Author Archives: rickla

A new start with reading

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If you want to improve your English but don’t know where to start, why not try extensive reading (多読)? It’s a good and enjoyable way to build your vocabulary naturally and to increase your reading speed, while improving your general knowledge. And there are thousands of books in the PUK Library, some difficult and some very easy.

I’d like to focus today on Oxford Reading Tree. This is a very popular series in British primary (elementary) schools. The series is divided into many levels. At most of the levels, there are few sentences on each page and each sentence is fairly easy. In fact, at the lowest levels, there may be only 2 or 3 words on a page. The stories are fun, and also teach us things from history and geography.

Here is the ORT site for Japan: http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/gradedreaders/ort/

And here are a few pages from some of the easiest books: http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/gradedreaders/ort/media/TheBarbecue-sausage_page.pdf

So you can see that the books are easy enough for almost everyone!

You can borrow the books from the PUK Library (not the LLC!). I did a search just now and found 227 items.

Podcasts for Listening 1

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Listening to podcasts is a great way to improve your listening. But which ones should you listen to? Here are a few that you might want to try:

  • 6 MINUTE ENGLISH: 6-minute chats between two people on a wide range of topics, from the BBC World Service. Level: Advanced
  • The English We Speak: 3-minute lessons on idioms, from the BBC World Service. Level: Intermediate
  • ECC 英会話 Idioms & Expressions: 15-minute programs with lots of explanation in Japanese. Focused on idioms. Level: Intermediate
  • GABA G Style English: a video podcast, usually about 10 minutes. Focused on idioms. Sketches are repeated with English and Japanese subtitles. Level: Intermediate

Finding data on readers

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The 3rd edition of the 英語多読完全ブックガイド is the best place to look if you can’t find book information at the back of the Orange Book.
英語多読完全ブックガイド[改訂第3版]
古川 昭夫,神田 みなみ,黛 道子,佐藤 まりあ,西澤 一,畑中 貴美,宮下 いづみ
コスモピア
発売日：2010-03-12
ブクログでレビューを見る»

Learn vocabulary and feed the hungry

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Almost everyone needs to improve their vocabulary. One popular site is freerice.com. The site gives you multiple choice questions, and Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice each time you get a correct answer.

If you like Free Rice, please register. You can use Facebook or Twitter to register, if you wish. After registering, please consider joining the LLC group. Let’s learn together! You can find the group here:

http://freerice.com/content-group/llcpuk

TOEFL Scholarships

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If you’re planning to study abroad and you have a good GPA and have taken the TOEFL test in the past, it may be possible to get a scholarship to study abroad. Take a look at the page on the ETS site.

It’s probably too late for this year, but those of you planning to go abroad next year should be looking for opportunities like this.