viernes, 18 de diciembre de 2020
martes, 1 de diciembre de 2020
6 Ways to Manage Your Studies Over Christmas
The Christmas holidays can be a blessing or a curse for a worn-out student.
On the one hand, acres of potential free time to get ahead with work, do some studying that isn’t just about the next exam coming up, or even catch up on some much-needed sleep. But on the other hand, a Christmas holiday – no matter how you celebrate it – is likely to come with a lot of exhausting obligations. If you celebrate a traditional Christmas, then there will be presents to buy, rooms to decorate, cooking to be done and a whole lot of relatives to catch up with. Even if you don’t celebrate a traditional Christmas but just have the time off, there will probably be family demands on your time that you’ll have to balance.
All that free time that you thought was stretching ahead of you can vanish very quickly between shopping trips, family visits and perhaps the occasional indulgent lie-in. There have been no shortage of students who have started the Christmas holidays with a large pile of library books and an even larger pile of good intentions, only to go back to school, college or university with the books unread and the good intentions unintentionally abandoned. With the best will in the world, few of us manage to do all the studying that we wish we could over Christmas; there’s just too much going on. And once Christmas itself is over and done with, there’s the celebrations for New Year’s Eve, which can be nearly as time-consuming.
In this article, we take a look at how you can plan your time and your studying to make the most of your Christmas break – so that you can catch up on your workload and have some festive fun as well.
1. Set a particular time for studying every day (and let your family know about it)
One of the reasons why it’s so tricky to study over Christmas holidays – say, compared to half term or Easter – is that the pattern of days for most people is much less predictable. There might be family dropping in unexpectedly (or unexpectedly to you, even if your parents knew about it), or other demands on your time, such as coming shopping at short notice, or meals out. When at other times of year it’s easier to just say no and hide yourself away in your room with your books, at Christmas there’s an additional sense of obligation to spend time with your family.
The best way to get around this is to pick a particular time of day to get on with some work, and to make sure your family knows about it. If there’s a family planner or something similar hanging up in the kitchen, make a note of your study hours every day. One advantage of this approach is that it means your family might help hold you to your intention to study, but more importantly, if they schedule visitors for those times, they can’t reasonably expect you to be available to spend time with them.
As for the time to pick, we recommend getting your studying out of the way in the morning, so that you have the rest of the day free. While it can be hard to motivate yourself to get to your books first thing, it’s even harder to do so later in the day, when you might be dragging yourself away from spending time with family and friends in front of a roaring fire. A couple of hours from 10am until midday is a realistic study period, and falls at the time of day when unexpected guests are least likely to show up at your door and require you to spend time with them.
2. Think about how you can adjust your studying to the circumstances
After your schedule being disrupted by family and friends, the next big hurdle to most people studying over Christmas is the particular circumstances of that time of year throwing your work into disarray. You might have planned on accessing the library, only to discover that it isn’t open on Bank Holidays, or – in some cases – you can’t make withdrawals at all between Christmas and New Year. Depending on where you live, snow might also be an impediment to library access. Similarly, if you’re home from university, you might find that the speedy wifi access you’re used to in Halls isn’t available at home, with multiple siblings putting demands on the bandwidth or a single dongle that needs to be shared around between several family members’ laptops.
The difficulties you might face aren’t just about access to study materials, whether in person in the library or online. If you have family members coming to stay, you might find yourself turfed out of your room to make way for an elderly granny or aunt, or that your usually peaceful study space is suddenly full of young cousins, nieces and nephews getting into arguments over toys or board games. Even if your family is mostly adults, having more people in the house can make it harder to concentrate than you might be used to.
The trick here is to consider how you can adjust your studying ahead of time. Do you need to get books out of the library early, or download lots of papers? Perhaps it’s a case of being prepared to pay for more data on your phone so you can have your own source of internet access. Or you might simply need to plan for work that can be done in a busy house – working through textbook exercises, for instance, can be better suited to an environment where you might be disturbed than something more involved like working on an essay.
