The Big Project
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I use this Directory to find Worldwide news in English and read them with
my students,
but as they say, The Big Project is a directory of the most use...
8 years ago
This blog is addressed at UNED students of English who want to improve their reading, writing and -sometimes too, why not- listening skills. The minimum level recommended to follow this blog is A2/B(-). If you have any grammar doubts, please ask, we will try to help you!
I don't know what the problem is with Spanish people speaking in English, but generally we have a terrible accent... even people who have been living abroad for a long time have a really bad accent. I think we don't really focus on pronunciation and we don't realize how different it is, compared to the Spanish one. I once met a girl who had just obtained a university diploma ("licenciatura") on "Traducción e Interpretación", being English her main foreign language. She had spent a whole course studying in Northern Ireland as an "Erasmus" and a month in Malta studying English. When I met her, we were both working in Ireland and whenever we had to talk to our boss (a native Irish woman) about anything, I was the one who had to do the talking, because our boss couldn't understand her... I couldn't understand how she had got her diploma and how she had spent such a long time in English-speaking countries without improving her pronunciation!!
ReplyDeleteWith this, I don't mean to say that my own pronunciation is perfect. But at least I make an effort to improve it, I pay a lot of attention to the native speakers when I see movies or TV shows in English, and I am understood by everybody!!
Hi Marta,
ReplyDeleteProbably our teaching system has been focusing too much on Grammar and Writing over the past decades. Now it's time to start listening and speaking, writing, wacthing films in English, etc. and, as you say, trying to realize, as Spaniards, we must improve our pronuciation and be less shy when it comes to talking for a while.