It doesn’t matter if you’re minding your business, or living in a city with a large Latinx population or wearing a military uniform. If you speak in Spanish in public in the United States, you could be the target of hate.

For Xiara Mercado, who was wearing her Air Force uniform, she was criticized for speaking Spanish during her while on a Starbucks run in Hawaii. The Puerto Rican woman was chatting on the phone inside the Starbucks as she waited for her order. As she was leaving, an unnamed woman tapped her on the shoulder and told her she shouldn’t speak Spanish while in uniform.

“You shouldn’t be speaking Spanish,” the woman told her. “That’s not what that uniform represents… [It’s] distasteful.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Xiara responded. “What’s distasteful?”

“You speaking another language that does not represent America and that uniform you are wearing, that’s distasteful,” the woman told her.

The comment shocked her, and Xiara needed a moment to compose herself. But when she did, she let the woman know that her bigotry wasn’t OK. “I’m sorry, ma’am, the only distasteful thing here is that you are clueless to your discrimination,” Xiara told her. “Please educate yourself.”

As she walked away, the lady shouted, “I don’t know how you are allowed to wear that uniform.”

Xiara stopped, turned around and replied, “I wear it proudly,” before walking away.

Today something happened to me. As I was waiting for a drink at Starbucks during my lunch time I was on the phone…

While the incident left Mercado feeling “more sad than mad,” it was an empowering moment for her. It, unfortunately, doesn’t always go this way. Many end up feeling frightened and worried. Bigotry has always happened, but with a president who openly disparages those who don’t look like him (i.e. those who aren’t white), many have felt increasingly unsafe. In 2018, Pew Research reported that 4 in 10 Latinos were discriminated against in the previous year. They were either told to stop speaking Spanish or told to return to their countries.

In a bothersome case of political correctness gone amok, a professor at a highly ranked public university in the United States has been suspended for suggesting a foreign student “learn English.”

The egregious incident occurred this month at the University of Kansas (UK), a taxpayer-funded institution with an enrollment of 28,500 that ranks among the nation’s top public universities. Situated in the northeast Kansas town of Lawrence, the school is the state’s flagship university and a premier research institution.

The “offending” professor, Gary Minden, teaches electrical engineering and computer science in the highly regarded school of engineering. Minden, an acclaimed academic, is a UK alum who received undergraduate and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering at the school.

In the 1990s he served as information technology program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Pentagon agency with a $3 billion budget dedicated to developing technologies for the military. “DARPA goes to great lengths to identify, recruit and support excellent program managers—extraordinary individuals who are at the top of their fields and are hungry for the opportunity to push the limits of their disciplines,” according to the agency’s website. “These leaders, who are at the very heart of DARPA’s history of success, come from academia, industry and government agencies for limited stints, generally three to five years.”

During a recent class, Minden told a foreign student who was using an online translation system on a cell phone that the student should “learn English,” according to a local newspaper report. The unidentified student evidently was not bothered over the suggestion, but others in the class were offended and an “hourlong discussion” ensued in the engineering class which focuses on embedded systems.

During the discussion things apparently got heated and many students in the class became very upset. The professor told the local newspaper that he’s “frustrated” over the incident but refused to comment further for obvious reasons. In the article a university spokeswoman said “a number of students have raised concerns about events that occurred in their engineering class. In response to these concerns, the university has assigned a different instructor to teach the course while the matter is reviewed.”

This is hardly an isolated case of political correctness at taxpayer-funded schools in the United States. Public elementary, middle and high schools as well as colleges have taken an extreme leftist turn on several issues over the years and Judicial Watch has reported or taken legal action in several of the cases.

This includes exposing a Mexican separatist school that pushes Marxism and Anti-Americanism in Los Angeles, pervasive corruption in Chicago public schools and an after school Satan club in Washington State that received speedy tax-exempt approval from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Judicial Watch is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Berkeley Unified School District in California to obtain the records of a middle school teacher who is a national organizer for a radical leftist group.

The teacher, Yvette Felarca, works at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and is a prominent figure in By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), an organized militant group founded by the Marxist Revolutionary Workers League that uses raucous militant tactics to protest conservative speaking engagements. Felarca has been charged with several crimes, including felony assault, for inciting a riot in Sacramento.

A few years ago, Judicial Watch wrote about professors at a 54,000-student public university in south Florida that demanded the school protect illegal aliens by creating a “sanctuary campus.” The professors compared immigration enforcement to “fugitive slave laws.”

At the time students at colleges around the nation requested their undocumented classmates be protected, but the Florida professors blazed the trail as the first faculty members of an American taxpayer-funded establishment to officially call for campus-wide sanctuary in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential election.