3. Find somewhere else to study outside the house
Whether it’s slow wifi or your aunt’s dogs barking the house down, sometimes the best way to study over Christmas is to get out of the house. The idea of going somewhere else to study might seem quite strange if you’re still at school, but for most students it’s normal to take your laptop to a coffee shop or somewhere similar, and this can be a great way to get some work done undisturbed. It also helps section off that designated study time – it can be easier to carve out the time if you’re physically removing yourself from the distractions of home. You might be more tempted to let the deadline slip if you’re supposed to have started work by 10am, but if you need to be somewhere else to start work at that time, it can help you be more disciplined.
Where can you go? If you’re in a decent-sized town or city, there are bound to be cafés that will be happy to have you if you buy drinks at regular intervals (one an hour is usually fine). Look out for places that advertise their wifi and have prominent plug sockets, as that’s a good indicator that they’re happy to have people sitting there for some time working quietly. Avoid annoying the owners by choosing the smallest table you can fit on, and use non-leaky headphones if you’re going to be listening to music.
If a drink-per-hour at a café is a bit pricey for you, most towns will have an alternative that’s entirely free: your local library. You might well forget it’s there, but most local libraries will have a quiet study space, complete with the wifi and power source that you’ll need. Their collection of reference books might even furnish you with what you need, and you probably won’t even need to be a member to access any of it.
4. Don’t use studying as an excuse
Christmas can impose a lot of chores that you might not want to do, whether that’s sorting through old clothes, peeling potatoes for an army of relatives, or becoming an unpaid babysitter to their children. And if your family are particularly good at respecting your desire for peace and quiet during study time, it can be very tempting to try and get out of these responsibilities by citing your need to go and do some work for school or university.
It’s tempting, but it’s still ill-advised; it won’t take family members long to notice that you always seem to want to get back to your books when a dull shopping expedition through pre-Christmas crowds is on the cards, and their goodwill towards giving you the time you need isn’t likely to last once they’ve realised your using work as an excuse. This goes double if you claim that you’re studying but end up using the time as an opportunity to hide in your room instead of spending the time with your relatives. What might seem like a white lie now could be deeply irritating in a year’s time when you really do need the time to yourself to catch up on work, only for relatives to remind you that last year, you claim to be doing some advance reading for next year and were instead playing video games.
5. Be realistic about what you can achieve
You might have read the above recommendations about when to study – for instance, a couple of hours in the morning – and thought that that wasn’t really a lot of time. You might have plans to use this time off like study leave, and write a short essay every day, or get through three books in the week. But Christmas holidays do have a way of stealing time from you and it’s best to get more work done than you expected to than to come back to school or university with lots of things left undone that you were expecting to have finished by Boxing Day. This is doubly the case if you haven’t really worked over Christmas (or any other holiday) in the past, as you won’t have good habits to fall back on and your family might assume, regardless of what you say, that you will have a lot of free time.
You should probably assume that your average day over the Christmas holidays will be as busy as an average day at school or university, so think about what you can usually achieve in ‘homework’ time and allow roughly that amount of work per day. Of course, you should bring some surplus things to do – after all, you might end up snowed in and have a lot of opportunity to get work done. But you shouldn’t make plans to have a lot of work done by the time the new term starts, so you’re likely to end up disappointed.
6. Take the day itself off
If you do a proper, traditional family Christmas – whether those traditions are midnight Mass and all the relatives over, or focus more on pigs in blankets and Doctor Who – then there’s nothing that will make your family unhappier than saying you’re going to keep up your studying routine on Christmas Day itself. Studying from 10am to 12pm on Christmas Eve and then heading out for last-minute shopping and an evening with the neighbours is sociable; insisting on keeping to that schedule on Christmas Day is unfriendly at best.
You might have ideas of getting involved with the morning Christmas traditions, gathering under the tree and then having a Christmas lunch before sneaking off to get a couple of hours of work done. Our advice? Don’t bother trying. Aside from the fact that every difficulty of studying over the Christmas period is quadrupled on the day itself, if your family is trying to dissuade you from studying on the days leading up to Christmas, you can get a lot of mileage from saying, “of course, I won’t be doing any work on the day itself.” Then throw yourself into all the fun and tradition of it, and they might be more prepared to forgive you when you have to go back to your books on Boxing Day.
lunes, 3 de agosto de 2020
What is the best age to learn a language?
