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Vice guide to travel Liberia - part 3

Vice guide to travel Liberia - part 2

Lesson 6a - WORD STRESS - English Pronunciation

Sons of Colonialism!!

The Vice Guide To Travel - Liberia - Part 1

ohh Americans...

Present Perfect Simple – Present Perfect Progressive

Form

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
irregular verbs: form of 'have' + 3rd column of irregular verbs Example: I / you / we / they have spoken he / she / it has spoken regular verbs: form of 'have' + infinitive + ed Example: I / you / we / they have worked he / she / it has worked	form of 'have' + been + verb + ing Example: I / you / we / they have been speaking he / she / it has been speaking
Exceptions
Exceptions when adding 'ed' : when the final letter is e, only add d Example: love - loved after a short, stressed vowel, the final consonant is doubled Example: admit - admitted final l is always doubled in British English (not in American English) Example: travel - travelled after a consonant, final y becomes i (but: not after a vowel) Example: worry - worried but: play - played	Exceptions when adding 'ing' : silent e is dropped. (but: does not apply for -ee) Example: come - coming aber: agree - agreeing after a short, stressed vowel, the final consonant is doubled Example: sit - sitting after a vowel, the final consonant l is doubled in British English (but not in American English). Example: travel - travelling final ie becomes y. Example: lie - lying

See also explanations on Present Perfect Simple and Present Perfect Progressive

Use

Both tenses are used to express that an action began in the past and is still going on or has just finished. In many cases, both forms are correct, but there is often a difference in meaning: We use the Present Perfect Simple mainly to express that an action is completed or to emphasise the result. We use the Present Perfect Progressive to emphasise the duration or continuous course of an action.

Result or duration?

Do you want to express what has happened so far or how long an action has been going on yet?

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
Result (what / how much / how often) I have written 5 letters. / I have been to London twice.	Duration (how long) I have been writing for an hour.

Certain verbs

The following verbs are usually only used in Present Perfect Simple (not in the progressive form).

• state: be, have (for possession only)
  Example: We have been on holiday for two weeks.
• senses: feel, hear, see, smell, taste, touch
  Example: He has touched the painting.
• brain work: believe, know, think, understand
  Example: I have known him for 3 years.

Emphasis on completion or duration?

Do you want to emphasise the completion of an action or its continuous course (how has somebody spent his time)?

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
Emphasis on completion I have done my homework. (Meaning: My homework is completed now.)	Emphasis on duration I have been doing my homework. (Meaning: That's how I have spent my time. It does not matter whether the homework is completed now.)

Result or side effect?

Do you want to express that a completed action led to a desired result or that the action had an unwanted side effect?

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
desired result I have washed the car. (Result: The car is clean now.)	unwanted side effect Why are you so wet? - I have been washing the car. (side effect: I became wet when I was washing the car. It does not matter whether the car is clean now.)

Time + negation: last time or beginning of an action?

In negative sentences: Do you want to express how much time has past since the last time the action took place or since the beginning of the action?

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
since the last time I haven't played that game for years. (Meaning: It's years ago that I last played that game.)	since the beginning I haven't been playing that game for an hour, only for 10 minutes. (Meaning: It's not even an hour ago that I started to play that game.)

Permanent or temporary?

If an action is still going on and we want to express that it is a permanent situation, we would usually use the Present Perfect Simple. For temporary situations, we would prefer the Present Perfect Progressive. This is not a rule, however, only a tendency.

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
permanent James has lived in this town for 10 years. (Meaning: He is a permanent resident of this town.)	temporary James has been living here for a year. (Meaning: This situation is only temporary. Maybe he is an exchange student and only here for one or two years.)

Signal words

Present Perfect Simple	Present Perfect Progressive
how often ... times	how long since for

Common problems

listen and hear

Many students use listen and hear interchangably. However, there is an important difference between them. Listening describes...

