Teacher Rachel

08/03/2023

This could a fun way to PRACTISE SPEAKING when you don’t have someone to practise with!

Record yourself with your phone. Often teachers advise students to write a journal so that students practise their writing every day. However, you can apply the same idea to practising your speaking by making a voice recorded journal instead. By using the *voice record* function on your phone, you can make a spoken diary of your life - for a week, a month, a year! All you have to do is spend 1-2 minutes at the end of every day speaking about what happened in your day. Put a reminder on your phone just before your usual bedtime, click record and speak.

Hope you find my top tip useful!

08/03/2023

Great live grammar classes from BBC Learning English tomorrow!
https://fb.me/e/2DpmzC0Bd

18/01/2023

Hellooooo! 🤩 Are you happy today? I hope so!
I'm sure you're all keen to increase your vocabulary this year so here are some adjectives that mean really happy. Try using them so that you have a wider range of words to express yourself when you're happy!

😀Happy is a great word! Can you make a sentence with your favourite?💬
(Note: these are not exact synonyms and may not work in every sentence)⁠

🎧Get some more happy content in 6 Minute English - looking for 'The key to happiness' https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/6-minute-english/ep-210311

08/12/2022

"No-one has corrected me all these years!" exclaimed one of my students last week.

This is someone who has lived and worked in the UK for almost 20 years and he just couldn't believe that not a single person had told him he was pronouncing a word wrong.
And what was that word?

"Company" where the letter 'o' is actually said like a 'u' (phonetically /ʌ/ to be exact).

It was a real aha moment and I'm pretty sure he'll be saying it correctly from now on. Honestly though, my poor student felt a bit foolish that he'd been saying the 'o' as an ‘o' for all this time. But who wouldn’t? He was being logical!! However, English spelling does not always correlate directly to the sounds of the language. English has 5 written vowels but 20 vowel sounds so it's not at all surprising that non-native speakers make this kind of pronunciation error.

I'm very pleased to have helped my student. Sometimes a small but essential piece of information makes a big difference to pronunciation and spelling knowledge.

What word did you say incorrectly for a long time before someone corrected you? Tell me your secrets!

06/12/2022

"No-one has corrected me all these years!" exclaimed one of my students during a recent lesson.
This is someone who has lived and worked in the UK for almost 20 years and he just couldn't believe that not a single person had told him he was pronouncing a word wrong.
And what was that word?
"Company" where the letter 'o' is actually said like a 'u' (phonetically /ʌ/ to be exact).
It was a real aha moment and I'm pretty sure he'll be saying it correctly from now on. Honestly though, my poor student felt a bit foolish that he'd been saying the 'o' as an ‘o' for all this time. But who wouldn’t? He was being logical!! However, English spelling does not always correlate directly to the sounds of the language. English has 5 written vowels but 20 vowel sounds so it's not at all surprising that non-native speakers make this kind of pronunciation error.
I'm very pleased to have helped my student with this. Sometimes a small but essential piece of information makes a big difference to pronunciation and spelling knowledge.

So, if you’ve ever made a mistake related to pronunciation and spelling, don't worry! It's never too late to fix it :)

25/04/2022

Do you like art? Here are some words for different types of painting. What kind of paintings do you like? Personally, I really like landscapes.

Paintings can be categorised in different ways. 🖼️

Do you have a favourite type of painting?

13/12/2020

Need some pronunciation tips? This mini video series from Tim at BBC Learning English might help :)

Day one of Tim's 5-day guide to better pronunciation.

11/12/2020

Covid-19 vocabulary - there have been so many new English words for you to learn this year in relation to the pandemic! Here's a very useful list of the common ones and also links to two listening activities. Hope you're all staying healthy :) And if you have any questions on coronavirus vocabulary, please ask me!

The language we use to talk about the new coronavirus disease that started in 2019 - COVID-19. With definitions and example sentences. Vocabulary for ESL learners and teachers.

04/12/2020

Christmas is coming soon! Here's the real Santa Claus :)

You may think of Santa as living at the North Pole. But this Santa Claus lives in the USA. Is he real? Watch the video to find out!

29/11/2020

just a fun speech bubble joke!

Credit: Dan Piraro Bizarro Comics.