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  • The English We Speak

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    caeronmustai
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    The student analyzes the BBC podcast "The English We Speak" and finds it to be an excellent tool for learning English. The podcast focuses on British slang terms and uses fictional dialogues to naturally introduce each term. It helps listeners learn about different accents and provides written transcripts to aid comprehension. While it lacks exercises, the podcast effectively teaches meanings and usages of terms through its humorous, well-constructed dialogues. The student concludes it is a valuable resource for casual English learners.

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    The student analyzes the BBC podcast "The English We Speak" and finds it to be an excellent tool for learning English. The podcast focuses on British slang terms and uses fictional dialogues to naturally introduce each term. It helps listeners learn about different accents and provides written transcripts to aid comprehension. While it lacks exercises, the podcast effectively teaches meanings and usages of terms through its humorous, well-constructed dialogues. The student concludes it is a valuable resource for casual English learners.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf or txt
    535 views2 pages

    The English We Speak

    Uploaded by

    caeronmustai
    The student analyzes the BBC podcast "The English We Speak" and finds it to be an excellent tool for learning English. The podcast focuses on British slang terms and uses fictional dialogues to naturally introduce each term. It helps listeners learn about different accents and provides written transcripts to aid comprehension. While it lacks exercises, the podcast effectively teaches meanings and usages of terms through its humorous, well-constructed dialogues. The student concludes it is a valuable resource for casual English learners.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
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    of 2

    Student: Kau Otvio Teacher: Marcos Antnio Morgado de Oliveira Discipline: Compreenso e Expresso Oral em Lngua Inglesa IV PODCAST

    ANALYSIS BBC'S THE ENGLISH WE SPEAK To begin this analysis properly, it has to be said that this particular podcast was for me an excellent tool of english learning, being the reasons for that the more diverse ones, that will be cited below. First of all, the podcast by itself has a focus that could be considered a limitation, but doesn't have to be seen as such. It deals mostly with slangs, more specifically, british english slangs. It has every now and then a slang from american, scotish or welsh origin, but the material by itself has to be in use in the british english, by the british people. So when, for example, an american slang starts being used by british, we can have a chance to see it in The English We Speak. Besides, the fact that it deals almost exclusively with slangs and colloquial idioms doesn't have to be seen as a limitation, since it's just a specific aim, and there's enough material to study formal, written english as a foreign languages, but there's so little material dealing with spoken, day-to-day english, and being as such, it makes this particular podcast a very valuable resource for students of english seeking for a better degree of familiarity with the language. Other positive aspects of this very podcast are the way it uses to teach english and the plot construction behind it. It always begins as a fictitious dialogue between usually two characters from a set of regular cast that leads one of them to naturally utter the word or expression of the day, and ending up explaining it. And that is helped by the fact that the plot is very well bound and constructed. The lines are great, having a number of funny situations, and the dialogue seems natural enough, as well as accessible enough for a foreign language speaker to get the message completely. To help with that, the podcast also presents the lines of the episode in writen form below the audio switch, so even when the listener doesn't get everything by the ear, he can always read the lines he lost or was confused about. Its characters also display a vast array of different accents, for example, a chinese speaking character and a scotish one, and with the writen lines, that helps the listener to analyse the accents a little better, and learn some differences in pronounciation (despite it is not the focus, and in a certain way these very accents seem to be slightly diminished, possibly to not cause a difficulty, thereby a frustration to the listener). Going beyond the lines of dialogue, it also always present a set of extra examples of the word or idiom of the day, expanding the knowledge about it. In some episodes, and for exemplifying matters I can cite the episode about the Green idiom, it shows many different ways a single expression can be used, or as in the episode Good egg, it shows different expressions that are related with one another, as good egg, bad egg, have an egg on the face, etc. Now a point that has to be emphasized are the lines. As it was previously said, they're so well constructed that it makes everything not just very easy to get, but also funny. But the most important part is, when the episode begins, you don't have any idea of what the word of the day is about, but even before they explain it, you have already an almost complete notion of the meaning, sometimes far beyond the reaches of a simple direct explanation, all that because of the dialogues context. So it is a really intuitive way of learning, and it helps the listener to not forget what the thing means. Now if there is a point to criticize at all in this particular podcast, that could be the lack of exercises. In fact, not everyone needs to do written exercises to learn, and some english learners as myself usually don't do that at all, but the possibility of having exercises to perform below could certainly be a welcomed change. The lack of video by itself doesn't cause any trouble, since the listener is always very well settled with the audio alone (in the episode anorak the characters are on a train station, and one of them is talking about trains, and to helps the listener to feel in a train station, there is train noise on the background, and people talking).

    To conclude, the mixture of a good use of audio resources, excellent dialogue construction, extra examples and funny dialogues are the positive points that make The English We Speak an excellent podcast for everyone to listen to, and learn as much as possible of a form of english that isn't usually taught in english schools. It runtime don't excede 1:30 minutes, making it more accessible to the casual listener, that is able to listen to it during a work break or lunch time. As a high school english teacher myself, I would like to give my thanks for being presented to such a teaching/learning tool, because I've never even considered looking for podcasts of english teaching, and surely in the next year I'll be using it in my own classes. Beyond all doubts, The English We Speak will be on the list.

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