5 comments about Teach Yourself Russian Conversation (3CDs + Guide) (Teach Yourself Conversation Packs).

1. I haven't made it too far into this yet. This is because I also purchased the Learn Russian in Your Car series which I have found to be more to my taste.
   
   The very first section in this course is quite repetitive to the point where I was losing interest fast. There are only so many times you can listen to and repeat the exact same conversation over and over. I would have preferred the course designer include more lessons rather than put so much repetition on the CD. If one nees to repeat something, that is fairly easy to do on modern day CD players.
   
   My one big complaint about this course is that the inluded course text does not have the conversations in cyrillic (Russian). It is all spelled out phonetically in English. My opinion is that it should have both.
   
   Overall, it is a good course for basic conversational Russian. For me, I've been reading the Penguin book at home, and then using the Learn Russian in your Car course which I like a lot. This course, Ive not been using as much, but I think if I hadn't also purchased the others, that I would be satisfied with this one.



2. This is the third product from the "Teach Yourself Russian..." series that I have purchased and they are all outstanding! I have purchased other products by Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone to try to learn Russian but this series is the best I have found.



3. Before I worked through this set, I worked through Conversational Russian: Pimsleur Language Programs, Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Script, and Teach Yourself Russian (Book + 2CDs). So I came to these CDs not as a complete tyro but with some Russian under my belt. I had also done Teach Yourself Turkish Conversation.
   
   When I did the Turkish set, I spent three days on each lesson, one lesson a week, twenty weeks for the set. For the Russian conversation disks, I did a lesson a day, five per week, four weeks for the set. This seemed to work well, even though there was quite a bit of new words and even though the pace sped up in the last lessons. The speakers spoke clearly and didn't talk unnaturally slowly as they do on the Turkish set. The first two CDs are ten pairs of dialogs. The third CD is many small tracks of helpful bits which is some better or at least different than the mini-dialog approach on the Turkish 3d CD.
   
   I think this would be a good set to use if you were needing Russian fast, just before a trip, and had no experience. You could do the Conversational Russian above at the same time and have quite a bit of Russian in your head. This set has 300-400 words and the Pimsleur has about 200. When you consider that about 500 words make up 65% of what is written in English, knowing 500 words of Russian is a lot -- given that you take the time to really know them.
   
   The down side of this set comes down to:
   --typical speed-up of vocab at the end
   --typical romanization of Russian -- annoying if you read Cyrillic
   --manual is pretty useless -- but you don't really need it
   --for some reason, the last second of almost every track is trimmed off
   
   So why five stars? Because the price --even less for new on Used&New-- is very low and the amount of good Russian for practicing your listening and speaking is great.



4. This is the second Russian language course I've bought. I found the CDs of this course very difficult to use as a learning tool. Specifically, the problem I have is the way the CDs teach you Russian in sentence form. The course does not break down the sentence into what is the meaning of each word. For example, "oo vas yest...?" is translated as "do you have any...?" The literal translation is: "with you is...?" So you're left thinking that "oo" means "do" when it actually means "with." This may seem a small point, but when loose translation like this is used, you miss the exact translation of each word and you don't get a sense of how Russians construct their sentences and what each word means. This loose translation method is used throughout the course. Very frustrating.
   
   Another frustrating part of this course is that the English translator spends too much time describing the situations of each conversation. For example, time is spent talking about setting up the scene with the fact that the couple is now going to order from a restaurant. That is obvious when they start to order. Wasted time.
   
   By contrast, the first course I bought was Earworms Russian, which did a great job of breaking down each sentence into what each word means, both literally and figuratively, and repeating and translating the sentence word for word, a few times. If I had not bought Earworms first, I would be completely lost with these CDs.
   
   On the plus side, this course does give more of a sense of how masculine and feminine words change endings of other verbs and nouns in the context of a sentence. It also gives more of a sense of real conversation between two people.
   
   The booklet is useless. It breaks down each Russian word into the phonetic pronunciation with so many apostrophies that it's impossible to figure out where one word ends and another begins in a sentence. The Earworms booklet does a much better job of both phonetic pronunciation and actual Cyrillic script.
   
   So bottom line is this CD course is not as good a learning course as I expected.



