Introduction to the English Sparring Partner site

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Welcome at ESP,
your English Sparring Partner
For whom?
If Google brought you here, telling you this is the site to start learning English, than you're at the wrong place: the British Council-, or BBC Learning site might be more suitable for your wishes in that case.
I can recommend both of them.

If, however, you did study English during, say, two or three years in your youth -or later- but, by lack of training forgot most of what you learned, and now you need or want to brush up your English again in a pleasant, but yet disciplined way, than you're really at the right spot and welcome!

By the way: if you want to freshen up any other language you might really benefit of the tips, techniques I give and the freeware tools I advise.
(Freeware tools can also be accessed at the downloads page of this site)

 

What and how
Apart from offering information, handing tools and ideas referred to learning English, this site is built around 2 important learning activities:

  • listening while reading
  • improving your own vocabulary by using flashcards (or vocabsushi)

Go to the speeches- respectively flashcard-page to find out immediately what I am talking about and start training.

How to improve your vocabulary, your mastering of idiom is extensively explained here at this site, stressing 2 important issues:

  • how to use webresources in a most adequate way
  • how not to drown in a sea of options
  • how to use the web for creating your own learning material
 

The Web
I'm a teacher. I'm an immigrant as well. I came to Brazil at later age and was -and still are- confronted with learning another language again. Brazilian Portuguese. A Roman language, giving me as much trouble as French, which I had to learn when I was much younger.

There was no internet when I was young. I'm happy it's there now. It has been, and still is every day, a great help for me trying to master Brazilian Portuguese.
There are so many great tools, there's such a wealth of references and resources: anything you can imagine is there. This however poses a big threat as well:

information overload

...the reverse side of the medal. Simply put:
the danger of spending/wasting too much time by endlessly looking, surfing, searching, trying and exploring programs on the constantly expanding and changing internet.
This site will help you to quickly determine and download the needed tools and information which will be of great help to start brushing up your English again.
 
Last but not least: this site is simply trying to pass on the joy of learning...
 
Creative Commons License
english sparring partner by willem rabbeljee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.