Accelerate Your English

Acceleration English Online Bookstore

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:51:00 +0000

Now online - my new virtual store - 13 categories

books - videos - audios - and more

hundreds of products - Amazon search - everything for the English language learner and teacher

Start Your Own Interactive eLearning Site

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:39:00 +0000

How about your own interactive eLearning site where students can log in and work on their lessons or assignments 24 hours per day, 7 days per week?

Do you think it'll cost a lot?

Well, you might be wrong - because if Option 1 (see below) is right for you it'll cost you NOTHING to have your lessons hosted with us. That's right ZERO - ZIP - NADA!

Here's what I'm talking about:

Option 1:
Lessons you upload are open to the general public & FREE -
Our service is free

Option 2:
Lessons you upload are open to general public & you charge a fee -
There is a monthly charge for our services based on your storage size and bandwidth use

Option 3:
Lessons are private available only to your own students (free or pay)
There is a monthly charge for our services based on your storage size and bandwidth use

Included is all hosting, eLearning software installation (Moodle) and support that you need to get started teaching online.

Click here to see sample courses

Click here to learn how to get started teaching with us

Click here to email us

New Site for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:51:00 +0000

I recently joined a new site that I believe has some great resources and networking opportunities. It's called My World Education. You can view my profile here: http://www.myworldeducation.com/profile/MarcyCoate

Please add me as a friend so that we can connect.

You can create groups at My World Education. I've created one called "English Teachers in Italy". I hope it will become a great way for all English teachers based in Italy to connect. Whatever your native language and no matter where you teach, if you're in Italy and you teach English, you're welcome to join our group.

Here is the page for the group: http://www.myworldeducation.com/group/englishteachersinitaly

More exciting new resources coming from various sites, so check back soon to find out more!

eduFire: a cool site where you can teach/learn & find lots of resources!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:22:00 +0000

I just signed up to teach English classes using a site that is called eduFire. It's really a great site because you can sign up as a student or a teacher and have/give lessons online. There are a variety of subjects, but since I'm an English teacher...guess where you can find me? (under "languages", of course!)

The funny thing is that when I signed up I was thinking, "Wow, there are already a lot of other English teachers here"...and the problem is that I was considering this fact in a negative way because I was seeing the other teachers as my "competition".

I got a very pleasant surprise, though. I immediately started receiving "friend" requests, like you do on the social networking sites. Those nice people I saw as "competitors" want to be my friends! Jon is one of them, and you can see that he was so kind as to write a comment here on my blog (see the article about Useful Links). Thank you, Jon, for the great suggestion to add the link to eduFire's flash cards.

The flashcards are available in several languages, and I believe you will find them very helpful, whether you are a teacher or a student.
Here is the link: http://edufire.com/games/flashcards

I will also add this to the links page on my website for those of you who are accustomed to going directly there for your lesson & activity links.

Have a great day/night. Ciao for now!
Marcy Coate

Useful Links

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:58:00 +0000

Click here for a list of useful links for teachers and students of English.

Included in this list you will find online dictionaries, games and other fun activities for every level and for all ages, articles, advice, lesson plans, and many other resources.

If you have a link you would like to add, write to me at: info@accelerationenglish.com

Marcy Coate

Challenges Learning English (Part Three)

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:54:00 +0000

This is Part Three of my article on challenges that English Language Learners (ELLs) face. If you prefer to read this article in Italian, please go to: http://accelerationenglish.blogspot.com/

Challenge 7) Articles & Prepositions – sometimes the smallest words can the most challenging! In English, the definite article is often omitted, and prepositions can be a problem for many students, even at more advanced levels. I have many advanced students who are able to carry on long conversations in English about a variety of subjects, but they continue to have difficulties with articles and prepositions.

SOLUTIONS: Expressways to Learning by Dr. Jack Hoes; Acceleration English; various sites on the Internet (check back for a list of links!)

Challenge 8) Among the most difficult challenges for intermediate and advanced students are phrasal verbs and verbs that are followed by a preposition - verbs that are followed by another word or words, that change the original meaning of the verb. An example is the verb “to pick”, which we use to indicate choosing something, or the harvesting of food. However, if we say “to pick up” we don’t mean “to choose something in a vertical manner”. Neither do we mean “to harvest food using an upward motion”. We mean “to take something into the hand and lift it”.