5. Wowee, this CD collection literally "throws" you into the Russian language and literally trains your ear to pick up the highs and lows of Russian diction. The accompanying language manual "guide" also does a decent job.
   
   Some cons: the voice guide goes very fast, and her quick British accent makes the language introduction sections a little "off." Why? The guide's rendition of the language is COMPLETELY different from the native speaker's version of textbook Russian, like ordering in a restaurant.
   
   Other than that, this is a fun ear-training CD to chirp to, as you make your way through rush-hour traffic. Dashvidanya!
   
   Overall Grade: B+ (the guide talks way too fast and she pronounces the words a little exaggerated)

No comments about 101 American English Proverbs with MP3 Disc: Enrich Your English Conversation with Colorful Everyday Sayings.

1 comments about Arriba! Comunicacion y Cultura.

1. It has been over a month...and I have not recieved these CDs for my class. I am way behind and ordered the CDs well in enough time to reiceved them for class.

1 comments about The Oxford Picture Dictionary Second Edition Audio Compact Discs (No. 1-4).

1. The Oxford Picture Dictionary and its coordinating materials are great. They are easy to use and are a great investment!

5 comments about Traveler's French CD Course.

1. I have found the Traveller's French course fantastic. I had absolutely no French when I started and now after only 5 weeks feel very confident that I will be able to ask directions, order food and be generally polite when I travel this month. I have found that just listening to the tapes was great for pronounciation but a little bit of writing out the phrases was needed to lock them into my memory. This will not be reqired for most people though. The pocket phrase book is also going to be very handy and is a great size too. Overall very pleased with my purchase.



2. I agree with another reviewer, that this isn't a CD for someone who has never learned French before. I'm not sure how the authors picked some of the topics, as many don't appear to be relevant to traveling, and just presents one part of a conversation -such as ordering a steak rare or well done, but nothing on ordering chicken or how to say medium. I don't think anyone could "learn" French from the CD alone. One might learn enough to get by, but that would include multiple hours of listening, following the mini-guide, and maybe doing some writing.
   On the positive side, it's fun to listen to and the accents are native. I learned some basic phrases such as greetings, asking for things, and polite things to say. The CD stresses pronounciation, so it may be something someone used in conjunction to a class or another method of study.



3. I have a young niece that wanted to have a better ability to communicate on a field trip to Canada. She felt that this CD was perfect for her purposes.



4. A good set of "lessons," but definitely not for the beginner. You really need to have some French to understand not only the two speakers, but there is not enough time to repeat the phrases,words, etc. For someone who is pretty familiar with French, this is a good refresher course.



5. This is good for someone who has a need to hear spoken French, but not on a beginning level. It is a bit too difficult for the beginner who has no experience or prior exposure to the French language. Overall, it's a good cd, but there are other programs out there that would be more beneficial for beginners.

5 comments about INGLES en 10 minutos al dia con CD-ROM (10 Minutes a Day) (Spanish Edition).

1. As a public school teacher in Massachusetts, I find this book almost unusable. I make use of it only as outside-class reinforcement for Spanish speakers in my classes who need to acquire ONLY basic speaking skills quickly. Keep in mind, however, that the Spanish/English version contributes to a dependence on the student's first language, and its format & layout can be confusing. There aren't enough practice exercises in general, and it doesn't address any academic skills such as punctuation, capitalization, writing longer sentences/paragraphs or reading comprehension. Its saving grace is the pre-laminated reference sheet for common vocabulary and phrases. It would benefit from an accompanying CD or tape for speaking practice and reinforcement at the very least. Take care before you buy.



2. I have been using this workbook to tutor two young men. Their native langue is Spanish and while they do speak some English, they have never had any formal training in English. I like the book because the exercises are interesting and useful and the illustrations are very colorful. Many of the English words are written in Spanish also which I think has been very helpful to my students. Also, because I am a beginning Spanish student, we have a nice cross cultural experience which is a lot of fun.



3. This is very popular with our low level or non-literate students and an easy transition into English Language learning. Not only do the students prefer this in the classroom, most of them will purchase this for home study also. A good review for low to moderate learners.



4. As a teacher, I have used this collection of books, not only the English one but this one, "INGLES en 10 minutos al dia con CD-ROM (10minutes aDay) (Spanish Edition)" has been very handy for my work. Great for teaching beginners!



