This page will index and organize posts and pages. Eventually.
Themed Pages
There is a STARTER PACK page. This page introduces 5 activity sheets which help people get ready to learn. The activities activate passive knowledge learners may have forgotten they have and help learners get a clearer understanding of what kind of language they want to learn and, more importantly, a purpose- even a person- to learn English for.
There a is LISTENING SKILLS page. This is aimed at developing strong listening skills for learners and teachers. It does not mean strong English skills. You don’t have to be good at English to be a great listener. Of course, the better we are at listening the more we will learn. The better we are listened to the more we will be willing to speak and share. This is critical. We all want to be heard. Mostly we don’t pay attention to each other- in any language. Learning English is a nice excuse to focus, to listen. Similar to going out for a drink or sharing a cigarette.
SYNONYMS are a big part of our learning strategy. This page helps us get started.
ONLINE PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE This is a webpage and app that let’s people practice pronouncing minimal pairs and get immediate feedback. The OS version of the app became outdated and was taken down, there still should be a version on Google Play. The website version works but only when using a desktop computer. This is something that would be worth spending $ to update and better gamify: darts, tic-tac-toe.
PRONUNCIATION VOWELS This page introduces the BE Hear Now app and has demonstration videos of English vowel sounds.
TESTS
For better or worse people like tests. This page links to several tests and polls on Opinion Stage. The tests are categorized as things that are fun to know, things you are supposed to know, and things that are popular to know.
INSTAGRAM ENGLISH
Using # and images like a picture dictionary.
I.e. BEAUTY English=Women, Vietnamese= women, babies, scenery
Japanese=women, male idols ,flowers
There is COFFEE TALK exploring vocabulary about coffee. The Coffee Talk starts with a long introduction with follow up questions. The follow up questions themselves lead to shorter quizzes and polls- Where do you like to drink coffee? What kind of coffee? Why coffee?
Links to each quiz are posted in the result page of the previous quiz, so learners have to finish each quiz to get to the next one.
READING IS THE BEST WAY OF LEARNING Reading let’s you set the pace. Reading offers you correct, quality English. This means reading books and poems and newspapers. Not Facebook posts. Believe English has a page with six poems. Each has the text and an audio file. There are tabs for key vocabulary, a paraphrased version of the text, and some commentary.
Excercises to practice learning from our mistakes and working from what we have and making it better.
Just something fun for people who want to scroll around. Each letter of the alphabet has a short introduction and things it might be associated with. i.e. A is for Adjective, Ask, Afghanistan… each links out to a page about that topic adjectives, asking, Afghanistan…
BOOK REVIEWS Book recommendations and reviews, 8.
WILD ENGLISH Explores examples of English from the real world. Mostly signs from stores and hotels. Is it understandable? Is the English wrong? How would you write it better?
I will give my thoughts as well.
APP Ideas Just that. Not a page for learners yet, keep app ideas in one place. Once there are apps, use it as sales portal.
Currently BE HEar Now on website and app in Google Play.
Believe English Books
7 Steps to Success
This is a small book explaining how people can be their own best teachers. Each step has its own chapter and accompanying video. Activity sheets are also included.
This book has 29 activity sheets. The book page shows each sheet with a link to instructions and accompanying How-To video.
Inspirational Memes
Right now these are all ダジャレ. It amuses me. I hope they can help people see fun in language, inspire them to try English and give them something fun to remember and share.
La La’s Story
A practice version of Yes You Can! for the Vietnamese market. Variations on the same activity sheets. The La La pages link to instructions and sometimes accompanying videos.
A collection of themed questions to spark conversation. The book has a short introduction on how to lead conversations, be a good questioner, and a good listener. There are a few supporting activity sheets. Cafe Q has been updated, refined and republished as Keyboard Village.
Keyboard Village
This book has themed questions to spark conversation. Each set of questions in introduced by a short story and includes a supporting activity sheet. There are how-to videos for some- all?- of the activity sheets. Some of the stories also have video versions.
STAND ALONE POSTS LINKED TO OPINION STAGE
I am currently using the free version of OpinionStage. Formatting, linking, embedding all become more user friendly and more beautiful with the paid version. May be worth spending on.
There is a reading/listening practice quiz based on the opening story from Keyboard Village.
SELF-INTRODUCTIONS I model my own self-introduction and follow it with a little quiz to see how well I explained myself and how well you heard me.
A LISTENING PRACTICE QUIZ where we practice listening- not English. Huy talks about his cat. We let Huy know what we heard him say. We show Huy that we are listening to him. We let him know what we can understand, and we let him know what he can do so that we can understand him better.
MINIMAL PAIRS listening quiz. It helps to be able to hear the difference in sounds before trying to make them. Listening also gives immediate verifiable feedback which is tricker when trying to assess the quality of students’ pronunciation.
DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?
A short movie about an experience I had in Saigon with a Grab driver who was angry about having an English speaking passenger. The story is followed by a little quiz.
POSTS REVIEWING ACTIVITY SHEETS
WRITING DAILY SENTENCES. Write smart. If you know one sentence, you can know 100. Some people like to memorize sentences. It’s a good beginning. The next step is to take the sentences a part and use the pieces to make new sentences and new ideas. Here are some ideas on how to do that.
OTHER
EDITING EXISTING ENGLISH
This page looks at existing English that could be better. I give my assessment of why the mistake was made and offer an alternative more effective version and invite learners to do the same. There are plenty of updates to this. And a silly quiz of ENGRISH, funny uses of English in Japan.
POEM, FROST A TUFT OF FLOWERS
This page has the text and a reading of the poem, plus commentary etc
SPEAKING IS LISTENINGVideo, text and activity sheet showing how to do Silent Way style speaking listening practice.
A SAMPLE LESSON Listening to our English and improving it.
Video and extended text walking through a sample one on one lesson.
A SAMPLE LESSON, Learning a Dialogue Build student generated dialogues with a little gotcha at the end. Don’t memorize textbook dialogues, people speak English not textbook.
MY SELF INTRODUCTION A little bit about me.
Keyboard Village 