Macmillan English Campus

I discussed in the last chapter how Skype and similar technologies are helping to broaden the possibilities of language learning. One of the key advantages of Skype is the ease with which people can now communicate over long distances. Obviously it was possible in the past using a telephone,

One of the main things that all language learners usually have in common is the desire to travel and learn about and experience other cultures. However, travelling can be costly, and even daunting for students who don’t speak the local language well. So how can you let your students experience other

I recently decided to try to learn Welsh. Being impatient and not having all that much time to attend a class, about a minute after deciding to learn, I downloaded an app. A few minutes after that, I could say, ‘I am trying to speak Welsh’ in Welsh. I would write

Thank you to Rui and the team for their insightful views and thorough assessment of the Macmillan IELTS skills app over the past few weeks. As a final treat, they’ve prepared a video and shared it with us summarizing their experiences.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the series as much as

I’m a fairly irrational person. Blooming daffodils in the park can make me as happy as any piece of good news. Likewise, I will get as angry with a stranger who pushes past me as I would if a friend were to kick me in the shins (this has never happened).

This

In last week’s post we looked at developing reading skills with the new Macmillan IELTS Skills app. This week we shift the focus to speaking and explore how the app might help students prepare themselves for their often daunting 11-14 minutes of fame in an IELTS examination room.

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Russian pronunciation is easy and hard, all at the same time. It’s easy because 99% of the time, it’s a phonetic language: you simply pronounce every sound in the order it appears. Unlike in English, individual Russian phonemes rarely change: there are about four sounds that change depending on whether they’re

Not many small 85-year-old men can command an audience of millions around the globe, but the excitement created around little Oscar creates each year for film stars and avid movie fans was felt on Sunday night as the biggest stars graced the red carpet outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

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As teachers of English we are continually being asked to respond to prevalent trends and methodologies that reshape our industry and daily practice. From new teaching methods such as Flipped Learning to the growth in mobile learning and social media usage, we are constantly kept on our toes and

A couple of months ago I read an article about a man who learnt a language in 22 hours. The man in question has “never been particularly good at languages” and the language was Lingala (the native tongue of northern Congo and not something that you’d be likely to

We’re already more than a week into 2013 and at a time when, statistically, most of us have already failed at our New Year’s resolutions. Whether it was to go on a diet or quit smoking, ultimately the majority of us fail because we are giving up something we enjoy. So,

Today’s posting is about a topic that both language learners and non-language learners alike will have experienced.

What do you do when you have to pronounce foreign words and you’re not really sure how to do it!

It’s mainly food and drink that causes this predicament. The correct pronounciation of certain words has

British regional accents are a wonderful talking point. The fact that such a huge range of accents can exist in such a comparatively small geographical space has long been a source of interest – and sometimes confusion – both for the British themselves and for learners of English visiting Britain or

If any of you are living in the UK or have recently visited, you’ll have noticed that Christmas has well and truly arrived. Lights adorn towns and cities across the country, the smell of mulled wine and cider wafts around and shopping malls and high streets are suddenly bustling with people

In the UK we have a saying: “Remember remember, the fifth of November.” (Take a look at Becca’s post on Bonfire Night here)  However, across the pond, Americans were yesterday being urged not to forget the sixth of November, a crucial day in American politics as hundreds of millions of