TRL School of English

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Which Exam?

Cambridge offers a variety of examinations for all levels ranging from beginners to teaching specialism, and for different areas of purpose: academic, leisure, business. This video gives a brief explanation of each exam. It also explains the equivalence of each exam to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. (Please see link for the CEFR)

Monday 19 July 2010

The British vs the American slang



There is surely some new vocabulary here for teachers too! lol

Long and Short Vowel sounds



This is especially useful when applying to certain phonetic spelling rules. Contrary to many European beliefs, the English language does follow its own sets of phonetic rules where we pronounce what we see written. However, these rules differ from most other latin based languages.

One of these rules looks at the order of consonants and vowels in a word to confirm the use of a long or short vowel.

There are 5 vowels in the English language and each vowel has a long and a short sound.

A Short Vowel is used when the word has a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) structure. ie: rat /rat/; sit /sIt/; not/not/; cut /c^t/

A Long Vowel is used when the word has a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel (CVCV) structure. ie: rate /reit/; site /sait/; note /nout/; cute /ciut/

The magic 'e' at the end of the word changes the previous vowel to a long sound.


As seen in the video clip above, there are many other ways of changing vowel sounds from short to long.



















VowelsShortLong
a/a//ei/
e/e//ii/
i/I//ai/
o/o//ou/
u/^//iu/

HTML Tables

It's important to practice your pronunciation



Repeat, repeat and repeat.. learning progresses through repetition! hehehe

Saturday 3 July 2010

Found this hilarious



Whilst surfing, I came over this video clip, which brought tears to my eyes. The clip comes from an American comedy show called MadTV, which is worth a look if you like comedy.

Can anyone remember this ad?



A Finger of Fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat, a finger of Fudge is just enough until it's time to eat...

Thursday 1 July 2010

Online English Games

Not interested in the traditional grammar completion activities? .. have a look at this site to find another approach in learning.. through a variety of games. Have fun!

Grammar of Doom

A scary adventure game to look at grammar

Facts about Britain