USING WEBSITES AND VIDEOS TO LEARN ENGLISH

Thaianny Gomes

Nowadays it is critical to learn a foreign language. English is required everywhere. To understand what the actor says in the movie, that music that everybody is talking about and specially in the workplace. Many people lose great job opportunities because they do not know English. But most of these people have Internet access at home and what they do not know is that it is possible to learn English anywhere, anytime and for free.

First, the student has to know how to use these tools in order to learn a foreign language. It is complicated when somebody who does not know anything about learning through websites is put in front of a computer asked to search for websites, it is not good for the student’s motivation. Egbert (2001) already warned against this because the student loses time searching for something still unknown instead of focusing in the language learning.

Lots of websites can help us to learn and improve the process of learning English, there are websites through which specific skills can be improved. Most students have problems with their listening comprehension and the website Elllo, for instance, aims to improve this skill with podcasts according to the students’ level, the subjects of the conversations are varied and the student is exposed to the English of native and non-native speakers. For example, in one video an American and an Indian talk about good health. By practicing with these tools the student can become capable of understanding the English spoken around the world.

For those who are taking the first steps of learning English, there are sites directed to make the vocabulary of the target language grow by ending each lesson with the student’s mother language as a support. When the student is a beginner it is hard to go to sites where everything is written in English that is why the websites have to fulfill the student’s needs and level of proficiency. For beginners, Duolingo is an interesting option. In this website, it is possible to practice the target language from the first moment. All the four language skills are well practiced. Beginners can also improve writing with websites where beginner’s books can be downloaded.

Videos are always a good option to learn English. By watching videos it is possible to learn since the alphabet in a fun way until the proper pronunciation of words. There are plenty of videos recorded by professors who teach how to speak and the right way to pronounce specific sound of the English language. It is also important to search for channels where the focus is teaching English like British Council’s channel or the videos on BBC Learning English where there are videos teaching pronunciation tips. Another channel that helps with speaking is Rachel’s English, a website where Rachel teaches how to pronounce similar words and other things related to the American accent.

Research on English learning through websites shows positive results and it is an interesting way to learn for students. Once you learn how to use websites on learning, it is impossible to stop. More and more interesting things keep appearing. For example, you can download books for free in order to improve reading and writing, watch a video with your favorite song lyrics or watch an English subtitled movie online to improve listening and speaking. There will always be a video or website that is going to catch your attention regardless of your level because this is the best way to learn, the way you like.

MUSIC: A LAID-BACK WAY TO LEARN LANGUAGES

Priscila

Love for music is a great source of motivation in developing learning any language skill, especially since almost everybody likes to do it. According to researchers, students find it easier to learn languages. I have experienced learning English language with this learning style and I found it very effective.

Although learning a foreign language in a traditional way may be efficient, students want to learn without stress or obligation. Music is a relaxed way to learn, especially if they cannot adapt to traditional methods. Even though certain lyrics present a high level of difficulty in relation to the level of student learning, it can serve as a challenge, leading the student to improve their skills in languages.With music, students who like it become motivated, thereby accelerating the process of learning.  

When students listen to music, they can improve their speaking and listening skills. They can learn how to pronounce words and speak more naturally. They also can practice listening, making it simpler to understand native speakers in a conversation. 

Another advantage is that some lyrics talk about everyday themes and therefore students can learn common slang and expressions in the target language. This is important for becoming fluent. Besides learning slang and expressions, students unconsciously receive “grammar lessons” by listening to music. However, they must be careful because some lyrics are not written according to the rules of grammar. 

Some researchers claim that students can learn a foreign language more easily by listening to music. According to Oxford (1990), music is an affective strategy for reducing anxiety in assisting language learning. In addition, it is also considered a memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive and social strategy.

In conclusion, music is an interesting and effective tool in language learning, considering its effects on student's learning and motivation for becoming fluent. The process of  learning a language should be delightful. When they can reconcile learning and pleasure they will be more successful.

CHATS ROOMS CAN IMPROVE LANGUAGE AND LEARNING SKILLS

Hewellyn Santos  

The Internet offers us different means to learn, practice and improve skills in a foreign language outside the classroom. For example, chat rooms such as Livemocha offer students opportunities for teaching and learning a second language. On Livemocha, students can record their voice and be corrected for native speakers, talk and write with them, improve their Listening Skills by listening to texts or dialogues in the target language, and do online exercises with specific topics.

Livemocha can help improving some language skills mainly for those who are just starting to learn a foreign language. Based on my own experience, this website helped me to enrich my vocabulary through fun activities, learn how to spell certain words and, most importantly, improve my speaking and writing skills. This is very effective because it involves different learning styles. For example, it worked well for me because I am both an auditory and visual learner and with this tool I can use both styles at the same time.