Short vowel sounds

English pronunciation Phonetic vowel sounds

Brasil-2014 World Cup Manual

A view on ESL teaching

EFL teaching requires some technical, theoretical and personal skills.

Technically speaking it is the instructor’s responsibility to have a strong sense of language suitability to several different scenarios and learner’s audiences. In addition, anchoring, concept-checking, drilling and eliciting properly are required techniques in this business.

Theoretically, it is mostly welcomed from the EFL teacher to have cultural background of both the English usage, way of thinking, language and intonation structures, as to the learner’s context in order to correctly apply the techniques here once mentioned.

The concepts offered by CELTA are essential to this matter, giving the variety of possible settings this job can offer worldwide.

The personal skills involved in EFL teaching are only merely desired by employers, due to the fact of its difficulties of being assessed. However, only by analyzing successful professional teachers it is easy to observe some of the most important personal skills patterns involved; Patience, high leveled empathy, motivation, and easy adaptation and response to human interaction.

In closing, EFL teaching is definitely an activity which requires some level of gift, allied to a great amount of research, hard work and specially a great deal of passion.

For that being, the passion of teaching fuels all adversities and pushes this class of professionals forward both in practical experience and theoretical knowledge.

What is English as a Foreign Language(EFL) for you?

Recently I've come  across an intriguing question..

   WHAT DOES EFL REPRESENT TO YOU?

Well first I have to admit that this was something I didn't want to answer by the time I read it, but then a sudden exasperation(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exasperation)took over me!

This is what I do! This is what I so strongly try to convey to my students and what mostly make me feel alive professionally and very proud and happy by the choices I've taken.
Choices that led me here to this very moment, and here I am, lazy enough to the point of procrastinating my way into finding an answer...

Okay, okay...
I finally got serious about it and answered the inquiry.
The thing is..., I`ve being thinking about it ever since, and I would like to share my ideas with you, learners and teachers!

So guys, say :

WHAT DOES EFL REPRESENT TO YOU?


Soon enough I will post here my ideas, in the mean time ...

What are yours? Leave your comments below!

Last post from the series...

• PROBABLE ERRORS WITH VOWELS:

Another source of problems will be the back/high vowels.  The Portuguese /u/ falls right between English /U/ and/uw/.  As a result, perception and production of these phonemes will follow the single pattern of Portuguese /u/, neutralizing the contrast between words like:

full /fUl/ - fool /fuwl/
look /lUk/ - Luke /luwk/
pull /pUl/ - pool /puwl/  
stood /stUd/ - stewed /stuwd/

Make vs.Do

MAKE EXPRESSIONS

make an agreement - fazer um acordo
make an announcement (to) - fazer uma comunicação oficial
make an appointment (with) - marcar uma hora
make arrangements (for) - fazer preparos
make an attempt (to) - fazer uma tentativa
make it back - retornar ao ponto de partida
make the bed - fazer a cama
make believe - fazer de conta
make breakfast (dinner, a sandwich) - preparar o café da manhã (a janta, um sanduíche)
make a choice - fazer uma escolha
make a clean copy - passar a limpo
make it clear (to) - deixar claro
make a complaint (about) - apresentar queixa, reclamar

INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS

INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS

São os pronomes que indicam um elemento
dentro de um conjunto, mas que não se define.

Estes pronomes são usados em inglês para fazer perguntas abertas, ou seja, perguntas que não
podem ser respondidas com "sim" ou "não". São chamados dequestion words ou wh -words, uma vez que quase todos
começam por Wh.

1)What – (O quê, Qual (só se referea coisas inanimadas ou animais) .Refere-se a um número ilimitado de elementos).


Exemplos:What would you like to have?What did you do last night?What's the capital of Brazil?What kind of (Que tipo de)
Ex:What kind of  music do you like?

English How to Pronounce TH Consonants [ ] + [ð] Ameircan Accent

Producing these sounds require patience a a lot of practice!