When it comes to learning a foreign language, we tend to think that children are the most adept. But that may not be the case – and there are added benefits to starting as an adult.
I
It’s a busy autumn morning at the Spanish Nursery, a bilingual nursery school in north London. Parents help their toddlers out of cycling helmets and jackets. Teachers greet the children with a cuddle and a chirpy “Buenos dias!”. In the playground, a little girl asks for her hair to be bunched up into a “coleta” (Spanish for ‘pigtail’), then rolls a ball and shouts “Catch!” in English.
“At this age, children don’t learn a language – they acquire it,” says the school’s director Carmen Rampersad. It seems to sum up the enviable effortlessness of the little polyglots around her. For many of the children, Spanish is a third or even fourth language. Mother tongues include Croatian, Hebrew, Korean and Dutch.
Compare this to the struggle of the average adult in a language class, and it would be easy to conclude that it’s best to start young.
But science offers a much more complex view of how our relationship with languages evolves over a lifetime – and there is much to encourage late beginners.
Broadly speaking, different life stages give us different advantages in language learning. As babies, we have a better ear for different sounds; as toddlers, we can pick up native accents with astonishing speed. As adults, we have longer attention spans and crucial skills like literacy that allow us to continually expand our vocabulary, even in our own language.
And a wealth of factors beyond ageing – like social circumstances, teaching methods, and even love and friendship – can affect how many languages we speak and how well.
“Not everything goes downhill with age,” says Antonella Sorace, a professor of developmental linguistics and director of the Bilingualism Matters Centre at the University of Edinburgh.
She gives the example of what is known as ‘explicit learning’: studying a language in a classroom with a teacher explaining the rules. “Young children are very bad at explicit learning, because they don’t have the cognitive control and the attention and memory capabilities,” Sorace says. “Adults are much better at that. So that can be something that improves with age.”
In a long-term study of almost Catalan-Spanish bilingual learners of English: the late starters acquired the new language faster than the younger starters
A study by researchers in Israel found, for example, that adults were better at grasping an artificial language rule and applying it to new words in a lab setting. The scientists compared three separate groups: 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and young adults. The adults scored higher than both younger groups, and the 12-year-olds also did better than the younger children.
This chimed with the results of a long-term study of almost 2,000 Catalan-Spanish bilingual learners of English: the late starters acquired the new language faster than the younger starters.
The researchers in Israel suggested that their older participants may have benefited from skills that come with maturity – like more advanced problem-solving strategies – and greater linguistic experience. In other words, older learners tend to already know quite a lot about themselves and the world and can use this knowledge to process new information.
What young children excel at is learning implicitly: listening to native speakers and imitating them. But this type of learning requires a lot of time with native speakers. In 2016, the Bilingualism Matters Centre prepared an internal report on Mandarin lessons in primary schools for the Scottish government. They found that one hour a week of teaching did not make a meaningful difference to five-year-olds. But even just one additional half-hour, and the presence of a native speaker, helped the children grasp elements of Mandarin that are harder for adults, such as the tones.
Easy acquisition
We all start out as natural linguists.
Infants already babble in their mother tongue
As babies, we can hear all of the 600 consonants and 200 vowels that make up the world’s languages. Within our first year, our brains begin to specialise, tuning into the sounds we hear most frequently. Infants already babble in their mother tongue. Even newborns cry with an accent, imitating the speech they heard while in the womb. This specialisation also means shedding the skills we do not need. Japanese babies can easily distinguish between ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds. Japanese adults tend to find this more difficult.
There is no question, Sorace says, that the early years are crucial for acquiring our own language. Studies of abandoned or isolated children have shown that if we do not learn human speech early on, we cannot easily make up for this later.
But here is the surprise: that cut-off is not the same for foreign language learning.
“The important thing to understand is that age co-varies with many other things,” says Danijela Trenkic, a psycholinguist at the University of York. Children’s lives are completely different from those of adults. So when we compare the language skills of children and adults, Trenkic says, “we’re not comparing like with like”.
