One of my least favourite months of the year is finally over – we haven’t had it too bad though, a bit wet and windy but not really cold!  We have had some new arrivals to our language school from South America this month to start their English language course and they are really enjoying the change in pace and climate here in Bundoran.

This month, our theme in the classrooms was ‘Media’, which covered areas such as undercover journalism, the importance of local journalism, and social media.  Our visitor was the editor of a local newspaper, and made a strong argument in favour of continuing to support local media sources.  We also had some great presentations, comparing news stories in different countries – it was fascinating to see how the same story could be developed in different ways, based on different cultural backgrounds.  I love learning about other cultures and although our students are studying English in Ireland, they are able to learn from their peers about countries other than Ireland.

This month, the website I’d recommend is youglish.  This website is particularly good for pronunciation practice – you can type in a word or phrase, and it will give you a selection of video clips containing the words you have chosen.  You can hear a variety of accents this way, and listen to how the word or phrase is pronounced in natural English, at a natural pace.  It also helps you to see how the word is used in context, giving you ideas for working it into your own conversations 🙂