In this website, users can practice and receive corrections. Livemocha allows users to observe, learn and practice. To practice, there are activities focusing on written and spoken production involving interaction and feedback from native speakers of the language. It was motivating for me because when a native understood what I wanted to say  I felt that I was in a right way  , so,  it motivated me to  learn more and more .

Livemocha can enrich vocabulary and help with memorization because it relates the image, the pronunciation and the spelling of the word. In the end of each lesson there is a short task involving writing of the words or sentences studied. Besides practicing, users can opt to receive comments about performance on activities from native or non-native speakers. Also, by practicing users can receive points that allow the learner to unlock other activities. And learners can receive the points answering the activities or helping other students. Get rewards helps increase motivation through competition between learners where each one tries to get more points to unlock other activities.

Livemocha offers speaking practice as well. For example, the learners can read and record their voice and send it to be corrected by professionals that evaluate them or receive more detailed revision with hints that can help the learners to improve their pronunciation. According to Temerová (2007 the native speakers are a great support for who is learning a foreign language. That is why this website is helpful for learning the language in a meaningful way. It helped me improve my speaking skills because I did these activities and I had real communication with people who were beginners like me, natives, or others learners who use English as a second language and were learning my mother language. This way, we helped each other. It was good for me because I tried to speak with different people and learned different accents.

In conclusion, the most learners search for other means for practicing the foreign language out of the classroom. Livemocha can help them improve the language skills because it takes into account different learning styles with fun activities and offers means to practice with natives or others learning the same language. The learning does not happen just in class and chat rooms are one of the many tools that Internet offers us to learn autonomously.

IMPROVING YOUR ENGLISH SKILLS WATCHING FORMULA 1

Rayssa C. Moraes.

Some people say that learning a foreign language it is boring or they just learn for obligation, but it is not true at all. These people just lack motivation. According to Harmer (2001, p. 51) motivation is "some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.” In this specific case, motivation I found in the Formula 1, the most popular and advanced form of world motor racing. Through this essay, I will show how Formula 1 can be useful to improve your listening and reading skills.

Formula 1 (F1) is a sport that involves people from all places around the world, so, to avoid misunderstandings between teams, engineers, mechanics, and other participants, a official language was chosen for the sport, and then the selected was English language. And because everything in F1 is in English, watching it can be very useful for improving your English skills.

Figure 1. Drivers during a press conference

To improve listening skills, in each grand prix (GP) you can listen to the press conference in the days before the races. In the press conferences, all the drivers are together and answer questions for reporters from around the world about that GP, the cars, the championship, and other topics. And, as the drivers are from different countries, you can perceive the accents and the different levels of English and practice listening. During the races, the engineer is always in contact to the driver and the teams allow us to listen parts of these conversations. It is hard to understand because of the engine roar. However, this difficulty is similar to situations from daily life, such as is when you receive a call in the street and, the sound is not clean but you need to understand. This is different from some traditional listening activities used by language school in which, the audios are clean and do not demonstrate the realities learning a foreign language. Besides that, after the races, the drivers usually give interviews and some of them are tired, pretty happy, angry or disappointed with the result of the race and this influences the way they speak.

To improve reading skills, students can read about the sport on the official F1 and Teams/Drivers websites where, it is possible to read news, curiosities, technical information, watch videos, and purchase gear. It is excellent practice because everything is written in the formal English language. For practice in informal English writing, fans can read the blogs about it. Both readings are perfect for learning a lot of expressions from the F1 environment.

Most of the people are shocked when they realize that I am a F1 lover and that it provided motivation for learning English, maybe because it is not a common sport for girls, but I really do not care that they are shocked. So, why do I like it? When I was a child, my father usually took care of me on the weekends but every time that I asked him to play with me he could not because he was watching F1 and I was really angry because I could not get his attention. However, some time later, he started to work on the weekends and I noted that he was sad to lose the races, so I started to watch it to give him a summary about the race when he came home. This has made become closer and soon I realized I could not imagine my weekends without watching F1. 

Figure 2. Kimi Raikkonen's official website

Ever since I started to watching F1 I was curious to know what the graphics and the notes that I saw on TV meant and, what they were talking about on the radio. I often visited the official website of Kimi Raikkonen, an F1 driver, to find some images of him but I could not read the news and understand the interviews because everything was in English, which was disappointing. As a result, I started to learn English to understand, because I like F1 so much, learning through it never was boring. I was always excited about English and, because I studied English in my school, my father always asked me about things in English that appeared TV during the GPs. Understanding the meaning of these things and explain to him was a great inspiration for me.

