On the 21^st November, I wrote a blog called, “Do you need ideas for authentic listening practice?” and showed you how to use the ABC’s Behind the News website. I hope you’ve watched some interesting news stories!

Do you want some more ideas to build your vocabulary and practice your reading and listening?

Check out the following website – it’s called, “Tiny texts in English.” Its goal is help students read, listen and learn a little English. Doing a little bit of practice each day is better than just once a week. Click on: http://tinytexts.wordpress.com/

Let’s look at one of their latest exercise on this website. It’s called, “Gangnam style Christmas lights” (November, 28, 2012). We all know about the famous Korean singer and his “Gangnam Style” but do you know about the tradition at Christmas time for people to decorate their houses with lots and lots of Christmas lights?

So, on the Tiny Texts website, you can read a little about this topic. In the reading exercise, you can see that some words are in darker font. These words may be new words for you, so under the reading exercise you can see the section “Study the Words”- this will give you the definition of these words.

If you want to practice your listening as well, all you have to do is click on the play button under the heading of “Listen.” You can now hear somebody reading the article – so this will help you with the pronunciation of words in the reading article.

After you finish reading, don’t forget to watch the Christmas lights “Gangnam Style” video!!  

If you are a student at BROWNS, why don’t you visit this website during your Accelerate (Read the post "5 Ways To Learn More During Accelerate") time – remember, just let the Accelerate teacher know what you are studying, and they can stamp your passport!

Are there any other websites that you visit for extra listening and reading practice? Write your comments below – I’d love to hear about them!