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Your New Speaking Coach: Your Phone

These days a lot of people have smartphones. I think maybe only my parents have slim phones that only make calls and receive text messages. Most people use their smartphones for games or internet surfing or email. Some people use them to time their runs and record how many miles they have run. However, there … [Read more…]

Think ‘3’ When Writing Opinion-Based Test Essays

When you write opinion-based essays for TOEFL or IELTS, you need to keep thinking about organising your thoughts in threes. This helps you to structure your writing more effectively. When you have three thoughts to organise each part of your writing it is much easier to stay with your plan. Plan in Three Parts You … [Read more…]

Why is Writing an English Diary so Useful?

I always recommend my students to write an English diary. The reason is simple: you should write every day because you need to practise as often as you can. It doesn’t need to be long; a few sentences is fine. It’s an easy way to write about things you have learned. It is also a … [Read more…]

Pause in Conversations Like a Native

When you are speaking English, it can be quite difficult to keep your speech flowing when you need to think about what to say. In this week’s podcast, I’ll show you how to pause like a native to sound more fluent and more confident. Podcast Link: 5th Feb 2014 Remember, if you like the podcast, … [Read more…]

Be Very Interesting: Avoid ‘Very’

The word very is overused, as I mentioned previously. There are so many other intensifiers (adverbs to make adjectives and verbs stronger) and mitigators (adverbs to make adjectives and verbs weaker) that can make your English sound far more interesting. You are not a boring person in your native language, so don’t sound boring in … [Read more…]

How to Buy Train Tickets

Buying train tickets seems difficult but can be very easy. Sometimes using ticket machines is very easy but sometimes you need to speak to railway staff. Here are some easy words and phrases to help you buy train tickets. Some useful vocabulary to know: ‘single’ (British) or ‘one-way’ (American): travel from your start point to … [Read more…]

Edit Overused Words in Your Writing

When students ask me how to improve their writing the first thing I tell them is to read more and copy the style. After that, I usually tell them to change ‘good’/’better’/’best’ a few times and delete or change ‘very’. Why? They are overused and – most of the time – not precise enough. Is … [Read more…]

How to Give a Presentation

English presentations are very common in business and are becoming more common for students of the language too. Whatever the reason, here are some tips to help your presentations. Prepare You need to know what you want to say and the best way to remember it is practice. Prepare short prompts on index cards or … [Read more…]

‘It’ Sounds Like ‘Id’

Today’s podcast is about the way native speakers pronounce words to allow them to flow together more quickly. I look at ‘flap D’, the way written ‘t’ turns to a ‘d’ sound in spoken English, then I look at inserting a ‘w’ sound between two vowels to allow words to run together quickly. I hope … [Read more…]