Listening and watching news

Here's another news clip with questions from my favourite student news show in Australia.  

This week the story is about asthma.  Asthma is something lots of people suffer from in Istanbul so I thought it might be interesting.  What is more, as the weather is warmer now there is probably lots of dust, pollen and higher pollution levels which can cause asthma attacks for these people.

Click here for video

Click here for questions
 

Record your speaking

Here's a reminder from last week's lesson....

If you want to improve your speaking you should record yourself using your mp3 player or mobile phone.  
Then listen and analyse yourself. 

But what should you listen for?

Grammar
  • Are your verb tenses correct?
  • Is your sentence structure (subject, verb, object) OK?
  • Do you use prepositions correctly?
  • Are you using Articles correctly?
  • Are all your sentences simple, or do you use complex grammar (such as first conditional, reported speech, passive etc)?

Vocabulary

  • Can you find the words you need when you speak?
  • Do you only use simple words?  Can you use some new words from class?
  • Do you connect your ideas together? (using firstly, after that, while, so, and then etc.)

There are so many things you can check.  It will help you to understand what your speaking problems are.

To help you start here are some topics for you to talk about.  And then I'm sure you can think of some other topics yourself.

You can record yourself again and again with the same topic.  Hopefully each time you can better and include more complex grammar and vocabulary.

And with all this practice your speaking level should match your class level!

Happy speaking!
 

Correct your speaking mistakes

So here are the mistakes I wrote down from class last week - remember when you had your discussion about competitive sports.  
Can you remember what was wrong?  
Don't look at your notes and see if you can correct these sentences.

Download the sentences here
 

Problems with USED TO, BE/GET USED TO

I've found a teaching video which should help you with these problems.