She gives the example of a family moving to a new country. Typically, children will learn the language much faster than their parents. But that may be because they hear it constantly at school, while their parents might be working alone. The children may also feel a greater sense of urgency since mastering the language is crucial to their social survival: making friends, being accepted, fitting in. Their parents, on the other hand, are more likely to be able to socialise with people who understand them, such as fellow immigrants.
The emotional bond is what makes you better at language learning – Danijela Trenkic
“Creating the emotional bond is what makes you better at language learning, in my view,” says Trenkic.
Adults can of course also create that emotional bond, and not just through love or friendship with a native speaker. A 2013 study of British adults in an Italian beginners’ course found that those who stuck with it were helped by bonding with the other students and the teacher.
“If you find like-minded people, that makes it more likely that you’ll push on with a language, and that you’ll persevere,” Trenkic says. “And that really is the key. You need to spend years learning it. Unless there’s a social motivation for it, it’s really difficult to sustain.”
Even native speakers learn almost one new word a day in their own language until middle age
Earlier this year, a study at MIT based on an online quiz of nearly 670,000 people found that to achieve native-like knowledge of English grammar, it is best to start by about 10 years old, after which that ability declines. However, the study also showed that we can keep getting better at languages, including our own, over time. For example, we only fully master the grammar of our own language by about 30. This adds to a previous, separate online study that shows even native speakers learn almost one new word a day in their own language until middle age.
Trenkic points out that the MIT study analysed something extremely specific – the ability to pass for a native speaker in terms of grammatical accuracy. To the average language student, that may not be all that relevant.
“People sometimes ask, what is the biggest advantage of foreign languages? Will I earn more money? Will I be cleverer? Will I stay healthier? But actually, the biggest advantage of knowing foreign languages is being able to communicate with more people,” she says.
Trenkic herself is originally from Serbia. She only became fluent in English in her twenties, after she moved to the UK. She says she still makes grammatical mistakes, especially when she is tired or stressed. “Yet, despite all that – and this is crucial – I can do amazing things in English,” she later writes in an email. “I can enjoy the greatest literary works, I can produce meaningful and coherent texts of publishable quality.”
In fact, the MIT quiz classified her as a native English speaker.
At the Spanish Nursery, where the teachers are singing ‘Cumpleanos feliz’ and the book corner stocks The Gruffalo in Hebrew, the director herself turns out to be a late starter. Carmen Rampersad grew up in Romania and only really mastered English when she moved abroad in her twenties. Her children absorbed Spanish at nursery.
But perhaps the most adventurous linguist is her husband. Originally from Trinidad, he learned Romanian from her family, who live close to the border with Moldova.
“His Romanian is excellent,” she says. “He speaks it with a Moldavian accent. It’s hilarious.”
viernes, 10 de julio de 2020
¨HOLLOWAY VIRTUAL 2.0¨
¨HOLLOWAY VIRTUAL 2.0¨
THE NEW DEPARTMENT DEDICATED TO VIRTUAL EDUCATION
Current circumstances seem to limit us to the tasks that have been
usually part of our daily lives, but contrarily to this, in the HOLLOWAY
INSTITUTE has awakened the innovation of opportunities - Online. In this sector
our student community can accesses from our learning as a competitive advantage
through the virtual universe that is coming, that has arrived, that is here and
to stay.
For this reason, it is possible from our new HOLLOWAY VIRTUAL 2.0
department, to undertake this cyberspace journey with the security and trust of
a multidisciplinary team that supports a 100% effective methodology.
HOLLOWAY VIRTUAL 2.0 seeks to
expand the possibilities within the framework of the creation of a pedagogical
methodology which brings innovation and also integrates three tools on a
virtual level:
The video-conferences, the virtual whiteboard and the presentation,
these will guide, connect, encourage and structure activities done from the
comfort of the home or the office, scenarios and spaces that are significant in
today's society.
The nature of this present environment leads to the awakening of new
social, economic, technological and educational incentives challenges, that cannot
be underestimated, as they remain rooted in what is commonly
traditionally.
However, in these most complex circumstances that the world has
presented, HOLLOWAY INSTITUTE has created a new department that leads the
student community through the virtual route demanded today, achieving
resounding success in the hands of professionals, while also prioritizing
giving personalized guidance.