  So enough of time wasting and hands on!

CRZY!

HEHEHEH

Probable mistakes with vowels- #4

Portuguese native speakers will also experience difficulty distinguishing between English /a/ and /o/.  Most of the times /a/ will be perceived as Portuguese/ó/.  This is reinforced by the fact that the English /a/ is many times spelled with the letter “o”, often corresponding in Portuguese to /ó/ as in pó, which is very similar to English /o/ as in law.  This may cause foreign accent in some dialects, with the possibility of phonological error in minimal pairs like:

collar /'kalər/ - caller /'kolər/
cot /kat/ - caught /kot/
are /ar/ - or /or/

HR Vocabulary

HUMAN RESOURCES - RECURSOS HUMANOSGLOSSÁRIO DE TERMOS USADOS NA ÁREA DE RECURSOS HUMANOS

Prepared by Schütz & Kanomata
Updated June 2009

A Canadian Maverick

 "The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."

BIO

Glenn Gould was born in Toronto in 1932, and enjoyed a privileged, sheltered upbringing in the quiet Beach neighborhood. His musical gifts became apparent in infancy, and though his parents never pushed him to become a star prodigy, he became a professional concert pianist at age fifteen, and soon gained a national reputation. By his early twenties, he was also earning recognition through radio and

The Hamburger Fun

You'd better learn that pronunciation fast!!

Probable mistakes with vowels- #3

The English mid-central /ə/, especially when stressed, has no counterpart in Portuguese, which causes the possibility of phonological error in words like but /bət/ and rubber /'rəbər/.
Also, its unstressed and reduced form, named “schwa”, is likely to become a persistent problem if we consider that Portuguese unstressed vowels are not normally reduced. Very likely Brazilian ESL students will be influenced by spelling in this area. Example: the word photographer might be pronounced /fô'tógrafêr/ instead of the correct /fə'tagrəfər/.

Here's a BBC video on it:

I personally think this is the main reason for what I like to call the strangeness In English, specially for Brazilian learners(syllabic timed language).
Without the knowledge of its existence, together with sounds linking  abilities, English learning proves to 
be  quite complicated when only focused on Grammar and Vocabulary.




For this reason, use your many different listening sources, including those found here, to try to identify the schwa sound and  its surrounding linking sounds!  

Present Like Steve Jobs

As promised to some students; here it follows a video on presentations:

Words and Their Stories: Number One

Guys have a look on this link:

Words and Their Stories: Number One

Have you ever listened for detail??




Try this:

STEP 1

Identify the auxiliary verbs ( do/does/did/don't/doesn't/didn't)

STEP2

What is its function(e.g. Makes the sentence negative and determines Simple Present)

Share you findings!!

"What is CELTA?"

It is an initial teaching qualification for people who want to teach English as a foreign language. 

CELTA is awarded by Cambridge University (ESOLdivision) and is an acronym for Certificate in EnglishLanguage Teaching to Adults. 

What does CELTA cover?

The CELTA qualification is the most...

Probable mistakes with vowels- #2

Another problem likely to occur is around the English /æ/a.  Both English phonemes /e/ as in egg and /æ/ as in pad ,will be perceived as Portuguese /é/, which is in fact a little closer to English /e/ than /æ/.  This will neutralize 
the contrast between words like:



bed /bed/ - bad /bæd/
beg /beg/ - bag /bæg/
dead /ded/ - dad /dæd/
end /end/ - and /ænd/
flesh /flesh/ - flash /flæsh/
gem /dzhem/ - jam /dzhæm/
guess /ges/ - gas /gæs/
head /hed/ - had /hæd/














Source:
http://www.sk.com.br/sk-voga.html


Another interesting English sound website:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html

Are you learning English???

  If so,  you can understand the joke,right?

  Phonetics, linking sounds, word stress and sentence stress are the others side of the coin. If you are not  having enough of these, enough to get the joke, maybe you should(a)!