Clearly the English, baby! webmasters took courses in fun. Because that’s what this website excels at. Once you see their list of lessons you’ll get a smile on your face that just won’t go away. And that’s one of the reasons why English, baby! is the winner of the "TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award."
And we have to say that their lesson on Woodstock is really the way to teach culture. I mean after all, what is more American than Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix playing for a bunch of draft-card burning Hippies?
Audios are really done the way people actually talk. The vocabulary they use is really good and certainly include the words ESL students would have had trouble with.
English, baby! Standout Features:
- Penpals – If you’re looking for a penpal from another country, you’ll find one on English, baby! Because everyone on there seems to be looking for someone to converse with. There are pictures and everything. Go make a friend.
- Discussions – The discussions on just about everything are simply interesting. People are talking and having a great time using their newly-acquired English skills.
- Recent member activity sidebar – On the side of many of the web pages you’ll see the photos of who’s been contributing to the forums. Go ahead and participate. You’ll be listed there too.
- Lesson uploading – People can upload lessons they have prepared. This may sound cheesy, but the result is that lots of really funny videos get uploaded. And many of them seem to make really good learning material. On the other hand, a few of the lessons aren’t so great, but as a student you’ll have to decide which ones are worth your time and which ones are not.
- Culturally rich – By having “amateurs” upload what appeals to them, students learn the way English speakers really talk and behave. This is an advantage to English learners who may not have the chance to visit an English-speaking country.
- Comment sections – Each lesson has comment sections where students ask questions and make comments about each lesson. These are used quite a bit and you can learn a lot by following them.
- Newsletter – They’re really talking about what’s going on as far as movies and television. Read what people are saying about the next movie you want to see.
- Chatroom – This online instant messaging component enables you to talk to the other students on English, baby! And it’s in realtime!
English, baby! could be the poster child for social media integration for online English learning. It’s just a treasure-chest of interaction between students. The minute you come to the site you’re bombarded with people looking for friends. And they’re from all over: Mexico, China, the U.S., Turkey, and just about every country on the planet. Before you select who you want to be friends with, you can look at their photo, how much education they have, and even the industry they work in.
The blogs by students were especially creative. I can’t imagine a more fun way to better your writing ability. Students have their own blogs and they’re terribly prolific. Obviously they love the chance to write, pour their hearts out, and forget about punctuation and spelling and all of the things that hold us back from being good writers. English, baby! is really on to something here! Really!
The maintainers of the English, baby! website clearly know how to find topics that will get people to talking. They know the secret: Get a controversial topic and let the students start communicating. Who doesn’t have an opinion they want to voice about the Kanye West-Taylor Swift debacle? Or Quentin Tarantino’s new movie “Inglorious Bastards” about eight Jews in WWII who exact revenge against the Nazis they encounter. Who wouldn’t like to make a comment about that?
But many of their lessons are serious. We really liked the lesson that imparted information about what the TOEFL exam is.
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