We are still here to make our students' lives easier and more practical,
along with their constant professional growth, simply because, it is our job.
Finally, HOLLOWAY INSTITUTE invites the entire student community to
retake their language classes with the certainty of an effective methodology,
being in the hands of qualified experts, who guarantee results based on permanent
technological research tasks, applied with pedagogical responsibility. With HOLLOWAY
VIRTUAL 2.0 you will continue to encounter what has always captivated you
about our institute: Excellence, quality and achievement of goals.
Even as times become more difficult, expectations and demands should
continue to rise; as well as desires to fulfill business objectives, business
and positive learning goals.
HOLLOWAY VIRTUAL 2.0 not only will
accompany you in perfecting a language, but will also participate hand in hand
with new technology adaptation to daily life, it will continue to develop and
innovate the most effective and efficient ways of teaching languages.
miércoles, 1 de julio de 2020
6 BENEFITS OF THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM
If you are thinking of taking a course or studying
online but you are not sure that this is the right option for you, read on.
Here I explain what a virtual classroom is and what its benefits are.
A virtual classroom is an online learning environment,
in other words it is a class that is received via the Internet and that creates
an adequate space for communication and distance learning.
You can access this learning environment via software
by having to download and run a file on your computer or via the web, which is
the preferred option since you can access the portal from any device at any
time.
In the virtual classroom you can connect with your
classmates and tutors synchronously (live) or asynchronously in which you can
review the contents at the time that is most convenient for you and from your
workstation.
You will use educational technology applications such
as video conferences, videos, presentations, readings, message boards, chats
and forums, among others.
With virtual education you will eliminate many of the
limitations that have prevented you from starting or continuing your education
in traditional settings.
6 Benefits of the virtual classroom:
• There are no
geographic barriers
The virtual classroom gives you access to a large
number of educators and educational establishments around the world. You can
access the best universities and a wide variety of careers not available in
your geographic location.
Virtual education allows students to expose themselves
and share with diverse cultures and overcome traditional communication,
location, time and cost barriers.
• Save of time
and money
You will be able to save time and money by not having
to go to another place, pay for parking, the cost that the institution adds to
the use of facilities and other physical services.
You will save money on material resources such as
notebooks, sheets and prints as the material is available online. In short, you
can do more with less.
• Sessions with
audio and video
There are multiple advantages to receiving virtual
classes and being able to have the learning material in different formats. One
of the main advantages is that if you cannot attend live video conferences you
can listen to the recording.
If you can participate live you will have the
opportunity to interact with your classmates and tutor, exchange ideas and
answer questions. By having audio and video recordings you have the option to
listen to them as many times as necessary.
You will be able to know different learning tools
which also allows you to be more motivated and maintain interest in the
subject. If you have mobile internet you can listen to the recordings on the
way to work or in free time.
• Differentiated
and flexible learning
The virtual classroom is an excellent tool to
differentiate teaching and thus facilitate the learning of diverse students.
I explain to you, the weakest students in some area
can achieve more confidence and self-confidence as they can access the material
as many times as necessary, help themselves with complementary material and
have the support of the tutor and other colleagues who collaboratively support
solving doubts and offering solutions.
For the most advanced student there is the possibility
of extending their learning with complementary material and web tools.
In the virtual classroom you can personalize your
education, actively participate and take ownership of your learning process,
easily being aware of your own progress and thought processes. (metacognition).
A student in a virtual classroom can make as much
progress as they want with the support of the tutor and peers. The tutor
supports you to become a lifelong learner who builds his own learning.
•
Continuous
feedback
Tutors are available to give you continuous feedback
about your doubts, your work and your performance.
In the virtual classroom, the tutor is available live
during video conferences and almost all the time through email, chats or
forums.
The online tutor will indicate how long or at what
time he will be available to communicate with you. Technology favors group cohesion and
peer support.
• Responsibility
for learning
Technology favors the organization and classification
of documents and their availability. You can access them 24/7 as many times as
you want and they are easy to locate.
Classes include supplementary material and options of
tools and suggestions with which you can extend your learning.
Students who have had problems with the organization
of their learning can find in the virtual classroom new forms and tools that
facilitate their style and preference, from games, video, audio and stories to
traditional reading texts.
