Real English is listening.

New 
ESL Lessons for Beginners and extensive review material for all shades of Intermediates.

I think teachers can send their beginner and intermediate students here and find that their motivation to learn English will get a boost.

I always hesitate when I use terms like “beginner” and “intermediate”, since Real English is real, and real means normal speed, which means “fast” to the ears of all learners of English as a Second or Foreign language. This is why the so called “beginner” lessons are essential review for higher levels.

We have begun our 16th year of video creation for ESL and EFL students and teachers. Right after New Year’s, we filmed in South Beach, Miami. We concentrated on these questions:

- Do you speak a Second Language?
- How did you learn it?
- Have you any advice for people learning a Second Language?

The answers to these questions will be helpful to ESL students.

There are 2 versions of each video:

the first version is without subtitles and the second version is with precise subtitles or closed captions. Thes videos begin here: http://www.real-english.com/second_lang_a.asp

This is a picture of Joanne. It was the first time she interviewed for Real English. She did excellent work as a first-time interviewer.

In this picture she is interviewing Colonel Roberts. We met him between our “serious interviews”, and asked him different types of questions. It’s a fun interview at http://www.real-english.com/colonel-roberts.asp, based upon what he was doing when we met him: making people do push-ups on the sidewalk in Miami Beach!

All of our latest videos are for intermediate and upper intermediate levels, which is one reason I added the versions with closed captions, making them more accessible to a wider range of levels.

We’re working on new exercises and quizzes now. If you go to lesson 15 in the Classic Clips sections, you’ll see a new type of Real English lesson.

Sorry for the inconvenience. You will be able to sign up for lessons & chat subscriptions, and log into your accounts, after a technical interruption which will last a few days. Gold Pass Subscribers will all receive a free 3-month extension to their subscriptions, as our way of saying “Sorry!” Note that the videos (without the lessons) are all working normally, for example www.real-english.com/reo/index.html.

We have begun our 16th year of video creation for ESL and EFL students and teachers. Right after New Year’s, we filmed in South Beach, Miami. We concentrated on these questions:

- Do you speak a Second Language?
- How did you learn it?
- Have you any advice for people learning a Second Language?

The answers to these questions will be helpful to ESL students.

There are 2 versions of each video:

the first version is without subtitles and the second version is with precise subtitles or closed captions. Thes videos begin here: http://www.real-english.com/second_lang_a.asp

This is a picture of Joanne. It was the first time she interviewed for Real English. She did excellent work as a first-time interviewer.

In this picture she is interviewing Colonel Roberts. We met him between our “serious interviews”, and asked him different types of questions. It’s a fun interview at http://www.real-english.com/colonel-roberts.asp, based upon what he was doing when we met him: making people do push-ups on the sidewalk in Miami Beach!

All of our latest videos are for intermediate and upper intermediate levels, which is one reason I added the versions with closed captions, making them more accessible to a wider range of levels.

We will soon be filming again in South Beach, Miami, and in New York City, and this time we would like to hear from you, the users and teachers, about what sort of questions you would like us to ask. Perhaps if you just think of your students and the sort of practice they might need or enjoy, you can suggest some specific questions. 

To give you ideas of the types of questions we ask - all the videos we have made so far are here.

Here’s an example suggestion from Bruxolini, a teacher who discovered Real English via YouTube:

“I’d like to see people doing sports, talking about their daily routine and schedules, what they do at work. Anything that extends vocabulary, for ex., from talking what they do, then what they do at/while work(ing).
Thanks for your interest.”

Who are the Webheads? What do they do?

Founded by Vance Stevens, “Webheads in Action” is the most active online community involved with computer mediated communication in the field of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). Members from nearly every country on the planet are represented. It is clearly the most robust online manifestation of the 40-year-old, 14,000 member TESOL organization.

There are so many links and so much information on the internet about and by the Webheads, that it all seems a bit mind-boggling at first. In my opinion, the best way to get started is to subscribe to the main Webheads Yahoo Group and lurk for a few days to get a feel of the daily life of this community. You will find beginners and experts on various topics all mixed up in one exciting  thread after another. It’s also a very tight, caring group. Friendships run deep amongst members, so you will find almost as many personal messages as professional ones, which seems a bit strange to those who are familiar with traditional forums.

Don’t sign up if your aim is to promote a certain product or service. You probably won’t be blocked or removed in such a case, but you will be ignored. This is a place for self-help and professional development, with mutual sharing of resources and ideas, the more experienced always helping out the less experienced in any particular specialization, whether it be a question concerning Web2 places of interest or how best to use software in the classroom (a healthy percentage of members are ESL/EFL teachers, about half of them native speakers of English).

