Presentation II - Welcome

Hello everyone, welcome back!
Today I am going to introduce you to this course. First, please click the link to download the course outline.

Next, we are going to use a cool website this year called English Central. English Central is a website that helps people learn English by using videos. The best feature of English Central is that you can practice speaking. To use this feature you need premium access. To get premium access you need to buy the card in the photo on the left. You can buy it at the campus book store.


Please buy the English Central Premium Access card by next week. We start using English Central then.
In this course we will not do traditional presentations. We will do special slideshow presentations using web-based software called Voicethread. Voicethread is like PowerPoint, but much much better.  Please click the link to see an example Voicethread presentation.
OK, that's all for today. Please don't forget to buy your English Central Premium Access Card as soon as possible.
See you next week!

The University of Tsukuba Academic English Presentation II Trimester 3 Wk 8

Hello everyone,
Today we are going to continue working on using our voices. We will do this by using a great website called EnglishCentral. Please click the link. Let's register for EnglishCentral.

Next, let's prepare for our final presentation. Please click the link to download your final presentation worksheet.


Your homework is to write your presentation script. Please submit your script to me by e-mail. The deadline for submitting your script is Friday, the 9th of February.
See you next week!

基礎英吾I-4A： A tool for listening and speaking - English Central

Hello everyone,
today we are going to sign up for English Central. English Central is a cool website. You can practice listening to English by watching videos on English Central. You can practice pronunciation too.
It's fun.




Please click the link for your class.

K5: http://www.englishcentral.com/class/14996-toyo-gakuen-university/k52012
N1: http://www.englishcentral.com/class/14996-toyo-gakuen-university/n12012
G3: http://www.englishcentral.com/class/14996-toyo-gakuen-university/g32012
N9: http://www.englishcentral.com/class/14996-toyo-gakuen-university/n92012

Enjoy!

Toyo Gakuen University Freshman English 4 - Unit 7: Special Occasions

Today we are going to talk about special occasions. Look at the picture. What special occasions can you see? What other special occasions can you think of?
Holidays are special occasions too. What holidays are on these dates?:

• January first
• February third
• February fourteenth
• March third
• April first
• April twenty-nineth
• May fifth
• December twenty-third
• December twenty-fifth
  

Let's listen and practice saying dates.
Click this link: Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - Calendars.

Let's review the pronunciation of "th".

Making a Date

Recently we have been learning about dates and time in the FE4-Speaking Class at Toyo Gakuen University. For the next test you will have to make a date to go to a movie. Here's a video from EF Education First to help you. The video talks about polite ways to make a suggestion in English. There are various ways to make a suggestion including:

• How about....?
• Would you like to...?
• I was wondering if...?

Which of the ways above do you think is the most polite? Watch the video and find out.

Here's another video about making dates. This video is an animated video. My friend Paul made this video. Paul has a video podcast called ESLpodTV. It's a great podcast. This video is about an English man called Ed. U. Cator. He calls his new friend to invite her to his house. You can learn more about making suggestions, invitations and polite requests (丁寧語、招待) in this video. here's some vocabulary to help you:

guy - person, usually a man

anytime - whenever

nothing special - nothing different or unusual

accent - the way your voice sounds shaped by where you’re from

housewarming party - special event celebrating moving into new home

neighbours - the people living nearby

got nothing on - not doing anything at that time

few - a small number of something

funny - strange

I was wondering if… polite expression requesting somebody do something

If you’re free… - expression often used to ask for a date or request favour

Educator Diaries 3 from kibishipaul on Vimeo.

When we make a date in English we need to be able to say dates. For example: June 11th, August 30th, December 25th. We need to be make to make the "th" sound. You can watch some videos about making the "th" sound by clicking here.

When we make a date in English we need to be able to talk about time as well as dates. Here's a video from Real English about time.

Here's another video that talks about prepositions of time. This video comes from JenniferESL

For your next test you will have to make a date to see a movie. Good luck!

Even More Pronuciation Practice: Hard and Soft "th", "l" and "r"

In American Headway 2 Unit 10 we have learned a new word, "through". "Through" has two difficult sounds.

Here's a funny cartoon showing how to pronounce "th". This cartoon was originally posted by an English teacher called Rafael de Carvalho Pullen Parente on his blog, Teacher Rafael.


Now, here are two videos to help you pronounce "through". The "th" sound in "through" is the soft "th" (/θ/) sound. The hard "th" (/ð/) sound is the "th" sound in "this".
These videos were made by an English teacher and soccer coach from Glasgow, Scotland called Brian Gallagher. He has a unique school in Japan called Fair Play Soccer School. Students at Fair Play Soccer School learn English and Soccer.
Since Mr. Gallagher is Scottish, his accent is a little difference from mine. However, it's close enough.

Watch the videos. Look at the speaker's mouth. Use a mirror and practice the pronunciation of "th", "l" and "r".

Hard and Soft "th"
l" and "r"


Watch again! Practice! Enjoy!

More Pronunciation Practice: /Th/, /s/ and /z/

Here are two videos from Action Language Academy. Watch the videos and practice.

Special Occasions and Dates

This is a video from Real English.com. In this video people talk about their birthdays and other special occasions. Listen. can you hear the dates? Listen and practice saying the dates.

Practice pronouncing "th" in dates, for example: fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on. Look at the picture below to help you. The picture below shows the shape of a mouth making the "th" sound. Look at the tongue. It's between the teeth.

Click the image in order to make it bigger

Many student make the "s" sound instead of the "th" sound. For example, some students say, "tense" (緊張した)when they want to say "tenth" (10th).

The picture below shows the shape of the mouth making the "s" sound. You can't see the tongue.

Practice the dates that you hear on the video using a mirror. Then you can see if you are making your mouth the correct shape.

Greetings

Here's another video about greetings. This video comes UGoEigo. Some of the greetings are more formal. Some of the greetings are more casual. If you look at the shape of the speaker's mouth it will help you will pronunciation.