Monday, October 23, 2006

Test again?

Online English tests are fun and can give an indication of your ability.
The British Council offers these tests on Vocabulary, Grammar, Listening and Reading.
When you finish each of these tests, your scores will be reported in terms of a broad scale: elementary to upper intermediate. Check out your level HERE.

LearnEnglish...online and FREE!

LearnEnglish is a free site that helps learners and teachers of English. LearnEnglish comes to you from the British Council, the United Kingdom's international organisation for educational and cultural relations.
Find out more...

English Next (2006), By David Graddol

English Next was commissioned by the British Council and written by researcher David Graddol – a British applied linguist, well known as a writer, broadcaster, researcher and consultant on issues relating to global English.

The report draws attention to the extraordinary speed of change to issues affecting English identified in the 1997 publication: The Future of English?

The new report argues that we are already in a very new kind of environment and a new phase in the global development of English. What are the new rules and who will be the winners and who will be the losers? In this new study David Graddol suggests some of the answers by analysing demographic and economic trends in the Twenty First Century which affect Global English and the language policies worldwide and will influence its future.

Read English Next (1.89MB - PDF) and find out why global English may mean the end of English as a foreign language.

Friday, October 13, 2006

YouTube: "reality videos" on call...

Heard about YouTube yet?

Well, if you are interested in "reality TV" you might be interested in YouTube...It's an on-line community were you can post videos...Any type of videos!

With hundreds of thousands of viewers a day YouTube has become THE most popular website on the planet. No wonder Google's just bought it for $1.6 billion (yes, that's the correct figure!).

Anyway, in our case, what's interesting is that YouTube makes for great viewing and for "reality English" learning...

Come on! Jump of the deep end and see what's waiting for you...

Breaking News: there's nothing like it!

There's nothing like reading to improve your English. And, as a journalist, I'd say there's nothing like breaking news for interesting content.

It's too easy these days -with the Web- to have the world at your finger tips! Try this for a start: its' Reuters.com, one of the most respected News outfit in the Western world.

Happy reading!

Talk to Dustin Hoffman!

Would you like to have a chat on the phone with Dustin Hoffman? This is what happened to this English woman when her taxi-driver of a husband gave him a lift...

Check out this on-line "Self-Access" interactive English exercise...You can listen to the story and then practice using the past continuous.

There are three exercises for you to do.

Test your English on-line

Thanks to EnglishTown.com you can now test your English on-line.

There are a few tests on THIS PAGE.

You can take a 30 minute professional evaluation test or for some fun a 5 minute test about Office or Restaurant English...or see whether you would survive in Australia or not...Have fun!

Friday, October 06, 2006

Skypecast on the English Circle on October 19th!

What are Skypecasts?

Skypecasts are large, hosted calls on Skype.
Anyone from around the world can join and participate.
The English Circle propose to host one of these on October 19th at 14.15 for people wanting to practise speaking english.

To learn more, read the Skypecasts user guide.
To read about The English Circle Skypecast click here.
To learn more about Skypecasts in general, read the F.A.Q.

See you then!
Pierre

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