How to Use the ECP Website to Practise This Summer
24/06/21 / Keyword: ECP
Have you ever visited the ECP website? If not, you are missing a host of free resources that you can use to practise your English this summer! Here’s a guide to help you.
Click HERE to download the Weekly English Practice as a PDF.
Useful vocabulary
in a row: in succession, one after the other
carousel: something that goes round and round eventually repeating itself
30-odd: ‘-odd’ indicates an indistinct amount over the number, typically a small amount
to write down: to make a note of something in a book or on a piece of paper
aforementioned: a thing or person previously mentioned
hilarious: very, very funny, extremely amusing
‘guiri’: a foreign tourist, particularly northern European
Listen to the audio and read the text (refresh the page if it’s not visible).
Have you ever visited the ECP website? If not, you are missing a host of free resources that you can use to practise your English this summer! Here’s a guide to help you.
Summer is here and that means that your favourite way of practising your listening, reading and writing skills will be taking a break until the autumn. But don’t worry, English Coaching Projects’ Weekly English Practice (say that three times in a row without making a mistake) will be back at the end of September, new and improved, and better than ever!
In the meantime, why not use the resources that you can find on the ECP website to practise during the summer months? Here’s a quick guide to help you find what you need.
Weekly English Practice blog
Choose Weekly English Practice from the website menu and you will see that just below the introduction there is a carousel that lets you choose from the last 30-odd WEPs (use the left/right arrows). Below the carousel, you have two different search functions where you can access all our WEPs since October 2014: by word (Search articles) or by month (Month by month). There is also a link to our original WEP blog with articles and audios from 2012 to 2014.
Enter a word – for example ‘summer’ – and any article that contains it will appear. You’ll be surprised what articles have mentioned the word ‘summer’! Just choose a word and explore the articles.
All the texts have an accompanying audio and any article since October 2017 will have an introductory video too. We recommend watching that first before reading the text and writing your answers and opinions to the questions at the end. Since October 2020, the videos include the text and audio too, making things even easier!
Recommendation:Why not explore a little and choose 5 articles to watch, read and listen to this summer? Write down your answers to the questions, save them in a text document and send that to your ECP coach at the end of the summer!
Videos and Resources page
In the Weekly English Practice submenu, you can choose Videos & Resources to access over 400 videos – four hundred! These are designed to help you practise grammar, vocabulary and listening skills in a variety of ways. All the videos are hosted on our YouTube channel, EnglishCoachingCoop, and can be accessed on your phone, tablet and computer at any time.
As well as the aforementioned WEP videos, you will find the following series of videos:
- Our series of Reduce Your Spanglish videos that will help you correct typical mistakes.
- The hilarious and educational Quick Jokes and Funny Expressions series where you can practise vocabulary and typical expressions while learning new jokes.
- Our famous FRED Talks presentations where coaches, students and special guests give short talks about fascinating subjects.
- The documentary series What Are You Still Doing Here? in which ECP coach Rob interviews ‘guiris’ who came to the Basque Country many years ago and decided to stay here.
There are also some links to a few other websites that have great – and free – resources, such as the BBC, englisch-hilfen.de and Amigos Ingleses.
Recommendations:
1. Use the subtitles/captions option in YouTube to help you understand the videos. The ‘auto-generated’ subtitles are not always perfect but are still very useful!
2. Watch the videos two or three times and write down the words and expressions you learn or don’t initially remember. Repeat them and record your voice to practise saying them.
3. Write summaries of the different episodes and presentations, save them in a text document and, at the end of the summer, send them to your ECP coach.
Thanks for sharing your language journey with us this year and, if we don’t see you in July, have a great summer and see you again at the end of September!
Written by ECP coach Rob Hextall
Let’s chat about using the ECP website!
- Do you plan to practise English over the summer? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Have you ever used the resources that are available on the ECP website or on our YouTube channel?
- What resources have you used online to learn and practise languages?
- What resources would you like ECP to produce in the future?
- How will you relax this summer?