These verbs can be confusing for ELLs. To add to this confusion, we also say “I’ll pick you up at 8:00”, but we don’t mean that we will physically lift the other person using our own strength. What about the term “pick-up truck”? These vehicles don’t physically lift people or objects by themselves, but the term is fairly descriptive and is usually understood by my ELLs in Italy.

Then there is the slang expression “pick up” which indicates the seeking of new acquaintances to form a romantic attachment. Many things that a native English speaker takes for granted can be quite difficult for an ELL to master.

SOLUTIONS: Expressways to Learning by Dr. Jack Hoes; Acceleration English; various sites on the Internet (check back for a list of links that I am preparing)

Challenge 9) The Alphabet – I’d like to begin by asking a question that I ask of all of my ELLs, whether they are beginners, intermediate or advanced level students. Everyone knows the ABC song, but when someone spells their surname for you over the phone, can you write it correctly with no errors? (Can you spell it correctly without having it repeated for you several times?)

I ask these questions because this is an area where many ELLs are weak, yet teachers assume that they have mastered the alphabet.

SOLUTIONS: Basic alphabet practice in class (dictated spelling); Expressways to Reading by Dr. Jack Hoes; Acceleration English by Marcy Jeanine Coate; various sites on the Internet (check back for list of links that I am preparing)

Challenge 10) Another area where ELLs are often weak is the interrogatives (who, what, where, etc.) If you are confused about the meaning of the first word in a sentence, how can you possibly answer that question?

SOLUTION: More practice with interrogatives in class; The Square by Santina Spiriti; Acceleration English by Marcy Jeanine Coate

My next article will include some general resources that are very helpful for students and teachers.

Wishing you all happy learning & effective teaching!

Marcy Jeanine Coate

Challenges Learning English (Part Two)

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:40:00 +0000

This is Part Two of my article on challenges that English Language Learners (ELLs) face. If you prefer to read this article in Italian, please go to: http://accelerationenglish.blogspot.com/

Challenge 4) The order of words in a phrase in English is often very different than that of the student’s native language: adjectives go before nouns (in Italian they normally go after nouns) the position of an adverb in a phrase depends on which verb, the type of adverb, and whether the phrase is affirmative, negative or interrogative.

Challenge 5) Asking a question in English can be confusing for ELLs whose native language doesn’t require a different word order for interrogative phrases. In Italian, if I want to ask you, “Is this your car?” I use the exact same word order as the affirmative phrase, “This is your car”, changing the inflection of my voice at the end of the phrase to indicate that it is a question.

SOLUTION: To address Challenges 4&5 I have been using a method called The Square. It was created by an Italian woman, Santina Spiriti. I have found the method to be refreshingly unique and quite effective. Unfortunately, their information is only available in Italian, but anyone who would like to know more about this method can contact me. The method utilizes a poster to teach Mrs. Spiriti’s “Question System”. Since the poster is 100% in English, it is possible to use it with students who do not speak Italian, and I would be happy to help you order posters and to arrange for training in the use of this method.

Challenge 6) The verb tenses in English don’t necessarily correlate 100% to the tenses in the native language. Italian grammar is much more complex than English grammar, so one would think that English grammar should be easy for Italians to learn. It’s simpler! However, most Italian ELLs have a great deal of difficulty in knowing which tense to choose when they need to express themselves in English.

Often this is because while the traditional scholastic methods thoroughly explain how each tense functions in English, most courses never show any type of correlation of the various tenses in Italian and their equivalents in English. So the question, “Which tense do I use to express this idea?” is never answered for most Italian ELLs. Therefore, quite often when they use the Present Simple tense they should really be using Present Continuous, and they use Present Perfect when they should be using Past Simple, etc.

SOLUTIONS: Challenge 6 is a big one! I use different methods to help students overcome it: The Square by Santina Spiriti; Expressways to Learning by Dr. Jack Hoes; my own Acceleration English; and information that I have gathered over the years from various sites on the Internet. I will compile a list of these resources and add them here, so keep reading my blog for these updates!

See Part Three of this article for more challenges that ELLs face and some solutions that I propose.

Please take a look at the sneak preview of my site and let me know what you think: http://accelerationenglish.googlepages.com/

Marcy Jeanine Coate

Challenges Learning English (Part One)

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:20:00 +0000

If you prefer to read this blog in Italian, please go to: http://accelerationenglish.blogspot.com/

Today I would like to write about some of the challenges that English language learners (ELLs) face. Since I teach in Italy, the situations I face might be different from those teachers in other areas face. However, I believe that many of these problems are faced by all non-native speakers of English (and even some native speakers!)