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BridgeEnglish teacher Colleen Luckett is going to share three tips on how students can utilize technology they already have access to in order to supplement their English classes. In this first post in the series, Colleen gives students ideas on how they can use Netflix to learn English, and continue practicing English outside of the classroom.

When learning a language, the saying “use it or lose it” could not be truer. You’re getting a solid English language education here at Bridge, but if you go home and don’t use the English you learn in class, it will take longer for you to become fluent. So, here is the first tip in a series about how you can supplement your classes using technology: Use Netflix to improve your English!

Lights! Camera! Action!

Many of our students tell us the best way they learn English outside class is to watch American movies. Not only will you pick up many new words – and lots of slang! – but it’s great to hear actors’ various accents.

How to Use Netflix to Learn English 

Netflix.com still offers a free one-month trial, so sign up, grab some popcorn, and start watching! First, watch the whole movie with your language’s subtitles on (the words on the screen, telling you what the actors are saying), so you know what the movie is about. Then, follow these steps:

After you go through these steps, you can then try speaking the new words and matching the pronunciation to the actor. Keep in mind that accents vary across the U.S., so if the movie is set in New York, you’ll sound very different from a Coloradan! You can always bring new words you learned to your Bridge teachers and ask them to pronounce them, too.

Continue Learning English after the Movie Ends 

The more varied approach you take for learning English, the better it will be for your experience here in the U.S. Go to your classes, do your homework, join fun events, and talk to local people. And stay tuned for the next post in this series with more ways to use technology to learn English.

Do you have some favorite movies to watch to learn English? Please tell us in the comments! And if you want to keep improving your English, click here to learn some Denver, Colorado slang!

Vince McMahon Reportedly Told Andrade To “Learn English And Get Back To Me” When He Asked For A Push

Former NXT Champion Andrade seems to be getting a moderate push on SmackDown LIVE now and is the favorite to win the Money in the Bank ladder match. Is this because he finally took some English classes?

Looking for tips to learn English by yourself? SEDA College Online can help you to learn how to be self-taught. Check our tips!

Take Control

You’re the protagonist, therefore, act in favor of your personal growth and learn English. Take the first step and start from the basics. Organise your time in order to watch tons of classes from SEDA College Online.

Knowledge is your treasure

All that we learn can and must be used in our lives. English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Whoever acquires this knowledge is able to communicate in any situation. That’s why you must study.

Do lots of research

The internet is a source of unending knowledge. Research websites, blogs and vlogs that will help you with learning.

Always ask questions!

Do you have any doubts on pronunciation? Are you with problems with grammar? Take part in online forums, ask around.

Seek Inspiration

Learning by yourself is a tough process that needs motivation. A good way of doing so is inspiring yourself on others who have reached the level you wish.

Count on your friends

Everybody has a friend who knows a bit of everything. Use this to your advantage and start a conversation in English. Sharing knowledge helps to memorize the content.

Check books and magazines

Do you like reading? Search for books and magazines in English. A great way to learn new words and fix your spelling.

TED Talks

There are thousands of talks and inspiring speeches, with amazing people from varied fields and areas from everywhere in the world.

You will realize the difference between accents and see that there is no problem in having one. Communication happens naturally!

Listen to podcasts

Choose a topic that you consider to be interesting and listen to the podcast many times until you get the content completely. Training comprehension is very important to develop a fluent conversation.

Do it in your time

One of the biggest advantages of free online classes is the possibility of pausing the video, go back and watch as many times as you want.

Exchange content

Learned something new? Share with your friends. This exchange is a super enriching process that will help you to learn a new language.

Take risks

Not sure yet how to pronounce a word? Are you afraid of getting near a gringo and start a conversation? If you don’t take risks, you will never know your true potential.

Make mistakes

Speak wrong, have an accent. There is no problem. Everyone has a bit of that and that does not make communication clear and effective.

Try again

Couldn’t communicate like you wanted? Start again. Repeat the words slowly until you can be understood.

Think of your future with your present English

Knowledge of a language makes people have new perspectives and trace new plans. A better job, an international trip, an exchange program. Aiming for a new life can help you remain focused!

Whatever your goal is, SEDA College Online helps you learn a new language. At the end of the course, you can still get a certificate. Access www.sedacollegeonline.com and learn more!

English is all around you.

…As long as you know some great radio stations for English learning.

With a radio or online radio, the right English stations and some smart listening strategies, you can tune into English listening practice anytime, anywhere.

The radio is one of the most effective tools to improve your English listening skills, while also getting accustomed to the speed and tone of native English speakers.

Not only will careful radio listening improve your English understanding, but it’ll even improve your speaking fluency and pronunciation.

