English Club

In the first guest post on Independent English, Tara Benwell introduces EnglishClub.com, a site with many different areas for English learners to explore and use. Tara works very hard as the administrator on EnglishClub.com, setting challenges for learners and helping them to practise their English as much as possible. Over to Tara:

(and you can listen to her read the post too:)

An Introduction to EnglishClub.com (for English Learners)

Englishclub.com has been online since 1997. It was one of the first websites for English learners, and has been growing in popularity ever since. The site is useful for self-learners as well as learners who study English at school. This club is FREE for English learners and teachers.

Here is how English learners can get the most out of EnglishClub.com:

Take the English Club Tour

On the homepage you will see a red bus. Click on the bus for a very short tour of the site. You will discover the 5 main sections.

The Learn English and Member Pages are the most popular sections for English learners. The Grammar pages in the Learn English section are written in easy English. We also have a Grammar Help Desk.

Search EnglishClub.com

Do you want to learn phrasal verbs? Do you need listening practice? Are you looking for dictations or videos? Find exactly what you are looking for via EnglishClub.com’s search box. The search box on EC is on every page, and works just like Google. Some of the search results will be for English Club’s main site. Some will be from the Member pages. Search is very helpful if you need homework help! If you can’t find what you are looking for, put in a request.

Sign up for RSS feeds

English Club will email you regular updates if you request them. You can receive all of the new pages, or just the ones you want. For example, many members subscribe to Idiom of the Day! Choose the feed you want here. You can also see all of the new EC content in a sidebar on MyEC (Member Pages).

Sign up for Member Pages

My English Club (MyEC) is the social side of English Club. Sign up to receive your own FREE Member webpage, blog and media gallery. Blogging within a community is a great way to  practise English. You will have an instant readership of thousands of English learners and teachers. Read the FAQ for more details.

Here are some of the things we do on MyEC.

Join or Start a Group

What are your interests? Do you like music, cooking, or anime?  MyEC has several groups that you can join. Find other learners with the same interests and practise your English as you discuss topics that interest you. Any member is welcome to add a new group.

Chat

Many English learners (and teachers) come to EC to chat. MyEC has one of the most active international chat rooms online. We have an English-only policy, and our moderators work hard to make sure that our chat room is a fun, safe place to practise English. There is also a chat room on the main site called 1997 Chatroom. Here you can create password protected private chat rooms for you and your friends.

Accept or Create Challenges

Many of our long-term members and teachers create regular challenges for English learners to try. These include writing, photo, video, and audio challenges. You can also create your own challenges and contests! Try fun online tools that embed right in your blog posts.

Find a Learning Partner

Self-study is becoming a popular way to learn English, but don’t try to learn a language alone. MyEC will help you make good friends quickly. Join the “Find a Learning Partner Group”  to post a request for a learning partner. You can also use the Advanced Member Search to find other learners in your level or country.

Practise Speaking and Pronunciation

Our members use tools like Audioboo to record and share their voices. The Audio Speaking Group is a great place to practise speaking. In this group you can practise being a newscaster with EnglishClub.com’s Weekly News. Volunteers will help you improve your pronunciation. Many English Club members also Skype together. Find out who uses Skype by using the Advanced Member search.

Connect with EC  via other Social Networks

EnglishClub is on Facebook, Twitter (@EnglishClub), YouTube, and Google +. You can set your MyEC status updates to go to your other accounts. Use the tag #twinglish on twitter to tweet with English learners and teachers from around the world. Invite your friends to join MyEC.

If you sign up for MyEC, be sure to add me as a friend, and let me know if you have any questions. I am Tara,  the administrator of MyEC, and a teacher of English. I hope you’ll join my monthly writing challenges.

Quick Links

• Learn English Section
• Grammar Help Desk
• Sign up for a MyEC Member Page
• Weekly News (Listening)
• How to Use Audioboo on EC
• Audio Speaking Group
• Tara’s Page on MyEC
• 10 Steps to Learning English on MyEC

English Central

(Sorry, no recording to listen to while you read this blog post at the moment as I’m losing my voice! I will add it when I feel better)

English Central is a website which allows you to watch videos, read the dialogue and record yourself saying it. It analyses your pronunciation and compares it to the original video, offering advice on how to improve. It also helps you to expand your vocabulary.

This video shows you how it works.

For me, the best thing about this website is the ability to work on your pronunciation. When you log in to the site (for free!) it will track your progress and show you how you are improving. It also records how many times you have seen pieces of vocabulary in the videos and shows you which areas of pronunciation to focus on. Here are some testimonials from students and another teacher who use the site. They describe why they find it interesting/useful.

How to sign up

You don’t have to sign up to use the website, but I think you should, as you can personalise your experience on the site and it will remember things for you!

Go to the home page.

Click ‘Register Now’ in the top centre. You will see this window.

You can enter your details or join via facebook. Click ‘Register’.

Choose your main reason for learning English. You can change this later (see ‘How to manage your topics’ below)

Next, choose your level. At our school we use levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. These are part of the CEFR.

Finally, personalise your English Central experience by telling it your native language, country and if you are male/female.

When you have finished registering, you will be welcomed to the site with this box.

Click ‘Get Started’.

How to manage your topics

When you first join English Central, you can choose a reason for studying English. This helps the site to choose videos which you might be interested in. You can edit this list at any time.

On the ‘My English’ page, look for ‘My Topics’. Next to it, click ‘Manage’.

Then, tick the boxes next to the topics you are interested in.

Watching the videos

Click on a video which you are interested in. One of my favourites is ‘Do you speak English?‘

Click on the image from the video in the top left corner.

Watch the video and read the words.

If you want a puzzle, you can set a challenge. Click in the bottom right corner of the screen and tick the box next to ‘Hidden Challenge’.

The programme will remove some words for you to write in.

If there are any words you don’t understand, you can click on them to see a definition and example sentence and see and hear the pronuciation.

Click on the snail to hear any line more slowly.

Practising your pronunciation

When you have finished watching the video, it will take you to the ‘speak’ mode. Click ‘Start’.

Listen to the line again, and click on words if you are not sure about their pronunciations.

When you are ready, click on the microphone.

Read the line as accurately as you can. The computer will analyse your pronunciation, give you points, and show you something like this:

The green words are pronounced perfectly. There is a problem with the yellow word. Click on it to compare your pronunciation to the native speaker and to see what the problem is.

I got 33/44 points for this line. I am a native British English speaker, so sometimes some of my pronunciation isn’t exactly the same as the American system. Don’t worry if you don’t get 100% – aim for 80-90% if you can. You can record each line as many times as you want to.

All of the points for the videos go into your progress bar at the top of the page. The more videos you do, the more progress you will make. Eventually, you will move to the next level.

A freemium service

So far, everything I have told you about is completely free. If you want to get more vocabulary practice, or listen to specialist pronunciation videos allowing you to focus on particular sounds, you need to pay. I haven’t tried the full paid version, so I won’t tell you more about it here, but if anybody does, please add your experience to the comments.