#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Teaching In Thailand >  >  Learning English Online Resources

## Looper

Can any of our esteemed TEFLing alumni suggest a good site for learning English as a foreign language?

Just like basic lessons, vocabulary lists and maybe videos.

I am enjoying having this Mini-Minx from Jiangxi around the house but her English is totally incomprehensible. I have no idea how she has survived in Aussie for 2 years (and even apparently completed a 2 year diploma in Business Studies).

She can barely string a simple sentence together and she has hardly any vocabulary and we communicate anything complicated using the Chinese translation app on her phone.

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## hallelujah

I posted these on the other thread:

Useful for all children, especially those with kids in Thailand (or elsewhere) who are learning English:

British Council LearnEnglish Kids | Free online games, songs, stories and activities for children

Teens:

British Council LearnEnglish Teens | Free resources for teens to help improve your English

Some good games in both section as well as all the usual stuff.

Adults:

Learn English Online | British Council

Everything you need here.

Some of the listening tasks in the General English section are very good. The podcasts would be a good place to start based on what you said as most of them are suitable for students from A2 to B1. Plenty of good vocab and grammar sections on the site too.

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## jabir

Lots of good stuff on the Brit Council site

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## aging one

#chic/yas/ho/egg  #chic/yas/ho/egg #chic/yas/ho/egg

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## hallelujah

> #chic/yas/ho/egg  #chic/yas/ho/egg #chic/yas/ho/egg


I was gonna mention that he'd benefit from my last link, but I reckon he'd be better off starting with the kids' stuff.  :Wink:

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## happynz

Duolingo...

Duolingo

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## cyrille



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## Bogon

If you are self-isolating together, why not do a language exchange?

Teach each other 10 words a day and a phrase or 2.

After a week or 2, she might get some interest/confidence and be willing to learn more.

As you said, she has been there for 2 years and has not made the effort, so why make an effort now?

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## hallelujah

> If you are self-isolating together, why not do a language exchange?
> 
> Teach each other 10 words a day and a phrase or 2.
> 
> After a week or 2, she might get some interest/confidence and be willing to learn more.
> 
> As you said, she has been there for 2 years and has not made the effort, so why make an effort now?


Nice idea. Apart from the fact that she's made fuck all effort to learn the golden language already.

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## Dillinger

Why not just learn some basic Chinese, Loopy?

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## Bogon

Let's get Looper started on 10 words, and 2 phrases.

1 - Shifter
2 -
3 -
4 - 
5 - 
6 - 
7 - 
8 - 
9 - 
10 - 

1 - Mind the fairy lights behind you.
2 -

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## Neverna

> her English is totally incomprehensible. I have no idea how she has survived in Aussie for 2 years (and even apparently completed a 2 year diploma in Business Studies).
> 
> She can barely string a simple sentence together and she has hardly any vocabulary


But did she pass any exams? Or even attend the course? She might have just enrolled at a dodgy visa school where paying the fees is enough to get a visa and a certificate of completion.

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## David48atTD

Or, if you wish an Australian perspective, start her with this.




Part of ... http://ww25.australianetwork.com/livingenglish/
(turn off your AdBlocker to see the page)

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## NamPikToot

Let's get Looper started on 10 words, and 2 phrases.

1 - Shifter
2 - Jaguar
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 -
8 -
9 -
10 -

1 - Mind the fairy lights behind you.
2 - Lets pop another marshmallow in

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## David48atTD

^
Speaking of Marshmallows, *Mr Dillinger* warmly recommends _against_ the Mars Bar  :Smile:

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## Looper

> I posted these on the other thread:


Thank you Mr Looj. Looks like a good start.




> But did she pass any exams? Or even attend the course? She might have just enrolled at a dodgy visa school where paying the fees is enough to get a visa and a certificate of completion.


I don't have a scooby Nev. This is too complicated a conversation to tackle and we would be there for a while.

The translations provided by her phone can be cryptic at times...






> Why not just learn some basic Chinese, Loopy?


