Hello! Hello! Hello Everybody! I am back with my most recent video: Learn English Live 7. I have answered some great questions from my online students and they were kind enough to take the time to record their question and send the mp3 to me(info@privateenglishportal.com) The questions vary in level of difficulty from intermediate to fluency levels so there is something that everyone can benefit from here on Peppy Club. The first question I address comes from a student from Poland who had a doubt about “whether vs.. if”.

Whether vs. if

Well this question looks very complicated and you can check out some great sources in grammar reference books such as: The New Fowlers Modern English, Understanding and Using English Grammar and English Grammar in Use. I was able to determine that the confusion between the two is because of “register”. So it’s use, as I say in my video, is more flexible in spoken English and more restricted in written English for academic purposes.

TOEFL Tips

Another question I address in the video was about tips for preparing for the TOEFL. Recently I helped a Russian student pass the TOEFL and one of the things that we focussed on and that I recommend any TOEFL examinee is to pay attention to how you are practicing for the test. One of the most important things that you need to look for in a TOEFL preparation course is that there is a good deal of task-oriented practice. The best way for you to do this is to find a preparation course at a school with FEWER students who are all the same level. This will make it easier for the teacher to focus on tasks that are appropriate for your level. As I say in my video, the feedback from TOEFL students is that quite often the courses they took focussed too much on theoretical knowledge of the TOEFL. If this is your case, I recommend ample self-study to ensure you are ready for the big day. There are many books available online for the TOEFL and from my experience, I can see that the gap in terms of level of difficulty from one editor to the next is improving so you can choose from a wide variety of editors like: Longman, Cambridge, Delta’s Key and  Barons to name a few.

Practicing Speaking

Although I didn’t include the following question in my video, I wanted to address it on my blog:

Subject: Diana from Sweden
How I can lern english for my jobb. I am a doctor. I can speak Dari, russi, swedish and a litel english. I learn english i school bauth I not use english a loungtime.
With best regards
Diana

corrections:

How I can learn English for my job. I am a doctor. I can speak Dari, Russian, Swedish and a little English. I learn English in school but I haven’t used English for a long time.

With best regards,

Diana

In many cases, English learners feel isolated living in parts of the world where they might not get the chance to speak English on a daily basis. This is sometimes true for non-native speakers of English who live and work here in North America, however, they still don’t get a chance to practice their English because of the nature of their work and because they live in immigrant satellite communities. I have many students who have been living in North America for years, nevertheless, they still need English lessons to practice their English. I strongly suggest all of you to take advantage of the fact that Peppy Club members are quite advanced as many of them are preparing for the TOEFL, studying business English or are doing advanced English courses. Many Peppy Club members are eager to contact you on Skype to practice their English and this is a great way to reboot your English. One last tip is to practice English by taking down new words you’ve learned by yourself. I learned Portuguese this way many years ago because internet did not exist and there were no Portuguese native speakers close to where I lived. I used to keep a diary of new words that I liked and I would watch videos that I liked from movies and TV Series to get new ones. For each new word or phrase I liked, I would draw a picture of the scene from the video next to the word to associate the picture with the word. The important thing is to find something you like, learn from it and put what you learned into practice.

Use the Infinitive to Express Purpose

Lastly, in the video I correct a message sent to me from an English learner from Costa Rica. One thing I highlighted when correcting her message was that whenever you are talking about the “why” of a question you can use the infinitive. For example, “Why are you studying English?”, “I am studying English to improve my job opportunities”

Well everyone I hope you enjoy the video and you can find the quiz answers here. Next video to be released will be Peppy 25 – Time travel 2.