Cracking English

This is a software to pronounce English.
Here is its screen short:

A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can
see it. A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is
perFORMed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities,
for the composer is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs
as long and as arduous a training to become a perFORMer as a medical
student needs to become a doctor. Most training is concerned with
technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an
athlete or a ballet dancer. Singers practice breathing every day, as
their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular
support. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up
and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm-two
entirely different movements.
Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in
tune. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are
already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner’s
responsibility to tune the instrument for them. But they have their own
difficulties;the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to
sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.
This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student
conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how
it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with
fanatical but selfless authority.
Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and
understanding. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in
the language of music that they can enjoy perFORMing works written in
any century.

WHY DIDN'T YOU REFUSE IT?
HE IS HAVING TANTRUMS AGAIN
A player was slightly bumped by a member of the opposing team. The player turned round and round with a pained look on his face. His mother, watching the game, laughed and said to the player's wife:
- You see, your husband is having one of his tantrums again, just the same as when he was young. I understand his temper

A DIFFICULT SITUATION TO SOLVE

Movielean is Learn English with movies.
Movielearn teaches you English through movies by giving you exposure to everyday conversational English not normally taught in traditional teaching methods. The first product of its kind to launch into the “edutainment” field, Movielearn provides user-friendly learning tools for watching DVD movies on your computer, making learning fun, dynamic and interactive.

Infusing entertainment into the learning process, Movielearn allows you to watch a movie at your own pace, in the comforts of wherever you may be, and at the same time, offers you a personalized learning experience. By pressing the Space Bar or Enter key on your computer while watching the movie, you are taken into a sophisticated learning interface that explains the English spoken in the movie.

Movielearn provides definition of keywords or idioms as used in the context of the movie, correct pronunciation through audio files that read out words or phrases, and word usage along with graphic explanation.

Movielearn reinforces your learning even after watching the movie. You can view and review, or store the words or keywords you learned from the movie by synchronizing your Personal Learning feature with your Personal Vocabulary, a unique feature that comes with your Cleverlearn account.

Each keyword or word in Movielearn has an equivalent Word Reminder that is sent to you via email as often as you want for easy retention.

Thus, Movielearn will help you:

• Sharpen your listening and speaking ability.
• Enhance your English vocabulary.
• Increase your knowledge of English idioms, slang and their usage.
• Improve your reading comprehension skills.

www.1-language.com

www.a4esl.org

http://AD.Walker.org/listening.htm

www.antimoon.com

www.askoxford.com

www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html

www.churchillhouse.com/english

www.easyenglish.com

http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/default4.htm

www.english2u.com

www.netsurflearning.com

www.english-at-home.com

www.englishclub.net

www.englishforum.com/00

www.englishlearner.com

www.english-zone.com/index.php

www.esl.about.com

www.eslbee.com (writing)

www.esl-lab.com

www.eslus.com/eslcenter.htm

www.idiomsite.com

www.iei.uiuc.edu/free.html

www.international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation

www.manythings.org

www.phrases.org.uk

www.readingmatrix.com


www.soundsofenglish.org (prononciation)

www.the-bus-stop.net (English songs for child)

www.teflgames.com

www.tolearnenglish.com

www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar

www.vocabulary.com

http://webs.wichita.edu/ielc-lab/wnr

www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

www.wordwizard.com

http://world.englishclub.com/vietnam.index.html

Can music and melody aid our memory? Is it easier to learn L2 vocabulary from a song? I hope so, because I’ve got a lot of songs on this website.

But let’s try an experiment in class.

Below there are mp3 audios of a word list. The list has twenty words. The words have no relation to each other; they represent several different parts of speech.

In two of the audios the word list is spoken (one by a male, and one by a female).

In the third audio, the words are sung to piano accompaniment.

Directions
Split your class into two groups. One half of the class will listen to a spoken audio (doesn’t matter if you choose the male or female). The other group is going to listen to the musical rendition of the same words.

You will need two rooms, or one room and the hallway, and two music players. Members from one group should not hear what the other group hears.

No one is allowed to write anything down. No pens or pencils at all. They may play the audio over and over again for 3 minutes. (All the audios are about 30 seconds long). The goal is for each individual students to memorize, during these three minutes, as many of the words on the list as possible.

After the listening is done students should individually, without looking at each other’s work (remind them this is an experiment!), write down as many of the words as possible.

