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This morning I'm demonstrating posterous in the English class.

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Posterous

I've started using Posterous.com to post messages in various social networks by sending a single email. This is convenient and time saving. With a simple email from my Blackberry I can post to a variety of social networks without having to install those applications on my phone.

Posted via email from myprofe's posterous

Linking Sounds

Native English speakers link words together by connecting sounds. The more words you manage to group together the more natural your English will sound and the harder it will be for people to detect your mother tongue. When a word ends in a consonant sound and is followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound, the consonant moves to the beginning of the second word. If we have two similar sounding consonants we pronounce them as a single consonant. Adjacent vowel sounds are joined with a 'y', as in 'I am', or a 'w', as in 'you are'. Recognizing these linked words will help you understand native speakers more easily. And, conversely, if you link words when you talk, native speakers will understand you better. Finally, dividing whole sentences into phrases or thought groups will make it easier to understand those who we repeatedly accuse of speaking too fast.

Connecting the Classroom

Computers and the internet are connecting classrooms to the real world at an ever accelerating pace, eliminating books and fundamentally changing the role of the teacher. Learning is no longer limited to the content of your books, the knowledge of your teacher or the size of the local library, but to your own imagination and desire to learn. After 25 years as an ESL teacher I can't imagine now, giving class without my laptop. Working with video and audio of current events, aside from being entertaining, exposes students to words, expressions and accents that they would most likely never hear from me. Recording students and letting them listen to themselves provide an opportunity to work on pronunciation while improving confidence in public speaking. As for the business world, the fact that your teacher is available 24/7 means that you can get that document or email proofread before sending it off.

Logical

For a long time, I had falsely assumed that the common mistakes that every Spanish speaker makes when speaking English resulted from their inability to disconnect from their mother tongue when learning and communicating in the second language. But I've recently discovered another type of mistake, which has nothing to do with one's first language. It comes from trying to apply logic to the English language. If the opposite of popular is unpopular and pleasant changes to unpleasant , why can't we say that someone is unpolite? The past of peak is peaked and the past of leak is leaked. So what's the problem with saying speaked? If we say yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon and yesterday evening then why don't we say yesterday night? If I like to play then I enjoy to play, right? If what I'm saying makes sense to you then I can conclude that you're understanding, right?

Announcing WikiProfe!

The latest addition to MyProfe is WikiProfe! Now, it will be easier and faster to get the information you're looking for no matter where it is located on MyProfe website. Don't take my word for it. Go and take a look for yourself.
http://www.myprofe.com/wiki

I can't live without my....

During the last few years, accept for my cell phone and mp3 player, I have been pretty much on the fence with respect to all those portable computer and communications gadgets. I never got a laptop, a PDA, a pocket PC or a GPS navigator. So when I started giving classes to my new client, Research in Motion, it was pretty obvious what was gonna happen next. These are the people who make the Blackberry cell phones. It took them less than two weeks to convince me that I needed one of their phones to organise my life and, I have to admit, they were right! Now I don't have to look for a computer to check my email. It comes directly to my phone. I can store all my music, audio and text files. It has a nice camera for those unexpected photo opportunities. It has voice recognition and hands free so that I can talk while I'm driving and GPS for when I get lost. As far as I can tell, I have everything I could possibly need, from my calendar and agenda to my flickr pictures, all in my pocket!