In summary, learning English with F1 can be very useful for a person that likes the sport. But more broadly, learning a language with something that you love is the best way to acquire it because there is an intrinsic motivation that makes a person want to learn more. Through passions the internal motivation increases during the process of learning.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH SKILLS THROUGH INTERVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

Raquely da Silva Caldeira

When I tried to study English by myself a long time ago, it was not a successful way to learn. In my mind, the only way to learn a foreign language was to have classes in a language school. When my classes started at the university, everything changed. Through a class “Learn How to Learn”, I discovered autonomy and motivation and how to use learning strategies.  As I like to read magazines and watch interviews, I used the things I learnt to improve my reading and listening skills. One of the things I always keep in mind is how I can combine English with my favorite things. In short, preferences plus learning equals good results.

To achieve results like this autonomy and motivation are necessary. According to many authors, autonomy is the act of being in charge of your own learning (HOLEC, 1981; LITTLE, 1999), but that does not mean that you cannot have a teacher’s help. Many learning strategies helped me to improve my language skills. For instance, I attempt to be reflexive about my learning and evaluate this process. I keep a learning diary and I write about my experience in a blog.

During the learning process it is necessary to understand that motivation is the effort given to a task. Brown (1997 apud MATOS, 2011). It is the strong impulse to achieve your goals. I learnt that motivation could have lows and highs. To keep my motivation high I selected short-term goals to achieve. So instead of watching a documentary with a formal language vocabulary I watch a 2 minute interview. Instead of reading an article with formal English, I read a magazine. This attitude improved my language skills substantially and kept my motivation high. 

I understood how much I improved my English during this personalized learning process when I watched a Live Stream Google Hangout conference with Hunger Games – Catching Fire cast. The video available on youtube was a huge challenge because it was without subtitles. However, it was also a trigger to increase my motivation to keep watching interviews without subtitles. After this one, I started watching interviews about many subjects.

Other examples were Once Upon a Time 2012 Comic Com and Downton Abbey cast interviews. The first one was easier to understand and I could perceive how my listening skills improved. The second one helped me to learn more about the British accent because the actors are all Britain. In addition, I could learn about the vowels and consonants sounds better than with some books. Watching to these short interviews help me in my speaking skills and increase my vocabulary without having to take notes.  Therefore, the feeling of understanding what the native speaker said to every language learner is a reward.

Once Upon a Time 2012 Comic Com cast interview.

Downton Abbey cast in Good Morning America

The genre written interview was also an important tool to overcome not interesting texts from the language book. So I had to find another way to keep reading in English and do not think that reading is boring. That was why I research for sites and apps for android. They can easily give me magazines to read wherever I am. In sites as http://www.pdfmagaz.in/ you can download any kind of magazine. For instance, games, fashion, fishing and so on. I found, “Hello Canada” and “Mcleans Magazine” that talk about gossips and entertainment. These two issues were about my favorite Canadian Ice dancers Tessa and Scott. And the language used in these magazines was for many English multilevel students and in fact more appealing too.

Hello Canada magazine and Mclean’s magazine

As I spend much more time with my cell phone I thought it would be more interesting if I read magazines there. So, I downloaded Issue app that allows me to read, for instance, The Regard Magazine about Lana Parrilla, one of my favorite actress. This fashion magazine has many pictures and clothing vocabulary. During this research I found other apps to android as gossip magazines, all magazines, and fashion magazines. The interesting fact of magazines is that the texts have many unknown words for language learners. And you can use this to enrich your vocabulary in many subjects, or in the theme that you prefer as music, movies, fashion, gardening and so on.

Regard Magazine

After these language-learning experiences, I became aware that when you are in control of your learning, using your preferences to find a delightful way to learn your language skills become better.  In my case, it is now a habit to read magazines and to watch interviews in English. In addition, the interesting fact that I perceive is how this exposition to the language develop my confidence when I speak and write also. What I learnt from strategies handout, motivation and autonomy is that the students need to be organized, motivated, and persistent because this is the best way to achieve their goals.

REFERENCES:

MATOS, M.C.V.S. O professor e o processo motivacional na aprendizagem de língua estrangeira. 2011. 160 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estudos Linguísticos) – Programa de Pós Graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, 2011.

Apresentação sobre Halloween

Hello everybody! 