Follow this simple guide and learn some great tips to improve your English with the radio.
 

Tune In! The Ultimate Guide to Radio English Learning (With Top Radio Stations)

1. Make Time Every Day to Listen to the Radio

Before we show you our favorite tips and radio stations for learning English, we want to make this clear. It doesn’t matter how long you listen for, whether it’s just five minutes or one hour, but consistency is key.

Regular exposure (contact) with English is important, which is why you should listen to the radio every day.

To build this habit, start with the goal of listening for just one to five minutes every day. If the program is interesting, you might listen for longer, but the short time commitment will make it an easy task to complete.

Over time as the habit develops, you can slowly increase your daily listening time.

2. Find Your Favorite Talk Radio Stations

Everyone loves music, which many English radio stations will play, but if you really want to fine-tune (perfect) your English listening skills you should listen to a talk radio station. You can still enjoy your music, but you’ll learn English intonation and listening much better through the natural conversations on talk radio.

Talk radio shows span many different topics, from sports to science, so choose something that interests you.

To do this, use Google and type: radio + (the region you want) + (the type of show you’re looking for). For example, if you want an entertainment radio show from California, type “radio California entertainment” into your Google search bar.

This way you’ll narrow down your search (make the list smaller) and find a great station that matches your interests faster.

3. Don’t Limit Yourself to Just One Station

Try out a few different online English radio stations until you find the ones that you like learning with best.

Avoid any English radio stations with DJs who are really loud and try to make jokes all of the time. More often than not, these DJs don’t make much sense even to native English speakers, so you could become confused and frustrated.

If you’re really intent on learning English with radio, you should find a radio station that reports the news, tells you the weather or gives advice (e.g. advice on relationships or health problems). That way, you’ll hear clear English plus information that’s relevant to your life.

It’s also important to note that you shouldn’t listen to a radio station just because it has a lot of speaking. You need to find the perfect program that really keeps your attention. For example, if you’re into the Hollywood scene and love entertainment and gossip, check out Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair.

You can find more entertainment talk shows in TuneIn’s Entertainment Radio section.

The same goes if you’re interested in listening to sports broadcasts. Sports lovers should definitely try listening to radio stations and podcasts from the popular sports network ESPN.

4. Listen to Simplified English News Stations Online

If you don’t feel ready to listen to a full radio program for native English speakers, you can check out some big news stations that have easier versions for non-native English speakers.

Two such stations are the BBC and VOA (Voice of America). VOA is particularly good for learning English, as it allows you to choose the topics you’re interested in. It also has very up-to-date radio news broadcasts that are relevant to native English speakers’ cultures.

Depending on your level, a Google search for “radio news for kids” might also give you some new online English learning radio stations to explore.

5. Listen to Interviews

Listening to interviews will increase your understanding because they generally follow an easy question-and-answer pattern. Listening to interviews on the radio will help you to learn and practice intonation when asking questions, and also how people respond naturally to questions in English.

To get you started, NPR (National Public Radio) has an “Interviews” radio show. One of NPR’s most popular interview shows is called “Fresh Air,” which has lots of interviews with big-name celebrities.

The BBC also has an archive of interviews with important and interesting people.

Interviews will also introduce you to fillers (words that fill space to give you more thinking time). Some examples of fillers are, “Let me see,” “Give me a second,” and “Hm, good question.”

These fillers are useful to recognize and understand, and using them will make you sound more like a native English speaker.

6. Write Down Interesting Phrases or Words

Do you keep hearing the same words over and over again while listening to the radio?

If yes, it means that these are high frequency words that relate to the topic, so they’re probably worth writing down. Write the words or phrases you hear, and also an example of the context so you can understand how to use them properly.

7. Listen for Patterns to Help You Understand

When you listen to weather reports, for example, different reports can sound similar or repetitive. Weather reports will use the the same weather vocabulary and phrases most days, so use this to your advantage.

When you listen to specific programs there’ll be less repetition, but there are still patterns with timing. Perhaps a radio program has an astrologer on air (speaking live) talking about the horoscopes of the day at 8:00 every morning. If you enjoy astrology and horoscopes, tune in at this time every day.

8. Check out the Radio Station’s Website for Extra Help

All online English radio stations have their own website, and you should use them. Quite often they’ll record popular shows or parts and list them as podcasts so you can go back and listen to a segment that you found interesting.

Definitely go back and listen to a favorite show or segment again, as listening repetition is very important when learning English.

Also, some radio stations will post transcripts (the written text of the show) for fans to go back and read. These will be very beneficial to you, too. All popular shows have little written explanations that inform you of what the show is going to be about, therefore you’ll be able to build your background knowledge first and get an idea of what you’re going to listen to.

