Distance learning Archives - English Lessons Brighton

Updating ELB for the Changing World

Phil Williams — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000

As we’re living in interesting times right now I’d like to let you know where I am at personally and with this website and our publications. But first of all, great thanks to those who have already sent me supportive emails – it means a lot to know you’re thinking of me, and I hope everyone reading this is keeping safe and taking care of one another.

The current pandemic is affecting everyone, but for regular readers of this site there is at least a silver lining – the overall point of this post is that I intend to produce more and better material from ELB, faster than planned, to keep afloat!

How Things Have Changed

At the start of 2020, I planned to gradually introduce audio learning material and work on a new book. In recent months, I also started developing ideas to produce video courses and had been looking at getting ELB into more schools and universities – all, essentially to widen my scope beyond Amazon.

These ideas were slowly forming while I kept a heavy focus on writing and promoting my fiction.

However, with dwindling sales on Amazon and the sudden hit of the coronavirus, with the extra strain that’s put on all of us, I am shifting my focus more heavily to the ELB material. This website and these books provide for a much greater audience than my fiction, hence it is here that I feel I can best provide for my family and for others.

And at a time like this, with people confined at home, it’s more important than ever that we have good quality content to share, and ways to keep stimulated.

So I am laying out an array of new opportunities on the horizon, including a system I have already put into place if readers wish to help support ELB (that’s at the bottom!).

What’s Coming for English Lessons Brighton

Last year I updated the website with new software and gave it a redesign, but it’s overdue further updates. With over 200 free articles on here, I intend to review how the articles are displayed, with clearer cataloguing.

I have already redesigned the homepage to make it simpler, so that as I add new material I can make it more engaging.

Right now, I am also committed to at least one new article a month, but I would like to produce at least two free articles or more – with audio and video content when possible.

All of this I intend to do free, and to keep free, for everyone to use.

Changes for ELB Books

I’ve had a good run of success selling books through Amazon, but it’s time to spread my wings. This virus has halted my plans to contact more schools, for now, but I can still make the books available on as many eBook platforms as possible, as well as directly through this website.

This will take a little time to set up, but you can eventually expect to find ELB books in all electronic book stores, with simple links here that will take you to your favourite shop. They are already available on Barnes and Noble and Kobo, and some are available through the educational provider Kortext.

These remain paid, but if my video ideas pick up, and my additional support works (see the bottom!) then I would, in time, like to lower the prices of at least the earlier ELB books.

Oh and when the storm passes I’ll also be increases my efforts to be found in libraries.

Finally for during our current crisis: please be aware that certain sites such as Amazon may struggle to fulfil book orders quickly at the moment. If you order one of my books in paperback, please be aware that there may be delays, but paperback purchasers can also download the Kindle version free through Amazon, so you can read that in the meantime (even without a Kindle, you can get an app for it).

Audio and Visual Content

With the help of my brother, I have started work on producing an audiobook version of our bestselling book, Word Order In English Sentences. Being a short book, this should be ready soon. But I recognise that the audio could be adapted to provide a more discursive exploration of the subject, compared to concise reference points of the book.

With that in mind, I will produce an accompanying video course to expand upon the book. I will make samples of this available free, but it will be a paid course, provisionally with upwards of 8 hours of video content available (available at an affordable price).

I’m also looking at producing an audiobook and accompanying material for Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English, and video courses to explore the English tenses and other topics.

I’d like to be able to make shorter additional videos available free, supported by sales of the books and courses, and possibly through Patreon. Which brings me to my final point:

How You Can Support ELB

The first, best way to support ELB is, as always to share my content – let your friends and fellow students know about articles on this site and my books. But I’m introducing a new way to support the site, if you are able – a Patreon page.

If you are not familiar with Patreon, it is a website that allows people to become patrons by donating small monthly amounts to creators like me. Naturally, this is a difficult time for everyone so I understand this is probably a big ask, but if you give a few pounds here and there, it will go a long way towards me realising all the above without fighting for cans of beans. In return I can promise advance peaks at new material. If everyone who subscribed to the newsletter gave just a little, I could easily make this a full-time focus!

The full details of ELB’s new Patreon, including how you can get involved and where it can take us, are all up on its page here. It offers different tiers of support with different rewards. Please note it may also add tax to the final amount.

But whatever the case, and however bad things get, rest assured I will still be here putting up material on this site, with an aim to help students all over the world.

Be safe and keep learning!

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5 excellent YouTube channels for learning English

Phil Williams — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 11:56:33 +0000

The amazing amount of video material now available online makes resources like YouTube an excellent way to learn more English. If you want to pick up extra tips, practice your listening (and in many cases reading!) skills, or even find full lessons, there are hundreds of channels to choose from – covering all areas of English. You could, for example, choose to focus on only British or American examples of English videos. You could try to learn from movies and TV show clips, or from advice channels. You can even find older, archived videos to suit different fashions of learning. To get you started on some of the channels that are available, here are four that I think give a good mix – and even from just these four channels you can see the massive amount of detail on offer, and the different styles available!

1. British Council LearnEnglish

The British Council have a fantastic amount of learning material on their main site, and their YouTube channel is an equally good resource, with many professional videos that cover a range of situations, as well as lots of short grammar videos. A good place to start – and one that has links to a variety of other YouTube channels for specific interests (such as LearnEnglish for kids.)

2. Speak English with Mister Duncan

A delightful chap giving you lots of free lessons in English – Mister Duncan has been around on YouTube for a long time, so not only has he grown to be one of the most popular English teachers on the site, he’s built up a large library of material. His enthusiasm is infectious!

