TWIST YOUR TONGUE

Think your pronunciation is good?  Try keeping up with this old favourite.
  Click on the old fashioned record player!

In case you need to read it:

TONGUE       TWISTERS                     DANNY KAYE

Everybody’s heard of Peter Piper         And the peck of pickled peppers that he picked That’s such a silly simple children’s game    It hasn’t even got a name But I’d like to bet that it’ll trip you And I bet you’re gonna have to say you’re licked If Peter Piper you pronounce with ease       Then twist your tongue around these

Moses supposes his toeses are roses            But Moses supposes erroneously For Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be
                That’s tongue twisters
                And it seems so easy till the word gets sprung
                If you insist you want to try a lisp
                Then step up mister and twist your tongue Now Kissle will whistle at busty Miss. Russell Who’ll rustle and bustle till Kissle will roar So Russell asked Axle for Kissle’s dismissal And this’ll teach Kissle to whistle no more
                       That’s tongue twisters . . . Tito and Tato were tattooed in total But Toto was only tattooed on his toe So Tato told Tito where Toto was tattooed But Tito said Toto’s tattoo wouldn’t show Theda thought Thora was thumping her thimble But Thomas thought Thora was thumping her drum Said Theda if Thora’s not thumping her thimble I think that she surely is thumping her thumb
                       That’s tongue twisters . .     Now Charley is chary when choosing his cheeses And cheese is a challenge when Charley arrives When Charley is charming and chooses a cheddar Then chews it and chips it and chops in some chives Heda is hoping to hop to Tahiti To hack a hibiscus to hang on her hat Now Heda has hundreds of hats on her hatrack So how can a hop to Tahiti help that Snobby Miss. Nora is sniffing her snuffer The snuffer’s no sniffing it makes Nora sneeze When Snyda lets Nort know his Nora is sneezing She snappily snorts Nora’s sneezing a breeze Sheila is selling her shop at the seashore For shops at the seashore are so sure to lose And she’s not so sure of what she should be selling Should Sheila sell seashells or should she sell shoes
                       That’s tongue twisters

DIRECTIONS

Do you get confused by directions?

Try out this great GAME about directions- It really is very good.

You will also be asked to buy some special things at the supermatket- Give your brain a workiut.

10 Ways to Get Higher Marks on the IELTS Letter Writing Task

These tips came from this web site which has a lot of FREE information on IELTS

http://www.goodluckielts.com/IELTS-letter-writing-tips.html

IELTS Letter Writing Tips -
10 Ways to Get Higher Marks on the IELTS Letter Writing Task

1. Identify the type of letter you are being asked to write. Is it a formal, semi-formal or informal letter? The entire tone of your letter is based on your answer to this question. Adjust your style and choice of words according to the type of letter you have been asked to write.

2. Open and close the letter correctly. Remember that each type of letter requires a different opening and closing. The chart below will help you remember this:

Style	Characteristics	Opening	Ending
Formal	To someone you have not met, whose name you don't know	Dear Sir / Madam	Yours faithfully
Semi- formal	To someone you may or may not have met, whose last name you know & use	Dear Mr Brown, Dear Ms Stone	Yours sincerely
Informal	To someone you know well, whose first name you know and use	Dear John Dear Anita	Best regards Warm wishes

3. Open a formal and semi-formal letter with a formal sentence. Don't try to be friendly, as you do not know the person you are writing to. Get right down to business and indicate the reason you are writing, as shown below:

Dear Sir / Madam,
I am writing to inquire about / I am writing in connection with...

Dear Mr Jones,
I am writing to inform you ... / I am writing in connection with...

4. Open an informal letter with a general, friendly paragraph. With friends whom we know, we care about the whole person. We have a broader relationship in the context of which this communication is taking place. So it is best to acknowledge that friendship first, before getting down to the reason for your letter. In fact, the first paragraph could be purely friendly small talk, unrelated to the reason for your writing. Look at the example below:

Dear Jane

I hope you and your family are all well. It was such a pleasure to see you again last summer. We sure had a great time catching up with each other after so many years. You have always been a cherished friend, no matter how much of a gap there has been since we met.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing is that I have some good news - I am getting married this summer...

5. Identify the main purpose of the letter. Are you asking for help, apologizing, inviting someone, complaining or thanking someone? Learn appropriate and polite expressions that will support what you need to say.

6. Learn and use standard written phrases. Students sometimes struggle to finish their writing in time. This happens when you are trying to write every sentence from scratch. The fact is, in conventional letter writing in English, we use a number of standard expressions and phrases and add on to them the specific information we wish to communicate. By learning how to use these expressions, you will find the letter writing task much easier and will never have to fight for time.

7. Make sure you write at least 150 words. Practice writing letters till you know what 150 words feels like and looks like. You will lose marks if you write less. You will not lose marks if you write more; the only restriction on writing more is in terms of time, not the number of words.