9. Don’t Use the Dictionary at First

When you’re learning a language, you might want to use a dictionary to look up all the words you don’t understand. But this isn’t necessary—especially in the beginning. It’s much more important to understand the main point than to understand every single word. If you generally know what the radio show is talking about—great!

If not, focus on understanding the topic of conversation, not every word that’s spoken. Over time your listening will improve and you’ll find yourself understanding more without having to even open your dictionary.

However, if you find that you hear a word many times that you don’t know, then it’s probably a good idea to look it up in the dictionary. If a word is repeated so much, it’s probably important to the topic.

10. Listen to Podcasts

Podcasts are fantastic because you can listen to them any time you want, like while going for a run, driving to work or walking to class. Listening to podcasts is convenient, there are endless topics to listen to and most are free!

One of the best and easiest to understand news podcast stations is BBC News Minute. You’ll get a quick, clear rundown of the absolutely freshest news—it’s updated every half hour.

If you want specific information, motivational speeches or talks on special topics, try listening to TED talks. All TED talks come in the form of MP3 and are easy to download. These talks include famous people such as Bill Gates and also everyday people like you and me. These talks are inspiring and often you’ll forget that you’re even listening to English because they’re so interesting.

Learning anything can be a bore, which is why it’s so important to listen to topics that interest you. You don’t have to remain glued in front of the computer screen while listening, either. You could certainly have the radio playing in the background while you cook dinner, drive or wash dishes.

Keeping it enjoyable is really important if you want to maximize your online English radio learning experience. After some time you’ll find yourself understanding the whole show, which is one of the greatest rewards!

Happy listening!
 

Oh, and One More Thing…

If you liked these tips, you should check out the FluentU app. Like the website, the FluentU app lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials, as you can see here:

If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.

The FluentU app makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.

FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.

For example, when you tap on the word “brought,” you see this:

FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It recommends you examples and videos based on the words you’ve already learned. You have a truly personalized experience.

Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play stores.

If you liked this post, something tells me that you’ll love FluentU, the best way to learn English with real-world videos.

When Jamal Doghramachi came to Wales from Baghdad in 2013, he described himself as an “alien” in a whole new world.

Unable to speak English, the Iraqi teenager had to get to grips with a new culture, new technology and a whole new city, all while staying in a hotel as his family looked for their new home.

But after nine hours of revision a day, the dedicated student has gone from recently doing worse than he hoped his AS levels to walking away with an A* and two As at A Level.

You can follow our live updates for A Level results day here.

Jamal, from Cyncoed, Cardiff, said: “I felt like an alien. It was a completely different world.

“Here there’s a different religion, different first language, but it’s [also] the way people interact, the technology. There’s a completely different education system.

“In my country I was a top student in my primary school but coming here I had to start from scratch.

“Being in the bottom again, some years I wanted to give up.

“People were telling me for my language barrier I was doing well but it wasn’t enough.”

First only able to count to 10 in English, Jamal began to pick up the language by watching YouTube videos after making the move to Wales to allow his mother Fadya to complete her PhD.

But he says he also had to look out for those trying to mislead him along the way.

The Cardiff High pupil said: “I just had to pick it up. I remember in the first summer holidays I had been watching a lot of English YouTube videos about gaming, that sort of thing.

“They were mainly visual based which helped me to pick up the words.

“I got hit with quite a lot of bullying for the first two years I was [in Cardiff] because I was very vulnerable, I wasn’t a very social kind of person.

“People would exploit that and make me say bad stuff because they knew I didn’t understand.”

After flourishing in his GCSEs, Jamal’s mental health began to suffer after doing worse than expected in his AS levels.

Unable to finish the exam papers on time, he walked away with B, C and D grades – a far cry from his results today.

The 18-year-old said: “The thing that made me give up initially was that I kept running out of time. I always had 25% extra time but it still wasn’t enough.

“Last year was the worst one but I was going through a bad mental state.”

“There were so many life stresses happening, I wasn’t sure if I could stay in the country or not, how long my visa was going to last for, the thought of going back to Iraq and having to do my final year of high school there.”

Determined to improve his grades, Jamal spent nine hours revising a day while fasting for Ramadan in the run up to his exams.

At the same time, his mother was also busy in the final year of her pharmacy PhD at Cardiff University.

Now, after an emotional results day, Jamal will follow in Fadya’s footsteps to study pharmacy at university in his new home city.

The teenager added: “I’m very thankful to my mum.  I’m the type of person who doesn’t really know how to revise by myself so she had to revise with me constantly and suffer through it and also focus on her PhD and get that over with.

“It was my final year and her final year as well.”