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 Thursday July 03 2008

Real English

I’ve been clearing out some email and came across another email from a reader with a site for students using real people called Real English - sounds similar to what I posted two days ago - Real ESL.

Real English is produced by Mike in the south of France. The videos head out to the street and stop random people and interview them on a specific point illustrating a language point. I can definitely see this being useful for very low level students. Mike says:

I interview people in the street in order to get original, spontaneous speech on camera. Then I take this very messy spontaneity and organize it into structures and functions for beginners and intermediate students, and then make lessons around these video.

I really like the intro to each video - it’s catchy. Below is the video for lesson six - introducing people, introducing yourself. This video also has participants spell their names.


6-IntroducingPeople
by realdogswimming


Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jul 3, 2008 at 09:37 PM
Teaching | useful_web_sites | Video |
Picture of Michael Marzio

Michael Marzio wrote 101 words  on  Thursday Jul 3, 2008  at  10:49 PM France

Thanks for the review! I just want to disagree with one sentence where you wrote:
“I can definitely see this being useful for very low level students”.
It is true that I concentrate on spontaneous video for beginners and intermediates, one reason being that it is difficult to find authentic video for low levels, but there is a difference beteween “authentic” (today’s films with actors, for example) and “spontaneous”. I’m not sure, but I think that the naturalness of the speech makes very easy material difficult for students who have never travelled to, or spent time in, English-speaking countries.

Thanks again!

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