When that is done, and you have discussed all the words on the list, ask each student to report honestly how many he remembered. Calculate averages for each group: the spoken word group, and the song group.

Which group rememebered the most words?

This experiment is not good science and not good research, and it doesn’t really prove anything. But I still think it’s a good activity. Students will be curious about the results, and this might provoke their curiosity about language and vocabulary in general, and they may even follow up with some of their own investigations.

If nothing else, there’s bound to be some discussion afterwards. Here are some questions that might help stimulate that discussion:

What do you think of the results? (after tallying them up)
Do you think that music helps you learn English?
Do you think it could be harder to learn a list of words that was sung to music?
Did the singing of the words interfere with your initial understanding?
Were the words clear enough for you to understand?
Would it be easier if you saw the words as you heard them?
Did any of the words seem to go together—by sound?
Were you confused by the compound words (mousetrap, suitcase)?

The next day or two days later try again: ask students to write as many of the 20 words as possible.

Options
There are many ways to expand on this experiment. You might involve four groups instead of two. Groups 3 and 4 would have a list of the words, so they could read them while they were trying to memorize them. Take the lists away when the time is up, of course.

However formally or informally you set up the task, I would be grateful to hear about any results. Stats are great, but general reactions are appreciated too. I mean, for all I know, this is the dumbest activity in the world

Couples start knowing each other on a closer, more personal level when they live together, which prepares them for a married lifestyle. It’s also called cohabitation. Cohabitation is an arrangement where two unrelated people live together. Many couples like to live together before marriage because they want to test compatibility before marrying, they think living together is a good way to avoid divorce and because cohabitation is easier to establish and dissolve. But in fact, cohabitation may be very harmful. Before deciding live together, you should think of carefully these following things.

First, consider not living together at all before marriage because up to now there is no evidence that if you decide to cohabit before marriage you will have a stronger marriage than those who don’t live together. Cohabitation is only least harmful when both partners are definitely planning to marry, have formally announced their engagement and have picked a wedding date.

The second, do not make a habit of cohabiting. Be aware of the dangers of multiple living together experiences, both for your own sense of well being and for your chances of establishing a strong lifelong partnership.

The third, limit cohabitation to the shortest possible period of time. Finally, do not cohabit if children are involved. Children need to have parents who stay together over the long term. Cohabiting parents break up at a much higher rate than married parents and the effects of breakup can be long lasting. Moreover, children of the cohabiting couples broken up live with stepfathers or mother’s boyfriends are at higher risk of physical violence than are children living with married biological parents.

One of the most striking features of the present century is the progress or science and its effects on almost every aspect of social life. Building on the foundation laid by the predecessors the scientists of today are carrying their investigation into ever-widening fields of knowledge.

Modern civilization depends largely on the scientist and investor. We depend on the doctor who seeks the cause and cure of disease, the chemist who analyses our food and purifies our water, the entomologist who wages war on the insect pests, the engineer who conquers time and space, and a host of other specialists who aid in the development of agriculture and industry.

The advance of science and technology has brought the different parts of the world into closer touch with one another than ever before. We are able to reach distant lands within a very short time. We are also able to communicate with people far away by means of the telephone and the wireless. The invention of the printing machine has made it possible for us to learn from books and newspapers about people in other lands.

Indeed, man’s curiosity and resourcefulness have been responsible for the steady stream of inventions that have created our civilization.

At the same time, however, there have been harmful effects. Our machine civilization is responsible for numerous accidents and industrial rivalries among nations. Everyday hundreds of people are dying from serious wounds and injuries. Further, the rapid tempo of modern life causes the wide-spread nervous disorder. Moreover, science, which has helped man to secure control over nature, has also made it possible for him to develop more deadly weapons or war. More and more countries are competing with one another in the production of war material. But in these instances the fault lies not with science, but rather with man’s intention to misuse the discoveries of science.

Science is admittedly the dominating intellectual force of the modern age.

The Test Of English as a Foreign Language (or TOEFL , pronounced "toe-full") evaluates the potential success of an individual to use and understand standard American English at a college level. It is required for non-native applicants at many US and other English-speaking colleges and universities. The TOEFL is the product of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which is contracted by the private, non-profit firm, the College Board to administer the test in institutions in the US; they also produce the SAT.