You can be more aware of your own learning process,
your progress and your needs and be the one who decides how far you want to go.
The virtual classroom overcomes the barriers of time,
distance and money, if you have a good internet service and want to continue
your learning,
Do not wait more! there is a high probability that
this will become your favorite learning modality.
lunes, 1 de junio de 2020
9 ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE TRAINING
How does online training benefits professionals around the globe? Let's take a look at 9 major advantages of online training.
The Major Advantages Of Online Training
Online training is the art of knowledge transfer through the internet, from anywhere in the globe to targeted audiences who choose to learn a particular subject. Online training courses are of two kinds – free and paid versions. Professionals who excel in a particular field choose to teach and train students who are willing to take up online classes. Notes in PDFs, Word documents, video tutorials, and assessments are given as a package with the training modules, thereby helping students learn faster and easier. Also, some of the certifications and certificates that can be provided, to award candidates for their understanding capabilities, are highly valued by various organizations. Some companies offer training options before employees are made permanent in their jobs. This training does not end before the job begins: It rather continues through online courses by brushing up concepts and new technologies. Here are a few advantages of online training that showcase how it helps improve an employee's professional life:
1. Flexibility
Technology demands newer updates and faster systems all the time. This can only be achieved with constant training and learning. Working a 9-5 job and pursuing courses may seem tiring if you have to go to a training center before or after work. Sometimes going to the training center may rob your weekends and eat up your free time. Online training courses can be taken anytime, anywhere. The only requirement would be an internet connection. Making time during your coffee breaks at work, sitting on your couch and taking online courses instead of watching television, and listening to audio/video files while travelling to and from work are some of the ways online training courses can be taken up. This ensures flexibility in terms of time and effort.
2. Mobility
A place that has internet connection is a place to take advantage of. Online training and eLearning would require a traditional registration process, followed by a user log in page, but now, since browsers are available on phones, tablets, and laptops, online courses are not only restricted to desktops; courses are configured to all types of devices. Thinking of taking a course while travelling? eLearning is now in your pockets!
3. Easy On The Pockets
With all these physical copies of books, notes, and professors to handle courses, traditional software training courses demand a very high price for certifications and course completion. In comparison to this, eBooks and notes are permanently saved in your hard drive when it comes to online training. Certifications are provided online, in printable format, with course completion recognition that can be shared on job-posting websites, social media, and more. Reference videos, course materials, and examination scores are saved and can be viewed multiple times, with no limit. Online courses are extremely cost-effective and can be utilized efficiently.
4. Community
Meeting different people and joining forums does not stop at social media sites. People with same interests or with the same learning goals may join a community that interacts effectively exchanging questions, doubts, and ideas. Participating in such groups may offer a more detailed insight on where the course is leading to.
5. Online Support
Professional educators and eLearning customer support are always looking to help and motivate students. Online course trainers can be emailed and interacted with, when students have any questions, and chat support is almost always available on online learning portals.
6. Progress Report
Online assessments test the ability to understand topics without the pressure of taking an actual exam. Some assessments can also be retaken and reconsidered if students are not satisfied with their scores. Properly justified and marked, online assessments bring about a fair scoring system that helps online students evaluate their understanding of a given subject.
7. Easy Accessibility
In a fast moving world, almost everything is readily accessible. Downloadable online notes, online support, online interaction, training videos that can be replayed, and assessments/quizzes that can be taken anytime during the course help professionals learn better and faster. The easier courses are to be reached, the easier it is for professionals to reach their goals.
8. Information Retention
Online courses help trainees retain and remember information with attractive images, videos, legible fonts, movie clips, animated descriptions, and more. Real-life examples are also given to explain concepts better. Displaying information in well-crafted ways lead to better understanding of learning content more than taking notes with pen and paper. Face-to-face instructor-led training can force trainees to deviate from topics because of long lectures, where speech is the major mode of communication.
9. Constructive Criticism
Providing constructive criticism through quizzes offers trainees the ability to understand where they stand in terms of knowledge. Multiple choice and open-ended questions prepare students better for taking an exam. The automated corrections like “wrong answer” and “right answer” give trainees the opportunity to go back and correct themselves when wrong. This saves time and effort when compared to unit tests where the papers are sent to the professor for correcting errors and giving the final grade.
