A short absence

I am moving over Easter to a large apartment with a backyard!!! As I will be busy unpacking and wont even have a phone line for a week or so posts may be few and far between for a bit

Happy Easter all

Paula :-)

Guide to writing a basic essay

This site outlines the steps involved in writing a basic essay. Very useful for students beginning academic english (EAP1) it includes a sample essay and links to loads of other essay sites.

Movie Mood Matcher

A little off topic here but this site was too cool to ignore. Produced by the BBC as part of their very impressive movie site the "Movie Mood Matcher" lists 10 movies to match almost any situation you may find yourself in; if you are trying to give up smoking, if you have found god, if you are moving house, even movies for when you are just having a bad hair day! Well worth a look :-)

Writing about graphs, charts and tables.

One to the goals of this blog is to find materials to help students at UEC practice for their EAP competencies. Today's site is another by Enda Tuomey, the author of the argument and opinion site I found earlier in the week. This site is a gem for IELTS and EAP students. Along with an introduction on writing about graphs and charts the site provides a number of graphs and sample of matching written descriptions.

The FCE Trainer - otherwise known as flo-joe

Our latest Cambridge courses began today at UEC so I thought it was about time to highlight this site again. Along with quality exam practice materials for FCE/CAE/CPE flo-joe includes active discussion forums/boards for Cambridge students to ask questions and share experiences with each other. Est. 2000 by Cambridge examiners and course book writers this is probably the best Cambridge preparation site online!

WriteFix - Argument and Opinion Essays.
I discovered this site while looking for practice activities for our EAP students. Aimed at IELTS and TOEFL test-takers it gives tips on how to prepare for the writing papers in these two exams. Includes sample answers and a step by step guide to writing opinion and argument essays. The whole site can be downloaded as a zip file for offline practice. I am really impressed at how easy it is to use this site and how useful the information looks. It was prepared by Enda Tuomey whilst a graduate student studying at the University of Southern Queensland.

ESL Blue is a site for Pre-Intermediate to High Intermediate students. It features exercises here to help you improve your reading, grammar and vocabulary. Also included are tests that suggest which excerises you need to try based on the errors you made.

Breaking News English

These extensive copyright free lessons are available as Word and PDF downloads. Each day a current news stories is featured. While they appear to be designed for teachers students could use parts of the material alone for individual study.

Back to Blogging...

After over a year off (while I was finishing my BA in Internet studies) I have decided to have another stab at maintaining this blog. It might save me emailing all the great stuff I find to teachers I work with.... I will not go as far as promising a post a day but might start with the goal of 5 a week.

Fingers crossed :-)

Paula