I am defo on the case with the Chinko lingo learning Dill.

Which kind of brings me to me next question. i have not been able to find any good online Chinese language learning resources.

There are plenty of crappy '10 travel phrases' links but I want something that teaches reading and writing and does lists of vocabulary and verbs like what you would do if you was learning a language proper like.

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## Neverna

> I am defo on the case with the Chinko lingo learning Dill.
> 
> Which kind of brings me to me next question. i have not been able to find any good online Chinese language learning resources.
> 
> There are plenty of crappy '10 travel phrases' links but I want something that teaches reading and writing and does lists of vocabulary and verbs like what you would do if you was learning a language proper like.


Anki has plenty of language lists and some phrases.

Mandarin
            - AnkiWeb

How good the 'decks' are can be hit and miss but it's worth looking at it to see if it suits you.

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## barrylad66

try duolingo as suggested before..

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## Looper

^^Champion stuff Nev

This is looking 很好

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## Bogon

Visions of Looper in 4 months' time.

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## MarilynMonroe

Google translate you can just talk into it and it will translate for you from English to Chinese, and also the other way around. I used it all the time in China. It is an app called Google Translate. 

Many people were using it in China.

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## MarilynMonroe

This website also has some good information on how Chinese speakers learn English.

Teaching English to Chinese Speakers: 9 Major Differences to Be Aware Of | FluentU English Educator Blog


If she is as beginner as you say, you should be listening to English tv, videos, and anything that can help her learn the language. 

In my experience teaching Chinese students, they are taught just grammar (often incorrect) in school, but are not taught how to speak the language. You'll have to start teaching her the basics of writing a sentence first. Then introduce vocabulary and practice every day.

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## OhOh

> She might have just enrolled at a dodgy visa school where paying the fees is enough to get a visa and a certificate of completion


But what filled else her two years of residence?

Has loopers inspected her passport?

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## OhOh

I came here to see if any of our members who lecture in universities had opinions on this article's subject.

*University Bailouts, Funding And Coronavirus*


_"In a set of stable circumstances, funding higher  education should be a matter of automatic persuasion. If you want an  educated populace, the tax payer should muck in. In some countries,  however, this venture is uneven. In the United Kingdom, the system  remains divided, an echo of class stratification. In Australia, which  took so many of its behavioural and policy cues from ancestral Britain,  investment in public education as a measure of Gross Domestic Product  does not stack up well, in real terms, with other countries of the OECD.  Its school system is also something of a mild perversion  wealthy  private schools receive millions as a windfall; state schools, short of  equipment and facilities, starve and moulder.
_
_This state of affairs is highly unsatisfactory, but it  is one made worse by the governance of tertiary institutions that  remains, at heart, anti-democratic and oligarchical. More to the point,  they have lost their way, becoming beasts of private endeavour without  enterprise; business driven without being entrepreneurial. Poor, even  disastrous investment decisions have been made, most notably the foray  into the international student market. This has often been done without a  care about financial reserves or insurance that might cushion any  precipitous fall in revenue. Notwithstanding this, university politburos  are putting out feelers for bailouts and financial assistance. The  begging bowl is doing the rounds.
_
_In the United States, colleges have received a small  slice  some $14bn of the multitrillion-dollar stimulus measure  to  soften the blow caused by COVID-19. And some blow it has been, with LIU  Post and Quinnipiac University laying off staff  and the distinguished San Francisco Art Institute closing after a stint  of 150 years. Of that, $6bn is in the form of student aid; $7.5bn goes  to the institutions. The American Council on Education is none too  pleased, claiming  that the institutional portion is less than $8bn colleges and  universities have spent in refunds and board charges. Sector-wide losses  are predicted to come in at $50bn._
_
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an exception, having taken steps to insure itself  against a sharp drop in Chinese student revenue. Moves were made in  2018 by the institutions colleges of business and engineering to sign a  three-year contract with an insurance broker to the value of $424,000,  which would cover potential falls of revenue up to $60 million. As Jeff  Brown, dean of the Gies College of Business explained at the time,  the insurance would be triggered by a fall of 20 per cent in Chinese  student revenue in a single year. These triggers could be things like a  visa restriction, a pandemic, a trade war  something like that that  was outside our control.
_
_The picture before those seeking relief is not a good  one. Combined with the characteristically shabby, ill-informed  corporatism of the modern university, students in the higher education  sector are receiving the attentions of an overworked and anxious  teaching staff, many on sessional contracts, even as student fees feed  the burgeoning managerial complex. And international student fees,  varying from twice to three times the domestic rate, have proven  irresistible, leading to a seemingly endless number of appointments in  management, marketing and public relations. A logos-before-learning  sentiment prevails._
_
In the United Kingdom, the question posed  by the Financial Times over the weekend was whether universities are  too big to fail. Student numbers have galloped away, with University  College London finding itself with twice as many it had a decade ago  (38,000) and Manchester University still mighty with 39,000. But this  has not stopped the higher education sectors call for a £7bn bailout.  This has come with the rich assumption that universities, as a matter of  course, will receive such assistance, assumed as given by such international ratings agencies as Moodys. It is not axiomatic, retorts  Baroness Cavendish, an adviser to the UK Department of Health and  Social Care, that UK taxpayers should now take on the financial risks  of bridging what will be a shortlived hit to revenue  or without a quid  pro quo.