8. Learn the correct spelling of commonly used words. It is surprising how many IELTS students make a mistake when spelling words such as "sincerely", "faithfully", "in connection with" and so on. You can prevent yourself from losing marks by learning the correct spelling of these words and expressions which you are highly likely to use on your exam.

9. Stay on topic. In order to complete your letter within 20 minutes or less, practice writing letters where you stick to the point. The General IELTS Task 1 does require you to make up a bit of a story to complete your letter, but don't make your story so complicated that you run out of time.

10. Include all three bulleted points. If you exclude even one of the points given to you in the question prompt, you will lose valuable marks. Practice writing letters that include the three points and go back and check that you have included them in each practice exercise you do.

FREE PODCASTS

I have found an really top class site for you to practice listening skills.
It has examples of IELTS speaking situations, with follow-up comments by an examiner, and it even has transcripts if you care to become a subscriber. I think even to be a subscriber is free, but to listen and check out the examiners' comments certainly is free.

The people who speak are students, and the questions and tasks they are doing are from real exams- IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, etc, so it is genuine.

A great site for students, and a perfect site for teachers looking for authentic speaking skill examples.

CLICK ON THE Splendid Speaking Logo to be taken to some great speaking exercises.

For my teacher friends, I want to recommend an excellent place to get some great resources for teaching kids, teenagers and even adults.




Its called
eslkingdom.com

Click the LOGO


Here is the link to their catalogue of everything that is included in their program.

When I was in Tay Ninh, I introduced the ESL KINGDOM curriculum to 2 schools there, and they have been using it to teach kids very successfully. In fact it is so successful, that they have discontinued using the “normal” text books and use only Esl Kingdom curriculum, which requires NO BOOKS- That’s right- NO BOOKS.

If you check it out, you will see you need to register, and you can take a look at some of the lessons, but if you want access to all the lessons it costs about $25 for a full year-It is very much worth it. There are over 50 complete lessons for kids, and each one can last for about 2 hours, with flash cards, speaking exercises, listening, reading, writing, and activities like cross word puzzles and word searches, plus many visual exercises for students as well. And all themed and level graded.


As I said before, 2 schools I know of adopted this curriculum, and at only $25 for a full year, it is the cheapest curriculum they ever had, and they don’t need to stock books.

It has certainly been a success, and the students are talking very confidently after taking this course.

Take a look-you WILL be very surprised.

In case you are wondering, I am not connected to Esl Kingdom, so there’s nothing in it for me if you decide to join them-its just that they are so good, I want to share this with you.

PRONUNCIATION:

The single most difficult task in learning English is- you guessed it- PRO NUN CIA TION.

Here is a link to a pronunciation series of exercises from the BBC- Try them out- there are quite a lot of videos on this problem area, and also some funny ones. Give it a try.
Click on the picture of the man who is wondering what his students is saying.

Good luck, and happy studies

Please tell your friends about our blog- Everything is FREE!

MORE FREE IELTS MATERIALS

Here is another site where you can get FREE IELTS material. There are about 3 or 4 pages of links, AND there are a couple that will take you to a site where you have to pay.

Just look for the FREE ones and click the links-plenty there!
Good luck and happy IELTS study!

CLICK on the sign

Are you starting to wonder why you pay to go to a centre to study IELTS when you can get lots of study material for FREE?

IELTS FOR FREE

Here is a link to a series of really good IELTS lectures by the
 "Queen of IELTS", Margot Politis.

Simply click on the IELTS Logo to be taken to the site.
(I thank one of our more IT clever students for showing me how to do that) Magic!
You will notice there are a lot of Videos to watch, so take your time.

There are also links to lots and lots of other English learning possibilities, and the best part is-They are all FREE.

                                 Would YOU wear a bikini if you looked like these lovely ladies?

CLICK on the FAT lady to hear and see a silly video I made about a BIKINI.

Its great pronunciation practice and funny too!

Have a nice day.

Summary of basic English grammar

Here is a very useful document for studying English- It summarises English grammar very well in a very well laid out manner that is so easy to read and understand- Very useful for students AND teachers!

Copy and paste the link into your browser, and there will be instructions on how to download and print this great resource. Best part?

FREE!

Good luck!

http://issuu.com/omogollon/docs/esl

What do you think this lady should do?
Lets practice the language of recommendation!
She should..........
Perhaps she can...........
Maybe she needs to............
etc.

FREE IELTS and GENERAL ENGLISH

As promised, here is a link to a strange, but interesting man giving FREE English lessons
You will see he has a lot of English lessons and the best part is-They are all FREE.

Please enjoy. You may have to copy and paste the link-Good luck!

 

CLICK ON THE PICTURE OF DUNCAN TO GO DIRECTLY TO HIS LESSONS


Because these are videos, you may play them as many times as you wish, which is great for repeating and listening

In my next blog entry, I will give a link to a huge number of IELTS lessons, also for free.
ENJOY.

Check my blog regularly for updates-I intend updating it at least once a week-Lots of good English learning material coming up.

For those of you who know me, I will be starting some teaching at LANGUAGE LINK in Hanoi next week. Maybe I will see some of you there!