5. I bought for my mom,,,so far she said that it's a good and easy book.

5 comments about How To Teach English (Book with DVD).

1. I will soon be a first time ESL teacher. Frankly, I am surprised at the great ratings this book has received. Yes, it has some good tips, but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of how people learn languages. A lot of it seemed like it was common sense. (For example, do you really need a book to tell you that people need to be exposed to language in different ways? i.e. Traditional grammar practice is fine, but a student needs to be engaged in the language through other forms of practice. Duh.) If anything this book reassured some thoughts I have had about how to teach.
   
   I liked how he seperated the chapters into "How to teach Reading" or "How to Teach Listening, Writing..." etc. But as I said, nothing in them was terribly enlightening. (90% of the chapters are examples based on the student's level. So therefor if you are only teaching one level, 80% of the chapter is useless to you!) Also, I was annoyed that he dropped the "Beginner" examples in a couple of chapters. I liked those examples, because I will be teaching young children. I do think that some of his more advanced examples could be "dumbed down" for beginner audiences, but he could have had more examples in some chapters.
   
   The "What If" chapter is useful. (i.e. "What if the students are at different levels...What if the class is very big...What if the students don't want to talk?")As are the first few chapters about how to be a teacher in general. He gives good tips on how to speak in class, how to relate to students, lesson plans, how to give instructions, etc. I believe that this was the best part of the book.
   
   I only gave the text 3 stars because I think that the middle chapters, which specifically concern teaching English (the topic of the book!), could have more information in them. I breezed through them because, minus the examples which I mentioned above, there is not that much information in them. You should read this book along with a more indepth study of teaching ESL.



2. This is one of the books supplied when registering for the 60 hour Oxford Seminar Teaching ESL/EFL 3 weekend class. There is another commercial text on Overseas Jobs, plus a large O.S. proprietary bound text and a much smaller stappled text for job location. The whole seminar is $995, but $100 off with a 4 week advance registration.
   
   Influenced by the class, I don't see the text as being totally stand alone, even if the quality is exceptionally high. However, I liked the O.S. approach so much that I am adding a supplementary 40 hour module for TOEFL for $300.



3. Of course, the only way one really learns to teach English is by actually doing it. But you have to start somewhere and this book gives a pretty good general overview of how to go about it. I think it could also help the prospective teacher avoid a lot of pitfalls. My main objection to it is that it's British, with British grammatical usage, British spellings, and British sensibilities. I personally found the DVD a bit disturbing because the teachers had substandard pronunciation. But most of my classmates and my professor disagreed with me. They feel that English is English. Maybe that's okay if the students are going to stay in one location and always work at lower level jobs. But if the students are ambitious, they're going to want to move beyond mere communication of basic needs and substandard speech is going to hold them back. But if that doesn't bother you, you may find that this book will suit your needs.



4. Required to read this book for a language school in Prague. Wealth of information so far.



5. Excellent book which communicates ideas for every type of teaching. This book is a must for anyone who wishes to teach the English language

2 comments about The Practice of English Language Teaching with DVD (4th Edition) (Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers).

1. My textbook came faster than I expected--I had it way ahead of many of my classmates, even though I ordered it a week after classes started. Perfect condition, as I purchased it new from Amazon, and good deal on shipping (free).



2. WANT A PRACTICAL LOOK INTO SOME METHODOLOGIES A TESOL/ESL TEACHER (in training) NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF?
   Look no further than Jeremy Harmer's, 'The Practice of English Language Teaching'.
   
   Arrived within two weeks of purchase (Over Christmas period), in terrific condition.
   The text itself is very thorougher and Jeremy has a knack for explaining thoughts and concepts relevant to someone considering the teaching (Tesol/Tefl/Esl etc) field. Though I've only begun my TESOL certificate, I feel this text will help enormously, as this completely revised edition has the added bonus of discussion on such subjects as:
   teacher development
   learner autonomy &
   context-sensitive learning & teaching methodologies
   
   There is a wealth of up-to-date material any up-and-coming ESL teacher, or teacher in training, will find valuable as they complete their studies.

