Interview with Jaime Miller - TOEFL teacher

Hi everyone,

In my former blog posts, I was writing about Jaime Miller. First, when I summarized my TOEFL experience. Second, when I introduced her excellent right notes course. And now I'm very happy because Jaime gave me the possibility to conduct an interview with her. I hope you'll like it and maybe some of you feel like visiting Jaime's website, youtube  channel or even working with her.

Update - please visit my other interviews as well: Gardeniafly and Kate. Both of them from Georgia, USA.

So, let's meet Jaime.

 -     Hi, Jaime. Thank you very much for this interview. Let’s begin with your studies. When and where did you graduate from university? 

-       I graduated from a school called Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon. It was in May, 2008. It was five years ago.

-       What kind of faculty did you attend?

-       I studied History mostly.

Today’s Idiom – Pay Through the Nose

Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I began a new series about idioms. The first idiom was “spill the beans”. As I told you, Americans (and other native English speakers) use a great number of idioms. It makes the English language beautiful, varied and alive. If you try to learn them, it is a great adventure. In this series within my blog, I can show only a few idioms, but I’m going to introduce books, websites, and video channels that can help you.

Cattle vs kettle - Short A (AA) and Short E (EH) sounds

Hi,

Earlier in this blog, after the classification of American English vowels, we began to work on the vowels in pairs. In this series, we were speaking about the /i/ (Long E - EE) and /ı/ (Short I – IH)sounds. And now we’re going to learn about the /æ/ (Short A - AA)  and /ɛ/ (Short E – EH) sounds. The methods we will use will be similar. We’re going through some useful materials from Rachel’s website and video channel, and we will talk about Mandy’spronuncian.com and her excellent podcast. There are many good teachers who concentrate on American English pronunciation, but in my opinion Rachel and Mandy are the best.

Five Common Excuses Not To Learn a Foreign Language – guest post from Lingholic

Hi,

I don’t need to tell you that I like learning languages. I know there are many people who don’t like to do so. When I ask them why, there are some frequently repeated answers. It’s surprising these people don’t know each other, but I hear the same reasons again and again. I was very surprised when I found a blog called Lingholic. This blog has excellent articles that are helpful and I’d like to show you the kind of excuses the author encounters when he asks, “Why aren’t you learning a foreign language?” This article is based on the passage that I read on Lingholic (written by Sam Gendreau). I have added my comments to each statement. Also, I will give two additional excuses that I hear frequently. You can find Lingholic on Facefook as well.

English Vowel Sounds – Part I. Classification

Hi,

Let’s jump to a serious topic that I’ve had the most difficulties with in my English learning:  the system of the American English vowel sounds. I won't tell you that I haven’t had any problems with consonants, But for now I’d like to concentrate on vowel sounds. This entry will be rather long. Sorry guys, I have to go through it. Hopefully it won’t be as painful as a tooth extraction! First, I must  explain how I will name the American English vowels.  

Interview with Gardeniafly

Hi everyone,

Starting with this post, I'm beginning a new series within my blog. I plan to conduct interviews with some teachers whom I work with or whose materials I use. The first teacher I spoke with is Gardeniafly. You can read her comments at the bottom of each blog post.

Update - please visit my other reports as well. Jamie Miller is an excellent TOEFL teacher. Kate is an excellent American English teacher.

Today’s idiom – Spill the Beans

Hi everyone,

I'm writing today’s entry because a lot of people have asked me to speak about idioms. What is an idiom? An idiom is “a group of words that have a special meaning that is very different from the ordinary meaning of the separate words” (from the Longman Dictionary of American English). Americans (and other native English speakers) use a great number of idioms. It makes the English language beautiful, varied and alive. However, it also makes the language learner’s life difficult. But believe me, it’s a great adventure. In this series within my blog, I’m going to introduce books, websites, and video channels that can help you. An important notice: I never use other people thoughts as mine. I always indicate the source. I can’t show all the idioms, it’s impossible, but I can show you where you can learn idioms from.

My American life - Part two

Hi everyone,

In the first part of this entry, I began to summarize the long period of time that I spent in the United States. I spoke about the greatest challenge, the first nice experience, the most frequent experience (diversity), and I showed pictures of the nicest places I visited. A great Hungarian blog called “My Life in America and Afterwards” (Élet Amerikában és utána) published my entry in Hungarian as well. Let’s continue.

My American life - Part one

Hi everyone,

I’ve mentioned in other entries that I spent a long period of time in the United States. I’ve received several questions about it; in addition, I was asked to write a whole entry on what I experienced over there. Not only did readers of my blog ask for me to do this, but also the author of a great Hungarian blog called “My life in America and Afterwards” (Élet Amerikában és utána). If you can speak Hungarian,  you should definitely visit it. So I decided to write the same entries in two languages: an original English version and a Hungarian version. So this is the second bilingual entry after “The Communist Army and the English Language”  & “A kommunista hadsereg és az angol nyelv”. 

Part two is available here.