So if you’re a teacher interested in discovery, experimentation, and self-improvement, this is definitely a community you will want to explore.

We have upgraded the Real English servers, causing some unexpected problems. If you are not able to log into your Real English account, or create a new one, please forgive us for the inconvenience.
HOWEVER, you can still access all the videos by going to
http://www.real-english.com/reo/index.html

You will not find many of the exercises on these pages, but you will find ALL the classic videos, plus some new ones. This is a free-access area. No login is required. 

Once again, please excuse us for this glitch! Everything will soon be back to normal.

Hackers are actively exploiting a “zero-day hole” in RealNetworks’ RealPlayer media player, which is installed on tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide, and which is required to view Real English videos. Go to
http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/191007_player/en/ 

On this page, you will note that there are two different patches, according to the version of the player installed on your computer - one for RealPlayer 10.5 and RealPlayer 11 beta, and another for RealOne Player, RealOne Player v2 and RealPlayer 10.

If you don’t know which version of the Real Player you have installed, you can open your Real Player, and click on “Help”, then click on “About Real Player” to see the version you are running. If your Real Player is in compact mode like mine, you will first have two click on  the two >> (2 arrows at the top) to expand, and then you will see “Help”, and finally “About Real Player” at the bottom.

After the patch is applied, you will see no confirmation message telling you that the update has been successful. The patch is, nevertheless, and apparently, effective if you see no error messages during or after the brief update process. I don’t understand why this big company doesn’t do a better job with security related matters.

Additional general info at ZDNet Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=599

We have interviewed thousands of people since we began Real English in 1992. Sometimes these people contact us after seeing themselves on our site.

This morning we received a message from Maira, who lives in Brazil. We interviewed her and her friend Roberta 4 years ago. You can see her video here on YouTube, or here on the Real English site.

Here is the message she wrote us:

Hi, I’m Maíra, the girl in the video you made on Nantucket.We didn’t know if you were going to use our interview or not, we thought it was a video for some language school in France. We were so surprised to see it here. Anyway, we liked it. And it’s nice to be one of the most viewed videos.Oh, I just loved how you guys described us: Culture Collectors. I had never thought in that way but you are right, its so me!!! I don’t know if you can understand me or if I got to express myself correctly, it just feel good think about myself as a culture collector. Thanks. I’d appreciate if you could send this message to the interviewer and the rest of the group.

Like I said in the video, let me add something else… we went to Europe, one month backpacking, 10 countries even Marocco. Definitely the best trip we’ve ever had.

American Sign Language and English as a Second Language

Closed Caption Videos Used in a Mixed Class for the Deaf and Hearing

I was really happy to hear from Sandie Linn, Associate Professor at the Centre City Continuing Education campus of the San Diego Community College District. She called me out of the blue.

“Because approximately half of my students are Deaf, I only use videos that have closed captions,” she said. ”When I visited the Real English website this summer, I got very excited.”

So I was indeed happy that I had put in the time to create versions of my videos with precise English subtitles.  I hadn’t ever thought about the Deaf.  I was thinking about “ordinary” learners of English as a Second or Foreign Language, who seem to appreciate the English subtitles. The results, so far, are here.Two years ago, several deaf students enrolled in Sandie’s class, which includes Vocational Adult Basic Education instruction and English as a Second Language.

Word soon got out that her class was user-friendly for the Deaf and hard of hearing, and the number of Deaf students increased. Sandie immediately became aware that she was going to have to take some classes for her own development - in American Sign Language - in order to ensure that her classes would be a success. She started taking ASL classes at Mesa College, also in San Diego.”In the classroom, hearing students have been observed making an effort communicating with Deaf students, and vice versa, employing combinations of sign language and written communication.”

Sandie explained a bit about the class dynamics: “The basic question that the students view on each Real English video can be addressed by all students, even those students at the lowest levels.  The complexity of the answers will vary, as the more advanced students will be required to give more complex answers on the Real English supplemental worksheets.”
 
Accompanied by two of her deaf students, ESL Professor Sandie Linn learns ASL with interpreter David Janisch.

I asked her about the fundamentals of her situation, wondering at first IF and HOW the Hearing and Deaf students worked together in the same class. “Yes,” she replied, “I teach Deaf and hearing students in the same class.  The beauty of your videos is that because they are closed captioned, the Deaf students can participate as fully as the hearing students.  The simplicity of the questions allows the hearing students to ask the Deaf students the question in American Sign Language.  While English is the language I use to teach the class, I incorporate ASL into every lesson.”