Challenge 1) The spelling of words can be strange, with no clear relationship between the pronunciation of the word and its spelling. My Italian ELLs who know how to count to ten in English are always amazed the first time they see these numbers written out in English, especially the numbers one, two, and eight. I get comments like, "That isn't possible! The number 1 is spelled 'oh-nay'? Look at the number 2! It's 't-w-oh'. How can 8 be spelled 'ay-g-h-t'? Teacher, this doesn't make sense!" Even for students who have had some exposure to the basic phonetic principles of the English language, these "sight words" are a real challenge.

Challenge 2) There are vowel sounds that don’t exist in the native language and that are difficult to: a) distinguish, b) reproduce orally, and c) sometimes difficult to recognize when written (the short i sound in "women" and "guitar", for example) Italian ELLs have a great deal of difficulty with the short a, short i and short u sounds, plus the schwa.

SOLUTIONS: The solution I use to help ELLs overcome Challenges 1 &2 is a method that I have developed. I call it Acceleration English. It is currently being prepared for a public launch, but the success we have been having with our own students is phenomenal. In fact, when other teachers see what is happening with this method, they ask me if they can get involved in testing the method so that they can use it with their own students.

The first group of students with whom I used the prototype of this method went to Rome in 2003 to take the University of Cambridge UCLES exam for Young Learners (Starters level). The examiner was impressed by the students’ performance on the exam, and wanted to know how many teaching hours were involved in their preparation. When she found out that the course had consisted of only 45 instructional hours, the examiner was dumbfounded. She admitted that most students taking the exam had at least 90 to 100 hours of preparation in order to perform at the same levels.

Remember…those figures are for the prototype that I was using in 2003. You can bet that I have made a lot of improvements to the method, since then!

Challenge 3) Individual words may not correspond 100% to the word from the learner’s native language. For example, the Italian word grande means "big", but it also means "great". Julius Caeser could be described in a history essay as having been "great" but could we just as easily substitute "big" for "great" in every context? There is also a difference between saying that I had a big lunch (grande), and that my lunch was great (fantastico). The multiple meanings, shades of meaning and usage differences that an ELL encounters while learning English can be quite frustrating.

SOLUTION: To help students learn vocabulary words with a specific meaning for a particular level, I use my own method, Acceleration English. To help students learn vocabulary words in context, I use and highly recommend a collection of programs from Expressways to Learning. The programs I currently use in the computer lab of my own private learning center include: QuikComp, AdVocab and Speed-Spell. QuikComp and AdVocab are ideal for learning vocabulary words in context, and Speed-Spell is fantastic for memory training and spelling practice.

If you would like more information on Expressways to Learning, go to: http://www.expresswaystolearning.com/ (If you decide to use their products, please tell them that I referred you!)

See Part Two of this article for more challenges that ELLs face and some solutions that I propose.

Please take a look at the sneak preview of my site and let me know what you think: http://accelerationenglish.googlepages.com/

Marcy Jeanine Coate

Hello!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy Coate) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:22:00 +0000

Welcome to my first blog and my first post!

If you would prefer to read in Italian, here is the link for the blog in Italian: http://accelerationenglish.blogspot.com/

My website is still under construction, but if you would like to see a sneak preview, go to: http://accelerationenglish.googlepages.com/

I have been living in Italy since the year 2000, and I immediately saw that it was not going to be possible for me to work in my own field (I did accounting in the United States), because I would have had to learn everything all over again since the laws and accounting methods in Italy are completely different. I am one of those people who loves to work (I have been working since I was 14) so I decided to create a new profession for myself!

Several people suggested that I teach English. I tried it...and I discovered that teaching is my passion! Isn’t that strange? At 40 I (finally) found the perfect job. I’m not saying everything has been easy, but I like to have a challenge...otherwise I get bored!

So, now I see that more than 7 years have passed since the beginning of my adventure, and I very much want to share my experiences with others, whether students or teachers. With this blog I hope to offer help.

We all know that English is essential...but does it have to be so difficult to learn??? I believe that I can be of assistance.

More to follow soon!

Marcy Jeanine Coate