American English University

Hi everyone,

As I mentioned before, I spent a long period of time in the States. I wrote several messages on the thoughts and ideas I had over there which I use as a basis for my entries. Because I also get many questions from readers that I try to pay to attention to, I get new ideas from them as well. Today, I'm writing this post based on three questions I have received: (1) “Why do you prefer American English to British English?”, (2) “When I hear Americans speaking, I don’t understand them at all. How can I improve my comprehension skills?”, and (3) “Rachel’s English and Pronuncian.com are great, but could you recommend something that does not expand week by week? So, in other words, could you recommend a series of DVD's or a book that can help me develop an American accent?” So let’s get started answering these questions.

The Challenge of English Pronunciation and Spelling

Hi everyone,

Welcome back. Now let’s begin to work seriously. For this post, I'll write about some methods that show the pronunciation of English words in written form. At the same time, I would like to talk about the wall that was built in my brain as a consequence of my first English teacher. Later, other teachers were able to demolish this hindering wall. I'll try to connect different methods with my personal experiences.

Right Notes for TOEFL IBT – Excellent Course from Jaime Miller

Hi everyone,

Some people might think, “Taking notes? Not a big deal! I just write down what I hear.” If you can do that, you’re lucky. Now consider writing down only a small part of what you hear. If you know any shorthand methods , you’re lucky again. Most people don’t know shorthand. You have to take notes as effectively as possible since this is a key factor in your success on the TOEFL  exam which, in turn, can be important in fulfilling your dreams of working or studying in the United States. Jaime’s  excellent course can help you learn how to take notes well.

My successful presentation in English

Hi everyone,

Doing a presentation in front of an audience? It can make anyone nervous. Speaking in a foreign language in front of other people? It’s a challenge even for those people who can speak quite well in any foreign language. Being videotaped? I think everyone begins to behave differently when he or she sees a camera with a little red light glowing on it. Receiving questions after your presentation? Okay, you are prepared well, you know your slides, and you know what you want to say, but you don’t have any idea what questions you'll receive. During my career, I’ve had to make several presentations and now I will tell you about how I did it in the States a couple of months ago.

Why I don’t teach, but I recommend ITALKI instead

Hi everyone,

I had different plans for the seventh entry today, but I changed my mind because of a frequently asked question. Several readers have asked me to teach via Skype, but I can’t. In this post, I'll explain why I don't teach and I'll recommend a great website where you can find teachers and friends. I'll introduce it to you very shortly.

Merry Christmas

Hi everyone,

For today, I’m writing you a short entry. It’s a special Christmas edition! I know that many people don’t celebrate Christmas, but I hope I won’t offend anyone with this post. I’m spending these days with my family. Before going on their winter holiday, Rachel and Mandy published special Christmas videos or podcasts.

Книги в огне - Books on Fire

Hi everyone,

If you don't speak Russian, please skip the first paragraph.

Мои дорогие Pусские Друзья! Мне стоило бы извиниться перед Вами. Может быть, эта история не очень Вас порадует. Откровенно говоря, двадцать три года тому назад я не любил русский язык. И я со своими друзьями откровенно это демонстрировал. Как мы это делали? Сейчас Вы это увидите.  

I had to begin this entry with some Russian words to my Russian readers. Why? Because this story might not seem very nice for them. Maybe some might think that I don’t like the Russian language. This was true many years ago. Now, I do love the Russian language. In my opinion it’s beautiful. Why am I writing an entry about the Russian language in my blog? Using this story, I would like to explain how bad methods and exercise books can cause trouble for students. 

My TOEFL exam - Jaime Miller

Hi everyone,

Nowadays a lot of people takes TOEFL exam. So did I in 2012. TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language. Its aim is to test the key abilities of language knowledge. This test focuses on American English. Prospective test takers can sign up for this test on the website. Most American universities require this exam from students whose native language is not English.

Mandy's Pronuncian.com

Hi everyone,

In the second blog post, I introduced Rachel’s English. Now it’s time to introduce another excellent site, that I like very much. It is Mandy's Pronuncian.com.  Mandy’s target is to teach pronunciation. However, she uses methods that are different from Rachel’s ones. 

Rachel's English

Hi everyone,

Welcome back! I’m very happy that I got some feedback and encouragement on my blog. I was thinking a lot about the second entry since this will be the first one that tries to introduce an issue. For this entry, I’ve chosen to introduce you to “Rachel’s English”. Rachel has a website, a Youtube video channel, and a Facebook page  that introduce you to American English. Her sites are linked together.

Opening – Why I began writing this blog.

Hi! How are you?

Welcome to my blog called “The Challenge of Learning US English”. Why did I begin this blog? I have had many thoughts about learning English that I’d like to share. I began to write these thoughts in an article, but then I realized that one article wasn't enough. Instead, I would need to write a series of 2-3 entries. However, a series was still not enough. My ideas were like a tree and new branches of thoughts continuously sprouted from my mind. So why not begin my own blog about it? Some of my topics are serious, some of them are just for fun.