Learn Languages With Songs - A Three Step Activity To Study on Your Own

If you like listening to music, then you must use songs to learn languages! Every time we connect a learning experience with something we enjoy doing, we can be sure we are going to have great results.

So, today I'm going to propose a 3 Step Activity for you to learn any language on your own with songs.

Before we start the activity you have to choose a song you like, your favorite one at the moment. 
Have you chosen it yet? Don't keep reading if you haven't chosen it yet! I chose the song Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran.

Choose your song!

1- Listen to it on Youtube or wherever you can listen to it. Write down everything you can hear by listening to the song only once. No pauses allowed! It doesn't matter if you can only write 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 words, this is just a warm-up and the more you do it, the better you get at it.

The picture below shows the result of my first step.

2- Listen to the song again, but this time read the lyrics as you listen. There are many websites where you can find lyrics. Lyrics.com is one of them. 

Pay attention to the way the words are pronounced. Are there any words you can't hear? Are there any letters you think are not pronounced?

Check if the words you wrote are actually part of the song. If they are, congratulate yourself, you did a good job! If not, try again and don't ever give up. Maybe the song was too difficult for your level and it would be better to choose a slower song.

3- Use the lyrics and the song now, it's time to listen and sing! Try to imitate the pronunciation of the singer and don't worry if your voice doesn't sound great, all that matters is the pronunciation and rhythm.

You can repeat all the steps as many times as you like with the same song or with another song. I recommend you do it once a week.

This activity is focused on listening and pronunciation, but if you want to learn new vocabulary you can look up all the new words in a dictionary and make a list of the new words from this song.

I hope you liked my activity and that you can learn a lot by using this technique! 

Learn Legal English Terms To Understand Law TV Series

You know when adults ask kids what they would like to be when they grow up? Well, I knew exactly the answer to this question.

As a child, I used to say I would to go to Law School and then become a diplomat. It turned out, I did neither of those things, but I have an unexplained passion for Law TV series.

For the last couple of months, I've been watching a TV series called The Good Wife and I can't get enough of it. Each episode is better than the previous one.

Knowing English is not enough to understand everything being said in this series, there are many legal terms you absolutely must know in order to be able to comprehend every detail of all the complicated cases they have to solve, so  I thought it would be useful to create a guide of legal English terms to understand law TV series or if you intend to go to law school in an English speaking country.


Legal English Terms Guide

• to sue -  to take legal action against a person or organization, especially by making a legal claim for money because of some harm that they have caused you.
• counselor -  used to address a lawyer:
• prosecutor - a legal official who accuses someone of committing a crime, especially in a law court
• Your Honor - the way to address or refer to a judge
• objection -  an objection to certain questions or testimony during a trial 
• overrule -  to reject an attorney's objection to a question to a witness
• sustain - to accept an attorney's objection to a question to a witness
• affidavit - a written statement that someone makes after promising officially, to tell the truth. An affidavit can be used as proof in a law court.
• alimony - a regular amount of money that a law court orders a person to pay to his or her partner after a divorce.
• defendant - a person in a law case who is accused of having done something illegal
• witness - a person who sees an event happening, especially a crime or an accident:
• leading the witness - asking a question during a trial or deposition which puts words in the mouth of the witness or suggests the answer, which is improper questioning

To keep things real, I created a video with 7 scenes in which legal English terms are used in films, series or the news. Hope you like it!

Teachers Make Mistakes Too - Learn From Your Mistakes And Your Teachers' Mistakes Too

As a human being and as a teacher I have always strived for perfection, I believe I do that because I don't like disappointing people. As I write this article, I realize it's ridiculous to do anything just to please others rather than to make myself happy, so it's something I've got to work on.

I obviously know I am not perfect, neither as a teacher nor as a human being, but I HATE making mistakes, I punish myself when I make one. Then, I feel awful for punishing myself because I know better than this. I know mistakes are a part of life and are essential for any learning process.

I encourage my students to learn from their mistakes, and I try to make them understand that making mistakes doesn't mean they are dumb and that they are never going to learn. On the contrary, it means they are on the right path to learning.

A couple of years ago I created an online course on English for Traveling, and I uploaded some of the video lessons to Youtube. I got many positive comments, and in one of them, someone politely said I was mispronouncing a word. I checked the video, and it was true, I had made a mistake, and it was out there. I thanked the person who had made the comment, admitted my mistake and moved forward.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got a new comment, this time not polite at all about the mispronunciation of this word. I was mad about the comment because I had already been notified about my mistake and I had learned from it, but then I realized I had made another error: I should have corrected the video or even deleted it.

I thought about deleting the video, but it has over 20.000 views, and in my humble opinion it has helped more than made damage, so I didn't remove it. Instead, I have created a new video admitting and correcting my mistake. Now, I know this might not be the best solution, but it seemed like an opportunity, to be honest about my mistakes and hopefully help students understand they are totally allowed to make mistakes! What would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you delete the video and make a new and revised one?
If you got curious, here is the video in which I make this mistake.

And here is the video I have recently made correcting the mispronunciation.

I have to say I feel much better now about the whole thing and I hope people will understand though I am a teacher, I am going to make mistakes, and I promise that I will do my best not to punish myself for them and to learn from them.

Learn English - Impeachment Vocabulary in English

In Brazil things are really complicated right now since many Brazilians are not happy with their president, Dilma Rousseff, and there is a process of impeachment happening as I write this post. 
Because of that some of my students have requested a lesson involving vocabulary related to this moment Brazil is going through. 

Let's get started with the steps of the Impeachment process by analyzing the image below.

Image by the BBC News

Now, read the important vocabulary and try to understand what each word means. If you have any doubts, feel free to write them on the comments.

Important Vocabulary

• corruption -  dishonest proceedings
• money laundering-to transform illegally obtained gain into seemingly legitimate funds. 
• rally - a drawing or coming together of persons, as for common action, as in a mass meeting:

• coup - A sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.

• clash - A violent confrontation:

• motion - A formal proposal put to a legislature or committee:

• "bribe pipeline"- money or any other valuable consideration given or promised with a view  to corrupting the behavior of a person. The "bribe pipeline" is the name given to the Petrobrás scandal.

Lastly, read the sentences in which the vocabulary is used. The sentences have been removed from 2 articles one by the BBC News and you can read the full article here and the other by The Economist and you can read the full article here.

- She had been due to attend a rally but instead has been lobbying congress members and party leaders for support.

- Ms Rousseff is accused of manipulating government accounts. She says her opponents are mounting a "coup".

- Metal barriers have been built outside the parliament building to keep the groups apart to prevent possible clashes.

- Latest estimates suggest those in favour of impeachment have just enough votes for the motion to carry.

- Ms Rousseff has also indicated lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha is among those trying to oust her. He is himself facing money-laundering and other charges.

- The corruption scheme, in which big construction firms allegedly funnelled billions of reais to Petrobras executives and their political masters in exchange for padded contracts, appears to have been started while Lula was in office.

- The chief prosecutor accuses Mr Cunha, who denies any wrongdoing, of managing the Petrobras “bribe pipeline”.

I guess you are now ready to talk about the political situation of Brazil in English, let's just hope things go well for the country.