5 comments about Picture These SAT Words in a Flash.

1. I bought these for my daughter who will be taking her SAT's and really think that these flashcards are very helpful. You are able to visualize how the word is being used in a sentence with the cartoon drawing that is on each card. I wish that there were more words. Though I think this is a great tool for someone who struggles with vocabulary, to pass the SAT's you need more words to work with.



2. The pictures really helps, esp. if the person is young, I guess. Our daughter started "big" words very early -- she is nine. She loves these cards and remembers the vocabularies very well with their help.



3. I use these with my high school AVID students to help them learn vocabulary for the SAT test. The pictures and examples really help them learn the words.



4. I disagree with this approach to learning vocabulary. The pictures have absolutely nothing to do with the language roots of each word. Yes, they serve as clever mnemonic crutches, but the end result is that the mind will forever carry around superfluous and inaccurate associations. I mean, really, asking you to think of someone "prodding a gull" to learn the meaning of "prodigal"?
   
   I guess people are more interested in their SAT score than in learning for the long run. For short term gain, if skills with English mean nothing to you for the remainder of your life, these cards are novel.



5. I would recommend this to children in elementary school. Pictorial definitions are fine for this age, however older students should have surpassed the dumbed down comic book approach. The pictorial representations fail to take into account the shades of meanings of words. The definitions offered will not stand up in most situations because of this narrow view of a word definition. This is where the product fails to deliver. Again, if you want to enhance your vocabulary, use a text based definition that takes into account the nuances of word meanings otherwise you are simply taking your chances with a quick cram job that is too surfacy. You will fail miserably when given a word on a standarized test in a context driven situation due to the narrowly focused definitions.

5 comments about Pronounce It Perfectly in English with Audio CDs.

1. You can learn a lot about pronunciation but there is not so many exercises to practice and audio quality of tracks is not so good. It's a good program for this price I think.



2. This English language learning kit offer a good self-study tool for us, people that not use the English idiom as our first language. I guess that this one is not the perfect product for the first timer users. You need to understand the English language first, in some basic form, because the product is all in english, but you really get a better pronunciation after it. Remember that this need time, your time, for better results. If you are not a good self-study person, you must consider another way of learning, all other things are really well explain and nice organize on it. The CD's play well on any CD player and the book guide is simple and nice illustrated.
   
   Para las personas que hablamos otro idioma como primera lengua, este producto realmente es muy útil. Si tienes un verdadero compromiso contigo en aprender, este guía de estudio te ayudará. Recuerda que está toda en inglés, por lo que necesitarás tener un conocimiento básico del mismo, lo demás es muy fácil de manejar. Son varios CD y un libro guía que se complementan muy bien. Los CD los puedes escuchar en cualquier reproductor de CD como si fueran CD de música.



3. When I bought this product I wasn't really sure how it would be.
   However, I was studying English and I needed to improve my pronunciation and listening so I took the risk. It worth it!...
   It's an excellent book (and cds too). I recommend it to everyone.
   I listen to the cds every day :D .
   My mail is dalila_tm@hotmail.com



4. I'm amazed at how much I learned with these cd's. I bought them for my significant other, he's from Argentina and has a THICK accent that was difficult for people to understand. He knows the American English language, but he did not have a full understanding of the pronunciation. This program is AWESOME and fully recommend for people who want to improve their speech. This program is NOT for people who want to learn the language.



5. I am a student of languages and an ESL tutor. I like the "Pronounce It Perfectly" series for myself (French and Spanish) and for my ESL students (English).
   
   The material is a high quality mass-market version of professional ESL pronunciation workbooks. The audio is excellent and has a matching book. I like the following aspects: (1) each sound is covered in sufficient depth (variety and repetition) that a diligent student will acquire basic listening recognition and sound production skills, (2) there are examples of various spellings for a given sound (example: meet/meat) and again a diligent student will acquire basic skills at recognizing the probable spellings of a spoken word, (3) there are explanations of correct jaw, tongue and lip positions (very helpful!), and (4) important subtle details are covered (example: 'p' has a puff of air at the beginning of a word).
   
   For my ESL pronunciation lessons, I like to work with "English Pronunciation Made Simple" and to loan the student a copy of "Pronounce It Perfectly in English."