Great Academic Listening Sites for TOEFL

Students and teachers of TOEFL will find Academic Earth and Education for All to be very useful for improving vocabulary and listening comprehension. Both sites feature lectures by outstanding professors and entrepreneurs representing a wide range of fields. There are ten-minute segments as well as full lectures (an hour or more). Some of the resources provide written transcripts. Definitely visit these free sites for practicing academic listening comprehension.

George Carlin and Playing on English

A few weeks ago, I saw a recording of an award ceremony commemorating (posthumously) the comedic talents of George Carlin, who was being honored with the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center. Listening to some of his most famous routines, I realized what a genius he was with words and wondered why I had never seriously explored his work. Take, for example, the first two minutes of his 'Advertising Lullaby.' It's an outstanding demonstration of all the advertising come-ons used in the business, but presented in such an artful way that it was pleasurable listening to it. He always considered the rhythm and sounds and carefully chose the sequence in which to put the phrases together. You can be totally mesmerized by his 'poetry in motion.' The only drawback is that, depending on the age of your students and your own sensitivity, you may need to censor the last 40 seconds of this piece. There's a lot of vulgarity in the last part. This link gives you a transcript of the lyrics without the last stanza.

Of course, George Carlin devotes some attention to seven dirty words that can't be used on television (this excerpt again would not be appropriate for school-age children). Had he not used so many 'unacceptable' words, his work would be ideal for any advanced level ESL class. His abundant profanity, however, requires caution when airing his pieces. Nevertheless, the fact that the Kennedy Center did celebrate his achievements last November, shows that he went beyond notoriety to achieve recognition as a major contributor to the development of the art of American humor.

Advanced-level students, if you can understand George Carlin's work, then you're probably near proficiency level! If you can't yet enjoy this form of entertainment, download, read and interpret the transcript of 'Advertising Lullaby.' Watch the performance again, and just listen to the music of the American spoken word interpreted by George Carlin.

CAE and the Open Cloze

What is a cloze? For a detailed description of the cloze technique, check out Brigham Young University's English site

In the Cambridge exams, the second part of Paper 3 (Use of English) is the 'open cloze.' It contains written material with gaps. The student must fill them in with his/her own words, and it is quite challenging.

Today, while reviewing adjective clauses, I told students to tell me the difference between the restrictive and non-restrictive form. They rolled their eyes, and I could see them thinking to themselves - oh no! more terminology! However, with illustrations using some examples from the Blue Azar grammar book ('The children, who wanted to play soccer, ran to the park.' and 'The children who wanted to play soccer ran to the park.'), they began to see the difference. The main point was to let them know that "Mr. Cambridge" loves to trick students into choosing the wrong word, in this case, 'that' instead of 'which' or 'who.' That is, if you have a restrictive adjective clause containing essential information identifying the noun, there are no commas around the relative clause and you can use 'which' or 'that' with a thing or 'who' or 'that' with a person. On the other hand, if the adjective clause following the noun is a non-restrictive form, you must use 'who' or 'which', and not 'that.' Isn't the Use of English 'Open Cloze' fun?

Here's an example of a self-created 'cloze' about history. The paragraph comes from an article in 'The Atlantic' (Dec. 2008) by James Fallows entitled, 'Be Nice to the Countries that Lend You Money':

'Gao, _____ I mentioned in my article, would fit no American's preexisting idea _____ a Communist Chinese official. He speaks accented ______ fully colloquial _____ very high-speed English. He has _____ law degree ______ Duke, _______ he earned _____ the 1980s after working _____ a lawyer ______ professor in China, _____ he was _____ associate _____ Richard Nixon's former Wall Street law firm. ______ office, _____ one of ______ more tasteful new glass-walled high-rises _____ Beijing, itself seems less Chinese ______ internationally 'fusion'-minded in _____ aesthetic ______ furnishings. '

The solution is below in the previous post (since the order of my posts on my blog page is most recent first, I have put the solution in an earlier post so that you can scroll DOWN rather than UP for the answers).

Solution to the Above Sample CAE Cloze

If you tried the previous CLOZE example of a self-made Part 2 of the CAE Use of English paper, here's the solution. With practice, CAE Students, you will definitely improve!

'Gao, whom I mentioned in my article, would fit no American's preexisting idea of a Communist Chinese official. He speaks accented but fully colloquial and very high-speed English. He has a law degree from Duke, which he earned in the 1980s after working as a lawyer and professor in China, and he was an associate in Richard Nixon's former Wall Street law firm. His office, in one of the more tasteful new glass-walled high-rises in Beijing, itself seems less Chinese than internationally 'fusion'-minded in its aesthetic and furnishings. '

Good job!