Final Word
Some people prefer face-to-face training, while others may prefer online training. According to the American Society for Training and Development, nearly one-third of all eLearning content and material is available and pursued online. Online training is no doubt a huge cost saver for organizations and individuals, as only certification courses come with a high price tag compared to free online courses. Utilizing the internet for improving your skills is the ultimate way to climb up the success ladder, as the best investment that you can make is investing in yourself.
lunes, 4 de mayo de 2020
10 blogs to learn English with
We’ve already brought you our pick of the best podcasts, TV series, and even songs to learn English with. “So, what’s next?” we hear your cry. Blogs? Oh, okay then. From easy-reads and inspiring travel bloggers to blogs dedicated to perfecting your grammar, here are our top recommendations for learning English with a blog.
1. The Londoner
The Londoner is one of the UK’s most popular blogs; Rosie covers all things lifestyle, from sharing recipes and style tips to chatting about her (absolutely gorgeous) dog while they explore London. It’s an engaging read with a mixture of complex sentences and detailed descriptions – perfect for intermediate English speakers. But, be forewarned, you’ll get insta-envy from her photos of beautiful clothes and mouthwatering meals.
2. Deliciously Ella
If you haven’t heard of Deliciously Ella, where have you been?! Ella’s blog shares her amazing meal ideas and baking experiments with plant-based foods and non-processed ingredients and has inspired millions of English readers to take better care of their bodies. The best part about it? Eating well doesn’t just mean “eating green”: you’ll find just as many sweet treats as savory dishes here.
3. BBC Learning English
Since the beginning of time, BBC TV and radio presenters have spoken in perfect British English, and BBC articles have been written with impeccable grammar. So, who better to learn English with? The BBC’s Learning English blog has hundreds of easy videos, articles, and free exercises to help anyone from beginners to near-native English speakers perfect their grasp of the language.
4. World of Wanderlust
You’ll be grabbing your passport and packing a bag before you can say “I love this travel blog and it’s stunning photography.” From the best places to eat to must-visit secret spots, World of Wanderlust is full of insider tips to help you plan your next trip. Covering everywhere from the USA to Costa Rica and Japan, it’s a great blog for culture vultures keen to effortlessly practice their English by reading for hours.
5. Hannah Gale
This self-titled lifestyle blog by Hannah will keep your colloquial British English in tip-top shape. She’s a very chatty ex-journalist and her relatable posts discuss everything from her relationship to her favorite books and what’s in her wardrobe this season. Without even realizing it, you’ll be digesting new phrases and fun slang that aren’t taught in class.
6. Perfect English Grammar
With a seemingly endless collection of short, interactive English grammar exercises, this fantastic blog will test you on a range of topics from irregular verbs to your use of the perfect tense. The blog’s interactive format makes tricky grammar rules fun; but, to make sure you stick with it, it’s probably best to finish each session with a chocolate-based reward.
7. Hand Luggage Only
This energetic and excitable travel blog follows two best friends from Cambridge University as they write their way around the world. Yaya and Lloyd have enthusiasm in spades, taking their cameras and beaming smiles everywhere they go. After reading just a few posts, you’ll be dying to practice writing in the first person in an English travel blog of your own.
8. English Grammar Revolution
Sentence diagrams… these certainly don’t sound like many people’s idea of fun, but, over at the English Grammar Revolution blog, Elizabeth firmly believes they’re an easy and fun(ish) way to nail tricky English grammar. While you certainly won’t find yourself scrolling for a whole evening here, Elizabeth’s passion is infectious; just a few minutes reading her blog regularly can supercharge your learning.
9. The Young Adventuress
With hilarious, honest confessions and quirky stories filling the pages of The Young Adventuress, it’s easy to spend hours reading this one. But, there’s another reason we love this blog: she’s taken the plunge and moved abroad – and she loves it! This American now calls New Zealand home, so there’s a whole host of great advice about relocating to another country. If you need some inspiration before booking that study abroad program you’ve always fancied, look no further.
10. The EF GO Blog!
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)