Listening practice

Learning to speak a language certainly isn’t easy, but learning to listen to it certainly isn’t easy, either. Spoken words just don’t behave in as orderly a fashion as written ones, sometimes running together; real life speakers don’t finish their sentences or use words that aren’t on any of your vocabulary lists; and of course, every language has many different spoken varieties. This is particularly true for English, which not only has countless native varieties but is also used by many people as a bridge between speakers of other native languages.

The best thing you can do is to listen to English in as many varieties as much as possible in order to get your ear and brain used to the experience. Fortunately, much of this practice is a great deal of fun, and also largely free, even if there aren’t native speakers around. Some ideas:

• watch films in English with English subtitles. German subtitles won’t help you understand the English any better, but English subtitles will subtly help your brain to process what it’s hearing. Watching a film this way is really listening practice – in real life, you’d usually see the person you’re talking to, right?
• The same thing goes for funny little videos. Yes, there’s lots of rubbish on Youtube, but there’s also some really good stuff. And it’s even better if it makes you laugh, because enjoyment makes you learn more easily.  Listening to many variations of “Do you know who I am?” is good for your English. Really.
• Finally, there are hundreds of wonderful podcasts out there. If I had to recommend just one for learners, I’d go for the BBC’s Six Minute English. Recorded in various accents, it is a weekly podcast about various topics with a focus on language learning. During the podcasts, the presenters draw your attention to some vocabulary items, idioms and grammatical difficulties; the website also provides additional material. It’s well worth the six minutes!

I’ve written more about podcasts here, here, and here. And I listen to this podcast every day (well, almost) and this one every week. It’s a good justification for expensive mobile listening devices – Christmas is coming up!

Happiness is a pencil, pots and pans and a hair full of head

Started off the new year 11 course with this song:

Lyrics can be found here. The rather idiotic (but kind of fun) exercise I came up with was having the students slot the things that make the singer happy into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This pyramid is reprinted (in a slightly different and, frankly, less understandable form) in our new book, Green Line 11/12. So where do you think the pencil full of lead goes?

Homework: Write a similar song about things that make you happy. If you don’t want to write about yourself, write from the point of view of a cat, an investment banker, a dairy farmer, Mrs Merkel, a little girl, whatever you like…

Emergency Abitur Update on Speeches and Rhetoric

In case next week’s English LK Abitur features a speech, here’s some last minute material to help you prepare. A lot of this is audio stuff, but I suggest listening to it pen in hand, as so many phrases and words might come in (I know…) handy.

• In March 2008, I liked Barack Obama’s speech on race. I still think this is one of the best. And hey! the guy has stuck around, no doubt just to please me.
• Analyzing Obama’s speech and cadence by John McWhorter mostly focuses on the spoken word in the speeches, but it is very interesting nonetheless, and completely proves Zadie Smith’s point.

• Analyzing Obama’s Inaugural Address by Geoff Nunberg has some great thoughts on how rhetoric has really gone out of style and why this made the Inaugural Address a good speech. You will also incidentally learn some stylistic devices that are a bit more interesting than good old anaphora. It’s also funny:

Rhetoricians have been botanizing this stuff for millenia. Today, there’s no way to put two words together that doesn’t have a Greek label, preserved in aspic by English department pedants.

• my esteemed colleague Jochen Lüders has a lot of worksheets on stylistic devices on his Abitur service page. Great stuff!
• I also assembled a Quizlet list for you.
• More great speeches can be found at The Guardian, with additional essay for each one by well-known writers, journalists and politicians. The collection includes old faithful’s like MLK’s “I Have A Dream”, but you will also find Earl Spencer’s tribute to his dead sister, the most hunted person of the modern age. Tom Clark, the editor of the series, contributed an essay about the art of rhetoric in which he demonstrates the most basic stylistic devices. I strongly recommend it.
• At the risk of sounding dull – if you want to experience the power of oratory, why not prepare for your exams by quickly reading Imperium?

My kind of English teacher guy

For a while now, I have been bowing almost daily to the didactic greatness of Mr Markus Brendel of der Englisch-Blog (in German). Now, I flatter myself that I know English rather well, but when I read his clever posts and lucid explanations, he really makes me wish I could learn it all over again.

The philosophy of his blog is that it’s easier to learn something if you practise a little every day – and that goes for languages as well. So, as a little language snack on the go, he offers delicious daily tidbits that speak of a great deal of language teaching experience. He uses a lot of Youtube videos, song texts and pictures by way of explanation  - well, I’m in awe of him (also, cool pinstripe suit on his other homepage)!

This is the blog for you if you have the firm resolution to brush up on your grammar and usage daily. Some of it is really basic, but anyone can need a refresher on much and many or on the present perfect continuous. Go on, have a look! And don’t just look, subscribe! 

Markus’ job description is also highly fascinating. There’s a picture of him sitting on an, um, interesting rock hidden away on the page. 

Junot Diaz: Boyfriend

I finally broke down and purchased Junot Diaz’ short story collection Drown – after months and months in which my post on the audio version of How to date a browngirl (blackgirl, whitegirl or halfie) was consistently the top post on this blog, I felt I owed a debt to Mr Diaz. Even if I don’t really like short stories.

But now that I have embarked on my Short Story Appreciation Quest, in which I set out to discover the secret of short stories and finally begin to love them now that I am growing old and grey, a small investment like this seemed reasonable enough. Besides, I’d be willing to bet that one of Junot Diaz’ stories shows up in next year’s Abitur (like the Jhumpa Lahiri story today) – in fact, “How to date…” would make for a perfect, perfect test question.

Back to “Boyfriend”, though. This story, while very unlikely to turn into an Abitur question (the language is fairly strong*), was the first one I read in the collection and I am pleased to announce that my quest has begun very well indeed: this is a gem of a story! It is really, really good!

James Thurber: The Wood Duck (read by Jonathan Lethem)

I have said unkind things about short stories before, so as I listened to the New Yorker audio of Jonathan Lethem reading (very well indeed) and discussing James Thurber’s The Wood Duck while cycling to work (I was doing the cycling), I tried once again to find out just what bothers me about short stories. Actually, I was hoping for Jonathan Lethem to enlighten me. And in a way, he did.

Celebrity Guest Poster: Mr Tulgey Wood on Short Stories

I’m very honoured to present today’s Celebrity Guest Poster: Mr Peter Ringeisen, a charming fellow, fellow teacher and author of the Tulgey Wood blog. He has kindly agreed to answer my desperate questions on short stories: