skills improvement – Profesor Kenny

Language Apps

Clozemaster: Clozemaster is an app to help polyglots (people who speak many languages) learn useful phrases and expression in various languages. The best thing about Clozemaster is that its free version is very robust. The app is available on the web or using mobile apps available in app stores. Once it’s installed, look for the English course for native Spanish speakers, and you’re all set. You’ll learn thousands of common phrases and expressions used by native English speakers, starting with easy in a progressively more challenging course. As your English skills improve, you may decide to learn another language, and Clozemaster will help you there, again.

Memrise: Memrise is another interesting app that utilizes a 3-step approach to help language learners learn using naturally-voiced audio and video clips you watch, listen and learn from real native speakers. It is available in app stores or you can use the web app on their site. This one was recommended to me by a Girl Scout named Skylar who visited this site as part of a “Connecting Cultures” Zoom activity her troop held during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Thanks, Skylar, for the great tip!)

Duolingo: Duolingo is a popular language learning app that teaches useful travel phrases and related expressions in 23 different languages. You won’t achieve C2 level using Duolingo, but it will most likely make things easier on the ground the next time you travel on vacation or for business. It’s best asset is that it’s fun with colorful graphics to go along to make learning playful and fun. You can play Duolingo in your browser or on your favorite mobile device, just download the app from your app store. Your progress continues as you move from one device to the next, so with Duolingo you’re always moving your English ability forward.

Skills Improvement

Dictionaries & Translators

Cambridge Dictionary: The Cambridge Dictionary is a great resource you can use to get English definitions to English words, along with the Spanish words, so that you learn English meanings using English definitions mapped to your native language. This gives you much clearer context on meaning in context than Google Translator, which often translates words incorrectly, especially in idiomatic expressions, which are translated more accurately by Cambridge.

Ingles.com: Ingles.com is an online translator that is far more robust than Google Translate, which I generally recommend students not use as its ability to understand and correctly translate common phrases including idiomatic expressions is limited, often resulting in incorrect translations that are obvious in student work. In addition to improved translation output, it includes grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation tools, as well as a subscription for the “word of the day”. (Today’s word is burnout, which means el agotamiento in Spanish.)

SpanishDict: SpanishDict is an online Spanish/English dictionary that is so much more than just a dictionary. Of course, it performs all the functions of a normal language dictionary with translations of words from one language to the other. Additionally, it includes tools to help with verb conjugations, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and there is even a thesaurus. SpanishDict offers a subscription-based “word of the day”. (Today’s word is el jacinto, which means hyacinth in English.)

Skills Improvement

Reading

American Literature: I often recommend finding a book of short stories to help students improve their reading ability. When you find a word you don’t know, you can use a Spanish-English dictionary to add it to your vocabulary. This can really slow things down if you’re reading a long book, but one of the best things about short stories is that they’re short, so you can still make progress reading and improving your vocabulary and reading comprehension with occasional short stops to look up new words. It’s easy and free to create a user account, which provides access to hundreds of texts in the public domain.

Skills Improvement

Listening

BBC One Minute News: One minute world news reports updated several times a day. BBC One Minute News is a great way for students to become accustomed to native speaker accents and pace of speech, improving listening comprehension and conversational ability. The news is delivered by various BBC journalists, all native speakers from different parts of the world. I usually start each class with this to help students improve on listening, which is frequently the lowest-scored evaluation.

Lyrics Training: Lyrics training is an app that helps you learn English through music and the lyrics of your favorite songs that you probably already listen to and know. Improve and practice you listening skills with music videos by filling in the gaps to the lyrics as you listen and sing Karaoke style to your favorite music. It’s a fun and immersive process to boost your listening skills.

Skills Improvement

Writing

Grammarly: Grammarly is a free app that many native speakers use to proofread their writing before sending it to others. It helps you improve grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in your writing, so it can be really useful for writing tasks. It works as a free-standing app on your computer, with plugins available for whichever web browser you use. For mobile devices, you can install the keyboard app, Grammarly Keyboard for improved autocorrect recommendations. Just make sure to set language preferences in the app to make corrections in the format of English you are learning to avoid confusion between British, American, Canadian and Australian variations of the language, and you’re all set!

Write & Improve: If you’re interested in improving your writing in between writing tasks and evaluations, you’ll want to take a look at this site developed by Cambridge to help English students improve their writing skills. You start off by choosing a workbook at your own level. You’ll find various types of writing tasks available on this site, which gives you feedback on your writing as you go to help you improve. Also, since it’s developed by Cambridge, it includes test preparation skills focused on the IELTS Academic and General Training and B2 First certifications.

Skills Improvement

Speaking & Pronunciation

Cake: Cake is an app that relies on short videos from YouTube and other video hosting services to allow you to practice and improve your pronunciation. This would be particularly helpful for students who feel like their pronunciation is still lacking and want to spend time on their own outside of class working to improve pronunciation to sound more like a native speaker. You may never eliminate the accent of your mother tongue, but Cake could help you to be better understood when interacting with native English speakers.

HelloTalk – Talk to the World: HelloTalk is a chat app unlike most other chat apps, in that it includes tools for translation, pronunciation, transliteration, and corrections to help you improve your English as you chat with native English speakers around the world via text, voice recordings, voice calls, video calls, and even doodles!

Tandem: Tandem is another application similar to HelloTalk that helps you improve your English chatting with native English speakers around the world. Having trouble with native speaker accents from India or Australia or Wales? Not to worry with Tandem because you can find someone in those parts of the world to help you improve your understanding of those accents.

A Tour of U.S. Accents: Take a tour of common North American accents, specifically those from the United States, in this entertaining linguistic tour of your neighbor to the north. You’ll hear about how accents came to be associated with different areas, as well as how regional accents have changed over time. Have fun!

10 Pronunciation Mistakes Spanish Speakers Make: This is a YouTube video with a supporting web site that helps native Spanish speakers learning English overcome the 10 most common pronunciation mistakes made by Spanish speakers. As a teacher in the classroom, I focus on these mistakes a lot. However, in online learning you can use this as a resource to improve your pronunciation.

Tag: <span>skills improvement</span>

Language Apps

Dictionaries & Translators

Reading

Listening

Writing

Speaking & Pronunciation

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