

Obviously, some people need reading skills more than others. A lot of people learn a language to communicate by speaking and listening. For them, reading and writing are not very important.

So I have several questions this week.

• Was your experience of English reading similar to my experiences French and German class?
• How did you practise English reading in classes and how do you practise it now? 
• Do you think you got enough reading practice at school/university/language school? 
• What were your favourite topics to read and what were the most boring? 
• What were your favourite learning activities connected to reading? 
• What worked and what didn't work? 

Answer all of the questions or answer just one of the questions. As always, I look forward to your opinions.

Gordon

P.S. Here’s another couple of cartoons I liked!

P.P.S.  Just so I am clear - I really like reading now - even in Spanish!