3. JenniferESL

Another hugely popular YouTube English teacher, Jennifer’s ESL channel mostly offers lessons in a simple, talking-to-the-camera style. She is very articulate, making it easy to understand and learn from her.

4. Anglo-Link

Another large range of videos from a UK teacher, Minoo’s channel Anglo-Link has some detailed looks at areas like phrasal verbs, and covers topics like exam preparation, so there’s plenty of material to build your English skills.

5. ESL and Popular Culture

This channel is something a bit different, as it presents pop culture concepts with reading and visual material, rather than focusing on taught lessons. Often this uses older footage, giving a nice sense of culture history! A good resource to develop a more rounded understanding of English in use.

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Friday Vocabulary Lessons on Twitter

Phil Williams — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:35:40 +0000

Bored of filling the English Lessons Brighton Twitter page with links to ELB articles (a huge variety of content as there is here), I have decided to start a series of scheduled Twitter lessons, to make things more interesting. The first of these that I am introducing is a series of Vocabulary Boosts – short vocabulary building lessons once a week. On a Friday, to be precise. Each week I will choose a topic and give a list of 10 (hopefully!) original items of vocabulary relating to it. Each new word will have a brief description and an example sentence, of varying difficulty. So if you’re not already following my English Lessons account on Twitter and want to expand your vocab, please do so here!

Why Twitter?

I’ve chosen to broadcast these vocabulary lists on Twitter because it provides short snippets, on the move; a little extra learning for those with time to Tweet but not necessarily time to read a blog. And a little lighter material for short, entertaining lessons, without all the detail of a full article.

What does the Friday Vocabulary Boost have to offer

To kick things off (that is, to start), the first Friday Vocabulary Boost will have the relatively general topic of “verbs of motion”. To give you a preview, here’s what you can expect from a typical Friday list.

Vocabulary List 1 – Verbs of Motion

Sprint – to run very quickly – He sprinted away from the violent goose.
Scuttle – run hurriedly, disorderly – The crab scuttled under a rock to hide from the bird.
Lope – to move in long strides – The sasquatch loped out from behind a tree.
Trot – faster than a walk, with short springy steps – The horse trotted around the park.
Pace – to walk with deliberate strides – She paced up and down, thinking about cancelling the wedding.
Drop – to fall downwards – The superhero dropped down through the skylight and landed on the aggressive old lady.
Parade – to walk in a self-important, or showy, fashion – I paraded through the crowd, proud of my new coat.
Stroll – to walk casually – She was strolling happily across the road, unaware of the approaching truck.
Hike – to walk with effort – We hiked up to the top floor, only to be told we weren’t needed.
Dart – to move quickly and directly – She darted for the train door, and made it through just in time.

Even if there’s nothing new here, at least the examples might help you think about using the words in a different way!

Tune in again every Friday for something new. As the number of lessons increase, I will occasionally add examples of the lists back to this page, and revisit the lists on other days via Twitter for anyone that missed them. If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover, please let me know. The growing list for Friday Vocabulary Boosts so far includes:

Verbs of Motion
Adjective Pertaining to Animals
Adjectives for Heat
Adverbs for Atmosphere

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How I gave an English exam in Neftekamsk, Russia, via Skype

Phil Williams — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:54:49 +0000

Recently, I gave an English exam to some Russian students in Neftekamsk. This is a city only founded in 1957, in the Republic of Bashkortosan – a culturally rich republic in Russia, slightly larger than England (and mostly unheard of here!). The long-distance exam, using Skype, made it possible to connect this school in a far-removed location with me, a native English speaker here in the UK, so I’d like to give a brief description to explain the process. I also have pictures courtesy of the language school director, Vera Lebedava. The exam was split into two parts for the students – first listening, then speaking. Between the two their writing was also tested.

There were 11 students in the class, who have learnt English in Neftekamsk without the aid of native English speakers. Taking an exam with a native English speaker must have been both a novel and intimidating experience for the students, otherwise restricted to speaking the language (primarily spoken 2,500 miles away) in their local community. The exam was made possible thanks to the help of my local Russian tutor in Brighton, Polina Kuleshova of Link and Share, who had a prior connection to the school.

To start the exam, the teacher, Albira Vasileva, introduced herself and the class. I then introduced myself and gave a brief talk about my experience and interests. We then completed the first stage of the exam, testing listening skills. I read a text twice and the students made notes.

The students were then given a short period of time to rewrite what I had told them, testing both their listening skills and their writing skills. When their time was up, we moved on to test speaking skills.

Each student gave me a short presentation on a topic of their choice. Topics included extreme sports, favourite books and the world’s most unusual skills. The topics were very well chosen and the talks were universally interesting.

The students gave these talks to me (via Skype video chat), as well as in front of all their peers, their teacher and a panel of other teachers and directors from the school. It must have been very tough for them, especially as we had some difficulties with the internet connection that stalled the exam.

They all performed excellently, though, and were very articulate, even when suffering from nerves. I followed each talk with a few questions on the topics the students had chosen – some of which proved difficult because of the topics. Still, without exception the students were excellent. Their understanding of the subject matters was generally as impressive as their understanding of English. The high standard of these students was remarkable, as far removed from the English speaking world as they are. With fluid and accurate English, they even made colloquial and idiomatic considerations (for instance, one girl expressed that a certain type of skiing was her ‘cup of tea’). The only problem was that I had very little to suggest to them for improvement!

It was encouraging for me, to see the high standard of English that foreign learners can obtain without a native speaker’s help. It was also encouraging to see how Skype can be used to connect with students in other parts of the world, and make their communicative experience a reality. I wish all these students the best of luck in the future and look forward to hearing from the school again.

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