In 2018, the seasoned education specialist Sir Michael  Barber, as head of the Office for Students, warned universities that  they could not assume an automatic line of credit in the case of a  financial crisis. The OfS will not bail out providers in a financial  difficulty, reasoned  Barber during the Wonkfest higher education festival in London. This  kind of thinking  not unlike the too big to fail idea among the banks   will lead to poor-decision making and a lack of financial discipline,  is inconsistent with the principle of university autonomy and is not in  the students longer term interests. In two words: too late. 
_
_This makes calls for more funding, or a bailout package,  as sharp as a double-edged sword. Universities should receive generous  funding from the public purse but there is also an expectation that such  money be spent to advance the cause of education and the welfare of  students, neither of which has featured much in the last decade. The  Australian Labor Party, in traditional fashion, has fallen for the magic  of higher education in its ideal, rarefied form rather than actual,  grounded practice. That practice, which entails giving tax payer  insurance to cover the outcomes of shoddy decision making, is ignored.
_
_For its part, the position of the Morrison government is  best put by Senator James Paterson. Admittedly, it supplies an  incomplete picture, and a disingenuous one at that. Nonetheless, it  carries some weight. Despite being warned about the China risk,  universities, claimed Paterson, rode the cycle up. It was time for them to ride it down.
_
_Inadvertently, the talk of protecting universities has  started to resemble that of holding up financially imprudent banks.  Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, for instance, has warned  of serious concerns that without federal government action some  leading institutions could collapse. She proposes low or no-cost loans  to provide stability in coming months. She misses a beat on the issue  of financial folly. For years, universities have used income from  international education to help fund their world-leading research. Such  an equation is, if not false, then only a small part of it, ignoring  the multi-million dollar amounts expended on non-research and teaching  related operations, notably the spread-sheet devotees of management.
_
_With such circumstances in mind, it would surely be  fitting for the university in general to start a process of considered  self-examination or, as novelist Arundhati Roy suggests  with sharp clarity, take advantage of the coronavirus to break with  the past and reimagine their world anew. But what we find in certain  marked instances is a hearty cri de coeur, a demand for financial  padding that will tie things over. Worst of all, it is a call for  generous insurance without a promise of change and without condition.  Woe to the students, the sessional staff and the frontline academics."

https://orientalreview.org/2020/04/0...d-coronavirus/
_

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## Neverna

^ Off topic. 

Start another thread with that article, OhOh, instead of trying to hijack this one. 

Or ...


Mods, clean up in aisle 6, please.

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## OhOh

Thank you for your reply.

 (Learning English Online Resources)_Learning English Online Resources_

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## Dillinger

Any updates or home made vids yet Loops?

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