Dia 31 de outubro é comemorado o Halloween e para não deixar essa data passar em branco. Nosso professor Sérgio de Língua Inglesa III sugeriu que fizéssemos uma apresentação em inglês, como parte da avaliação oral. Então tínhamos que procurar alguma curiosidade sobre o tema e contar aos nosso colegas.

E para que isso não fosse uma simples apresentação, Camila sugeriu que enfeitássemos a sala e entrar no clima festivo dessa data. Decidido isso, colocamos a mão na massa. 

Vejam a seguir fotos de como foi esse dia e o que fizemos.

Organização do espaço.

A parede da sala

Recortando o Jack

Priscila desenhando balões

Balão assustador. 

Mesa enfeitada

MUMMIES

O primeiro grupo falou sobre as múmias (mummies) e a relação delas com o Halloween. Para complementar o grupo convidou a turma para participar do Mummy wrap game.

Apresentação

Thaianny sendo enrolada com papel higiênico. 

Diego sendo enrolado.

As nossas queridas múmias

Depois disso eles tiveram que competir numa pequena corrida

 para ganhar uma "caveira" recheada de doces.

HALLOEEN GAMES

O outro grupo apresentou sobre Halloween games. Eles nos vendaram e contaram uma história assustadora de um cara que foi esquartejado. E usaram a criatividade para criar algumas partes do corpo. Como olhos, pele, nariz, cabelo. Tínhamos que adivinhar de que materiais eram feitos as partes do corpo.

 Contando a história.

De olhos vendados e com medo pelo o que iriamos tocar. 

HALLOWEEN SYMBOLS

Este grupo falou sobre os principais símbolos do Halloween e sua origem. Elas falaram sobre as bruxas, gatos pretos, morcegos e muito mais. 

No fim elas pediram que nós procurássemos pela sala pequenos 

papeis onde estava escrito punpkin e witch. Aquele que achasse ganharia doces.

TALKING ABOUT HALLOWEEN

Este grupo falou de aspectos mais gerais sobre o Halloween como a origem e como ele é celebrado em diversos países do mundo. Eles falaram sobre a Alemanha, México, Inglaterra e Estados Unidos. Além de nos mostrarem a canção Punky Night Song.

Aqui está o link de um vídeo onde a música é cantada de uma forma mais alegre:

Espero que tenham gostado de nossa atividade sobre o Halloween. 

See You! 

Our Unforgettable Trip

Olá pessoal! Aqui estão os vídeos falando sobre Our Unforgettable Trip. Nós esperamos que todos se divirtam com esse trabalho que foi muto divertido para todos nós. Esse trabalho também foi apresentado pela professora Cíntia em outro Blog da Argentina chamado: Tic aplicadas a la enseñanza de lengua extranjera. 

Traveling around the Amazonwww.youtube.comProject for English class taught by professor Cintia Costa at UFPA. Subject: My Unforgettable Trip. May-June 2013. Students: Débora Souza and 

A maioria dos vídeos foram gravados na UFPa. Principalmente no espaço ITEC Cidadão. Um lindo lugar que nos ensina a viver em harmonia com a natureza e de maneira sustentável. . 

Ivo's Talkshowwww.youtube.com

O ITEC foi a locação da entrevista de Ivo com a Beatriz também. O lindo som dos pássaros foi a trilha sonora e sob a sombra das arvores descobrimos a viagem incrível da Beatriz.

Chatting bout Unforgettable Tripwww.youtube.comProject for my English class taught by professor Cintia Costa at UFPA. Subject: My Unforgettable Trip. May-June 2013. It as really fun! :)

Uma conversa descontraída entre três amigas sobre suas viagens inesquecíveis.

Chat in the Park with Tassia - Interviewing Ana Karolinewww.youtube.comProject for my English class taught by professor Cintia Costa at UFPA. Subject: My Unforgettable Trip. May-June 2013.

Tássia contou com a ajuda de uma plateia e duas câmeras e vários diretores que ajudaram a criar esse vídeo. Ana Karoline estava nervosa, mas teve camarim e muita liberdade para improvisar. Acredite foi muito divertido.


O Guilherme fez diferente e entrevistou Débora no estilo rádio. Ficou muito legal e criativo.

guilherme's interview.mp3www.4shared.comguilherme's interview.mp3-4shared.com-Guilherme's interview(Radio style) - Project for my English class taught by professor Cintia Costa at UFPA.<br>Subject: My 

O Eduardo arrasou na entrevista que fez com a Priscila. Quem aqui não ficou com vontade de conhecer Algodoal?

Interwiew with Priscila

www.youtube.com

Trabalho submetido à disciplina English II ministrada pela Prof. Msc. Cintia Costa. Trabalho que teve por tema "My unforg