Listening and Note-Taking

As I have been making my rounds, I am glad to hear that many of you are finding this blog useful. I have been getting feedback about the blog and many of you often ask about listening and note-taking. This is often quite challenging and unfortunately, there are not as many practice exercises with test questions on the web for this essential skill as there are for other listening activities. That being said, I do want to bring a website to your attention that does offer some practice exercises for note-taking. Click here to go to the listening and note-taking practice. There are of course lots of ways you can practice note-taking itself, but finding resources that have lectures you can note-take from and questions about those lectures that test your note-taking like the Bilkent exams is a different matter. I highly recommend using You Tube as a resource for practicing note-taking. When you go to you tube, type "lecture" in the search box. Click here for an example lecture on time management. One of the benefits of using You Tube for note-taking practice is the variety. You can find a lecture on a topic that interests you. Secondly, you can get an accurate sense of your ability when you listen to a real English-medium lecture. While the lectures may be challenging, they will help you improve. Let me know what lectures you found most interesting. Happy New Year!

ESL Independent Study Lab

Since I have been talking to students about this blog, many students have made requests about various resources they are looking for. WHile the internet is one of my favorite resources to share with students, many students seem to feel overwhelmed about finding what they are looking for or what might be useful to them. One of the best general resources is the ESL Independent Study Lab. This website is a collection of hundreds of websites related to the basic academic skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking, etc.- all broken down into levels from beginner to advanced. When you visit this site, you will find all kinds of resources that you can use. Put this one on your favorites/bookmarks. I am sure that when you start using this site, you will never run out of ideas for your independent study.
As both teacher and student, I have learned independent study is one of the key elements to success. If you develop a regular habit of independent study, you will succeed in whatever endeavor you engage in. You can not hope to real your goals if you merely accept the tasks that others give to you. In school , this means that just coming to class and doing your homework is not enough. You have to be hungry for knowledge. You have to want it for your own reasons, not for those supplied by your family or teachers. This is why it is so important to be exploring what interests you. If you are not interested in a thing, there is no way you will give it the commitment required to realize your extraordinary potential. If you don't know what interests you, then make that your next study goal: finding out what is interesting to you in this world.

A Writing Tutorial

I have written much about vocabulary study in my last blogs, now I want to turn my attention to writing. To begin with, I want to bring your attention to a wonderful website for students,www.eslbee.com, which is packed with useful elements for students who want to improve their writing. In addition to lots of explanations about writing, there are lots of example essays which students can study. However, remember:

Please do not Plagiarize!
All essays at ESLBEE.COM are by former students who have given written permission for their work to be posted at ESLBEE.COM. Now, here is one such sample from this you can benefit from, just click on the link provided below:
Why People Shouldn't Watch Too Much Television

This is a basic 5 paragraph essay. You should be able to master this kind of essay and through mastering it, pass the writing section of the cope with flying colors. I highly recommend that you check out this site, at least for the sample essay, if not for nothing else. While you may feel that you are getting plenty of writing support, it never hurts to take matters into your own hands and do some outside work of your own. Remember, learning is a gift you give yourself and one in which the more you invest in, the more you will receive from this investment. Do not make the mistake which so many Bilkent students make, which is to settle for merely passing the COPE exam. This sort of attitude only ensures a sort of mediocrity which will infect your future negatively and benefit your competitors from other places who are sure to be working their hearts out.

Prefixes and Suffixes

In my last post, I addresses the issue of efficiency in your vocabulary study. You are a quite busy, you are quite naturally concerned how to make the best use of your study time. An important word multiplier is the study of prefixes and suffixes. These are the bits we add to the front of words, ( like un-,dis- and mis-) and/or to the end of words ( like -ant,ive,and -er). BY understanding the meanings of these bits, you can more easily understand new words when you come across those that use the prefixes and suffixes you know. I have found a number of excellent websites that you can look at to study these vital word elements. Learning these is quite useful in academic settings as academic words often contain prefixes and suffixes.

Being Efficient in Your Vocabulary Study

The 100 Most Common Written Words in English:
1. the
2. of
3. and
4. a
5. to
6. in
7. is
8. you
9. that
10. it
11. he
12. was
13. for
14. on
15. are
16. as
17. with
18. his
19. they
20. I
21. at
22. be
23. this
24. have
25. from
26. or
27. one
28. had
29. by
30. word
31. but
32. not
33. what
34. all
35. were
36. we
37. when
38. your
39. can
40. said
41. there
42. use
43. an
44. each
45. which
46. she
47. do
48. how
49. their
50. if
51. will
52. up
53. other
54. about
55. out
56. many
57. then
58. them
59. these
60. so
61. some
62. her
63. would
64. make
65. like
66. him
67. into
68. time
69. has
70. look
71. two
72. more
73. write
74. go
75. see
76. number
77. no
78. way
79. could
80. people
81. my
82. than
83. first
84. water
85. been
86. call
87. who
88. oil
89. its
90. now
91. find
92. long
93. down
94. day
95. did
96. get
97. come
98. made
99. may
100. part

The 100 Most Common Words in Spoken English
1. a, an
2. after
3. again
4. all
5. almost
6. also
7. always
8. and
9. because
10. before
11. big
12. but
13. (I) can
14. (I) come
15. either/or
16. (I) find
17. first
18. for
19. friend
20. from
21. (I) go
22. good
23. goodbye
24. happy
25. (I) have
26. he
27. hello
28. here
29. how
30. I
31. (I) am
32. if
33. in
34. (I) know
35. last
36. (I) like
37. little
38. (I) love
39. (I) make
40. many
41. one
42. more
43. most
44. much
45. my
46. new
47. no
48. not
49. now
50. of
51. often
52. on
53. one
54. only
55. or
56. other
57. our
58. out
59. over
60. people
61. place
62. please
63. same
64. (I) see
65. she
66. so
67. some
68. sometimes
69. still
70. such
71. (I) tell
72. thank you
73. that
74. the
75. their
76. them
77. then
78. there is
79. they
80. thing
81. (I) think
82. this
83. time
84. to
85. under
86. up
87. us
88. (I) use
89. very
90. we
91. what
92. when
93. where
94. which
95. who
96. why
97. with
98. yes
99. you
100. your

I have added these two lists to help you be more efficient in your vocabulary study. Knowing these words means that you will know about about half of what you read or hear. Most likely, as you look at this list, you will find that you know most of these words. This in turn means that you know almost half of what you need to know in order to be successful. Congratulations! In a previous blog post, I added links to the 1000 most common words and the academic word lists. I believe if you focus your attention to learning these words, you will know what you need to know in terms of vocabulary. As you get into your departments, you will come across specialized vocabulary related to your field of study and these of course will be useful to you but will be quite easy to master once you have mastered the lists I have suggested to you.
Go through those three lists. Identify the words you know. The remaining words become the object of your vocabulary study. Once identified, break those words into daily vocabulary study sets of 10-15 words. You should be able to learn 10-15 new words each day with a moderate amont of daily vocabulary study.